Everett Stern

HSBC Whistleblower, Intel Director - Tactical Rabbit, Fmr. U.S. Senate Candidate.
Featured in @Netflix, @RollingStone, @HBO @Peacock

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,

My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the United States. I documented it, I escalated it, and when the bank would not act, I took it to the @FBI, the @CIA, and eventually the @SECGov.

The result was a $1.92 billion settlement. At the time, it was one of the largest in American history. It was also about five weeks of the bank’s profit. Not one banker was charged. Not one went to prison.

I paid a different price. I lost my career, my savings, and my place in the industry I had trained for. I was blacklisted. Every door in American finance closed at once. I slept on a camping cot in a 300 square foot apartment because I could not afford a bed, and I waited tables at @PFChangs to eat. I tell you this not for sympathy, but so you understand that I know exactly what it costs to do the right thing in American finance, and exactly how little the system does in return.

I made that sacrifice because I believed it would change something.

Yesterday, your department fined @BankofAmerica $1.2 billion for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, some of it tied by your own findings to Chinese laundering networks, narcotics, and the southwest border, alongside 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act.

Fourteen years after HSBC. A bank with “America” in its name. And once again, not one individual charged.

Secretary Bessent, I want to say plainly what I believe you already know. The fines are not working.

A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call. Bank of America reported earnings this morning. Nobody who set the alert thresholds, nobody who decided the 2024 cease and desist could wait, nobody who chose the backlog over the law will lose a single thing they value. Their lives are untouched. That is the entire reason the behavior repeats.

This is money laundering. This is blood money. Money that reaches a cartel buys fentanyl that kills Americans. Money that reaches a terrorist organization buys the next attack. This country has fought a war on drugs and a war on terror for decades, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, and all the while we have allowed the financing to flow through institutions we charter and regulate. Cut off the money and we win. We have never seriously tried.

There is also a question of equal justice that I cannot let go.

Before I walked into the FBI building to report HSBC, I stopped in front of the Great Seal on the wall and read the words engraved beneath it: “Justice is the defense of our liberty.” I believed that. I still want to. But every day in this country, people go to prison for crimes that are nothing next to moving money for the people who want Americans dead. A suit, a title, and a corporate badge should not be a shield from the consequences that apply to everyone else. If a street dealer goes to prison for what he sells, the banker who moved the cartel’s money should be standing next to him.

I also want to raise something that is rarely said in these conversations. Why has no one inside Bank of America come forward the way I did? The answer is that everyone in American banking knows what happened to me, and to the whistleblowers who came after. The last person who spoke up is the only policy anyone believes. That is a culture problem, and it starts with leadership, in the banks and in the agencies that regulate them.

This is not a political issue. It has spanned administrations of both parties. It is a national security issue, and I am asking you to treat it as one.

Three things would change the math overnight.

Refer individuals for criminal prosecution. Not the analyst in the queue. The executives who set the thresholds and chose the risk. One banker in handcuffs would do more than every fine in Treasury’s history combined.

End “too big to jail.” An institution cannot be too big to fail and too big to jail at the same time. If it is the first, it must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.

And if Bank of America will not act as America’s bank, review its charter. A national charter is a privilege granted on behalf of the American people. It should be conditioned on not moving money for the people trying to kill them.

Secretary Bessent, you said yesterday that these actions send a clear message that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. With respect, the institution was never the problem. The people inside it are above the law, and they know it. Until that changes, I will keep writing letters like this one, and the next bank will keep paying the next fine.

I gave up everything I had to stop this. I am asking you to use the power you have to finish it.

Respectfully,

Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Elon Musk @elonmusk,

Three days ago, Block, the parent of Cash App, agreed to pay roughly $764 million to the Department of Justice for failing to stop money laundering on a product that looks a lot like X Money. Regulators found Cash App’s backlog of unreviewed suspicious activity alerts went from 18,000 to 169,000 in two years. The product grew faster than the people watching it.

I am writing because I believe the same thing is about to happen to you, and I would rather say so now than read about it later.

My name is Everett Stern. I am the HSBC whistleblower. In 2010 I was a compliance officer who found money moving through the bank for drug cartels, terror financiers, and sanctioned regimes. I documented it. I escalated it. I was told to stop. So I took it to the United States government, the way every citizen is told to. The bank paid $1.9 billion. Nobody went to jail. And I lost everything. My career ended. I was blacklisted from the industry I had tried to protect. I slept on a cot in an apartment with cockroaches and waited tables at @PFChangs to survive. I risked my life, and for a long time I was not sure it had been worth it. I rebuilt from nothing, and I decided the rest of my life would be spent preventing the next HSBC.

Last month Bank of America admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act. More than $5 billion in suspicious transactions went unreported. 475 sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism programs. The bank paid $1.2 billion, about two weeks of its profit, and not one person was charged. I wrote an open letter to Secretary Bessent asking him to refer the people responsible for criminal prosecution. 3.7 million Americans read it. Republicans and Democrats stood behind it. The Secretary never answered. No banker is going to jail.

Here is the problem we are facing, in plain terms. Every terrorist attack starts with a wire transfer. Every drug death in America starts with a cartel being able to move its money. The banks know it, pay their fines, and keep going. The government knows it and takes no real action. Fourteen years after HSBC, nothing has changed, and people are dying because of it.

But you can change it. You can on your own platform, from the first day, before the first alert backlog ever forms. The banks will not do it. Treasury has not done it. You could be the first person with the power to build it right who actually did.

I have the highest respect for you and what you have built. I know you have no interest in supporting terrorists or drug cartels. But I have spent fourteen years watching how they work, and they are already reading your website. It promises to “pay anyone on X, free and with no limits,” a Visa card with worldwide ATM fee reimbursements, no foreign transaction fees, and wires in and out. That is a feature list for an honest customer. It is also a feature list for a cartel. You have spent three years fighting bots on this platform. The day a bot can hold a wallet, the bot problem becomes a money laundering problem. Picture a fentanyl distributor in Phoenix with two hundred burner accounts, moving $900 at a time with no limits, cashed out through an X Card at an ATM anywhere in the world by Friday, with the fees reimbursed. Regulators call that structuring. Everyone else can see what it is.

Your website says a great deal about yield, cashback, and FDIC coverage. It does not say one word about how X Money verifies who a customer is or watches where the money goes. Maybe that work is being done quietly. If it is, I would be glad to be wrong. If it is not, that is the gap Block just paid $764 million for.

I am asking for a conversation. With you, with whoever leads financial crimes at X Money, or with anyone there who has the power to make a difference. Please allow me the honor of helping make X Money better and protecting the financial system of the United States of America.

Thank you for all you do for this country.

With sincere respect,

Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

I told my whole @HSBC whistleblowing story on Bubba the Love Sponge’s @TheBubbaArmy show, and I sincerely thank Bubba for having me on.

How I exposed a bank moving money for cartels and terrorists, what it cost me, and how my company Tactical Rabbit came out of it.

Full episode on YouTube: https://t.co/FTw4C1kMsA

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Juda Engelmayer @judae,

I want to explain, in public, why you and I are enemies.

Not rivals. Not competitors. Enemies. Because the same family came to both of us, and we made opposite choices. I represent the good guys. You represent the bad ones. There is no version of this where we are on the same side, and I want the people reading this to understand exactly why.

For anyone who does not know the background, here it is.

Oren, Tal, and Alon Alexander were convicted in March of federal sex trafficking after women testified that they were drugged and raped. Last week they were each sentenced to 30 years. Juda Engelmayer is their publicist. His past clients include Harvey Weinstein and Sean Combs.

Yesterday The New York Times @nytimes reported, from invoices it reviewed, that Mr. Engelmayer arranged payments of $15,000 and $10,000 to two writers to publish favorable coverage of the brothers before and during the trial. Those articles, in the Times’ words, “sought to dispel the claims of women who accused the men of rape.” One of them suggested that the first woman to sue the brothers had fabricated her allegations and was a criminal. Mr. Engelmayer confirmed the payments. His explanation to the Times was this: “In this world, everything is pay to play.”

I know this family from the inside. In 2024, before the indictment, I sat in the Alexander family’s house in Miami Beach and was asked to go after the women who had come forward and Evan Torgan, the lawyer representing them. I said no. I warned Evan Torgan. I protected the women. I went to the FBI. The Peacock documentary The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers shows what the people who said yes went on to do. It reports that a victim was told by an investigator that her children had been mentioned. Victim 4 dropped out.

That is why we are enemies, Juda. When that family asked me to help them, I did the right thing. When they asked you, you took the money and built the machine. Every woman who was called a liar in print because of a check you wrote is a woman I was trying to protect.

What you did is not crisis PR. Paying writers to brand rape victims as liars and criminals while they are preparing to testify in a federal trial is, in my judgment, part of a coordinated campaign to intimidate witnesses. I believe it is serious, I believe it crossed a line, and I have asked the FBI to investigate everyone who took part in it.

These women were drugged. They were raped. They came forward anyway, and a jury believed them. They do not need one more day of being hunted by people on the family’s payroll. Whatever is still running, stop it. The brothers are in prison. The case is over. Leave these women alone.

I do not know how you look at yourself in the mirror. I know how I look at mine. I chose the victims.

Consider this notice. The women spoke. A jury believed them. Millions of Americans are now watching what you do next. So is the @FBI.

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear @FBI and @FBIDirectorKash,

The New York Times @nytimes @debra_kamin just reported that the Alexander brothers’ publicist, Juda Engelmayer @judae, paid writers $15,000 and $10,000 to publish articles attacking the women who accused the brothers of rape. One of those articles suggested the first woman to sue them fabricated her allegations and was a criminal. Engelmayer confirmed the payments. His words: “In this world, everything is pay to play.”

That is a man who represented Harvey Weinstein and Sean Combs explaining that he paid people to call rape victims liars while their case was at trial.

I know this campaign from the inside. In 2024 I sat in the Alexander family’s house and was asked to go after those same women and their lawyer. I said no and went to you. The Times article is what the people who said yes went on to do.

The brothers are serving 30 years. The machine that was built to discredit, intimidate, and silence their victims is still running, and the people who ran it are still being paid.

Paying writers to smear witnesses in a federal sex trafficking case is not public relations. I believe it is part of a coordinated denigration campaign against victims, and I am asking you to treat it that way.

Sincerely,

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Bubba The Love Sponge®️ @TheBubbaArmy]

Watch here: https://t.co/lD7O3calmP

[Bubba The Love Sponge®️ @TheBubbaArmy]

HSBC whistleblower Everett Stern says exposing billions in suspicious transactions cost him everything. He went from investigating international banking activity to sleeping on a camping cot and waiting tables.

His full interview with Bubba and Pete is out now on Deadly Intentions

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear @FBI and @FBIDirectorKash,

The New York Times @nytimes @debra_kamin just reported that the Alexander brothers’ publicist, Juda Engelmayer @judae, paid writers $15,000 and $10,000 to publish articles attacking the women who accused the brothers of rape. One of those articles suggested the first woman to sue them fabricated her allegations and was a criminal. Engelmayer confirmed the payments. His words: “In this world, everything is pay to play.”

That is a man who represented Harvey Weinstein and Sean Combs explaining that he paid people to call rape victims liars while their case was at trial.

I know this campaign from the inside. In 2024 I sat in the Alexander family’s house and was asked to go after those same women and their lawyer. I said no and went to you. The Times article is what the people who said yes went on to do.

The brothers are serving 30 years. The machine that was built to discredit, intimidate, and silence their victims is still running, and the people who ran it are still being paid.

Paying writers to smear witnesses in a federal sex trafficking case is not public relations. I believe it is part of a coordinated denigration campaign against victims, and I am asking you to treat it that way.

Sincerely,

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Today is a sad day for me, my family, and everyone at my company Tactical Rabbit.

This morning our Flemish Giant, Amie Daphadile Stern, passed away.

This is the last picture I took with her. I had just put on my NBC hat to mark the biggest milestone in the company’s history, being featured in a Peacock documentary, and I wanted her in the photo because she had been there for all of it. A few hours later she was gone.

She was the Tactical Rabbit corporate mascot. She was litter box trained and hopped around our house free range. She would find me when I was working late. She was part of our family.

I named this firm after a rabbit for a reason. Rabbits represent innocence. They cannot fight back. Everything Tactical Rabbit does, and everything I have done since blowing the whistle on HSBC, comes down to protecting the innocent and the people who cannot protect themselves. Amie was a daily reminder of why.

The whole team is feeling this one. She will be missed more than I can put into a post.

Thank you for letting me share her with you.

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

This is the day I met Oren Alexander and walked into his family’s house.

I went in as Intelligence Director of Tactical Rabbit. I walked out, went to the FBI, and protected the victims’ lawyer and the women.

Those who hunted the women need to be held accountable.

[Peacock @peacock]

A new three-part documentary series #TheWolvesOfRealEstate: The Alexander Brothers is streaming now on Peacock.

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Director Patel @FBIDirectorKash,

In 2024 I sat in Alon Alexander’s mansion in Miami Beach with the brothers, their father, the rest of the family, and a disbarred attorney who went to federal prison for helping drug traffickers obstruct justice, and I was told it was gang initiation time.

My target was Evan Torgan, the attorney representing the women who had come forward against Oren, Tal, and Alon Alexander. The family believed Torgan was being paid to orchestrate the women and extort them. I was asked what my connections were to the FBI and the Department of Justice. Oren told me they had already hired another private intelligence operative to gather information on the women. They could see an indictment coming.

The disbarred attorney was Samuel Burstyn. He served 42 months for conspiracy to obstruct justice on behalf of a drug trafficking organization. That is when I stopped thinking of it as an intelligence job and started thinking about what could physically happen to Evan Torgan.

I said no. I called Evan Torgan and warned him. Then I contacted the FBI, told your agents what I had seen, and handed over every electronic communication between me, the brothers, and the family. That is part of what I heard in that house. I am leaving out the rest on purpose, because I will not put anything in public that could hurt an investigation.

Yesterday the brothers were sentenced to 30 years each. Judge Caproni called what they did monstrous. She was right. But that sentence closes only half of this case.

The other half is in the Peacock documentary The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers, and I did not understand its full extent until I watched it. The film reports that a victim was told by an investigator that her children had been mentioned. Victim 4 dropped out.

Director Patel, that is not crisis PR. That is not intelligence gathering. That is a woman who reported a rape being told that someone knows where her children are. I believe it was witness intimidation, and I believe it was criminal.

I am asking you to open an investigation into the PR firms, the investigation agencies, and the individual investigators who were paid to target, discredit, and intimidate these women and their lawyer, and where the evidence supports it, to charge them.

I am also asking you to widen the case. Oren told me about other billionaires. He told me about a victim being held in a dungeon in a billionaire’s house in the Hamptons. I cannot prove what he said. You can. The brothers did not operate alone, and I believe there are more victims who were silenced by exactly this machinery. The people who helped this family, protected it, and hunted its accusers should not get to watch the sentencing on the news and go back to work.

These women did their part. They spoke, and they were hunted for it. The brothers who raped them got 30 years. The people who hunted them got paid.

Fix that.

Respectfully,

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

To the American people.

I was the @HSBC whistleblower. In 2010 I handed the government the evidence that exposed a bank laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists, and it produced a $1.92 billion fine. I did it with no help, no roadmap, and no idea how to package what I had so an agent could act on it. It cost me my career. Nobody should have to do it that way again.

This week President @realDonaldTrump and Vice President @VP launched the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program and asked every citizen to find and report fraud against taxpayers. They put money on the table: the President described a 1% commission on what you uncover, and the Justice Department’s published terms pay $10,000 to $30,000 for tips that lead to criminal charges.

Here is what I learned the hard way: the government does not open cases on stories. It opens cases on evidence an investigator can read in twenty minutes and take to a prosecutor. A tip is a phone call. A case is a file. The difference between them is the difference between getting ignored and getting charges filed.

So here is my commitment. My team at Tactical Rabbit will help you report fraud to the U.S. Government. We take what you know, investigate it, trace the money, identify who did it, organize every piece of evidence, and build a referral package written the way agents and prosecutors need to receive it. Then we deliver it to the right agency and the right unit, and we stay with it.

If you are a nurse watching a hospice bill for patients who are not dying. A bookkeeper who has seen the real day care headcount. A contractor who knows where the grant money went. An employee inside a company that is stealing from Medicaid, from veterans, from the SBA. We want to hear from you.

We are a licensed investigative agency, not a law firm and not the government, and no one can guarantee what an agency does with a case. What I can guarantee is that yours will arrive built to be acted on.

Don’t take my word for it. Google Tactical Rabbit. I and the company have been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Reuters, Forbes, CBS, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Netflix, HBO, Peacock, and our team includes former CIA, FBI, and military intelligence officers.

I did this once alone. You don’t have to.

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder & Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit @Tactical_Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear @FBI,

I just watched The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers on @peacock. I am in it. You know my part. I was asked to gather intelligence on Evan Torgan, the attorney representing the women who came forward against the Alexander brothers, and to work against his clients. I said no. I protected the women’s lawyer. I protected the women. And I brought what I had to you.

I knew the women were being targeted. I did not know the full extent of it until tonight. What the film describes is very serious witness intimidation and the targeting of victims using PR firms and private investigators. They were intimidated. They were targeted. And on camera, the people who did it said the women bore responsibility for what happened to them. I watched it twice to make sure I heard it right. I did.

That is wrong.

I am asking you to investigate the investigators and the PR firm that did this. Not because I am angry, although I am. Because going after witnesses is not crisis management. It is a second crime committed against people who had already survived the first one.

These women did their part. They spoke. They trusted that if they told the truth, someone would stand in front of them. I did. Now I am asking you to.

Everyone who engaged in witness intimidation and the targeting of these women and their lawyer should be held accountable and should have to answer for their actions. You have the authority to make that happen. Please use it.

I can look myself in the mirror because I turned down the money and stood with the victims. The people who took the money and went after them cannot say the same. They took a paycheck to make women who had already been hurt afraid to speak. That is not a job. That is a choice, and they should have to answer for it.

Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Today I am featured in a Peacock documentary.

The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers premieres this morning, and I am in it. This is the proudest day of my life. Today is the day I won the fight.

Fourteen years ago I walked out of @HSBC with nothing because I blew the whistle on one of the largest banks in the world. I slept on a cot. I waited tables. Nobody wanted to hear from me and nobody wanted to hire me. I was told, in a hundred different ways, that doing the right thing had ended my life.

It did not. It started a different one.

I rebuilt from zero and promised myself that whatever I built next would never become the thing I had fought against. Years later that promise was tested. There is a moment in the film where I had to choose between millions of dollars and doing what was right. I chose right. We protected the lawyer. We protected the women. We assisted the @FBI. I am not going to tell the story here. Watch it.

@netflix told the HSBC story. @HBO told it. Today Peacock is telling what came after, and it is a great honor to be part of it. Thank you to director Emma Schwartz @emmanator, Maxine Productions, and @NBCUniversal for telling this story with the care it deserved, and for giving the victims a voice.

I lost everything once. I fought back with a vengeance. And Tactical Rabbit @Tactical_Rabbit will always do what is right, always protect the innocent, and always stand for justice. No matter who is paying.

The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers. Streaming now on @peacock. #TheWolvesOfRealEstate

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

@HSBC If you have seen fraud and want help turning it into a case the government can act on, start here. Confidential, and we will tell you plainly whether what you have is a case before you commit to anything.

https://t.co/Z2IulMILhk

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

To the American people.

I was the @HSBC whistleblower. In 2010 I handed the government the evidence that exposed a bank laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists, and it produced a $1.92 billion fine. I did it with no help, no roadmap, and no idea how to package what I had so an agent could act on it. It cost me my career. Nobody should have to do it that way again.

This week President @realDonaldTrump and Vice President @VP launched the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program and asked every citizen to find and report fraud against taxpayers. They put money on the table: the President described a 1% commission on what you uncover, and the Justice Department’s published terms pay $10,000 to $30,000 for tips that lead to criminal charges.

Here is what I learned the hard way: the government does not open cases on stories. It opens cases on evidence an investigator can read in twenty minutes and take to a prosecutor. A tip is a phone call. A case is a file. The difference between them is the difference between getting ignored and getting charges filed.

So here is my commitment. My team at Tactical Rabbit will help you report fraud to the U.S. Government. We take what you know, investigate it, trace the money, identify who did it, organize every piece of evidence, and build a referral package written the way agents and prosecutors need to receive it. Then we deliver it to the right agency and the right unit, and we stay with it.

If you are a nurse watching a hospice bill for patients who are not dying. A bookkeeper who has seen the real day care headcount. A contractor who knows where the grant money went. An employee inside a company that is stealing from Medicaid, from veterans, from the SBA. We want to hear from you.

We are a licensed investigative agency, not a law firm and not the government, and no one can guarantee what an agency does with a case. What I can guarantee is that yours will arrive built to be acted on.

Don’t take my word for it. Google Tactical Rabbit. I and the company have been featured in The New York Times, BBC, Reuters, Forbes, CBS, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Netflix, HBO, Peacock, and our team includes former CIA, FBI, and military intelligence officers.

I did this once alone. You don’t have to.

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder & Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit @Tactical_Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

To Brian Moynihan, the Board of Directors, and the executives who run anti money laundering compliance at Bank of America @BankofAmerica:

You are not our bank. We are your supply.

Every dollar you lend, every point of interest you earn, every one of the $27 billion in profit you report each year begins as a deposit from an American family. You need us far more than we need you. I am writing to make sure every one of those families understands that, and to tell you what happens next.

My name is Everett Stern. I am the @HSBC whistleblower. Fourteen years ago I gave up my career and risked my life to hand the United States government evidence of a bank moving money for cartels, terrorists, and sanctioned regimes. I did it in defense of this country. I am doing it again now.

To the American people reading this, here is the situation in plain language.

Every bank in America is required by law to stop money that belongs to drug cartels, terrorists, and sanctioned regimes. That is not paperwork. It is the wall between the people who want to kill Americans and the dollars they need to do it. On October 13, @USTreasury announced that at Bank of America, that wall came down. The bank did not deny it. In its own resolution with @FinCENnews, Bank of America admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. Willful means it was not a mistake. Decisions were made, and the money moved.

Here is what Treasury says moved. More than $5 billion in suspicious transactions that were never reported on time, over $1 billion of it tied to national security risks. Trillions of dollars that the bank’s monitoring system failed to properly watch at all. Transactions showing the fingerprints of Chinese money laundering networks. Trade-based laundering with a substantial nexus to the southwest border. Customers flagged for narcotics proceeds whose red flags sat unaddressed. And 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, and global terrorism programs, including payments routed through blocked banks and designated individuals allowed to transact because the alerts were not calibrated to catch them. Regulators ordered the bank to fix this in December 2024. More than a year later, Treasury says, it still was not escalating suspicious activity.

The price for all of that was $1.2 billion. Two weeks of profit. If a working family paid two weeks of income for helping move money for sanctioned regimes, we would call it an outrage. When America’s bank does it, we call it a settlement.

@SecScottBessent said it himself when he announced the penalty: even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law. I agree with him. I am writing to find out whether he means it, and whether you do.

Not one person has been charged. Not one.

I am working with community leaders in Washington. Republicans and Democrats are standing behind this, because national security does not have a party. Millions of Americans have read my letters to Treasury in the past week. I am pressing Secretary Bessent to refer your board and your AML leadership to the @DOJCrimDiv for criminal prosecution, and I am calling on FBI Director @FBIDirectorKash to open the investigation that should have begun the day you admitted it.

To the leadership of Bank of America, the American people have three questions, and I am asking them on their behalf.

After your bank admitted to the government that it willfully broke the law, did one executive lose his job for it? Name him.

Treasury says your program failed on staffing, training, monitoring, and audit, all at once. Tell the public what you rebuilt. Not what you spent. What you changed.

Was anyone at Bank of America held personally responsible for what you admitted, or did the institution absorb it like a bad quarter?

The American people are waiting for your answers. So am I.

And if those answers do not come, Americans are prepared to respond accordingly, lawfully and peacefully, and in the one language a bank understands. Americans will take their deposits to community banks, credit unions, and regional banks that have never needed a billion-dollar settlement to learn the difference between a customer and a cartel. Americans will stand outside your branches, within the law, and say so. And I will be there with them.

This is not a boycott. It is a free market telling a bank what it thinks of blood money.

Because that is what this is. Every terrorist attack begins with a wire transfer. Every overdose of an American son or daughter starts at a bank where someone cleared an alert they should not have cleared. No settlement washes that off.

The news cycle is not going to save you. The American people are not going to forget. And too big to jail ends here.

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder / Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Secretary @SecScottBessent. Director @FBIDirectorKash.

@HSBC paid $1.92 billion. No one went to jail. I was the whistleblower.

14 years later, @BankofAmerica admits it willfully broke the law, pays $1.2 billion, and no one goes to jail.

3.6 million Americans read my letter. You haven’t responded.

So I’m asking on camera: who is going to be charged?

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

To Brian Moynihan, the Board of Directors, and the executives who run anti money laundering compliance at Bank of America @BankofAmerica:

You are not our bank. We are your supply.

Every dollar you lend, every point of interest you earn, every one of the $27 billion in profit you report each year begins as a deposit from an American family. You need us far more than we need you. I am writing to make sure every one of those families understands that, and to tell you what happens next.

My name is Everett Stern. I am the @HSBC whistleblower. Fourteen years ago I gave up my career and risked my life to hand the United States government evidence of a bank moving money for cartels, terrorists, and sanctioned regimes. I did it in defense of this country. I am doing it again now.

To the American people reading this, here is the situation in plain language.

Every bank in America is required by law to stop money that belongs to drug cartels, terrorists, and sanctioned regimes. That is not paperwork. It is the wall between the people who want to kill Americans and the dollars they need to do it. On October 13, @USTreasury announced that at Bank of America, that wall came down. The bank did not deny it. In its own resolution with @FinCENnews, Bank of America admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. Willful means it was not a mistake. Decisions were made, and the money moved.

Here is what Treasury says moved. More than $5 billion in suspicious transactions that were never reported on time, over $1 billion of it tied to national security risks. Trillions of dollars that the bank’s monitoring system failed to properly watch at all. Transactions showing the fingerprints of Chinese money laundering networks. Trade-based laundering with a substantial nexus to the southwest border. Customers flagged for narcotics proceeds whose red flags sat unaddressed. And 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, and global terrorism programs, including payments routed through blocked banks and designated individuals allowed to transact because the alerts were not calibrated to catch them. Regulators ordered the bank to fix this in December 2024. More than a year later, Treasury says, it still was not escalating suspicious activity.

The price for all of that was $1.2 billion. Two weeks of profit. If a working family paid two weeks of income for helping move money for sanctioned regimes, we would call it an outrage. When America’s bank does it, we call it a settlement.

@SecScottBessent said it himself when he announced the penalty: even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law. I agree with him. I am writing to find out whether he means it, and whether you do.

Not one person has been charged. Not one.

I am working with community leaders in Washington. Republicans and Democrats are standing behind this, because national security does not have a party. Millions of Americans have read my letters to Treasury in the past week. I am pressing Secretary Bessent to refer your board and your AML leadership to the @DOJCrimDiv for criminal prosecution, and I am calling on FBI Director @FBIDirectorKash to open the investigation that should have begun the day you admitted it.

To the leadership of Bank of America, the American people have three questions, and I am asking them on their behalf.

After your bank admitted to the government that it willfully broke the law, did one executive lose his job for it? Name him.

Treasury says your program failed on staffing, training, monitoring, and audit, all at once. Tell the public what you rebuilt. Not what you spent. What you changed.

Was anyone at Bank of America held personally responsible for what you admitted, or did the institution absorb it like a bad quarter?

The American people are waiting for your answers. So am I.

And if those answers do not come, Americans are prepared to respond accordingly, lawfully and peacefully, and in the one language a bank understands. Americans will take their deposits to community banks, credit unions, and regional banks that have never needed a billion-dollar settlement to learn the difference between a customer and a cartel. Americans will stand outside your branches, within the law, and say so. And I will be there with them.

This is not a boycott. It is a free market telling a bank what it thinks of blood money.

Because that is what this is. Every terrorist attack begins with a wire transfer. Every overdose of an American son or daughter starts at a bank where someone cleared an alert they should not have cleared. No settlement washes that off.

The news cycle is not going to save you. The American people are not going to forget. And too big to jail ends here.

Everett Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder / Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Secretary @SecScottBessent. Director @FBIDirectorKash.

@HSBC paid $1.92 billion. No one went to jail. I was the whistleblower.

14 years later, @BankofAmerica admits it willfully broke the law, pays $1.2 billion, and no one goes to jail.

3.6 million Americans read my letter. You haven’t responded.

So I’m asking on camera: who is going to be charged?

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,

On October 14th I wrote to you about Bank of America @BankofAmerica.

You did not answer. 3.6 million Americans did.

I want to tell you what that looked like from where I sit, because I do not think Washington understands it yet. The messages did not come from one side. They came from Republicans and Democrats, from veterans and nurses and small business owners, from people who have not agreed with each other about anything in a decade. They all said a version of the same sentence. We have had enough.

That is what a national security issue looks like when it finally breaks through. It does not pick a party. It belongs to everyone who has a kid, a bank account, or a flag on the porch.

So let me be plain about my concern. I am worried that nothing is going to happen. The fine has been announced. The press cycle is already turning. In a few weeks the number will be forgotten and the bank will be back to business. I have watched this exact sequence play out before, and I am writing to you now, while there is still a window, because once that window closes it does not reopen.

I am also widening this letter, because Treasury does not act alone.

To the Department of Justice @TheJusticeDept and to FBI Director Kash Patel @FBIDirectorKash:

Director Patel, you were not in the chair when this happened, so I want you to hear it from me directly. In 2011 I walked into the FBI with everything I had on HSBC. Not a tip. Boxes. Names, account numbers, transaction records, internal emails. Agents worked that evidence for over a year. I trusted them, and I still believe they wanted to do their jobs.

Then the settlement was announced. $1.9 billion. I called the agents and asked the only question that mattered. When do you raid the building and when are the arrests?

Their answer was four words. Our hands are tied.

I have thought about those four words every day since. Not because the agents failed me. Because somebody above them decided that a bank was too important to treat like a defendant. That decision was made quietly, by people whose names I will never know, and it has been made again every time since. Director Patel, you now have the authority to make a different one.

I remember the words carved into the stone outside the federal building in Philadelphia the day I walked in to report @HSBC: justice is the defense of our liberty. I believed that. I still want to. But a justice system that handcuffs a dealer on the corner and sends a bank a bill is not defending anyone’s liberty. It is choosing whose liberty counts.

To Brian Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America @BankofAmerica:

Mr. Moynihan, your bank just agreed to pay $1.2 billion for failures that regulators called willful. I have a few questions, and the 3.6 million people reading this would like the answers too.

Who was fired?

Not reassigned. Not retired early with a package. Fired, by name, for the conduct the government described.

What has actually changed in your anti money laundering program? Not the budget line. Not the consultant’s slide deck. What is different today about how an alert gets cleared and who is allowed to say stop?

Were there any consequences inside the building at all? Or did this land the way it landed at HSBC bank, as a line item?

And how much is your bonus this year?

I ask because I know what it costs a compliance officer to raise his hand inside a bank like yours. I would like to know what it cost anyone at the top. Do you even care? I am asking sincerely. I would like to be wrong.

Here is what I did about all of this, and why it matters to this letter. After the government declined to help me or any of the whistleblowers I have met since, I built the thing I wished had existed. Tactical Rabbit is a private intelligence agency. We find the truth, we prove it, and we put it in the hands of people who will act on it. I made a decision a long time ago that if the government would not stop the next HSBC, I would.

So to anyone inside a bank reading this who is looking at something they know is wrong: if your bank will not act, and the government will not act, come to me. I will get the truth to the public. That is not a threat. It is a promise I have already kept once.

Mr. Secretary, Director Patel, the Department of Justice, and Mr. Moynihan: four addresses, one question. Will anyone be held accountable?

Not fined. Not suspended. Not asked to attend training. Accountable.

Please end the cycle of too big to jail. I will not stop until there is change, and neither will the millions of Americans standing behind this letter. Answer them.

We need a banker in jail.

Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder, Tactical Rabbit