There would be no narco-trafficking, or “cartels,” if drug organizations couldn’t convert their illicit profits into clean money – and that requires money laundering and the participation of the banking system.

After all, it is the laundered profits of the drug trafficking trade that are used to pad the lifestyles of the rich businessmen who control the black market, to buy political influence in high places, and to further fuel the deadly corruption of the drug trade. Why not kill the snake at the head by taking down crooked banking institutions, before the illicit proceeds are swallowed up by the narco serpent?

That does seem to make sense, right? But why then are U.S. banks seemingly exempt from prosecution when it comes to money laundering? When is the last time you heard of a major U.S. bank being indicted for assisting narco-traffickers in cleaning up their ill-gotten gains? Are we to believe that the laundering of drug profits only occurs at banks in other countries?

Or is there a double standard at play here, one that betrays the integrity of the power brokers who claim to be committed to prohibition?

Charles Intriago, a former federal prosecutor and publisher of the subscription-only newsletter Money Laundering Alert, offers us some insight into that very question in a recent column he penned for his publication:

The U.S. Treasury Department’s former general counsel, David Aufhauser, has complained that the Department of Justice has muscled itself into cases that should be handled with greater restraint by the financial supervisory agencies.

Similarly, FinCEN Director William Fox has said that he has “very serious concerns about what appears to be a trend to criminalize behavior designed to be governed by civil standards.”

… But these recent complaints about “criminalizing” anti-money laundering (AML) regulation have a tinny sound. There was no similar outcry in 1998 when the Justice Department indicted three Mexican banks in Los Angeles and brought forfeiture and administrative actions against them and 11 other foreign-owned banks in Operation Casablanca.

Their “crimes” were that a few low-level employees at branch offices on the U.S. border laundered money for undercover U.S. Customs operatives.

Two of the indicted banks pleaded guilty to laundering to avoid a possible regulatory “death penalty” under U.S. law. Altogether, the 14 banks paid more than $70 million in fines, penalties and forfeitures, and millions more in legal and investigative fees -- consequences far more drastic than any U.S. institution has ever suffered.

In 1999, the bank of New York drew no U.S. sanctions except for a Federal Reserve slap on the wrist after allowing $7 billion in tainted Russian money to pass through. In 2002, no U.S. agency took action against Lehman Brothers, whose five-year private banking relationship with Mario Villanueva, the corrupt governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, involved laundering $30 million in bribes from drug traffickers through offshore companies, cashiers’ checks and wire transfers.

Consuelo Marquez, a broker at Lehman’s New York headquarters, took the fall and was indicted with Villanueva for money laundering. When Marquez’s indictment was announced, Lehman Brothers was commended for its “full cooperation” by then Manhattan U.S. Attorney James Comey – now deputy U.S. attorney general.

The same happy fate had befallen Citibank in 1996 when its banking relationship with Raul Salinas, the corrupt brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas, was revealed.

The last U.S. bank to be criminally indicted for money laundering was Bell Savings Bank in 1989, over 15 years ago.

And the Bell Savings indictment had nothing to do with the war on drugs, but rather was a fall-out of the rampant corruption of the S&L crisis of the late 1980s.

Intriago’s analysis makes it clear that there is very little likelihood that a U.S. bank will face criminal prosecution for laundering drug money. At worst, some scapegoat will be found within the bank’s middle management to take the fall, and the lender itself will get a pat on the back from the U.S. government for a job well done.

So what does this tell you about how Washington has decided to fight the war on drugs? All we need to know.