THE UNTOUCHABLES – OR, AT LEAST, THE UNTOUCHED
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 PF Changs 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.
Durk’s fierce interest in the extension of life, not only in years but in vitality right to the end, was, one might say, ageless. [Don’t blame that dad-joke on Michelle, it was all me. But still true.] Durk wasn’t interested in a dwindling but long old age. His goal was vibrant good health right up until one was used up.
This is one of the magical places we experience on our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions. An independent kingdom for 650 years in the remote Mustang region of Nepal, it is one of the last places of traditional Tibetan culture on earth, unchanged for centuries. There are sky-caves here – apartment complexes carved out of vertical cliffs 2,000 years ago – Drok-pa nomads in the high pastures, spectacular sacred ceremonies, all in a mysteriously beautiful setting where the Himalayas meet the Tibetan Plateau. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #86 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
This October 7 will mark the third anniversary of the horrific attacks on Israel by Hamas.
