Federal and New York state prosecutors have unveiled their $1.9 billion settlement with the banking giant HSBC for a massive money-laundering scheme used by drug cartels and other illegal groups. Among other allegations, the bank reportedly supplied a billion dollars to a firm whose founder had ties to al-Qaeda and shipped billions in cash from Mexico to the United States despite warnings the money was coming from drug cartels. On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch confirmed that HSBC had avoided charges under a deferred prosecution agreement.

Loretta Lynch: “We are here today to announce the filing of criminal charges against HSBC Bank, both its U.S. entity, HSBC U.S., and the parent HSBC group, for its sustained and systemic failure to guard against the corruption of our financial system by drug traffickers and other criminals and for evading U.S. sanctions law. HSBC, as you know, is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, with affiliates and personnel spanning the globe. Yet during the relevant time periods, they failed to comply with the legal requirements incumbent on all U.S. financial institutions to have in place compliance mechanisms and safeguards to guard against being used for money laundering.”

State and federal officials reportedly agreed to the fine over concerns that criminal charges against one of the world’s largest banks would have hurt the global financial system. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer outlined some of HSBC’s alleged drug cartel ties.

Lanny Breuer: “From 2006 to 2010, the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, the Norte del Valle cartel in Colombia and other drug traffickers laundered at least $881 million in illegal narcotics trafficking proceeds through HSBC Bank USA. These traffickers didn’t have to try very hard. They would sometimes deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in a single day into a single account, using boxes, as Loretta said, designed to fit the precise dimensions of the tellers’ windows in HSBC’s Mexico branches.”