Ireland To Prosecute Banker For Role in 2008 Financial Crisis, Found Hiding in Boston


The United States can learn a lot from the country of Ireland as they prosecute the banker that played a key role in the 2008 financial crisis.  Instead of bailing out banks and giving bankers a pass, Ireland and Iceland are holding bankers criminally liable for their role in economic collapse.

Iceland, and now Ireland, have taken action to hold criminal bankers accountable for their direct role in the economic devastation which enveloped most of the world beginning in 2008 — the exact opposite of what the US does.
David Drumm is facing up to 10 years in jail if convicted of the 33 charges he faces in Ireland.  He of course has denied wrongdoing, yet his flight to the United States, hiding out in Boston, says otherwise.

Drumm faces 33 charges in Ireland, which echoes Iceland’s unprecedented move to hold its bankers criminally accountable for their role in that country’s economic meltdown. Though Drumm predictably denied wrongdoing, his charges include “fraud, forgery, misleading management reporting, unlawful lending, falsifying documents, and false accounting, linked to
As RT reported, Drumm is alleged to have participated in transactions totaling around €7 billion between Anglo and a second lending institution, Irish Life and Permanent. Anglo “posted the worst corporate results in Irish history with losses of €17.5 billion for 2010.”

In 2009, Drumm came to the United States and it is reported, refused to cooperate with  the investigation. There is fear that Drumm is a flight risk due to his “capacity to marshal significant sums” of money, but his defense believes otherwise.

However, his solicitor argued that in order to better prepare his defense — including sorting through the “millions of documents” and nearly 400 hours of phone conversations — Drumm needed to remain out of prison. As the Times noted, two “books” of evidence will need to be heard by the court — one of which entails bringing 120 witnesses to testify.

Perhaps one day the Icelandic and Irish example will be a blueprint for the United States, as economic upheavals are cyclical, but they don’t have to be handled in the same manner as before, forgiving the criminal bankers and bailing them out instead of punishing them.

By all accounts, the Icelandic economy experienced a meltdown in 2008. The country’s three largest banks imploded under the weight of debt more than six times the GDP. But there was no bailout. The banks were nationalized and reorganized. Interest rates were hiked, and the currency was devalued by half.

Out of the struggle emerged an attitude to base the economy on creating instead of financing, and a case study for entrepreneurship was born.

Wake up America, there are better ways to deal with criminally greedy financial systems.



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