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

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?

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

There must be change. Must be. Our own banks are using our own money against us. They let it move for cartels, for terrorists, for the people who ship the poison that is killing our kids. Then they pay a fine with shareholder money and go back to work on Monday. That is not justice. That is a subscription. I wrote an open letter to @SecScottBessent this week. I did not expect what came next. Millions of views. A Congressman. Thousands of Americans saying the same thing in their own words: enough. The American people have spoken. They want criminal prosecution. They want a banker in handcuffs, not another press release. Here is what I know from the inside. If we do not cut off the money supply to our enemies, we lose. Not someday. Now. Every bomb, every bullet, every fentanyl shipment starts with a wire transfer. Stop the wire and you stop the rest. I risked my life to protect this country. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Not for me. For the greater good. Change must happen. There is no other option.

As the HSBC bank whistleblower, I need to say something about Bank of America. It is called Bank of America. It let money move for the enemies of America. $5 billion in suspicious transactions unreported. 475 apparent sanctions violations tied to Russia, Iran, narcotics, and terrorism. $1.2 billion fine. Not one banker charged. Nothing changes until someone goes to prison.

It’s an honor to be in the trailer for The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers, coming to @peacock October 25. I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances. A lot of women were harmed. This exists because they came forward. I can’t say much about my role yet. I can say I’ve spent my career trying to do the next right thing.

Fourteen years ago I waited tables here because nobody else would hire a whistleblower. Tonight I'm back at @PFChangs in an @NBCUniversal hat, celebrating being in the trailer for a @Peacock documentary. Never forget where you came from.

I am in the trailer for The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers, premiering on @peacock October 25. That is all I can say about my role until it airs. What I can say is thank you. To Emma Schwartz @emmanator, who directed this with the seriousness the story demanded, it was an honor to work with you. And to Maxine Productions @mkrobertson, @SonyPictures, @voxmedia, Secret Menu, @NBCUniversal, and @peacock, thank you for the opportunity and for including me. October 25. All three episodes. Peacock. The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers | Official Trailer | P... youtu.be/CZRr6ufViPA?si=IRrw… via @YouTube

Two men who lost everything, standing under the same flag. That is @JohnKiriakou and me at National Whistleblower Day on Capitol Hill, and I want to tell you why this photo means more to me than most. John Kiriakou was a @CIA officer. He spoke publicly about the agency's interrogation program because he believed it was wrong, and he went to federal prison for it. He lost his career, his pension, his freedom, and years with his children. He did not do it for attention. He did it because his conscience would not let him stay quiet. I lost everything for telling the truth about a bank laundering money for terrorists and drug cartels. John lost everything standing up for what he believed was wrong inside a government. Different institutions, different decades, same price. We both know what it costs to see something, decide you cannot live with it, and refuse to find a way around it. What people do not see from the outside is how lonely that road is. Most of the people who understand it are strangers to each other. So when you find someone who has walked it, who knows the cot and the silence and the phone that stops ringing, you do not need to explain anything. You just stand next to each other and that is enough. @JohnKiriakou is a fighter. He came out of prison and kept talking, kept writing, kept showing up. You do not have to agree with a man on everything to respect what he was willing to pay. He has the highest respect I can offer, and I am proud to call him a friend. To everyone still deciding whether to speak up: there are more of us than you think. And we stand with you.

Three calls came into @Tactical_Rabbit last quarter. I want to tell you about them without telling you about them. A general counsel whose company wired six figures to a vendor that did not exist. The invoice looked right. The email came from the CFO's address. The money was gone in under an hour. A family being harassed by someone who knew their schedule, their address, their children's names, and hid behind a dozen anonymous accounts. A litigator with a client who had a story nobody believed. Big, sprawling, no documents to back it up, and the other side was making the client look like exactly what the client was most afraid of looking like. Three different problems. One thing in common. Somebody needed the truth, and the truth was hidden. That is the entire business. @Tactical_Rabbit is a licensed private intelligence agency. Former CIA, FBI, and military intelligence professionals. We do cyber investigations, digital forensics to evidentiary standards, financial forensics and asset searches, threat attribution, due diligence, and human intelligence for the answers that do not exist in any database. When the case is finished, we hand you something a court, a bank, or a law enforcement agency can act on. I started this firm because I once sat at a desk at HSBC Bank holding evidence with nowhere to take it. I built the place I needed and could not find. If one of those three calls sounds like your situation, or a client's, reach out. The first conversation is confidential and costs you nothing. And if something is happening right now, do not delete anything. Preserve first, then call. tacticalrabbit.com

I was the HSBC whistleblower. I lost everything for telling the truth, and nobody went to prison. I built a private intelligence firm so the next person with evidence has somewhere to take it. If that's you, contact me.

The @CIA turned me down. The @FBI told me their hands were tied. The bank paid a fine and not one banker went to prison. So fourteen years ago, I built my own intelligence agency. That is me in the photo at 26. No money. No allies left in my industry. A laptop, a $19 folding desk, and a why that would not let me sleep. Here is what put me in that chair. In 2012, @HSBC paid $1.92 billion for moving money tied to drug cartels and sanctioned regimes. Roughly five weeks of profit for that bank. Nobody was handcuffed. Nobody was charged. The bad guys got away. Then I heard from a former colleague that people in my old department were receiving bonuses for clearing the alert backlog. Bonuses. For closing out the same queue where I found it. Meanwhile I was sleeping on a camping cot in a studio apartment and waiting tables at @PFChangs, because after I blew the whistle nobody in the industry I trained for would hire me. I will never forget going to the CIA. I will never forget going to the FBI. And I will never forget sitting with FBI agents after the settlement, hearing them tell me nobody was going to jail. Their hands were tied. Their hands were tied. Mine were not. The CIA had rejected me years earlier. It was the thing I wanted most and I did not get it. So I started building one of my own, from the outside, because the inside would not have me. Today @Tactical_Rabbit is a private intelligence firm staffed by former CIA, FBI, and military intelligence professionals. America's private CIA. The system tried to crush me for doing the right thing. I got up off the floor and I fought back. Now understand my mission, because it is not complicated. Prevent the next HSBC. Stop the bad guys from getting away with it. And never let another person be destroyed for telling the truth the way I was. Not on my watch. Not while I am still standing. People are being killed with blood money. I did not read that somewhere. I saw it with my own eyes, in transaction records, at a desk, in a back office in Delaware. Every wire that clears is a decision somebody made, and somewhere downstream there is a body. So here is my ask. If you are sitting on something, send me a message. I have been the man in that photo, holding evidence with nowhere to take it. I will not let that happen to you.