HSBC fired six employees this week for producing a mock ISIS video that featured a fake beheading.
Five employees dressed in all dark colors and ski masks stand around a kneeling sixth man yielding an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by ISIS victims. The men wearing black then raises what appears to be a coat hanger and yells “Allahu Akbar,” which is Arabic for “God is great.” The men then break into laughter at the end of the eight-second footage.
“It’s shocking they would think this is funny,”
an HSBC source told The Sun.
The employees, part of an HSBC legal team in Birmingham, England, were at Teamworks Karting track at an HSBC-sponsored event when they filmed the video, which was likely part of a team-building exercise. The men posted the video on Instagram but removed the footage before their employers watched it.
“We do not tolerate inappropriate behavior,” HSBC told the Sun.
The banking and financial services company tweeted to inform clients that they were handling the situation:
The video comes in a time when HSBC is already under scrutiny. Earlier this year Swiss authorities raided Geneva HSBC offices because of allegations that the company had been money laundering. U.S. and British authorities are still investigating the allegations, which charge that HSBC was helping clients in connection to Hosni Mubarak, former Egyptian president; Ben Ali, former Tunisian president; and Bashar al-Assad, current Syrian leader, to avoid paying taxes.
“We acknowledge that the compliance culture and standards of due diligence in HSBC's Swiss private bank, as well as the industry in general, were significantly
lower than they are today," the bank announced, according to CNN.
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