hares of Standard Chartered have tumbled despite the bank denying allegations that it illegally "schemed" with Iran to launder money.

Shares in London fell 16.7%, about as much as its Hong Kong stock dropped.

The New York State Department of Financial Services said the UK-based bank laundered as much as $250bn (£161bn) over nearly a decade. It said the bank hid transactions for "Iranian financial institutions" that were subject to US economic sanctions.

The regulator said that Standard Chartered had hidden 60,000 such secret transactions. However, the bank denied the allegations, saying that it "strongly rejects the position or portrayal of facts as set out in the order" issued by the regulator....

......The regulator said that its nine-month investigation, which involved looking through more than 30,000 pages of documents, including internal bank emails, showed that the bank reaped "hundreds of millions of dollars in fees".

"SCB's actions left the US financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes, and deprived law enforcement investigators of crucial information used to track all manner of criminal activity," it said....

>>>>>>>>>>>> Has anyone got a way of lacing the bankers champers with laxatives??