Interbank transaction data stripped from entities blacklisted by DOJ for money laundering: “Last week Britain’s Barclays Bank became the latest foreign bank to be penalized hundreds of millions of dollars for allegedly helping US-sanctioned parties clandestinely move large sums of money through the American financial system. Barclays agreed to pay $298 million for allegedly helping clients in Iran, Cuba, Libya, Sudan and Burma by “stripping” international wire transfer messages, that is, by removing any reference to the sanctioned parties so that the US banks clearing the transactions did not know that a sanctioned party was involved and therefore did not block or freeze the transaction. As odd as it may seem, this practice appears to have been commonplace amongst European banks just a few years ago. The homeland security implications are staggering.”