Some true stories are stranger than fiction, as revealed in the UK's Financial Services Register.

When a senior HSBC banker dramatically resigns his job in front of a US Senate subcommittee that is investigating a culture of financial crime involving Colombian and Mexican drug cartels and dozens of billions of dollars that spans the entire decade in which he headed up his bank's compliance effort, one might believe his credentials for regulatory trust to be damaged. Not a bit of it, according to the UK's Financial Services Register.

The homeland security and governmental affairs sub-committee forced the bank to admit that it washed billions for the cartels while breaking the US Bank Secrecy Act 1970, the Trading With The Enemy Act 1917 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act 1977. David Bagley was its global compliance head.

In early 2014, Bagley became a consultant at the Co-Operative Bank plc, an institution that itself is no stranger to controversy. Compliance Matters rang the bank in April to ascertain Bagley's status, to be told by a spokesman: "My understanding is that he's currently on a contract with the Co-Op. I would expect that he's working on AML." It was later during last year that he secured approval from the Financial Conduct Authority for CF10 (compliance oversight) status at nine entities (not only at the Co-Op main bank but also at Platform Funding Ltd, Mortgage Agency Services numbers 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 Ltd, Western Mortgage Services Ltd and Platform Home Loans Ltd) and CF11 (money-laundering reporting) status at those firms as well. His individual reference number is DWB01091. He has reportedly been promoted from his post as a consultant to that of full-blown director of regulatory risk and compliance. When asked who at the FCA had approved his CF10/11 status with a sign-off, and what it was about David Bagley that persuaded that FCA person that he was a good man to keep money-launderers away from the doors of a financial institution, the FCA told Compliance Matters that it was unable to comment on individual cases.