On Monday, the New York State Dept. of Financial Services went public with accusations that British bank Standard Chartered conspired to conceal at least $250 billion in transactions with the Iranian government that were moved through its U.S. subsidiary.

The state regulator has summoned representatives of the bank appear at an Aug. 15 hearing, the outcome of which could be the revocation of SCB's license to operate in New York. In the order demanding that appearance, the agency said its investigation of more than 30,000 pages of documents, including internal e-mails, reveal roughly 60,000 secret transactions with Iran that violated U.S. sanctions.

“SCB's actions left the U.S. 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,” the order says.

In its “evident zeal to make hundreds of millions of dollars at almost any cost,” SCB is accused of conduct that includes: falsifying business records; offering false instruments for filing; failing to maintain accurate books and records of all transactions; obstructing governmental administration; failing to report misconduct in a timely manner; and evading Federal sanctions.”

Also on the hot seat is consultant Deloitte & Touche, which investigators claim “apparently aided” SBC because information related to the transactions failed to show up in an independent report to regulators.

Among the e-mails obtained by investigators is what will surely become an infamous, and damning, exchange between SCB executives.

In 2006, SCB's CEO for the Americas sent what New York's investigators termed “a panicked message” to the Group Executive Director in London:

“We believe [the Iranian business] needs urgent reviewing at the Group level to evaluate if its returns and strategic benefits are . . . still commensurate with the potential to cause very serious or even catastrophic reputational damage to the Group,” he wrote. “Secondly, there is equally importantly potential of risk of subjecting management in U.S. and London (e.g. you and I) and elsewhere to personal reputational damages and/or serious criminal liability.”

SCB's Group Executive Director, as quoted by an SCB New York branch officer, responded: “You f---ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians.”

State regulators focused on dealings with Iranian clients, but that review also uncovered evidence of “similar SCB schemes to conduct business with other U.S. sanctioned countries, such as Libya, Myanmar and Sudan.” An investigation into these matters is ongoing.

In addition to a formal license revocation hearing, SCB has also been ordered to “immediately submit to and pay for” an on-premises monitor, selected by the Dept. of Financial Services, to ensure that its New York operations fully comply with all Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering requirements.

The accusations come on the heels of similar charges against banking giant.

Last month, a Senate Subcommittee released a report charging that HSBC and its U.S. affiliate actively circumvented U.S. safeguards at HUBS "designed to block transactions involving terrorists, drug lords, and rogue regimes." In one case, two HSBC affiliates sent nearly 25,000 transactions involving $19.4 billion through their U.S. accounts over seven years without disclosing the transactions' links to Iran.