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Eric Holder is talking a big game.

The US Department of Justice chief is preparing criminal charges against at least two banks in a move to end too big to jail institutions, the Attorney General said in a video posted Monday on the Justice Web site.

In fact, federal prosecutors are close to obtaining a guilty plea and a settlement of more than $1 billion from one of the banks, Credit Suisse, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday night.

While Holder didnt name names in the video, prosecutors have been clamping down on a Citigroup subsidiary, BNP Paribas, and Credit Suisse, according to people familiar with the investigations.

Justice is looking into Citis Mexican banking unit, Banamex, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.

BNP Paribas, Frances second-largest bank, allegedly did business with blacklisted countries like Sudan, while Credit Suisse is said to have provided illegal tax shelters, one person said.

Prosecutors from Justice, US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., are exploring ways to hit Credit Suisse and BNP with criminal charges without putting them out of business, source said.

One way to do so would be to strip them of their ability to use dollars for clearing transactions, according to the source.

The departments punishment would be harsher than when it pursued HSBC for helping Mexican drug cartels launder money and doing business with banned countries like Iran.

HSBC, the largest European bank by assets, paid $1.92 billion in fines instead of pleading guilty.

Original post:
Eric Holder: Theres no such thing as too big to jail