Surprise! Activists Visit Landmark Bank’s Administrative Office
It’s been nearly a month since Smash HLS first exposed Landmark Bank, N.A. for lending $4M to Worldwide Primates (WWP). In that time, compassionate people around the globe have urged the bank to stop funding monkey torture at WWP. Despite the letters, phone calls, emails, and growing media attention, Landmark has tried its best to ignore the issue.
But ignoring something doesn’t make it go away.
On Monday, we paid a surprise visit to Landmark’s administrative office and lending division in Ft. Lauderdale. We headed to the third floor, letters in hand, hoping to have a sincere conversation with the bank’s executives about their involvement in animal torture and what they can do to end it. Instead, the higher-ups hid in the back and forced their secretary Kathy to deal with us. First she suggested we take our letters and leave, but then she said we were welcome to sit in the waiting room. So we did.
Kathy repeatedly insisted she was just doing her job and that neither she nor the bank had any comment. That didn’t stop us from talking—loudly—about the horrors endured by animals at WWP thanks to Landmark’s blood money. One curious employee emerged from the lending office and took a letter. Before he could open it, Kathy snatched the letter from his hands in a fit of rage and threw it back at the activist. We like to think it’s because she was so distraught and overwhelmed by the revelation that her bank funds monkey murder, but it’s hard to say for sure.
Knowing our welcome was wearing thin, we took the opportunity to fill the room and surrounding offices with booming chants: Stop the killing, stop the pain! Landmark Bank is to blame! We also made sure to call out Perry and Peyton Lacaria (CEO and VP, respectively) and Moyle Fritz (COO) for knowingly funding the imprisonment and mutilation of defenseless animals under the guise of science.
This is only the beginning. If Landmark had any doubts about our commitment to fighting for the animals whose suffering they finance, those doubts are fading fast. Until the bank withdraws its support for Worldwide Primates, we’ll keep showing up—anytime, anywhere. #ShutDownWWP!
I would really like to know what your group has really accomplished? You said you shut down Primate Products but I still see looks like they are open for business at another Florida location. Even if you shut down every monkey supplier in Florida it looks like there are plenty more to take their places in other parts of the USA. Can you shut them down also? I think you are really just a bunch of people looking for ways to release anger and it is at the expense of people who probably lost jobs by what you do. Do any of you take medication developed on animals? If you want to really save monkeys, perhaps you should shift your focus to finding an alternative to animal research that would shut down every company once that alternative is proven to really work. I’m an animal lover but seem like you have got no where with this campaign.