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Senin, 20 Januari 2014
Jumat, 22 Juni 2012
Chinese Gang Laundering Money at Laundries
Spanish police say they arrested 34 Chinese citizens as they smashed a family-run crime gang suspected of importing fake goods and laundering the profits, with the help of a chain of laundries.
The raids in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Cadiz, Seville and Huelva overnight broke up the largest Chinese-linked criminal gang based in Spain, operating since the 1990s, said the Civil Guard overnight.
Police detained 34 Chinese nationals and seized assets worth 11 million euros ($15 million), it said.
The gang may have earned more than 40 million euros ($54.64 million) a year, importing four-to-six containers a month through Valencia packed with fake tobacco, clothes and other goods bound for sale in Spain, Britain, France, Italy and Portugal, they said.
The Chinese family-run gang laundered the proceeds by moving the money around with couriers, making bank transfers of less than 20,000 ($27,318) and by extending high-interest loans to compatriots based in Spain, police said.
The gang recruited Chinese people it had helped to enter Spain, often taking away their passports after they arrived or opening bank accounts in their names to launder illicit gains, they said.
According to police, the organisation had a branch in China, which controlled more than 30 companies including a chain of nearly 1,000 laundries and was used to conceal the source of the profits.
Source: Herald Sun
Sabtu, 09 Juni 2012
India arrests hawala money laundering suspect Naresh Jain
British police suspect Naresh Kumar Jain, also wanted in Dubai, US and Europe, laundered millions for organised crime gangs
A multimillionaire suspected of being one of the world's leading underworld bankers is under arrest in India after a global manhunt involving British police.
The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) believes that Naresh Kumar Jain is responsible for laundering millions of pounds of profits from organised crime gangs in the UK over several years. His organisation has been under investigation in Britain since 2006, after inquiries into the cash flows of drug gangs and other criminal networks repeatedly identified his alleged network at the end of money transactions.
Jain, 50, was seized in New Delhi on Sunday, a year after he jumped bail on money laundering charges in Dubai, from where he allegedly ran his operations. Soca is now liaising with both Indian and Dubai police.
Labelled a criminal mastermind by alleged victims, Jain is suspected of laundering money for Albanian and Italian heroin dealers, and narcotics cartels in America, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Britain, according to inquiries in Italy and the US. German and US police say Jain's operation has tentacles in all of the major drug and terrorism hotspots across the globe. He was also wanted by police in Spain and the Netherlands.
According to Soca and other international agencies, Jain is suspected of controlling a laundering system capable of moving $2.2bn (£1.35bn) a year. From Dubai he allegedly provided customers with funds in a country of their choice. It is claimed his network was so extensive and lucrative that he often did not have to physically move money, a fact that made his detection all the more difficult, according to an investigative source.
Ian Cruxton, deputy director of Soca, said: "This operation is part of Soca's long-term strategy targeting specialist money launderers based overseas. These networks pay no attention to cultural or geographical barriers and launder money for organised crime groups from any ethnic background or criminal businesses, particularly UK, Pakistani and Turkish nationals based in the UK and mainland Europe involved in drugs trafficking."
Jain, also known as Naresh Patel, was arrested in April 2007 by Dubai police after a year-long international investigation. Much of the money he allegedly moved was by hawala, an informal honour-based money transfer system primarily based in the Middle East, east Africa and southern Asia.
According to the US department of justice's drug enforcement agency, police in Dubai made a number of searches of his property after his arrest and recovered banking and wire transfer records demonstrating that he was directing money transfers through banks and exchange houses in Dubai, into bank accounts at a finance company in Manhattan. The accounts of the company showed he was involved in "layering," a money laundering technique designed to disguise the origin of sham commodities trades.
The US government obtained a seizure warrant for the funds in the accounts as property involved in money laundering and this year a district judge ordered the forfeiture to the US of more than $4.3m. A further £1.5m in cash from Naresh's business dealings has been held around the world.
A two-year investigation in Italy revealed an alleged trail that suggested Naresh was laundering $4m a day, with heroin and terrorism cash coming in through a beauty parlour in Italy. The Italians and Americans say he was at the centre of a sprawling terror network that was taking in money for the Taliban as well as other criminal cartels.
While inquiries were being made into his activities, Naresh was bailed in Dubai – where he faces trial for breaking foreign exchange laws – and fled his business headquarters. He resurfaced in his native India, where authorities raided several properties owned by him and issued an all ports alert.
Two months ago he denied any involvement in money laundering and claimed he was a businessman who was being trapped. Speaking in New Delhi, Naresh said: "I have a factory in South Africa. I supply ready-made garments in Afghanistan and Nepal. I talked to people in Pakistan in relation with purchasing rice."
British authorities have secured an exclusion order preventing Naresh from entering the UK.
Source: The Guardian
Senin, 04 Juni 2012
Vatican bank accused of money laundering: Report
The Vatican bank is under investigation for suspected money laundering via accounts held at one of Italy’s largest banks, the UniCredit Group, according to the Italian investigative weekly Panorama. In its latest issue published Friday, the magazine claims prosecutors are probing transactions totalling 180 million euros handled between 2006 and 2008 by Vatican bank (IOR) accounts held at Unicredit’s branch near the Vatican in Rome’s Via della Conciliazione.
Some of the funds came from the sale and purchase of real estate, according to the weekly, and the banking operations allegedly break money laundering laws.
Prosecutors told the magazine that they would in the next few days to question Unicredit’s senior management over the suspect operations.
They are also investigating deposits made at other Italian banks, Panorama said.
Prosecutor Nello Rossi is heading the investigation, which is being carried out in conjunction with financial specialists from the Italian tax police.
The Vatican bank is no stranger to controversy. It owned a small part of the Banco Ambrosiano and was held partially responsible for the $1.3 billion in bad debts that it left when the bank collapsed.
A Rome court in 2007 said the Italian mafia was behind the 1982 death of former Banco Ambrosiano president Roberto Calvi, who was known as ‘God’s banker’ because of the illicit financial dealings he handled that connected him to the Vatican bank.
Calvi was found hanging beneath Blackfriar’s Bridge in London June 18, 1982, with his pockets weighed down with bricks and stones and over $15,000 in cash.
Source: The Indian
Some of the funds came from the sale and purchase of real estate, according to the weekly, and the banking operations allegedly break money laundering laws.
Prosecutors told the magazine that they would in the next few days to question Unicredit’s senior management over the suspect operations.
They are also investigating deposits made at other Italian banks, Panorama said.
Prosecutor Nello Rossi is heading the investigation, which is being carried out in conjunction with financial specialists from the Italian tax police.
The Vatican bank is no stranger to controversy. It owned a small part of the Banco Ambrosiano and was held partially responsible for the $1.3 billion in bad debts that it left when the bank collapsed.
A Rome court in 2007 said the Italian mafia was behind the 1982 death of former Banco Ambrosiano president Roberto Calvi, who was known as ‘God’s banker’ because of the illicit financial dealings he handled that connected him to the Vatican bank.
Calvi was found hanging beneath Blackfriar’s Bridge in London June 18, 1982, with his pockets weighed down with bricks and stones and over $15,000 in cash.
Source: The Indian
Italy: MP probed for suspected mafia links
Prosecutors in the southern Italian city of Bari are investigating a young conservative MP with suspected links to local mafia. Elvira Savino, 33-year-old from the ruling conservative People of Freedom party, is among 129 people under investigation in an anti-mafia operation centred on Bari.
Police on Tuesday arrested at least 83 people and seized assets worth 220 million euros.
Prosecutors suspect Savino of involvement in money laundering for members of Bari's Parisi crime family, by allowing the clan to open a bogus bank account in her name.
In exchange, Savino received "numerous gifts and favours," according to prosecutors.
Savino has denied any wrongdoing and said she was prepared to resign if necessary to clear her name.
"I am prepared to resign from my parliamentary seat in order to make it clear that I have no ties to the mafia...it's all a misunderstanding," she told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Wednesday.
In the interview, Savino claimed the suspect bank account was her personal account and said that her brother had deposited a 3,000 euro cheque in the account.
"Those are hardly sums of money that indicate money-laundering ," she stated.
Savino allegedly helped launder cash from a company owned by mafia-linked local businessman Michele Labellarte, who was convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy. He died in September.
In one tapped telephone conversation between Labellarte and Savino, he reportedly told her: "Come on Elvira, don't be a gossip. Keep quiet!"
Savino told the newspaper that Labellarte was a "friend" and did not believe he had links to the mafia.
She admitted having met Gianpaolo Tarantini, the Bari-based businessman currently under investigation for procuring prostitutes - some of whom allegedly attended Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's parties - drug trafficking and corruption.
"I knew Tarantini, but I never attended any of the parties he organised," she said.
Lawyers, bank officials, a notary and public administration officials were among those arrested by anti-mafia investigators in Bari on Tuesday. Fifty-three are in prison and 30 were put under house arrest.
Prosecutors are investigating members of the Parisi clan for attempted homicide, extortion, auction rigging, international drug trafficking and money laundering in the Puglia region surrounding Bari.
The raids were carried out in conjunction with special investigators from Italy's tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, from Bari.
Piero Grasso, a national anti-Mafia prosecutor, said the operation "showed the true face of criminality" in the southern Puglia region.
Source: ADN KRONOS
Police on Tuesday arrested at least 83 people and seized assets worth 220 million euros.
Prosecutors suspect Savino of involvement in money laundering for members of Bari's Parisi crime family, by allowing the clan to open a bogus bank account in her name.
In exchange, Savino received "numerous gifts and favours," according to prosecutors.
Savino has denied any wrongdoing and said she was prepared to resign if necessary to clear her name.
"I am prepared to resign from my parliamentary seat in order to make it clear that I have no ties to the mafia...it's all a misunderstanding," she told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Wednesday.
In the interview, Savino claimed the suspect bank account was her personal account and said that her brother had deposited a 3,000 euro cheque in the account.
"Those are hardly sums of money that indicate money-laundering ," she stated.
Savino allegedly helped launder cash from a company owned by mafia-linked local businessman Michele Labellarte, who was convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy. He died in September.
In one tapped telephone conversation between Labellarte and Savino, he reportedly told her: "Come on Elvira, don't be a gossip. Keep quiet!"
Savino told the newspaper that Labellarte was a "friend" and did not believe he had links to the mafia.
She admitted having met Gianpaolo Tarantini, the Bari-based businessman currently under investigation for procuring prostitutes - some of whom allegedly attended Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's parties - drug trafficking and corruption.
"I knew Tarantini, but I never attended any of the parties he organised," she said.
Lawyers, bank officials, a notary and public administration officials were among those arrested by anti-mafia investigators in Bari on Tuesday. Fifty-three are in prison and 30 were put under house arrest.
Prosecutors are investigating members of the Parisi clan for attempted homicide, extortion, auction rigging, international drug trafficking and money laundering in the Puglia region surrounding Bari.
The raids were carried out in conjunction with special investigators from Italy's tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, from Bari.
Piero Grasso, a national anti-Mafia prosecutor, said the operation "showed the true face of criminality" in the southern Puglia region.
Source: ADN KRONOS
Sabtu, 02 Juni 2012
Drug money laundering ring with ties to Colombia and Italy busted in Boston
By Globe Staff
A drug bust in East Boston four years ago started an undercover investigation that has led to the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in laundered drug profits, the seizure of large amounts of heroin and cocaine, and charges against alleged organized crime figures in Colombia and Italy, officials said this afternoon.
“This investigation not only been a lengthy one, but it’s been extremely complex,’’ US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said today of the US Drug Enforcement Administration-led investigation that was dubbed “Operation Fire and Ice.’’
She said some 20 people were arrested today in Massachusetts and in Colombia who will now be tried in a Boston courthouse for allegedly laundering drug money through the region. Officials estimated they seized some $200 million in cash, and more than 1,100 kilograms of cocaine and 46 kilograms of cocaine around the world.
Signaling the significance of the investigation to law enforcement in other countries, Ortiz was joined at an afternoon press conference at the Moakley courthouse by Brigadier General Cesar Augusto Pinzon Arana, commander of an elite anti-drug unit in Colombia, and Detective Vittorio Rizzi, commander of a special investigation unit for the Italian National Police in Rome.
With the help of a Spanish interpreter, Arana said the investigation targeted the remnants of the notorious Medellin drug cartel which now operates under the name of “La Oficina de Envigado” in Colombia.
Those arrested in Colombia will face trial in the US, officials said.
Three people with ties to Massachusetts were also arrested today. They were identified as Julissa Perez, of Malden; Henderson Martinez, who is also known as “Juan,” of Boston; and Roberto Torres-Colon, also known as “Chappa,” believed to be of Lawrence.
Authorities seized several bank accounts allegedly controlled by the Massachusetts residents and seized more than $2 million in cash. They face drug trafficking and money laundering charges here.
Source: BOSTON
Jumat, 01 Juni 2012
Italian court releases seized Vatican bank millions
An Italian court has released €23 million it had seized from the Vatican bank in 2010 amid an inquiry into allegations of money-laundering, Ansa news agency said.
Rome prosecutors said Wednesday that their decision to release the money was based on the Vatican's swift move to set up a new financial authority aimed at tackling allegations of money-laundering and "financing of terrorism".
New rules at the Holy See which came into effect on April 1 impose sentences of up to 12 years in prison for money-laundering and up to 15 years for "financing terrorism".
Pope Benedict XVI created the new financial authority in December to address "the prevention and opposition to illegal financial activity."
The move came despite insistence from the Vatican that the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) -- the official name of the Vatican bank -- was blameless.
Source: Times of Malta
Senin, 28 Mei 2012
ITALY: Canadian mobster behind Mafia operations
TU THANH HA
Globe and Mail Update with Reuters and AP
October 23, 2007 at 10:52 AM EDT
Montreal — Even from behind bars, Canada's most powerful Mafia boss still managed to operate a transnational drug smuggling and money laundering schemes, the Italian authorities allege, following the arrest Tuesday of at least a dozen people.
The pre-dawn arrests are the latest setbacks to hit Vito Rizzuto — who is identified in Canadian court documents as the " godfather of the Italian Mafia in Montreal" — and his 83-year-old father Nicolo.
Italian say the father and son pair were leading figures despite being detained for years.
"From prison they pulled the strings of their Italian colonies," anti-mafia official Col. Paolo La Forgia told the Associated Press.
Among those arrested in Italy were two bank workers who managed the clan's Swiss bank accounts, police said.
This allegation mirrors those outlined in past court documents filed in Montreal, which detail a 1994 investigation by Swiss officials probing whether Mr. Rizzuto, his mother Libertina, and their acquaintances laundered millions of dollars through banks in Lugano, Geneva and Lausanne.
Already, two years ago, Colonel La Forgia told a press conference that Italy's anti-Mafia police issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Rizzuto, alleging that he tried to invest $6.4 million in laundered money in a $7 billion project to build a suspension bridge between Sicily and the mainland.
In the latest crackdown, Italian authorities seized 150 million euros in asset, both in bank accounts and real estate.
Since January of 2004 Mr. Rizzuto has been under arrest. Detained in Montreal and New York, he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges relating to the murder of three captains of the Bonnano crime family and was transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary in Colorado to serve a 10-year sentence.
Even after the younger Mr. Rizzuto's arrest, the family business continued, focusing on drug smuggling, extortion and illegal gambling, according to court filings in a major crackdown against the organization's top leaders.
RCMP affidavits filed in Montreal allege a succession of cocaine importation schemes through Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, where baggage handlers, food-services employee and even a customs agent were alleged to be on the gang payroll.
Another major revenue source for the organization, according to the affidavits, was an online sports bookmaking outlet, with computers servers first based in Belize then in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, south of Montreal.
Between October 2004 and mid-March 2006, the gambling operation raked in $26.9 million for the gang, the police said.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071023.witalycanada1023/BNStory/International/home
Globe and Mail Update with Reuters and AP
October 23, 2007 at 10:52 AM EDT
Montreal — Even from behind bars, Canada's most powerful Mafia boss still managed to operate a transnational drug smuggling and money laundering schemes, the Italian authorities allege, following the arrest Tuesday of at least a dozen people.
The pre-dawn arrests are the latest setbacks to hit Vito Rizzuto — who is identified in Canadian court documents as the " godfather of the Italian Mafia in Montreal" — and his 83-year-old father Nicolo.
Italian say the father and son pair were leading figures despite being detained for years.
"From prison they pulled the strings of their Italian colonies," anti-mafia official Col. Paolo La Forgia told the Associated Press.
Among those arrested in Italy were two bank workers who managed the clan's Swiss bank accounts, police said.
This allegation mirrors those outlined in past court documents filed in Montreal, which detail a 1994 investigation by Swiss officials probing whether Mr. Rizzuto, his mother Libertina, and their acquaintances laundered millions of dollars through banks in Lugano, Geneva and Lausanne.
Already, two years ago, Colonel La Forgia told a press conference that Italy's anti-Mafia police issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Rizzuto, alleging that he tried to invest $6.4 million in laundered money in a $7 billion project to build a suspension bridge between Sicily and the mainland.
In the latest crackdown, Italian authorities seized 150 million euros in asset, both in bank accounts and real estate.
Since January of 2004 Mr. Rizzuto has been under arrest. Detained in Montreal and New York, he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges relating to the murder of three captains of the Bonnano crime family and was transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary in Colorado to serve a 10-year sentence.
Even after the younger Mr. Rizzuto's arrest, the family business continued, focusing on drug smuggling, extortion and illegal gambling, according to court filings in a major crackdown against the organization's top leaders.
RCMP affidavits filed in Montreal allege a succession of cocaine importation schemes through Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, where baggage handlers, food-services employee and even a customs agent were alleged to be on the gang payroll.
Another major revenue source for the organization, according to the affidavits, was an online sports bookmaking outlet, with computers servers first based in Belize then in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, south of Montreal.
Between October 2004 and mid-March 2006, the gambling operation raked in $26.9 million for the gang, the police said.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071023.witalycanada1023/BNStory/International/home
Senin, 21 Mei 2012
India warned of suspicious transactions
29 Sep 2007, 0058 hrs IST,Pradeep Thakur,TNN
NEW DELHI: The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has forwarded a list of suspicious transactions, including hundreds of cases of suspected terror financing and doubtful foreign remittances, to Intelligence Bureau and other investigating agencies.
In its first annual report released recently, the FIU identified several accounts having a common beneficiary with huge and unexplained money transfers made to them.
Tasked to keep an eye on money laundering and combating terror financing, the FIU report said many of these foreign remittances were doubtful with scant information on the source of funds and actual beneficiaries. Some such account holders were even found to be on the Interpol's watch list and were known criminals.
These suspicious transactions included "cash deposits in bank accounts at multiple locations, off-market transactions in demat accounts, fraudulent use of ATM and credit cards and unexplained activity in accounts inconsistent with what would be expected from declared business."
Banks reported the highest number (437) of suspicious transactions in the last one year while financial institutions and intermediaries accounted for 380 such reports up to March 2007.
The ease with which terrorists and their fronts have laundered money in India through formal channels of transaction raises serious doubts on the efficacy of the strict due diligence regimen imposed by the government on banks and financial institutions a few years ago.
With reports of terror outfits gaining access to stock and commodity markets and evolving ways to evade checks put in place to scan their transactions, it seems money launderers and terrorists have perfected some device to go under the radar of the due diligence mechanism.
In light of the IPO scam, the government had begun harsh punitive action and barred some multinational banks from expanding in India and opening new branches. The punitive measures included sacking dozens of employees of at least two banks. But it seems these measures had only a momentary effect.
The FIU report said India received at least 14 enquiries from abroad related to terror financing and other suspicious transactions. In two cases, some countries, including the US, Canada, Russia and Germany, assisted India in disseminating information.
FIU officials were also sent to the US, Australia, Canada and Thailand to train with the anti-money laundering mechanism put in place by these countries. In the last one year, FIU officials also attended nine joint-working groups on counter-terrorism with the US, Germany, China, Russia, Italy, Canada, Singapore and Israel.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_warned_of_dubious_transactions/articleshow/2412984.cms
NEW DELHI: The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has forwarded a list of suspicious transactions, including hundreds of cases of suspected terror financing and doubtful foreign remittances, to Intelligence Bureau and other investigating agencies.
In its first annual report released recently, the FIU identified several accounts having a common beneficiary with huge and unexplained money transfers made to them.
Tasked to keep an eye on money laundering and combating terror financing, the FIU report said many of these foreign remittances were doubtful with scant information on the source of funds and actual beneficiaries. Some such account holders were even found to be on the Interpol's watch list and were known criminals.
These suspicious transactions included "cash deposits in bank accounts at multiple locations, off-market transactions in demat accounts, fraudulent use of ATM and credit cards and unexplained activity in accounts inconsistent with what would be expected from declared business."
Banks reported the highest number (437) of suspicious transactions in the last one year while financial institutions and intermediaries accounted for 380 such reports up to March 2007.
The ease with which terrorists and their fronts have laundered money in India through formal channels of transaction raises serious doubts on the efficacy of the strict due diligence regimen imposed by the government on banks and financial institutions a few years ago.
With reports of terror outfits gaining access to stock and commodity markets and evolving ways to evade checks put in place to scan their transactions, it seems money launderers and terrorists have perfected some device to go under the radar of the due diligence mechanism.
In light of the IPO scam, the government had begun harsh punitive action and barred some multinational banks from expanding in India and opening new branches. The punitive measures included sacking dozens of employees of at least two banks. But it seems these measures had only a momentary effect.
The FIU report said India received at least 14 enquiries from abroad related to terror financing and other suspicious transactions. In two cases, some countries, including the US, Canada, Russia and Germany, assisted India in disseminating information.
FIU officials were also sent to the US, Australia, Canada and Thailand to train with the anti-money laundering mechanism put in place by these countries. In the last one year, FIU officials also attended nine joint-working groups on counter-terrorism with the US, Germany, China, Russia, Italy, Canada, Singapore and Israel.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_warned_of_dubious_transactions/articleshow/2412984.cms
Kamis, 17 Mei 2012
Liechtenstein bank data expose Indian tax evaders
John Samuel Raja D / New Delhi August 18, 2008
The Indian government has received sensitive information from its German counterpart regarding tax evaders, who have channelled money in a tax haven bank in Liechtenstein, a small European country known for hosting such banks, and it is unwilling to make these details public.
It is not known at this point of time whether the information exchanged between the two countries contain details of account holders from India.
It all started in February this year, when a former employee of LGT Bank in Liechtenstein sold data on about 1,400 people to tax authorities across the world. This was followed by investigations by Germany, the US, the UK, Australia, Italy and others. After receiving the stolen data, the German government initiated action against around 600 taxpayers for possible tax evasion. It has reportedly offered to provide data to any country that seeks information.
Subsequently, India’s finance ministry wrote its first letter to German authorities in February 2008 seeking information on Indian account holders and followed it up with another letter in June 2008, the government disclosed in a reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by the Indian-chapter of Transparency International.
When Transparency International asked for copies of correspondence between the two governments and the list of account holders in LGT Bank, the finance ministry replied saying that the exchange of information between India and Germany is covered under Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), which prohibits countries from sharing information.
“It’s not acceptable that the government is not disclosing the correspondence with the German government,” said Anupama Jha, executive director of Transparency International India.
In an e-mail response to a questionnaire sent to them, LGT Group said Indian authorities have not contacted them so far. “Due to client confidentiality laws, we are unable to disclose any client names. Also, with regard to stolen client data, we do not provide any nationality break-downs”, LGT spokesperson Christof Buri said. The German government did not respond to the questionnaire.
If the German government had given details of Indian account holders in LGT Bank, which is owned by the princely house of Liechtenstein, it will help domestic tax authorities to investigate tax evasion for money deposited in tax haven destinations. Tax haven locations thrive mainly because of difference in tax rates, often levying nil or very low taxation. Banks that operate in these locations are alleged to create complex offshore structures that will enable their clients to hide the assets from tax authorities.
This sort of tax evasion, according to a report prepared by the US senate sub-committee last month, had estimated that it cost US taxpayers $100 billion every year. LGT Group was one of the two entities named in the report.
But LGT denied the charges, saying, “Liechtenstein has very strict money laundering and KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations in place, and clients of LGT Group (as of any other Liechtenstein bank) are obliged to disclose the beneficial owner and have to give detailed information regarding the source of their assets”. But it said LGT is neither responsible for nor in control of the tax compliance of its customers.
LGT Group is a wealth and asset management group with or $91.5 billion of assets under its management.
Source: Business Standard
The Indian government has received sensitive information from its German counterpart regarding tax evaders, who have channelled money in a tax haven bank in Liechtenstein, a small European country known for hosting such banks, and it is unwilling to make these details public.
It is not known at this point of time whether the information exchanged between the two countries contain details of account holders from India.
It all started in February this year, when a former employee of LGT Bank in Liechtenstein sold data on about 1,400 people to tax authorities across the world. This was followed by investigations by Germany, the US, the UK, Australia, Italy and others. After receiving the stolen data, the German government initiated action against around 600 taxpayers for possible tax evasion. It has reportedly offered to provide data to any country that seeks information.
Subsequently, India’s finance ministry wrote its first letter to German authorities in February 2008 seeking information on Indian account holders and followed it up with another letter in June 2008, the government disclosed in a reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by the Indian-chapter of Transparency International.
When Transparency International asked for copies of correspondence between the two governments and the list of account holders in LGT Bank, the finance ministry replied saying that the exchange of information between India and Germany is covered under Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), which prohibits countries from sharing information.
“It’s not acceptable that the government is not disclosing the correspondence with the German government,” said Anupama Jha, executive director of Transparency International India.
In an e-mail response to a questionnaire sent to them, LGT Group said Indian authorities have not contacted them so far. “Due to client confidentiality laws, we are unable to disclose any client names. Also, with regard to stolen client data, we do not provide any nationality break-downs”, LGT spokesperson Christof Buri said. The German government did not respond to the questionnaire.
If the German government had given details of Indian account holders in LGT Bank, which is owned by the princely house of Liechtenstein, it will help domestic tax authorities to investigate tax evasion for money deposited in tax haven destinations. Tax haven locations thrive mainly because of difference in tax rates, often levying nil or very low taxation. Banks that operate in these locations are alleged to create complex offshore structures that will enable their clients to hide the assets from tax authorities.
This sort of tax evasion, according to a report prepared by the US senate sub-committee last month, had estimated that it cost US taxpayers $100 billion every year. LGT Group was one of the two entities named in the report.
But LGT denied the charges, saying, “Liechtenstein has very strict money laundering and KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations in place, and clients of LGT Group (as of any other Liechtenstein bank) are obliged to disclose the beneficial owner and have to give detailed information regarding the source of their assets”. But it said LGT is neither responsible for nor in control of the tax compliance of its customers.
LGT Group is a wealth and asset management group with or $91.5 billion of assets under its management.
Source: Business Standard
Romanian soccer investigated for tax evasion, embezzlement, money laundering
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Anti-corruption prosecutors began an investigation Thursday into top soccer officials involving money laundering and tax evasion in the transfer of Romanian players to foreign clubs.
The prosecutors say the state should have received ¤1.7 million (US$2.5 million) in revenue and tax if the actual amounts of money received in the transfers
had been registered in the accounts of the clubs.
Romanian prosecutors pieced together information about finances related to soccer deals from countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, China and South Korea. They say 12 players were transferred to foreign clubs for bigger amounts of money than stated in the accounts.
Ten people are under investigation, including Rapid Bucharest chairman Gheorghe Copos and Dinamo chairman Cristi Borcea. The 10 are accused of diverting more than ¤10 million (US$14.6 million) to bank accounts of offshore companies from the Virgin Islands and the Netherlands to avoid paying the full tax.
Soccer is one of the most popular sports in Romania, but it has recently been marred by claims of corruption and match-fixing.
http://www.pr-inside.com/romanian-soccer-investigated-for-tax-r391755.htm
The prosecutors say the state should have received ¤1.7 million (US$2.5 million) in revenue and tax if the actual amounts of money received in the transfers
had been registered in the accounts of the clubs.
Romanian prosecutors pieced together information about finances related to soccer deals from countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, China and South Korea. They say 12 players were transferred to foreign clubs for bigger amounts of money than stated in the accounts.
Ten people are under investigation, including Rapid Bucharest chairman Gheorghe Copos and Dinamo chairman Cristi Borcea. The 10 are accused of diverting more than ¤10 million (US$14.6 million) to bank accounts of offshore companies from the Virgin Islands and the Netherlands to avoid paying the full tax.
Soccer is one of the most popular sports in Romania, but it has recently been marred by claims of corruption and match-fixing.
http://www.pr-inside.com/romanian-soccer-investigated-for-tax-r391755.htm
Cocaine trade fuels Euro laundering
A cocaine boom in Europe and the continent’s strong currency have combined to fuel a thriving industry: euro laundering.
With the euro approaching $1.50 and soaring demand for cocaine in countries like Spain and Italy, Europe has become a far more lucrative place to do business for Latin American drug cartels than in previous years.
To obscure the origins of the funds, and escape government scrutiny in the process, the cartels use a complex system to launder their proceeds – much of which is landing on U.S. shores.
In late March, U.S. authorities arrested a man carrying a leather duffel bag who had just landed at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Santiago, Chile. Inside the bag was more than $1.9 million in cash, mostly in bundles of 500 euro and 200 euro notes.
U.S. and Chilean law enforcement officials believe the man was at the end of a money–laundering trail that begins in Europe. Over a period of four and a half years, he and his associates flew to the U.S. from Latin America some 280 times, openly toting more than $244 million worth of euros into the country, according to documents in a case brought by federal authorities in U.S. District Court in New York.
The big bills have become so symbolic of the lush life that they have recently crept into pop culture: The rapper Jay–Z’s video for Blue Magic – the debut single from his new album ’’American Gangster’’ – features a suitcase full of 500 euro notes and someone thumbing through a stack of them as Jay–Z raps the words, ’’the kilo business.’’ Hype Williams, director of the music video, said that he and Jay–Z chose euros because they are ’’more valuable’’ and because they wanted to ’’one–up’’ their hip–hop competitors by showing ’’the things people are into now.’’
The wads of euros carried by people like the man arrested at LAX are often the spoils of Europe–bound cocaine shipments – many of which transit through Africa, law–enforcement officials say.
Consumption of the drug has soared in much of Western Europe, according to a report released last year by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. In Italy, use of the drug rose to 2.1 percent of the general population in 2005 from 1.1 percent just four years earlier. In France, it tripled from 2000 to 2005, from 0.2 percent to 0.6 percent of the adult population. Cocaine use in England doubled from 1998 to 2006, according to Britain’s National Health Service, to 2.4 percent among adults.
Some narco–euros are laundered directly in Europe. But officials say the lion’s share is routed back to South America as cash and eventually ends up in the U.S.
’’This is still a cash business,’’ says Donald Semesky, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s head of financial–crimes investigations.
The first step is to convert small bills accumulated from thousands of street sales into 500 euro notes, which are easy to transport. Obtaining large quantities of these conspicuous notes, though, isn’t easy. So drug traffickers turn to specialized criminal rings – whose members are often involved in banking and real estate – to gain access to them, says Jose Manuel Alvarez Luna, chief of the money–laundering section of the Spanish police.
Spain is the center for such aggregation, according to authorities. A high–level Spanish banking official says a disproportionate share of the euro zone’s 500 euro notes, known as Bin Ladens for their scarcity, circulate in Spain.
The purpose of money–laundering is to disguise the criminal origins of ill–gotten gains so the funds appear legitimate. In most cases, laundering also helps criminals escape the notice of tax collectors and law–enforcement officials, boosting the value of their illegal proceeds.
Particularly since 9/11, tightened antilaundering regulations, known by banks as ’’know your customer’’ rules, have forced drug cartels to use more circuitous routes to circulate their funds around the globe.
For starters, the drug cartels do not themselves bring their narco–euros to the U.S. Instead, they usually sell their euros to South American black–market currency brokers or to foreign–exchange houses, known in Spanish as casas de cambio. The casas’ business as currency–exchange houses gives them a natural cover for moving large amounts of cash.
But in South America, there are few if any legitimate buyers for the huge sums of euros that the casas obtain – directly or indirectly – from the traffickers. So the casas funnel most of the narco–euros, sometimes via middlemen, through a chain of exchange houses in countries like Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Chile, says the DEA’s Mr. Semesky.
Often, the drug traffickers will sell their euros for Colombian pesos, and then the euros entering the U.S. no longer belong to the drug cartels but to the casa de cambio. In other cases, says Mr. Semesky, traffickers pay the casas to move funds into one of their U.S. bank accounts. These funds aren’t usually intended for withdrawal, but rather to pay various debts. This is achieved by wiring funds to the account of whomever the trafficker wishes to pay.
On a recent night at a bar on Madrid’s bustling Gran Via, a shirtless, tattooed waiter served tables and a buxom drag queen in a nurse’s uniform worked the crowd. In the trendy venue was a man in his 30s who talked by cellphone with his dealers. A few minutes later, he stepped outside, leaned into the window of a small car and handed over 60 euros, or about $90. For that sum, he received one gram of cocaine.
Such street sales have surged. Spain now has a larger percentage of its population (3 percent) using cocaine than the U.S. (2.3 percent), the previous top per–capita consumer, according to United Nations figures. In the first half of 2007, a kilo of cocaine sold for 33,000 euros, or about $43,900, in Madrid, more than triple the $12,500–$14,600 it fetched in Los Angeles and far more than the $13,000–$26,000 it sold for in New York, according to the Spanish police and the DEA.
Last year, seven European countries banded together to form the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center–Narcotics, or MAOC–N, an international agency dedicated to stopping drug traffic over the Atlantic. Already, the center is helping to make major busts.
In October, on the high seas off West Africa, Spanish authorities – acting on a tip from MAOC–N – seized an aging, cockroach–infested trawler. Called the Opnor, it allegedly had more than three metric tons of cocaine hidden below the floor of its cargo hold. Apparently registered in Panama, the vessel was captained by a grizzled Dutch man in his late 60s and is believed to have been heading toward Senegal.
The boat was following a typical pattern, authorities say. They surmise that, if it hadn’t been seized, its cocaine would have been warehoused in West Africa, where crushing poverty, weak law enforcement and, often, rampant corruption make for an ideal way station. The traffickers would have then sent the drugs to Europe by boat, either directly or via North Africa. Increasingly, say Spanish and American authorities, cocaine is also being flown from North Africa in small planes landing in Spain and Portugal on clandestine airstrips.
The traffickers were forced to take those routes because Spanish, Portuguese and British authorities were intercepting boats coming to Europe directly from South America.
Spain is a favorite entry point because of its proximity to Africa, its long coastline and its language, which it shares with Colombia and most other South American countries. Spanish officials say they seized almost 100 metric tons of cocaine in 2005 and 2006. According to United Nations statistics, Spain seized more cocaine than any European nation between 1999 and 2005.
Authorities suspect that Europe’s thriving cocaine business likely provided the euros in the duffel bag of Mauricio Mazza–Alaluf, the man arrested at LAX in March. Along with a cousin, Luis Mazza–Olmos, he ran an exchange house in downtown Santiago, Chile, according to U.S. and Chilean law–enforcement officials.
The probe into the Mazzas began in August 2004, says Christian Caamano, an investigator for the Investigative Police of Chile. The tip–off was a Peruvian passenger on a flight from Colombia who arrived at the Santiago airport carrying a backpack stuffed with 600,000 euros, according to Mr. Caamano. Alarmed, Chilean authorities began monitoring such couriers and noticed that they dropped off their bags full of euros at the Mazzas’ exchange house.
Later, the Mazzas’ routine evolved: A courier from Colombia, allegedly carrying European proceeds, would deliver cash at the Santiago airport to an armored–car service. Personnel would count the money in a parked truck and turn it over to the Mazzas or one of their associates, says Hernan Penafiel, the lead prosecutor in a parallel case brought in Chile against the Mazzas. One of the Mazzas or their associates would then board a U.S.–bound flight with the money, Mr. Penafiel says.
Once on U.S. soil, according to authorities, the Mazzas allegedly moved their euros with breathtaking openness. Their main tactic was to dutifully fill out paperwork at customs points and financial institutions, using real family and business names, according to law enforcement officials and court documents from the U.S. case.
After the Mazzas or their associates cleared customs at Los Angeles International Airport, they would transfer their cash to Associated Foreign Exchange Banknotes Inc., a currency–exchange firm headquartered in Encino, Calif. AFEX Banknotes then converted the euros into dollars and wired the dollars to U.S. bank accounts the Mazzas had opened, according to law–enforcement officials and two AFEX Banknotes employees.
The Mazzas had accounts with at least three banks in the U.S., according to the court documents from the New York case: Israel Discount Bank of New York; Harris Bank in Chicago; and J.P. Morgan Chase in Dearborn, Mich. In opening each account, the Mazzas gave their company’s real name and openly described it as a tourism and currency–exchange agency.
The Mazzas proceeded to move huge sums of money through these accounts, according to the court documents, often after receiving faxed instructions, intercepted by Chilean authorities, from people or entities with suspected ties to Colombian traffickers.
In a single year, according to court documents, the Mazzas wired $133 million into the Harris Bank account and $117 million out. At their J.P. Morgan Chase account, they wired $35.5 million in and $34 million out in less than three months, and their IDB checking account recorded more than 2,500 transactions totaling more than $29 million during 2003 and 2005, according to the court documents.
Asked to comment, Harris Bank said in a written statement that it ’’identified suspicious activity’’ after conducting its own investigation and ’’closed the account in accordance with banking regulations.’’ IDB said in a statement that the events outlined in the New York case ’’occurred under former management’’ and it no longer maintains accounts for unlicensed money transmitters, including the Mazzas’ casa de cambio. Chase declined to comment.
AFEX Banknotes compliance officer Andrew Scherer says his company is ’’mortified’’ that it may have helped facilitate illegal activity, but added that it has strong anti–money–laundering policies and has taken ’’substantive measures’’ to improve its anti–money–laundering policies in the wake of the Mazza case. He declined to be more specific, citing security concerns.
When Mr. Mazza–Alaluf landed at LAX on March 31, he didn’t attempt to conceal his money. Like he and his associates had done hundreds of times before, he filled out the standard declaration forms, a requirement for passengers entering the U.S. carrying more than $10,000 worth of currency. But this time, he was immediately arrested. The 55–year–old Chilean maintained his innocence.
Mr. Mazza–Alaluf has pleaded not guilty to federal felony charges of conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money–transmitting business. His attorney, Bernard Alan Seidler, calls the charges ’’a classic case of the government overreaching.’’
Chilean authorities nabbed members of the Mazza clan and their associates in a coordinated operation. They are now in jail in Santiago, facing money–laundering charges. Their lawyer, Yieninson Yapur, says they are all innocent. In an email sent via Mr. Yapur, Mr. Mazza–Olmos said he is a legitimate businessman and has done nothing illegal.
The U.S. investigation of the Mazza case was conducted by a multi–agency task force based in New York and led by the DEA and the Internal Revenue Service. Officials tout it as an important success. But it’s unlikely to significantly restrict the flow of narco–euros gushing out of Europe.
On a recent afternoon, far from the glitz of the night life on Gran Via, a homeless addict walked around in a northern Madrid shantytown with a syringe hanging out of his forearm.
Even as police tore down the surrounding shacks to make way for a new development, residents hammered away, rebuilding their wood and cardboard houses. ’’The demand for cocaine is huge, so knocking these shacks down does nothing,’’ says Gema Bautista, a social worker with Fundacion Atenea Grupo GID, which runs a mobile clinic and needle–exchange program. ’’The shacks just pop up again.’’
http://www.caycompass.com/cgi-bin/CFPnews.cgi?ID=1027901
With the euro approaching $1.50 and soaring demand for cocaine in countries like Spain and Italy, Europe has become a far more lucrative place to do business for Latin American drug cartels than in previous years.
To obscure the origins of the funds, and escape government scrutiny in the process, the cartels use a complex system to launder their proceeds – much of which is landing on U.S. shores.
In late March, U.S. authorities arrested a man carrying a leather duffel bag who had just landed at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Santiago, Chile. Inside the bag was more than $1.9 million in cash, mostly in bundles of 500 euro and 200 euro notes.
U.S. and Chilean law enforcement officials believe the man was at the end of a money–laundering trail that begins in Europe. Over a period of four and a half years, he and his associates flew to the U.S. from Latin America some 280 times, openly toting more than $244 million worth of euros into the country, according to documents in a case brought by federal authorities in U.S. District Court in New York.
The big bills have become so symbolic of the lush life that they have recently crept into pop culture: The rapper Jay–Z’s video for Blue Magic – the debut single from his new album ’’American Gangster’’ – features a suitcase full of 500 euro notes and someone thumbing through a stack of them as Jay–Z raps the words, ’’the kilo business.’’ Hype Williams, director of the music video, said that he and Jay–Z chose euros because they are ’’more valuable’’ and because they wanted to ’’one–up’’ their hip–hop competitors by showing ’’the things people are into now.’’
The wads of euros carried by people like the man arrested at LAX are often the spoils of Europe–bound cocaine shipments – many of which transit through Africa, law–enforcement officials say.
Consumption of the drug has soared in much of Western Europe, according to a report released last year by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. In Italy, use of the drug rose to 2.1 percent of the general population in 2005 from 1.1 percent just four years earlier. In France, it tripled from 2000 to 2005, from 0.2 percent to 0.6 percent of the adult population. Cocaine use in England doubled from 1998 to 2006, according to Britain’s National Health Service, to 2.4 percent among adults.
Some narco–euros are laundered directly in Europe. But officials say the lion’s share is routed back to South America as cash and eventually ends up in the U.S.
’’This is still a cash business,’’ says Donald Semesky, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s head of financial–crimes investigations.
The first step is to convert small bills accumulated from thousands of street sales into 500 euro notes, which are easy to transport. Obtaining large quantities of these conspicuous notes, though, isn’t easy. So drug traffickers turn to specialized criminal rings – whose members are often involved in banking and real estate – to gain access to them, says Jose Manuel Alvarez Luna, chief of the money–laundering section of the Spanish police.
Spain is the center for such aggregation, according to authorities. A high–level Spanish banking official says a disproportionate share of the euro zone’s 500 euro notes, known as Bin Ladens for their scarcity, circulate in Spain.
The purpose of money–laundering is to disguise the criminal origins of ill–gotten gains so the funds appear legitimate. In most cases, laundering also helps criminals escape the notice of tax collectors and law–enforcement officials, boosting the value of their illegal proceeds.
Particularly since 9/11, tightened antilaundering regulations, known by banks as ’’know your customer’’ rules, have forced drug cartels to use more circuitous routes to circulate their funds around the globe.
For starters, the drug cartels do not themselves bring their narco–euros to the U.S. Instead, they usually sell their euros to South American black–market currency brokers or to foreign–exchange houses, known in Spanish as casas de cambio. The casas’ business as currency–exchange houses gives them a natural cover for moving large amounts of cash.
But in South America, there are few if any legitimate buyers for the huge sums of euros that the casas obtain – directly or indirectly – from the traffickers. So the casas funnel most of the narco–euros, sometimes via middlemen, through a chain of exchange houses in countries like Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Chile, says the DEA’s Mr. Semesky.
Often, the drug traffickers will sell their euros for Colombian pesos, and then the euros entering the U.S. no longer belong to the drug cartels but to the casa de cambio. In other cases, says Mr. Semesky, traffickers pay the casas to move funds into one of their U.S. bank accounts. These funds aren’t usually intended for withdrawal, but rather to pay various debts. This is achieved by wiring funds to the account of whomever the trafficker wishes to pay.
On a recent night at a bar on Madrid’s bustling Gran Via, a shirtless, tattooed waiter served tables and a buxom drag queen in a nurse’s uniform worked the crowd. In the trendy venue was a man in his 30s who talked by cellphone with his dealers. A few minutes later, he stepped outside, leaned into the window of a small car and handed over 60 euros, or about $90. For that sum, he received one gram of cocaine.
Such street sales have surged. Spain now has a larger percentage of its population (3 percent) using cocaine than the U.S. (2.3 percent), the previous top per–capita consumer, according to United Nations figures. In the first half of 2007, a kilo of cocaine sold for 33,000 euros, or about $43,900, in Madrid, more than triple the $12,500–$14,600 it fetched in Los Angeles and far more than the $13,000–$26,000 it sold for in New York, according to the Spanish police and the DEA.
Last year, seven European countries banded together to form the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center–Narcotics, or MAOC–N, an international agency dedicated to stopping drug traffic over the Atlantic. Already, the center is helping to make major busts.
In October, on the high seas off West Africa, Spanish authorities – acting on a tip from MAOC–N – seized an aging, cockroach–infested trawler. Called the Opnor, it allegedly had more than three metric tons of cocaine hidden below the floor of its cargo hold. Apparently registered in Panama, the vessel was captained by a grizzled Dutch man in his late 60s and is believed to have been heading toward Senegal.
The boat was following a typical pattern, authorities say. They surmise that, if it hadn’t been seized, its cocaine would have been warehoused in West Africa, where crushing poverty, weak law enforcement and, often, rampant corruption make for an ideal way station. The traffickers would have then sent the drugs to Europe by boat, either directly or via North Africa. Increasingly, say Spanish and American authorities, cocaine is also being flown from North Africa in small planes landing in Spain and Portugal on clandestine airstrips.
The traffickers were forced to take those routes because Spanish, Portuguese and British authorities were intercepting boats coming to Europe directly from South America.
Spain is a favorite entry point because of its proximity to Africa, its long coastline and its language, which it shares with Colombia and most other South American countries. Spanish officials say they seized almost 100 metric tons of cocaine in 2005 and 2006. According to United Nations statistics, Spain seized more cocaine than any European nation between 1999 and 2005.
Authorities suspect that Europe’s thriving cocaine business likely provided the euros in the duffel bag of Mauricio Mazza–Alaluf, the man arrested at LAX in March. Along with a cousin, Luis Mazza–Olmos, he ran an exchange house in downtown Santiago, Chile, according to U.S. and Chilean law–enforcement officials.
The probe into the Mazzas began in August 2004, says Christian Caamano, an investigator for the Investigative Police of Chile. The tip–off was a Peruvian passenger on a flight from Colombia who arrived at the Santiago airport carrying a backpack stuffed with 600,000 euros, according to Mr. Caamano. Alarmed, Chilean authorities began monitoring such couriers and noticed that they dropped off their bags full of euros at the Mazzas’ exchange house.
Later, the Mazzas’ routine evolved: A courier from Colombia, allegedly carrying European proceeds, would deliver cash at the Santiago airport to an armored–car service. Personnel would count the money in a parked truck and turn it over to the Mazzas or one of their associates, says Hernan Penafiel, the lead prosecutor in a parallel case brought in Chile against the Mazzas. One of the Mazzas or their associates would then board a U.S.–bound flight with the money, Mr. Penafiel says.
Once on U.S. soil, according to authorities, the Mazzas allegedly moved their euros with breathtaking openness. Their main tactic was to dutifully fill out paperwork at customs points and financial institutions, using real family and business names, according to law enforcement officials and court documents from the U.S. case.
After the Mazzas or their associates cleared customs at Los Angeles International Airport, they would transfer their cash to Associated Foreign Exchange Banknotes Inc., a currency–exchange firm headquartered in Encino, Calif. AFEX Banknotes then converted the euros into dollars and wired the dollars to U.S. bank accounts the Mazzas had opened, according to law–enforcement officials and two AFEX Banknotes employees.
The Mazzas had accounts with at least three banks in the U.S., according to the court documents from the New York case: Israel Discount Bank of New York; Harris Bank in Chicago; and J.P. Morgan Chase in Dearborn, Mich. In opening each account, the Mazzas gave their company’s real name and openly described it as a tourism and currency–exchange agency.
The Mazzas proceeded to move huge sums of money through these accounts, according to the court documents, often after receiving faxed instructions, intercepted by Chilean authorities, from people or entities with suspected ties to Colombian traffickers.
In a single year, according to court documents, the Mazzas wired $133 million into the Harris Bank account and $117 million out. At their J.P. Morgan Chase account, they wired $35.5 million in and $34 million out in less than three months, and their IDB checking account recorded more than 2,500 transactions totaling more than $29 million during 2003 and 2005, according to the court documents.
Asked to comment, Harris Bank said in a written statement that it ’’identified suspicious activity’’ after conducting its own investigation and ’’closed the account in accordance with banking regulations.’’ IDB said in a statement that the events outlined in the New York case ’’occurred under former management’’ and it no longer maintains accounts for unlicensed money transmitters, including the Mazzas’ casa de cambio. Chase declined to comment.
AFEX Banknotes compliance officer Andrew Scherer says his company is ’’mortified’’ that it may have helped facilitate illegal activity, but added that it has strong anti–money–laundering policies and has taken ’’substantive measures’’ to improve its anti–money–laundering policies in the wake of the Mazza case. He declined to be more specific, citing security concerns.
When Mr. Mazza–Alaluf landed at LAX on March 31, he didn’t attempt to conceal his money. Like he and his associates had done hundreds of times before, he filled out the standard declaration forms, a requirement for passengers entering the U.S. carrying more than $10,000 worth of currency. But this time, he was immediately arrested. The 55–year–old Chilean maintained his innocence.
Mr. Mazza–Alaluf has pleaded not guilty to federal felony charges of conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money–transmitting business. His attorney, Bernard Alan Seidler, calls the charges ’’a classic case of the government overreaching.’’
Chilean authorities nabbed members of the Mazza clan and their associates in a coordinated operation. They are now in jail in Santiago, facing money–laundering charges. Their lawyer, Yieninson Yapur, says they are all innocent. In an email sent via Mr. Yapur, Mr. Mazza–Olmos said he is a legitimate businessman and has done nothing illegal.
The U.S. investigation of the Mazza case was conducted by a multi–agency task force based in New York and led by the DEA and the Internal Revenue Service. Officials tout it as an important success. But it’s unlikely to significantly restrict the flow of narco–euros gushing out of Europe.
On a recent afternoon, far from the glitz of the night life on Gran Via, a homeless addict walked around in a northern Madrid shantytown with a syringe hanging out of his forearm.
Even as police tore down the surrounding shacks to make way for a new development, residents hammered away, rebuilding their wood and cardboard houses. ’’The demand for cocaine is huge, so knocking these shacks down does nothing,’’ says Gema Bautista, a social worker with Fundacion Atenea Grupo GID, which runs a mobile clinic and needle–exchange program. ’’The shacks just pop up again.’’
http://www.caycompass.com/cgi-bin/CFPnews.cgi?ID=1027901
EU to tighten screw on Tehran bank
By Daniel Dombey in Washington, Financial Times, 15 May 2008
Bank Melli, Iran's biggest commercial bank, is set to be banned from operating in the European Union under proposals in the final stages of discussion in Brussels.
At present, the bank operates branches in the City of London, France and Germany, so blunting American calls for other jurisdictions to break off ties with Iranian institutions, particularly in the Gulf.
"It is important for the EU to come to agreement on stepping up financial pressure on Iranian banks as a means of demonstrating to the Iranian regime how seriously we take their nuclear proliferation," said a European diplomat.
But the time and effort it has taken to get agreement on the move, which comes after a year-long push by the US and its allies, highlight the problems Washington may face in its quest to win international support for tougher sanctions and so convince Tehran to rein in its nuclear programme.
"Many people around the world are looking to Europe on this issue," Stuart Levey, US treasury undersecretary, told the FT. "What Europe does is quite important."
The US effort dates back to last summer, when negotiations began on a UN Security Council resolution that Washington and its allies wanted to prevent Melli and another Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from doing business internationally.
In October, the Bush administration intensified its effort with unilateral sanctions against a number of Iranian institutions – including both Melli and Saderat – measures that Washington pushed other jurisdictions to emulate.
"We call on responsible banks and companies around the world to terminate any business with Bank Melli, Bank Mellat [another Iranian bank], Bank Saderat, and all companies and entities of [Iran's] Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps," Hank Paulson, treasury secretary, said on that occasion.
However, Washington found itself caught in a "catch-22" when it pushed the UK, its closest ally, to close Melli and Saderat's operations in London. Britain said it could act only as part of a general EU decision and, within the EU, countries such as Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy called for a UN decision before they would proceed.
Seeking to break the impasse, the US, Britain and France finally won agreement on a UN Security Council resolution in March that merely called on member states to exercise "vigilance" over Iranian banks, especially Bank Melli and Bank Saderat, due to what it said was their link to proliferation and Iran's nuclear programme.
"It's pretty clear that the US had hoped that this would happen more quickly and perhaps be a little bit more robust," said Mr Levey.
Diplomats said the UN resolution was designed to "open the door" to an outright EU ban on the banks' subsidiaries in Europe. However, the EU has been reluctant to take action against Bank Saderat, which is principally faulted by the US for funnelling funds to Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement. The Islamist organisation is not on the EU's list of proscribed terrorist organisations.
Throughout the past year, Iran has continued to expand its nuclear programme, announcing plans last month to install 6,000 new centrifuges to enrich uranium – although many western diplomats and analysts question their efficiency.
While Iran insists its programme is purely peaceful, the US and its allies accuse it of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
US diplomats add that at present they are reluctant to embark on an attempt to pass another UN Security Council resolution because of the risk that it will provide meagre returns while highlighting differences with Russia and China, which are sceptical about further sanctions.
But Mr Levey said the financial sanctions, international warnings about the risk of money laundering and terror-financing in Iran, and related moves by international banks to scale down business with Tehran had had a big impact.
"It certainly has made the cost of financing [in Iran] to the extent that anyone has offered it at all, much more expensive," he said.
http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=563862
Bank Melli, Iran's biggest commercial bank, is set to be banned from operating in the European Union under proposals in the final stages of discussion in Brussels.
At present, the bank operates branches in the City of London, France and Germany, so blunting American calls for other jurisdictions to break off ties with Iranian institutions, particularly in the Gulf.
"It is important for the EU to come to agreement on stepping up financial pressure on Iranian banks as a means of demonstrating to the Iranian regime how seriously we take their nuclear proliferation," said a European diplomat.
But the time and effort it has taken to get agreement on the move, which comes after a year-long push by the US and its allies, highlight the problems Washington may face in its quest to win international support for tougher sanctions and so convince Tehran to rein in its nuclear programme.
"Many people around the world are looking to Europe on this issue," Stuart Levey, US treasury undersecretary, told the FT. "What Europe does is quite important."
The US effort dates back to last summer, when negotiations began on a UN Security Council resolution that Washington and its allies wanted to prevent Melli and another Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from doing business internationally.
In October, the Bush administration intensified its effort with unilateral sanctions against a number of Iranian institutions – including both Melli and Saderat – measures that Washington pushed other jurisdictions to emulate.
"We call on responsible banks and companies around the world to terminate any business with Bank Melli, Bank Mellat [another Iranian bank], Bank Saderat, and all companies and entities of [Iran's] Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps," Hank Paulson, treasury secretary, said on that occasion.
However, Washington found itself caught in a "catch-22" when it pushed the UK, its closest ally, to close Melli and Saderat's operations in London. Britain said it could act only as part of a general EU decision and, within the EU, countries such as Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy called for a UN decision before they would proceed.
Seeking to break the impasse, the US, Britain and France finally won agreement on a UN Security Council resolution in March that merely called on member states to exercise "vigilance" over Iranian banks, especially Bank Melli and Bank Saderat, due to what it said was their link to proliferation and Iran's nuclear programme.
"It's pretty clear that the US had hoped that this would happen more quickly and perhaps be a little bit more robust," said Mr Levey.
Diplomats said the UN resolution was designed to "open the door" to an outright EU ban on the banks' subsidiaries in Europe. However, the EU has been reluctant to take action against Bank Saderat, which is principally faulted by the US for funnelling funds to Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement. The Islamist organisation is not on the EU's list of proscribed terrorist organisations.
Throughout the past year, Iran has continued to expand its nuclear programme, announcing plans last month to install 6,000 new centrifuges to enrich uranium – although many western diplomats and analysts question their efficiency.
While Iran insists its programme is purely peaceful, the US and its allies accuse it of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
US diplomats add that at present they are reluctant to embark on an attempt to pass another UN Security Council resolution because of the risk that it will provide meagre returns while highlighting differences with Russia and China, which are sceptical about further sanctions.
But Mr Levey said the financial sanctions, international warnings about the risk of money laundering and terror-financing in Iran, and related moves by international banks to scale down business with Tehran had had a big impact.
"It certainly has made the cost of financing [in Iran] to the extent that anyone has offered it at all, much more expensive," he said.
http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=563862
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