440 likes | 566 Views
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists. Landmark Hotel Amman, Jordan. December 2 nd – 4 th , 2011. Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists. War Stories From The Front Line of Money Laundering. Who Launders Money?
E N D
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists Landmark Hotel Amman, Jordan. December 2nd – 4th , 2011
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists War Stories From The Front Line of Money Laundering
Who Launders Money? Criminals (Drug Traffickers, Fraudsters) Tax Evaders (Citizens, mostly Corporates) Governments (Security Services) Politically Exposed Persons (Corruption) Terrorists ( but not very much) Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists
Who helps the Money Laundering Process? Cronies/Friends Lawyers/Accountants Government Agencies Family Bankers Financial Advisers Sympathisers Legal Systems defining inward investment Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists What about cash-based economies? Pakistan Some South-East Asian countries Black African countries
Money laundering systems can be complex, but they can also be very simple. 2 Examples of complex systems Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists The European end of the Pizza Connection Heroin Money Trail Heroin money from USA - Vatican Bank John Solly (IoM) Thomas Haas London Euro-Brokers Continental Ltd. 1981 Offshore companies Patrick Diamond (IoM) Money from Investors 2
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists Katiza Ltd Mulcarn Brokers Ltd NewOrleans Commodity Exchange Euro-Brokers Continental Ltd. 1981 2
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists Magwich Ltd Conacre Ltd Intevell Ltd Heritage Investments USA Katiza Ltd Nettleville Investments N.O.C.E EBC Mulcarn Commodities Mulcarn Capital Rothschild Rubenstein IoM ltd Rothschild Rubenstein Bank, BVI. Mulcarn Brokers Ltd 2
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists New Orleans Commodities Exchange Mulcarn E.B.C. Heroin money from USA via Europe and offshore. Katiza Investor’s money from European sales groups Nettleville ‘Clean’ profits from swirched sales sent to Swiss banks Investor’s losses Intevell Magwich Rothschild Rubenstein Heritage Investments New Orleans Commodities Exchange 2
Eastern European State Looting Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists
The Eastern European Dimension Former State Owned Industry Looted 2
The Eastern European Dimension Profits received Russian Organised Crime Group 2
The Eastern European Dimension Russian Bank $ Dirty cash from Russian Frauds 2
The Eastern European Dimension Russian Bank Funds Romanian Bank $ Dirty cash from Russian Frauds 2
The Eastern European Dimension Romanian Bank Russian Funds 2
The Eastern European Dimension Romanian Bank $$$$$ Loans 2
The Eastern European Dimension Romanian Bank $$$$$ 2
The Eastern European Dimension Hungarian Organised Crime Group Romanian Bank $$$$$ 2
The Eastern European Dimension $$$ CRONY LOANS Romanian Bank 51% Social Capital 2
The Eastern European Dimension UK Company1 Capitalisation UK Company 2 Capitalisation 2
The Eastern European Dimension UK Company1 Capital Transfers $$$$$$$ UK Company 2 2
The Eastern European Dimension Romanian Bank UK Companies Re-investment Offer from UK 2
The Eastern European Dimension Romanian Bank UK Companies Russian Bank Re-investment Offer from UK 2
The Eastern European Dimension Romanian Bank Russian Bank Bucharest Casino 2
The Eastern European Dimension Romanian Bank Crime Profits from sale of former State Industries Bucharest Casino Russian Bank Purported profits from Casino 2
The Eastern European Dimension Bucharest Casino Romanian Bank UK Companies Re-investment Offer from UK Laundered profits from Crime 2
The Eastern European Dimension Bad debts from UK Co’s written off. Money from criminal activities Cash from loans paid back to bank 2
The Eastern European Dimension Bad debts from UK Co’s written off. Money from criminal activities Criminal money and loan money intermingled in bank 2
The Eastern European Dimension Offshore Companies created in BVI, Turks & Caicos islands, Cyprus, Vanuatu, etc. Bad debts from UK Co’s written off. Money from criminal activities Criminal money and loan money intermingled in bank 2
The Eastern European Dimension Loans to offshore Companies $ Money from laundered activities 2
$ The Eastern European Dimension Israeli/Russian Criminal Money in Tel Aviv companies 2
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists Who are the biggest supporters of Dictators and other oligarchs? The Global Big Banks
Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists When Heads of State and their immediate families, relatives, advisers, cronies and other related hangers-on want to open a bank account, they don’t go and queue at the bank in the High Street! No, the banks will send a protocol officer to see them and wait on them in their palaces. They will complete all the necessary details (or lack of them) and they will advise on the international facilities they can offer to guarantee secrecy!
Barclays Bank was holding a personal account for Teodorin Obiang, son of the president of oil-rich but dirt-poor Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s worst kleptocracies. Despite his $4,000 a month salary as a minister in his father’s government, Teodorin owns a $35 million mansion in Malibu and a fleet of fast cars, and claimed to a court hearing in South Africa that in Equatorial Guinea it is normal for ministers to end up with a sizeable chunk of government contracts in their pockets.
HSBC and Banco Santander hid behind bank secrecy laws in Luxembourg and Spain to avoid revealing the owners of accounts they held which received suspicious transfers of millions of dollars of Equatorial Guinea’s oil money.
Despite the fact that the US bank Riggs collapsed and was sold at a discount after a Senate inquiry investigated its handling of Equatorial Guinea’s oil funds (which included numerous payments into the president’s personal accounts), unknown commercial banks are still holding the Equatorial Guinea oil funds, with no transparency over their location and use. When Riggs collapsed in 2004 the oil funds were at $700 million; they are now at more than $2 billion.
Citibank, through correspondent banking relationships, enabled Charles Taylor, the ex-president of Liberia now on trial for war crimes, to use the global banking system to earn revenues from timber sales, which were fuelling his war effort as well as being diverted into his personal bank account. Fortis was also involved in processing payments for timber that was fuelling Liberia’s brutal conflict.
Deutsche Bank was the banker for the late President Niyazov of Turkmenistan, whose regime was notorious for human rights abuses, repression and impoverishment of the population. Deutsche Bank held the central bank accounts for gas-rich Turkmenistan for 15 years, despite the fact that the money was being kept out of the national budget and was effectively under the personal control of Niyazov.
Bank of East Asia, Hong Kong’s third largest bank, and offshore companies in Hong Kong and the UK Overseas Territory of Anguilla helped funnel Republic of Congo’s oil money into an account controlled by the president’s son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, which he used to pay his personal credit card bills after frequent luxury shopping sprees.
President Abacha of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998 Stole an estimated US$4 billion took money directly from the Treasury awarded contracts to front companies took bribes from foreign contractors • Money deposited in overseas accounts by his sons • FSA investigation report published in March 2001 • looked at 42 Abacha accounts in 23 UK banks • 15 of the banks had significant control weaknesses • total turnover of accounts over 4 years = $1.3 billion • 98% of that went through the 15 identified banks • Involved banks named and shamed by the Guardian Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists
The Stolen Money Trail By ANTHEA LAWSON Published: November 23, 2011 Earlier this month, Swiss bank regulators found that four Swiss banks had not done enough to identify dictators’ assets they held. Earlier this year, Britain ’s Financial Services Authority investigation into London banks found that three quarters of them were not doing enough to verify the sources of some customers’ wealth. These probes shed some light on a system that is failing to stop the flow of corrupt money, a problem that continues to have disastrous consequences for millions of people. Neither regulator, however, has named the banks that have fallen afoul of the rules, nor given any indication they will do so. They also fail to answer the fundamental question of what this money was doing in Swiss or British banks in the first place. Let’s put this in context. Three entrenched, repressive and corrupt regimes fell this year largely because the people they ruled were fed up with epic levels of corruption. Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists
That kind of corruption cannot happen without a bank. Dictators cannot steal millions of dollars from the state, nor accept massive bribes, if the money has to be kept under the bed. Payments for natural resources like oil and gas do not arrive in dollar bills, they are paid by bank transfer; increasingly, bribes and rake-offs from commercial deals are too. Plus it’s safer to keep money out of the country away from opponents, and accessible if you’re ousted from power. As a result of the convulsions across the Middle East and North Africa, the Swiss were among the first to freeze Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan assets, beating both the European Union and the United States (the latter only froze Libyan funds). Following the freeze, Swiss banks identified 470 million Swiss francs ($511 million) in the accounts of Tunisian and Egyptian politicians and 360 million Swiss francs ($391 million) of Libyan assets. Fourth Annual ARIJ Conference for Arab Investigative Journalists