Posts Tagged ‘money laundering’
Vatican bank has new rule to combat money laundering
The Vatican will announce new rules to combat financial crime on Thursday as it continues to deal with a money-laundering probe that has seen 23 million euros frozen from its banking institution.
The Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday that Pope Benedict would issue a so-called apostolic letter on combating financial crime, money laundering and the funding of terrorism. The Holy See would create a financial information authority.
The Vatican bank, formally known as the Institution for Religious Works (IOR), has been under investigation for suspected violations of European Union money laundering rules since September. It denies any wrongdoing…
Finance police have frozen 23 million euros of the IOR’s funds held in an account in an Italian bank in Rome after authorities deemed that two transactions were suspicious.
Oh – the rule?
Thou shalt not hire crooks to run the bank!
Texas jury finds Tom DeLay guilty of money laundering
A Travis County jury today found former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay guilty of political money laundering charges relating to a corporate money swap in the 2002 elections.
The verdict came down five years after DeLay was forced to step down as the second most powerful Republican in the U.S. House. The charges also led DeLay to resign from his Sugar Land congressional seat in 2006.
DeLay was accused of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. On the conspiracy charge, DeLay faces a sentence of two to 20 years in prison and five to 99 years or life in prison on the money laundering count…
At the center of the case against DeLay was an exchange of $190,000 in corporate donations to TRMPAC for an equal amount of money donated by individuals to the Republican National Committee. The RNC money was given to seven Texas candidates specified by TRMPAC.
Corporate money cannot be used in candidate campaigns in Texas.
Not that it’s a problem any longer in national elections – thanks to the Republican/Roberts Supreme Court.
Still, it’s nice to a little corruption recognized for the slime and crime that it is.
Ex-GOP official arrested for fraud, theft, money laundering
The Republican Flag
Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer has been charged with six felony counts for allegedly directing state party funds to his consulting company, which then paid him.
Greer, 47, faces one count of organized fraud, four counts of grand theft and one count of money laundering, prosecutor Bill Shepherd said.
Greer left the post in February after a chorus of state Republican leaders and donors raised questions about his leadership and management of party funds.
Someone didn’t get their share.
Governor Crist, asked about the arrest during a news conference about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, said it was “obviously disappointing and surprising.”
“I have faith in our judicial system,” Crist said. “I know they will handle it appropriately.”
Prosecutors accused Greer of steering $199,254 in state party money to Victory Strategies, a company he set up with former state Republican Party Executive Director Delmar Johnson.
Victory Strategies, which paid Greer $125,161, was given “a large amount for services that were never performed” by the company, prosecutors alleged.
Family values triumphs, once again.
This is the schmuck who got his national 15 minutes of fame – defaming the president for telling school kids to work hard and stay in school. He got his lying face all over the airwaves!
“Socialist indoctrination” – my aunt Petunia’s polkadot knickers.
Irish Godfather captured as police launch European raids
Police in Britain, Spain and the Republic of Ireland have arrested 32 people in raids against an alleged major international criminal group.
Among those detained is Christy Kinahan, dubbed the “Irish godfather”, who is accused of leading the group. The Irish-born Briton, 53, was arrested with his sons in Malaga, Spain.
The network is suspected of trafficking large quantities of drugs and firearms, and of laundering hundreds of millions of pounds, UK officials said.
Twenty people were arrested in Spain, 11 in the UK, and one in Ireland…
Some 750 police officers were involved in the raids, which were co-ordinated from London, Dublin and Malaga.
Officers also searched property in Belgium, Cyprus and Brazil.
Spanish police arrested Mr Kinahan together with his family, other British and Irish suspects and four Spanish lawyers.
OK. I’ll leave off a lawyers joke.
Former Mexican governor in US court for drugs, money laundering
The former governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo has appeared in court in New York charged with plotting to import cocaine and money laundering.
On Sunday, Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid became the most senior Mexican politician to be extradited to the US on drugs charges. He allegedly helped the Juarez cartel smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the US.
Mr Villanueva was governor of the Caribbean state from 1993 to 1999.
US prosecutor Preet Bharara has accused him of turning Quintana Roo “into a virtual narco-state, selling its infrastructure and even its police to one of the world’s most dangerous mafia enterprises”.
Mr Villanueva was sentenced to six years in prison in Mexico for money laundering in 2001. He was released in 2007, but re-arrested immediately when the US requested his extradition.
Send some of his corrupt fellow politicians along to keep him company.
State Department official = Lobbyist = Money laundering, fraud
A former State Department official who is now a lobbyist has been charged with earning hundreds of thousands of dollars representing the Sudanese government in violation of United States sanctions.
A federal indictment accuses the lobbyist, Robert J. Cabelly, who had worked on Africa issues for the State Department during the 1980s and ’90s, with illegally acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country, money laundering, passport fraud and making false statements.
Between 2005 and 2007, the indictment says, Mr. Cabelly violated United States sanctions against Sudan by helping it find international investors to develop that country’s largely untapped oil reserves…
According to the indictment, Mr. Cabelly was paid at least $530,000 a year, and had additional unreported funds directly deposited into accounts in the Cook Islands.
Once the Oil Patch Boys get their greedy fingers into a country they are relentless. They have enough of our dollars to pay for any size flunky they wish for – to do their dirty work.
That includes Cabelly, btw – if you thought I was only referring to Bush and Cheney.
9 indicted in U.S.-Israel tax fraud ring
Marvin Berkowitz in a Tel Aviv courtroom – between Israeli coppers in casual dress
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
An American-Israeli crime ring conspired to defraud United States tax authorities of tens of millions of dollars for at least five years, according to Israeli and American court documents.
The suspects filed thousands of fraudulent requests for tax refunds in the names of prisoners in federal penitentiaries, without the prisoners’ knowledge, according to an indictment filed in Chicago. They then laundered the money through Israeli bank accounts, the authorities said.
Two Americans and seven Israelis went to a Tel Aviv court for a hearing on Monday in connection with the case. Other Americans have been arrested in Chicago and other parts of the United States.
The man accused of leading the ring, Marvin Berkowitz, 62, fled the United States for Israel in 2003, according to the Israeli authorities, and has been living in Jerusalem…
The American indictment states that the suspects sought to get more than $35 million in federal and state income tax refunds. Israeli investigators say they have found $12 million worth of tax refunds in Israeli bank accounts controlled by Mr. Berkowitz and his accomplices…
Federal officials said the men had sought tax refunds using the identities of about 3,300 federal prisoners. Mr. Berkowitz, who was charged with six counts of identity theft, is suspected of recruiting and paying others to travel to federal courthouses to collect personal information about federal inmates, including Social Security numbers.
I know our government has been inept for years when it comes to communicating between departments; but, I think folks are starting to talk to each other – and especially to the IRS.
Mayhap we’re reaching the point where the only thugs who escape detection for tax fraud are those who own the right Congressman.
Ponzi schemer untouchable because of DEA connection?
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
Evidence has emerged that the Texan who bankrolled English cricket may have been a US government informer.
Sir Allen Stanford, who is accused of bank fraud, is the subject of an investigation by the BBC’s Panorama.
Sources told Panorama that if he was a paid anti-drug agency informer, that could explain why a 2006 probe into his financial dealings was quietly dropped.
Sir Allen vigorously denies allegations of financial wrongdoing, despite a massive shortfall in his bank’s assets. Of the $7.2bn in deposits claimed by the bank, only $500m has been traced.
Secret documents seen by Panorama show both governments knew in 1990 that the Texan was a former bankrupt and his first bank was suspected of involvement with Latin American money-launderers.
In 1999, both the British and the Americans were aware of the facts surrounding a cheque for $3.1m that Sir Allen paid to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). It was drug money originally paid in to Stanford International Bank by agents acting for a feared Mexican drug lord known as the ‘Lord of the Heavens’.
On 17 February of this year, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Sir Allen of running a multi-billion dollar Ponzi fraud…civil charges he has denied.
Two and a half months after the SEC filing, the Texan has not yet faced criminal charges.
He was initially investigated by the SEC for running a possible Ponzi fraud in the summer of 2006, but by the winter of that year the inquiry was stopped.
Panorama understands that the decision was taken because of a request by another government agency.
In recent years – actually going all the way back to Ollie North and CIA drugs involvement – the U.S. government has dabbled in chasing vs. partnering with drug lords as the wind blew one way or another in the absolutely useless War on Drugs.
I trust all of these clowns about as far as I can throw them uphill into a heavy wind. Unprincipled thugs no different from their officially-criminal buddies.
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