FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS TRUMP'S ACCOUNTANT TO TURN OVER HIS TAX RETURNS TO NY DISTRICT ATTTORNEY

The US District Court Judge assigned to the case where Trump sued to prevent the New York District Attorney from acquiring eight years of his tax returns, in the hush money investigation, has ruled that the documents must be turned over. The Court further noted that the argument of Trump's private attorneys, that he was immune from criminal investigation of any kind, while in office, was fatally flawed, and not supported by law. Read the 75-page Opinion here.

CANADIAN BANKS ARE PULLING OUT OF ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA

In the aftermath of the very public controversy over the attempts of Antiguan business and political interests to forcefully acquire the local branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), rather than see it sold to the Trinidad-based Republic Bank, it has been widely reported that all Canadian banks operating in Antigua are in the process of closing down their local facilities, and withdrawing all service.

While the specific reason for pulling out of Antigua has not been identified, most seasoned observers of the local banking scene agree that at least one these issues is the most likely candidate:

(1) The failure of financial institutions in Antigua to institute effective Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing compliance programs, sufficient to meet banking best practices standards in the United States & Canada.

(2) The risks posed by the dodgy foreign purchasers of Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) and diplomatic passports, whose fees and costs are flowing through local banks.

(3) Ongoing De-Risking operations, which have reduced and eliminated the delivery of correspondent banking services for Antigua, from North American and European banks.

(4) What has been described as a "Culture of Corruption," where unresolved and uncharged cases of official corruption, at the ministerial level and above,are ignored by local prosecutors and law enforcement.

(5) A flawed court system that allows indefinite delays, facilitated by the local judiciary, to deny justice, and to violate the Rule of Law.

Compliance officers at international banks should take note of these actions of Canadian banks, when assessing Country Risk for Antigua and Barbuda.

RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE AGENTS WANTED FOR INTERFERENCE IN 2016 US ELECTIONS

IS YOUR NEW CLIENT A HIDDEN PEP ? USE SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS TO FIND OUT

Compliance officers at international banks that welcome affluent foreign clients must be able to identify individuals who, while they profess to be private businessmen, are in truth and fact actually Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) seeking to deposit  the proceeds of crime, especially bribery or kickback money, into their bank, and thereby effectively launder it. These individuals, who typically come from countries in the developing world where anti-corruption efforts are ineffective or absent, represent a major threat to your bank's reputation, should their true PEP status be later revealed during a very public criminal proceeding appearing in the media.

Your hidden PEP may be:

(1) A corrupt member of his country's military, appearing at your bank in civilian attire, and the business he leads might be simply a government-controlled and owned corporation.

(2) A close relative of a very senior government official, who just happens to have a last name different from the source of illicit cash stolen from a government treasury account, because he married into the official's family, or his father did.

(3) The paramour of a leader of his or her country, who is entrusted with placing, and ultimately laundering, criminal proceeds of that individual.

(4) The head of a charity or nonprofit entity, or a senior officer, that is missing a substantial sum from its accounts.   

(5) A government purchasing agent for a ministry with a huge budget, who is embezzling funds on a grand scale, and bribing anyone in his country who  are facilitating that activity, by opening foreign bank accounts for those individuals, in your bank.

 While there is no single foolproof method for uncovering a hidden or undisclosed PEP, many compliance officers routinely access social media and social networking websites, during their due diligence inquiry into new accounts, to seek whether their client appears anywhere. Detailed  information about the client's family members, professional associations, university or social club membership history, participation in or attendance at charitable or sports events, all may provide clues as to his true status as a Politically Exposed Person.

Is he related to a government official who has access to funds ? Is he really a member of government ? Was his occupation or profession, which may provide a clue to his PEP status, hidden from the bank ? Searching for his image on social media, using your available facial recognition software technology, may provide information that was artfully not disclosed at account opening.

Hidden PEPs will open an account, and wait patiently for an initial period, after which routine scrutiny of new accounts typically lapses, before moving large amounts of money through them. By seeking to expose any hidden PEPs through a thorough initial search of social media and social networking resources, using facial recognition software, you may be able to rule out the client as a PEP, and minimize the risk that he will later quietly launder criminal proceeds through his new account.

IRAN BREACHES ITS PROMISES TO UK, OFFLOADS AND DELIVERS SANCTIONED OIL TO SYRIA

In yet another example its total lack of truthfulness, the Islamic Republic of Iran is currently delivering the sanctioned $130m of crude oil that it swore to the United Kingdom and Gibraltar would would never end up in Syrian hands. What you are seeing above is the Iranian tanker Jasmine, anchored alongside the Adrian Darya I (ex-Grace I) with mooring lines attached, and a deployed crane, on what is obviously an offload-in-progress.

JOHN ANTHONY PORCARO, FUGITIVE MONEY LAUNDERER & FRAUDSTER, MOVED LAUNDERED CASH TO THE CAYMAN ISLANDS

KEY WEST MAN WHO WIRED $87k TO NIGERIA INDICTED FOR MONEY LAUNDERING

Sean Kerwin Bindranauth, a resident of Key West, Florida, has been indicted on multiple money laundering counts in US District Court. The defendant, who reportedly wired $87,000 to an account in Nigeria at the United Bank of Africa, has two prior felony convictions, one of which was for drugs. The funds were transmitted in five separate payments.

The defendant's charges, which could result in a very long sentence if imposed consecutively:
(1) Seven counts of money laundering.
(2) One count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
(3) One count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting entity.

 

MASSIVE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN DOMINICA PROTESTING MISSING $1.2bn OF CBI RECEIPTS STOLEN BY LEADERSHIP

MALTA SELLS INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR PASSPORT TO FUGITIVE RUSSIAN OLIGARCH/FRAUDSTER

If you still had any illusions about Malta's Individual Investor Program, discard them. There is zero due diligence performed upon wealthy applicants. Take the case of the fugitive Russian billionaire Oligarch Boris Mints. He recently acquired Maltese citizenship, notwithstanding that he was at the time wanted in his native Russia for a  €1.2bn bank fraud, that he was listed as an "Oligarch" close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, by the United States Treasury, and that he had fled Russia to evade arrest.

There are reports that the Central Bank of Russia has gone to the UK High Court to freeze €500m of his assets in the United Kingdom, and the latrst rumor is that he has since fled to Israel.

Please tell me how, by any stretch of the compliance process, he was deemed acceptable for a Maltese passport, under its IIP program; perhaps it was the reported €1.15m he paid for the passport, which allowed him entry into the EU. Malta's compliance program for IIP has become little more than a joke between Russian organized crime figures, and Iranian money launderers seeking to evade international sanctions.

No wonder the EU wants Malta to abandon the IIP; it has become a magnet for white collar transnational criminals seeking a safe harbor within the EU Schengen Zone, which is a guaranteed visa-free trip to holders of a Malta passport. Since Malta will not police its IIP, perhaps the European Union should take drastic steps to terminate it.

CATHERINE MARIE KERKOW, AIRCRAFT HIJACKER, MAY BE LIVING IN ALGERIA

SIRAJUDDIN HAQQANI, $5m REWARD, LEADER OF HAKKANI NETWORK, WORKS WITH TALIBAN & AQ

EFFECTIVE COMPLIANCE USE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY REQUIRES ACCESS TO PHOTOGRAPHIC DATABASES

The widespread use of facial recognition technology for client identification, by compliance officers who realize that commercial-off-the-shelf databases of high-risk individuals are no longer effective tools for due diligence and customer identification purposes in the 21st century is encouraging, but an accompanying tool is mandatory, if a facial recognition search is to be effective: real-time access to a photographic database of images of high-risk individuals to locate and identify your target.

Too many facial recognition software providers, some new to the compliance industry as well as the technology, are marketing their products, without reference to explaining precisely where compliance officers will find those elusive images of their targets. Some point their clients to social media and social networking resources for a solution, or the Internet, but the quality, as well as intrinsic shortcomings of social media and Internet images, often result in a less than satisfactory result. 

Images from other than photographic databases may result in reduced accuracy, due to factors affecting face recognition, such as facial expression, pose variation,  partial occlusion, and the effect of illumination, among other factors not usually present in photographs taken in an official or professional capacity or setting, such as passports, drivers' licenses, government identity cards, visa photos, professional licenses and other official images.

Focusing your facial recognition software upon social media, as well as on casual photographs appearing on the Internet, will often return false positives, or simply no results at all. Online images, many of whom are casual and not formal and structured, are rarely of such quality that they will consistently identify your subject. Many observers who are critical of the effectiveness of facial recognition platforms are basing their conclusions on efforts that use what are really substandard images, in seeking to identify their targets.

Having ready access to a quality image database is the only solution that will repeatedly return satisfactory results. Insure that your facial recognition technology provider has that feature available to make your choice an effective one. Do not accept assurances that open-source images freely available will do the job; they will fail to deliver the results you require.
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DID CONVICTED FIFA VICE PRESIDENTJEFFREY WEBB RECEIVE A SWEETHEART BACKROOM PLEA DEAL ?

Legal observers, who were eagerly anticipating the sentencing of convicted FIFA Vice President Jeffrey Webb recently, are still trying to figure out what on earth is going on with his case. Webb's attorneys reportedly were able to secure a highly unusual tenth postponement of his sentencing date, in this case, all the way to March 2020, but there was no press release or other indication as to why he is allowed to evade sentencing for five years. What's wrong with this picture ?

Webb entered a guilty plea way back in 2015, and he has been living in the United States, with his American wife, in a house bought with the proceeds of crime, under House Arrest (Home Detentio) since that time. Obviously, the early delays in his sentencing were requested by the US Attorneys handling his case, to allow him to provide what is known as Substantial Assistance, meaning he be available and prepared to testify at any trials of other corrupt FIFA officials, or those who bribed them for monetary gain, Now, however, the FIFA case appears to be over, and unless there is a pending investigation, so many years later, that will survive a Statute of Limitations defense, what's left to do ?

Is Webb the beneficiary of some sort of backroom sweetheart plea arrangement that his attorneys were able to wrangle out of government prosecutors, which, if made public, will embarrass them ? The public wants to see justice done, and justice delayed is justice denied. Additionally, down in his native Cayman Islands, where Webb faces not just one, but two serious criminal cases unrelated to the FIFA bribery scandal, Caymanian prosecutors are anxious to obtain convictions against him. Unfortunately, so long as his US case is pending, he is not going to face the music at home.

There are concerns that deserve public attention:

(1) Do prosecutors have an unrealistic expectation that Webb will still deliver evidence against a yet uncharged big fish in the FIFA case ? Sentence the defendant, let him commence his prison time, and give him a Rule 35 sentence reduction down the road; don't give him a long-term pass on starting his sentence. This man facilitated a culture of corruption that cost the world's football (soccer) fans more money to attend World Cup events, due to the obscene bribes and kickbacks paid to senior FIFA staff, which payments were factored into ticket prices, the cost of official souvenirs, and other hidden costs.

(2) Given the fact that all the details of favorable Federal plea deal are often quietly kept from the public and journalists, who must ferret them out from court records, is there something important here that needs to see the light of day ? For example, though Federal case law generally excludes Home Detention from credit towards jail-time, but what if there is such an understanding with Webb's attorneys ? By the time Webb is actually sentenced, he will have have six years of house arrest. Will he simply be sentenced to "Time Served," meaning crediting his house arrest time towards a lenient sentence, and evade any Federal prison time?

Federal prosecutors often obtain long prison sentences for offenders, and then quietly ask the Court to reduce that sentence later, after Substantial Assistance is rendered, but there is no press release notifying the public of this event. Does Jeffrey Webb have some sort of deal that the public might not appreciate, given the severity of the corruption charges against him ?



 

 

MONEYVAL RAPPORT ANNUEL: LES RISQUES ACCRUS DE BLANCHIMENT DE CAPITAUX ET DE FINANCEMENT DUE TERRORISME REQUIERENT UNE ACTION RAPIDE

Rapport annuel pour 2018, publié aujourd'hui, 25.09.2019.
https://www.coe.int/fr/web/moneyval/-/moneyval-swift-action-needed-against-increased-money-laundering-and-terrorist-financing-risks

ZHANG SHILONG, CHINESE MINISTRY OF STATE SECURITY HACKER WITH APT 10 GROUP, STOLE US DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY AND US NAVY DATA

US THREATS TO SANCTION MORE HEZBOLLAH FINANCIERS DRIVE LEBANESE TO STORE BILLIONS OF US DOLLARS UNDER THEIR MATRESSES

Fearing that US sanctions will be imposed upon more banks in Lebanon for providing financial services for Hezbollah, in the aftermath of the JTB Bank scandal, many Lebanese have been drawing their money out of the banks, in US Dollars, causing the exchange value of the Lebanese Pound to decline around ten per cent against the Dollar. Additionally, a parallel market has emerged for trade at this unofficial exchange rate, which is troubling, though the Pound appears to be stable at this time.

Obviously, the currency of preference is not the Dollar, as a hedge against Pound value decline. One source claims that cash, especially foreign currency has become difficult to obtain in some locations, though government has denied it. Allegations that some of the cash is going to Syria, which is under major US and international sanctions, have been made.

Reports from Lebanon estimate that $2.5bn has been stored within the homes of Lebanese who are uneasy about the increased threats to their banks, due to the threats that more local banks will be sanctioned by OFAC for terrorist financing, forcing their closure or liquidation, due to the inability of sanctioned entities to access the US banking system.

Hezbollah agents in particular were ordered to obtain cash from their banks, leaving us to conclude that Jammal Trust Bank SARL was not the only Beirut-based financial institution servicing Hezbollah, so expect further OFAC actions against Lebanese banks, or foreign banks operating in the country.

There will also be sanctions against non-financial Lebanese targets, as an Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury visiting Lebanon recently warned that entities and individuals otherwise providing support to Hezbollah will also be sanctioned, which threatens Hezbollah's political allies, who are supporting the global terrorist organization in other, non-financial, ways. How far this expanded US Treasury policy will go is not known, but political parties allied with Hezbollah are definitely at risk.



 

PILOT OWNER OF JET CHARTER SERVICE SENTENCED TO 13 YEARS ON DRUG AND MONEY LAUNDERING CHARGES

In the high-tech world of international money laundering the crude method of bulk cash smuggling is looked upon as primitive, and generally too high-risk, but apparently a pilot living in New Jersey didn't get the message. Khamraj Lall, a Guyanese businessman and pilot who operated a jet charter service in Gainesvlle, Florida, using it as a cover for a cocaine and cash smuggling operation, has been sentenced to thirteen years in Federal Prison.

According to information released by the US Attorney, Lall smuggled in hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, from his native Guyana, into New York and New Jersey smurfed much of the criminal proceeds into US banks, and bulk cash smuggled the rest out of the country, into Guyana, where he built a $12m hangar with cash.

Lall, curiously enough, boldly or recklessly, depending upon your perspective, made 1287 cash deposits, all under the ten thousand dollar reporting requirement, totalling over $7.5m, into more than 20 bank accounts. Much of that cash was in twenty dollar bills, a definite red flag for compliance officers, indicating it was constituted the possible proceeds from street-level drug sales, even if he was operating cash-intensive legitimate business to cover those deposits, as legitimate bulk cash deposits generally come in a variety of denominations, not just twenties.

In another obvious tactical error, one of many, he stopped for refueling in Puerto Rico, on an outbound flight, where law enforcement confiscated $620,000 on his aircraft. That aircraft was subject to a forfeiture case in US District Court there.

In addition to the prison time, the defendant received five years of Supervised Release, and a judgment in the amount of $9.3m . His two jet aircraft, two hangars, and numerous properties, were also forfeited to the United States. He was convicted of eight counts, including:

(1) Money Laundering.
(2) Structuring Monetary Instruments.
(3) Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine.
(4) Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering.

Given the seriousness of the charges, and amount of money laundered, the 13-year sentence should be considered to be light, as it is a fraction of the maximum amount allowed by law. The fact that a year elapsed between the jury verdict of guilty, and his sentencing, raises the possibility that the defendant has been cooperating with law enforcement. He did have a very experienced, and competent, attorney representing him and he was not charged with any counts indicating that he was a part of the wholesale distribution of the drugs. Did he give up his customers ? We cannot say.

Entrance to defendant's privste hangar in Guyana.

In the 21-century, where trade-based money laundering, international product diversion, the artful use of Citizenship by Investment  passports and customs-immune bogus diplomatic passports, life settlements, and many, many other effective weapons in the laundryman's toolbox, it is a wonder that  Mr. Lall was able to run his operation for a three a a half year period, without being shut down earlier. He may have thought his relationship with the President of Guyana immunized him to some degree, but in the end his American errors were his downfall.
  

FIRAS DARDAR, MEMBER OF SYRIAN ELECTRONIC ARMY (SEA), HACKED US GOVT AGENCIES, $100,000 REWARD

TARGETED OFAC SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA SIGNAL A MORE FOCUSED, TACTICAL APPROACH WHICH WILL HURT

Yesterday's announcement from Treasury, involving OFAC sanctions now placed against  companies, individuals, and even the oil tankers involved, that supply fighter jet fuel to the Russian Air Force in Syria, could indicate that the United States is committed to punitive sanctions, directly intended to interfere with Russia's pro-regime policies in Syria. Whether this is merely the tip of the iceberg we cannot say, but the timing is peculiar . The President of the United States may be favoring Russia in his actions abroad, but these new, blunt sanctions imposed against it demonstrate that, when it comes to career government officials, they intend to put Russia's feet to the fire for its dangerous foreign policies.

CBI CONSULTANCIES CONTINUE TO FLOOD THE INTERNET WITH DISINFORMATION ABOUT THE VIRTUES OF CARIBBEAN PASSPORTS

If you type "citizenship by investment' into the search box on Google News, you get dozens of what i can only describe as 'Informercials' extolling the virtues of the CBI sales programs of the five East Caribbean states. The articles, many of which were published on websites reportedly paid for or sponsored by international CBI consultancies, or on sites of industry associations whose members are the same CBI consultancies, mislead the public by neglecting to detail, objectively, negative aspects that occur when one acquires a CBI passport issued by one of the East Caribbean states.

What the articles cleverly neglect to mention is the fact that presenting a new CBI passport, issued by jurisdictions that have a history of facilitating money laundering, official corruption, tax evasion or fraud, paints a bull's-eye on the back of the holder. When that individual, who has been sold upon the fact that his or her new passport allows visa-free entry into a hundred or more countries, comes under scrutiny, whether by customs & immigration officials at the border, or bank compliance officers at account opening, is associated with the particular CBI jurisdiction, increased personal risk levels attach.

Unfortunately, most, of not all, applicants for CBI passports are deluded into accepting the legal opinions of so-called "legal experts, " individuals who are NOT admitted to the practice of law in the specific jurisdiction, but who mesmerize the applicants with their supposed expertise in the field of immigration. These advisors, who are salesmen earning a commission, and not professionals acting as attorneys for each applicant, persuade the applicants to act, without independent legal counsel of their choosing; Hence the problem.