SHAPE-SHIFTING SOUTH AFRICAN MONEY LAUNDERERS CONTINUE TO OPERATE WITH IMPUNITY IN A FINANCIAL ENVIRONMENT WITH CORRUPTION ISSUES

Company A becomes Company B, becomes Company C, etc.

We note that the low level of success of anti-money laundering compliance programmes in the Republic of South Africa is reportedly due in large part to a technique described there as "Shape-Shifting," which is the movement of money laundering operations from one corporate entity to another and then in turn to another, successively, to avoid establishing any pattern of deposits or wire transfers.from any one corporation or business organization. Apparently, the moment the laundrymen sense any monitoring of an account, or customer queries made or entered, entirely new business entities are activated, through other accounts, to continue to move criminal proceeds with impunity. The technique is said to be exceptionally successful in South Africa, where very few laundering operations result in discovery, interdiction, arrest and conviction.

The enterprising laundrymen make identification of the successor companies difficult by giving them deceptively similar name to legitimate businesses, by using names that appear to be subsidiaries of established companies abroad, and by making small changes or additions to the names of known businesses, to confuse and deceive compliance officers in passing them as low-risk.

South African banks are also often victims to corruption of low-level, underpaid frontline bank staff, who are susceptible to bribes and other illicit forms of compensation, to cause them to ignore suspicious transactions. This problem, which merely reflects South Africa's known high level of corruption, can only be combatted through increased monitoring of staff,and expense which most SA banks appear to be disinclined to do.

These issues have created a perfect storm for money laundering in South Africa's financial industry, and until increases in AML training, and staff video monitoring occur, we will continue to see that most money laundering operations through SA banks are not discovered in real-time.

FORMER PRIME MINISTER'S LAWSUIT IN SAINT LUCIA AGAINST MINISTER ERNEST HILAIRE AND CIP BOARD ALLEGES ORGANIZED FRAUD BY CARIBBEAN GALAXY, RIF TRUST, LATITUDE, POLARIS AND BLUEMINA

The suit brought in Saint Lucia's High Court of Justice recently, by the country's former Prime Minister, ALLEN CHASTANET, contains an AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF FIXED DATE CLAIM, a sworn statement, filed in court, implicating the following companies in the continued illegal sale of discounted Saint Lucia CIP citizenships to applicants for as little as less than half of the minimum price mandated by the laws and regulations of Saint Lucia;

1. CARIBBEAN GALAXY REAL ESTATE LIMITED/CARIBBEAN GALAXY GROUP

2. RIF TRUST

3. LATITUDE RESIDENCY & INVESTMENT.LATITUDE GROUP

4. POLARIS CITIZENSHIP & INVESTMENT CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD

5. BLUEMINA CITIZENSHIP & RESIDENCY/BLUMINA GROUP

The sales contracts and invoices executed by these entities, which are reportedly known to be in the Plaintiff's possession, are incontrovertible evidence of fraud; their deposit of US Dollars into the correspondent accounts of the CIU in American banks constitute violations of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, which are felonies under the laws of the United States.

 Compliance officers requiring further information for due diligence purposes, or to monitor the future proceedings, please note the style of the case is:

THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN SUPREME COURT 

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

SAINT LUCIA

SOUTH AFRICAN BANKS FACE INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS THREATS FOR DOING BUSINESS WITH HAMAS' LOCAL SUPPORT NETWORK AND POLITICAL AFFILIATES

South African financial institutions, especially those that conduct international banking for clients, are at risk for American and other sanctions, and even at an existential level, if they maintain direct, or even indirect, financial relationships with the entities that provide financial support to Hamas. The pro-Hamas policies of the ANC, the local Hamas affiliates, such as AL-QUDS FOUNDATION SA ( linked to the Beirut-based patent entity), and a number of organizations, nonprofits and NGOs that appear to provide material support to Hamas, a sanctioned terrorist group in the US, UK and EU, among other nations, represent a potential threat of Western sanctions upon any SA bank that supplies financial services to those entities.

Given South Africa's existing international trade with the U.S., the UK and the Members of the EU, there is a significant chance that sanctions could be imposed upon a specific SA bank, causing problems with the ability to pay for international trade, international payments, and even, in the case of an OFAC action, blocking all financial commerce. Such an action could render the local bank unable to compete in the marketplace, due to international servicing issues, and even cause it to close.

Compliance officers at South African banks must therefore maintain a high degree of vigilance, to alert their leadership if any new account opening, or transaction which could be interpreted as providing material financial support to a terrorist organization, even indirectly through a third party linked to Hamas, to protect against potential grounds for sanctions imposed from abroad, from a major trading partner of the bank's customers. Current information on all known possible Hamas affiliates operating in South Africa must be maintained, and compliance required to use every effort to avoid any contact, for the bank's protection and financial safety. This is one topic where effective gatekeeping by compliance is most important.

IN SAINT LUCIA, PATRIOTISM IS THE LAST REFUGE OF THE COUNTRY'S BIGGEST SCOUNDREL; WILL HILAIRE BE INDICTED?

Ernest Hilaire

In the aftermath of the groundbreaking lawsuit filed against Saint Lucia Investment Minister ERNEST HILAIRE, asserting systemic fraud, gross malfeasance in office, and massive violations of the country's Citizenship by Investment (CIP) Program, the Minister immediately stooped to labeling his accuser, Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister, ALLEN CHASTANET, as unpatriotic, while failing to respond on the merits to any of the substantive allegations lodged against him in court filings. Hilaire has also consistently failed to answer his constituents' questions regarding proof of money laundering, corruption and fraud in the CIP Program, which he controls with a firm hand, and which reportedly is the source of major bribes and kickbacks paid to him by corrupt parties seeking favors or access.

The significant turnout at a public rally yesterday in Saint Lucia, of the Opposition United Workers Party (UWP), confirmed that, if an election was held today, Hilaire and his ruling Labour Party would be out of office, without a doubt, due to the exposure of criminal conduct at the CIU, including illegal discounting of passport sales, the diversion of a billion dollars in CBI government revenue to a Chinese-Controlled company, CARIBBEAN GALAXY, and allegations of massive bribes paid to Hilaire, the members of the CIU Board, and other senior Saint Lucia government officials.

The question on the minds of most professionals following the unfolding Saint Kitts/Saint Lucia CBI/CIP via CARIBBEAN GALAXY scandal is this: whether the U.S. Department of Justice will ultimately indict Hilaire SLC PM PHILIPPE JEAN PIERRE, and Saint Kitts PM TERRANCE DREW, as that trio has employed financial crime, on a grand scale, to support the increased political, economic and social influence of the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC) among the geopolitically strategic East Caribbean states. Which of these two great powers will end up the winner of this global chess game, and will Minister Hilaire's next destination be sitting in the dock in a Miami Federal courtroom?

WE VISIT CBI CONSULTANCY SWALLOW IMMIGRATION'S TEHRAN MONEY LAUNDERING OFFICE

Our articles about the New Brunswick, Canada-based Swallow Immigration Consultancy Ltd.,  which is selling CBI passports in Dominica, St Kitts & Grenada, according to its website, and its staff, included a telephone call we made to the firm's manager, Nusheen Pourjahani. She denied accepting any Iranians, unless they lived outside Iran, and maintained their wealth also overseas, claiming that her clients did not violate sanctions, and their money was clean.

Our follow-up call the next day yielded confirmation that her story was pure fiction. Pourjahani, according to her office, is traveling to Dubai, to meet clients, and after that, will be in her office in Tehran. That is where she really meets her Iranian clients, so she can obtain Caribbean CBI passports for them, and launder their money through her own accounts, prior to making payment for their passports.

You are looking at photographs taken outside Swallow's Tehran office. Note that there are no signs or indications that it is a business, because it is not open to the public; It is a covert location, to serve Iranian clients, in violation of American, Canadian and United Nations international sanctions. Does this look like a legitimate office ?

PRIME MINISTER OF SAINT KITTS & NEVIS ADMITS IN PARLIAMENT THAT FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS OF CBI INCOME IS MISSING, AMID CALLS FOR HIS IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION AND CRIMINAL INDICTMENT

PM Terrance Drew

TERRANCE DREW, the Prime Minister of Saint Kitts & Nevis, ruefully admitted this week, during a meeting of his country's Parliament, the National Assembly, that his Labour government could not find USD$400m in Citizenship by Investment passport sales income. Drew's administration has failed to file audited annual reports, which are required by law, for the past three years, and he has reportedly now come under extreme pressure from the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) for that reason. Where is all this money?

The required annual CBI audits, which must disclose how many citizenships with passports have been sold, as against how much money actually came into the country, and therefore will show how much was illegally diverted abroad, were never conducted, all on the orders of PM Drew, who promised audits to the IMF but repeatedly blocked their completion. Calls for his resignation from Kittitians across the political spectrum have been heard on social media, but the local press, which is firmly under government de facto censorship and fiscal control, is by and large ignoring the situation. Expats are demanding that Drew be not only thrown out of office for malfeasance and misfeasance, but indicted by the Department of Public Prosecution.

Whether Drew will be indicted in the United States is an open question; its Department of Justice has not shied away in the past from charging sitting Caribbean national leaders for Federal crimes, and imprisoning them after conviction; Turks & Caicos Chief Minister NORMAN SAUNDERS and Panama's President GENERAL ANTONIO NORIEGA are evidence that their high offices did not protect them from the swift administration of justice, and let's not forget BVI Premier ANDREW FAHIE. Will Drew end up in the dock in an American courtroom? We will be watching.

FUGITIVE R20 MILLION MONEY LAUNDERER WANTED IN SOUTH AFRICA: AUGUSTO CARRERA DE OLIVERA

WANTED by South African Police Service for VAT Fraud, Forgery, uttering and 110 counts of Money Laundering; Johannesburg High Court. His Corporate entity is named CASINO PTY LTD. Co-defendant DUSTON HADDON has been arrested.

Dunston Haddon

NOTE TO CARIBBEAN MEDIA; BILLY HERBERT FULLY INTENDED FOR HIS SAINT KITTS CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT PROGRAM TO "FACILITATE ILLICIT FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES," WHICH IS HOW IT IS BEING USED

Today's article, in TIMES CARIBBEAN ONLINE, an Internet publication that promotes Citizenship by Investment economic passport sales programs, completely misses the concept of its creator, Saint Kitts former Ambassador Plenipotentiary WILLIAM (Billy) HERBERT, JR., whom I worked with for several years, and who introduced me to the program when it was created. Dr. Herbert's intent was that the Kittitian passport were to be sold to all purchasers who needed a new identity document, including an alias, to supplement the SKN government budget, and frankly he didn't care about qualifying them through due diligence. He directly asked me to send him my drug traffickers' applications, and I responded by sending in deposits for a number of very unsavory characters, including two of the MEDELLIN CARTEL's leaders, and others from the list of money laundering clients who Dr Herbert had formed shell companies for.

The marketing propaganda appearing in media sponsored by the investment migration industry, to the effect that the purpose of a second passport is to allow the affluent to move freely about the world, and to perhaps choose to relocate their families was never his reason to offer the Saint Kitts passport; it was simply to accept fees from all who wished to disguise their identity, for illicit reasons, which has unfortunately come true for a significant number of purchasers of CBI over the past 40 years. That's why the European Union has discouraged its Members from creating or maintaining such programs, and why the EU has repeatedly and strongly criticised programs that exist in the East Caribbean and in the Asia-Pacific region.

US TREASURY TARGETS COVERT IRANIAN UAV AND MISSILE NETWORK USING HONG KONG AND PRC-BASED COMPANIES

 

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0031

WILL DONALD TRUMP'S NEW "GOLD" AMERICAN GREEN CARD BE THE DEATH KNELL FOR CARIBBEAN CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT (CBI/CIP) PASSPORT PROGRAMS?

In typical Trumpian fashion, U.S. President Donald Trump has, in one swift and unorthodox move, threatened the Golden Goose of the five East Caribbean states, which are engaged in selling economic citizenships, by offering foreign nationals what he calls a "Gold" Green Card (legal permanent residency). While the stiff five million dollar price tag may deter some of the "marginally" affluent abroad, the high net worth elite will most certainly line up to get that valuable US entry asset, because it will carry with it all the other visa-free privileges to the UK, EU and Commonwealth jurisdictions, which American citizens now freely enjoy. As one CBI expert in the region has said "Years of corruption and frauds in the CBI has led to USA creating a real option for wealthy investors."


We wonder how they are taking this news in Basseterre, Roseau, Castries, St. John's and St. Georges, especially Grenada, which just recently unveiled a fast-track CBI approval program targeting Ultra high Net Worth individuals. CBI has become a drug for fattening up East Caribbean state budgets and coffers, allowing those countries to maintain excessive number of government employees, rather than developing the private sector job market; whether now there will be massive cutbacks in government agencies we cannot say, but as soon as the Gold Green Card program becomes available in the US, watch new CBI & CIP sales drop off, The Caribbean versions of Elon will be making government employees redundant; Watch for it.

HAS CAPE TOWN NOW BECOME A CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME ACTIVITY? IS ONE OF THE TEN MOST WANTED FUGITIVES NOW LIVING THERE?

RUJA IGNATOVA, dubbed the "Cryptoqueen' by American media, is one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted. Her notorious OneCoin scheme defrauded millions, and put a five million dollar price on her head. So why are there repeated reports that she is living in Cape Town? This is just one incident of factors that have led many to believe that the South African city, a known global tourist destination has morphed into a center of transnational organized crime.

To add to the perception that the city is now an organized crime center, new evidence of Mexican narcotics trafficking, including the local importation of Fentanyl, in toxic strength, is being noticed there. This is extremely disturbing from a public health point of view, given the huge amount of deaths that the United States has experienced from the potent drug; whether local law enforcement can suppress this new threat, given that corruption and other police shortcomings is a serious concern.


Since the conditions that often favor attracting organized crime (OC) to any urban area include inefficient and ineffective anti-money laundering at local financial institutions, compliance officers seeking to protect their banks from OC need to increase their awareness of the money laundering tactics such groups have been known to practise, as they move the proceeds of their criminal activity through local financial institutions. These techniques will be featured in our upcoming virtual presentation entitled UNMASKING AFRICA'S FINANCIAL UNDERWORLD in March. Link to enroll will be entered here. Watch this space.

ALL THOSE ATTENDING MY UPCOMING SEMINAR "UNMASKING AFRICA'S FINANCIAL UNDERWORLD" WILL RECEIVE A COURTESY COPY OF "THE LAUNDRY MAN,"

minutes ag

If you were unable to secure a copy in the past at your booksellers, or happen to live and work where it was not available, here is your chance to receive it, with my compliments. The link to enroll shall appear this week. watch for it.