CHINESE MASTERMIND IN WORLD'S LARGEST CRYPTO LAUNDERING CASE PLEADS GUILTY IN LONDON; SHE USED HER SAINT KITTS CBI PASSPORT TO FLEE CHINA AND OPERATE HER SCHEME IN THE UK FOR YEARS WITH IMPUNITY

While most of the attention directed to the use of Caribbean Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) economic passport holders from China to engage in financial crime and National Security offenses has been seen in the United States, the widespread abuse of these identity documents, mainly issued by SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS and SAINT LUCIA has had a global impact.

This week, in a London Court, the Chinese national known to the UK media as the Bitcoin Mastermind, ZHIMIN QIAN, entered a plea of guilty to two cryptocurrency money laundering charges involving fraud in the equivalent of many billions of dollars, committed in China. Quan used a Saint Kitts & Nevis CBI passport to flee China in 2017, to avoid criminal prosecution, and has engaged in a continual life of crime since then. She used third parties to assist her in major money laundering activities, as she reportedly does not speak English. She worked the system admirably, from the viewpoint of a career criminal, according to the facts; used someone else's identity got acquire the SKN passport, no questions asked.

While the case is deserving of study for those engaged in the suppression of cryptocurrency offenses, we bring it to your attention solely for the purpose of displaying yet another instance of the continuing abuse of CBI passport by career Chinese criminals, who are never properly vetted in the offices of the SKN CIU, due to rampant corruption by the last three Saint Kitts governments,

If I am a compliance officer at a major international bank, and a new, affluent individual, seeking to open an account, brandishes a Saint Kitts & Nevis passport, I must, as gatekeeper, bar the door and decline to accept that individual, no matter how inviting that new lucrative business may be, because there is no set of facts which will allow me to assume the level of risk in that situation. He is an unacceptable client, whether he has a CBI passport, or is a native-born Kittitian, because the risk of money laundering and financial crime is just too high to accept; Caveat banker.

SPONSOR BANKS FACE THREATS IN THE FORM OF OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES- ADROIT MONEY LAUNDERERS APPLYING LEGACY TRADECRAFT AGAINST FINTECHS

If you read my recent articles, A FORMER MONEY LAUNDERER EXAMINES THE SPECIAL MONEY LAUNDERING PROBLEMS THAT ARE FACED BY SPONSOR BANKS,  and  HOW DO SPONSOR BANKS INSURE THAT THEIR FINTECH CLIENTS ARE NOT OWNED OR CONTROLLED BY MONEY LAUNDERERS? you know that sponsor banks have an increased level of money laundering risk, when it comes to the threat of money laundering through the accounts of their fintech clients

Experienced professional money launderers, who are highly adaptive in responding to today's anti-money laundering compliance programs, which means the widespread use of software effective at both account opening (CIP) or transaction monitoring, actively seek out targets of opportunity, of which fintechs, for the reasons I stated in the above-mentioned articles, stand out as vulnerable, in my humble opinion, based upon a decade of hands-on experience, as a career money launderer ferreting out such potential victims.

Knowing and understanding the money launderers' mindset and I do, let me humbly suggest that compliance directors at sponsor banks initiate a comprehensive program of education, with their frontline opposite numbers at fintech clients, to educate them in all legacy advanced money laundering techniques, to reduce the risk that such methods, with modifications, are being employed to deceive fintech compliance officers. I know that laundrymen regard fintechs as good targets, and these companies' compliance officers must be able to recognize advanced money laundering techniques when they see them in operation.

It is humbly suggested that you take the extra step to train your fintech compliance officers in the advanced, esoteric, unusual and exotic money laundering techniques that international banks face each day, for I guarantee that innovative money launderers are already successfully applying them to your fintech clients, and as you do not want to have such techniques resulting in the movement of the proceeds of crime coming through their accounts at your banks. Additionally, for the purposes of mitigation of your future exposure to regulators, operating such proactive programs could benefit you regarding your relations with them.

Compliance officers, teach your fintechs to interdict the money launders in their own houses, so they don't impact you in yours.

U.S. GOVERNMENT REPORT CLASSIFIES SAINT LUCIA AS ELEVATED THREAT FROM TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, SEX TRAFFICKING AND OTHER VIOLATIONS OF THE AMERICAN 2021 COUNTER-TRAFFICKING ACT

While many of the native-born citizens of Saint Lucia believe that they have been unfairly targeted by the United States, due to the Citizenship by Investment (CIP) fraud, money laundering and corruption scandal, there are other valid reasons for the American government to be restricting the ability of Saint Lucians to enter, reside and work inside the United States.

One of the primary reasons given by the US State Department is the Tier Two designation of Saint Lucia as a jurisdiction with major Sex Trafficking, Trafficking in Persons through Compulsory Labor, Familial Trafficking, and Foreign Workers Labor Trafficking.

Here is a direct quote from the recent report by the State Department:

"Trafficking affects all communities. This section summarizes government and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the past five years. Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Saint Lucia, and traffickers exploit victims from Saint Lucia abroad. Government officials, civil society, and educators reported Saint Lucian children, especially from economically disadvantaged families, may be at risk of child sex trafficking, sometimes encouraged or forced by parents and caretakers in exchange for goods or services. Individuals working in the adult entertainment industry have been exploited in sex trafficking. Foreign women in commercial sex establishments and migrants from the Caribbean are vulnerable to trafficking. The Cuban regime may have forced approximately 26 Cuban regime-affiliated medical workers in Saint Lucia to work. In 2023, an online media network aired an uncorroborated anonymous interview with a Cuban regime-affiliated engineer who had been previously assigned to a mission in Saint Lucia. According to this worker, he was assigned to a construction project with a Cuban regime-affiliated firm and reported having to transfer most of his salary directly to the firm, receiving threats by heads of mission, being subjected to a curfew, and being prohibited from befriending locals. A 2025 press report documenting survivor testimonies included the testimony of a Cuban medical worker who worked in Saint Lucia in 2015 and reported having her passport confiscated, facing punishment for leaving her employment situation, and having approximately 75 percent of her over wages withheld. Saint Lucian officials have not publicly released a copy of the MOU signed with the Cuban regime for medical workers."

We will continue to cover the issues involving the American government's response to what it considers National Security threats from the five Eastern Caribbean states that offer Economic citizenship for sale.

Readers are urged to access the complete report here:

https://lnkd.in/ePRT86Xa

IS THE UNITED STATES ACTUALLY PLANNING A MILITARY OPERATION AGAINST ONE OF THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN STATES THAT ARE UNDER AMERICAN PRESSURE FOR CORRUPT CBI PASSPORT SALES PROGRAMS? THEY STILL REMEMBER THE INVASION OF GRENADA

Caribbean media has reported the presence of a merchant vessel used by the United States military for Special Operations off the coast of the island of Saint Kitts, which has caused some of the residents of the Eastern Caribbean states that offer Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) to openly wonder whether the Trump Administration, openly hostile due to what it considers National Security threats, is contemplating its own 'special military operation."

The M/V OCEAN TRADER, a converted vessel adapted by the United States for Special Operations, and with integral aviation assets, is known to be operating in the area, and has now been spotted and tracked by surveillance assets near Saint Kitts. The US State Department has repeatedly warned the five EC states that sell economic citizenship that tens of thousands of their passports have been sold to Chinese nationals, and that some of the purchasers have been arrested in the U.S. for financial crime, industrial espionage and intelligence activities. Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia have been specifically identified as the worst offenders for money laundering, fraud and corruption, and both have failed to take steps to respond to American Government complaints.

Every citizen of the West Indies remembers the massive international operation, led by American Forces, to invade Grenada, and depose its Cuban-allied regime. The question is whether the current U.S. Government, which is active in the Southern Caribbean against drug trafficking threats enamating from Venezuela, will be moving against the CBI states it also deems a direct threat.

ACCURATE COUNTRY RISK ASSESSMENTS MAY BECOME MORE DIFFICULT IN AFTERMATH OF RESTRICTIONS UPON NEWSGATHERING IMPOSED BY THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

A press release from the Department of Defense advising that there will now be severe restrictions on American reporters working inside the Pentagon is not good news for compliance officers charged with assessing Country Risk for their financial institutions. The Secretary of Defense has stated that even unclassified information cannot be published until and unless it has been cleared by a DOD representative, and judging what can be included in an article will solely be at US Government discretion. This means that some American military activities may not be reported on timely, or not at all.

Current U.S. military operations near Venezuela, which are of vital interest to the Eastern Caribbean states, who are already nervous about recent American immigration and CBI actions, may not be fully publicly disclosed by DOD, and since Country Risk in that region is critical to US correspondent banks which serve those countries, there may be an information gap in the future. 

Military operations of the United States military abroad can have a major effect upon the risk levels which compliance officers assign to specific jurisdictions, and which bankers, and their clients, rely upon to make financial decisions about a wide variety of subjects, including but not limited to lending, funds transfers, account openings, and many other banking functions. Restricting access to details, or even the existence, of American military activities overseas could result in inaccurate Country Risk calculations, which might be relied upon to the damage and detriment of financial institutions. Compliance officers will now be required to access foreign sources, if they want an accurate picture of American military actions abroad that are not publicly known to be in progress or of recent nature.

JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND COMPLIANCE MALPRACTICE AT JP MORGAN

We have all read that horrific story; how America's biggest bank facilitated our country's biggest sex trafficker's operations, in large part because a senior executive, who was allegedly personally involved in Epstein's criminal activities, chose to keep him on as a client for the benefit of the private banking division's bottom line, when compliance reported that his accounts should be closed forthwith. When huge suspicious cash withdrawals and wires to Eastern Europe raised alarming red flags, and when accounts were opened for people associated with him with zero due diligence.

While I fully understand that those compliance officers, guilty as sin for compliance Malpractice, wanted to keep their great high-saying jobs, they failed the system, as well as the underage victims, as Epstein was able to continue his evil operation, due to the bank's financial support.

If you are a compliance officer. and you experience anything similar to that which the JP Morgan compliance staff saw, you must immediately take advantage of the relationships that you should have created with Federal and state law enforcement at all those conferences and events that you attend each year, and very quickly but quietly pass that information on to an agency that can not only investigate, but charge, the money launderer or financial criminal or drug trafficker. Ignore your regulator contacts; they cannot take the offender out of circulation through indictment, and they might interpose objections.

If you feel you want to retain competent independent counsel for legal advice, by all means do so, but do not delay. Next, you start looking around, immediately, for another job, and leave your current position as soon as possible. If you stay at the bank where you learned of the crimes, you become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Please, do not wait until your bank client is indicted, and the story appears in the New York Times. Not only will you then have trouble finding a new compliance position, but you will never forget that you failed in your duty as gatekeeper.

HOW DO SPONSOR BANKS INSURE THAT THEIR FINTECH CLIENTS ARE NOT OWNED OR CONTROLLED BY MONEY LAUNDERERS?

As a former career money launderer, I want to bring an important subject to the attention of the sponsor banking industry. In the competitive world in which sponsor banks operate, the acquisition of fintech clients, whose products and services represent potential lucrative, and therefore profitable, business for those banks, compliance officers should always be on the alert for those companies which are owned or controlled by criminal organizations, and which would most likely be laundering the proceeds of crime through the fintech's accounts.

To prevent the illicit use of a fintech client's accounts at your bank, one must keep in mind that a drug money laundering operation can easily adapt the techniques they typically use to purchase, invest in, or corrupt closely held legitimate businesses, to companies in the fintech sector. That possibility is probably the last thing AML compliance officers at a sponsor bank is thinking about, as they labor to insure that their bank's fintech clients comply with regulatory requirements , especially customer identification procedures.

It is therefore my humble opinion that bank management defer bringing any new fintech client onboard until and unless they verify that the start-up capital passes the Source of funds test, and that the principals and officers are also vetted.

Second, when the company passes these checks, and commences operations through your accounts, transaction monitoring should be initiated periodically, it looking for individual suspicious transactions, but payments that appear to be inconsistent with the fintech's trade or business. As a money launderer, I always insured that my drug trafficking clients' criminal profits moved seamlessly through the accounts of a front company, without raising suspicions from transaction monitors, but a very close analysis of the business, which the banks didn't undertake, would have yielded some strange issues, like phantom customer profiles.

Finally, as the fintech becomes more financially successful, check to see whether there is actually a factual basis for the increased business flow.

If this area of anti-money laundering compliance is of interest to you, you would like to hear this old laundryman's take on solutions that work, and you are in a sponsor bank, you might want to seek an invitation to the SOCURE BANK SECOND ANNUAL LEADERSHIP FORUM 2025, September23-24, 2025, where yours truly will be the Keynote Speaker.

For further information:
https://lnkd.in/eXw7Eq5g

THE SPECIAL MONEY LAUNDERING PROBLEMS OF PAYMENTS PROCESSORS; SEPTEMBER 18, 2025 at 9:30 AM EDT

 

This is a topic of urgent relevance for compliance officers.To sign up to attend this important event:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/7373306506890534913/

HERE'S THADDEUS ANTOINE PAYING OUT BRIBES TO VOTERS ON ELECTION DAY FROM HIS PERSONAL VEHICLE

Taken from the video.; Look who is driving the car, ladies and gentlemen; attorney THADDEUS ANTOINE, as his people dispense bribes on Election Day. 

Now look and see who owns that truck, having license plate "2009";

I rest my case.

WILL THE NEXT GOVERNMENT IN SAINT LUCIA SEIZE THE THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS IN CBI BRIBES AND KICKBACKS THAT ERNEST HILAIRE, ITS INVESTMENT MINISTER, IS HIDING IN DUBAI?

PM Philip J. Pierre and Deputy PM Ernest Hilaire

Who will be the next Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, and will be have the political strength, and moral fiber, to go after the reported tens of millions that CARIBBEAN GALAXY GROUP diverted to the country's corrupt Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Investment,  ERNEST HILAIRE, who runs the CIP program? Hilaire's obscene amount of wealth banked in Dubai, acquired through bribes and kickbacks from CARIBBEAN GALAXY,  is the patrimony of the people of Saint Lucia, and must be repatriated.

Will the next PM of Saint Lucia order the extradition of the corrupt present Labour Party leader, Prime Minister PHILIP J. PIERRE, and DPM Hilaire, to face the money laundering, fraud and corruption charges that will. most certainly be eventually filed against them in the United States? That is the Caribbean question for 2025. Stay tuned.

MORE OF THE DIRTY DETAILS OF LABOUR'S MASSIVE FRAUD IN THE LAST SAINT LUCIA GENERAL ELECTION

Attorney THADDEUS ANTOINE

We continue here in our series on election fraud in Saint Lucia, during the last General Election. Marlon and the other local drug lords were paid to pay voters on voting day. They, among certain lawyers, such as THADDEUS ANTOINE and LORNE THEOPHILUS, were tasked with personally paying voters to vote for the SLP, and in a clever scheme, on Election Day, paid known UWP voters and sympathizers NOT to vote for the UWP. In our next article in this continuing series on SLC voter fraud, we will publish images of Attorney Antoine paying bribes from his personal vehicle on Election Day.

Attorney and st.  Lucia Government official LORNE THEOPHILUS

What is clever about the latter scheme is that they were equipped with voting ink, which no person outside certain authorized officials within the Electoral Commission should have had in their possession. Once UWP supporters were identified they would be approached on Election Day and paid handsomely not to vote and to seal the deal, their fingers dipped in the voting ink. They were thereafter disqualified from participating in the voting process.

These measures included:

1. Elections Department IT official KENYA JAMES Giving "Back Door" access to the Election Department voting data to the SLP,  thereby giving them an advantage on the day to areas where they needed to bring out the vote to secure the win.

Saint Lucia Government official KENYA JAMES

2. ⁠Illegal registration of ineligible persons to the voters list.

3. ⁠Late registration of persons to vote.

4. ⁠Payment of UWP voters not to vote and inking their fingers on the day.

5. ⁠In addition to payment of large sums of money in East Caribbean currency, USD and Euro, these illegal techniques all combined to contribute to a massive scheme to undermine fair elections. 

These schemes were orchestrated by Saint Lucia Labour Party General Secretary LEO CLARKE and the leadership of the SLP. They had publicly declared that they would win by any means necessary, and they did, and are now reaping the rewards of this massive corruption at the cost of the people of Saint Lucia.

 

SLP General Secretary LEO CLARKE