The following occurred over a four month period during 2002, and has been supplied by an investigator I have worked with. Some of it has been changed / sanitized for privacy reasons:
As part of his tax fraud, “Mr. Wallace” contacted a Cayman Island bank by mail in order to open
Nathan Vardi’s Forbes.com article "Cash Is King", describes some of the ways funds can be transferred during money laundering:
"Cash Is King" also briefly quotes me and mentions that cash is hard to trace. Illicit cash can of course still be detected
When an asset search uncovers that a divorcing spouse or ex-husband may be fraudulently hiding assets, it can lead to a civil RICO case. Plaintiff Christa Ritter’s asset search of her ex-husband for example, ended in the filing of such a RICO case in Ritter v. Klisivitch et. al., Index # 2:06 CV 05511,
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on January 18, 2008, ex-Philadelphia lawmaker German Quiles, his wife and daughter, were recently convicted of money laundering in U.S. District Court. According to a July 13, 2007 Department of Justice press release, the Quiles’ family had earlier been indicted for laundering about $175,900 dollars between Philadelphia and
Given news reports like the September 27, 2007 Reuters’ article about money laundering in Israel, I am never surprised when an asset search reveals that a bankruptcy debtor, a divorcing spouse or other person has washed money through Israel. In one case for example, (the facts of which have been sanitized / changed herein), the
Mr. Nathan Vardi is an associate editor at Forbes Magazine and his news beat is money laundering. His articles describe how drug dealers have sometimes used American Express, BankAtlantic, Union Bank of California / UnionBanCal and other U.S. financial institutions to launder money:
In the recent past, bearer shares especially allowed for anonymous corporate ownership. A corporation that issued bearer shares had no central registry of the bearer share ownership. As a glossary from the The Financial Action Task Force explains, “[b]earer shares refers to negotiable instruments that accord ownership in a legal person to the person
During forced collection / attachment proceedings, the Debtor alleged that he could not pay the Creditor because of an arm’s length business loan from “Offshore Lender” in the millions. The Debtor further claimed that he had collateralized his business loan with mortgages, promissory notes and U.C.C. liens, on nearly all of his property.
Through subpoenas
While “Roger” and I were walking near Bahnhofstrasse Street, Zurich, Roger suddenly stopped and had us duck into a corner shop. Once inside the shop Roger appeared to be looking for a particular item displayed in the shop’s front window, although he was really scrutinizing the outside street. He explained afterwards how it was necessary to check if we were being followed: “But first you must choose a side street or a main street where there are not many pedestrians or traffic, not a busy thoroughfare. You take mental pictures of everyone you think could be potential followers or surveillance cars as you continue along, before entering a store with windows which will permit you to survey the street“.
Roger had a knack for locating offshore financial information because of his former work as an intelligence officer. He and I were in Zurich on our way to meet my local Swiss counsel. We were following the money trail of a financial fraudster who pretended in his U.S. court case to have a negative net worth. Roger had brought with him the details of the fraudster’s finances, which demonstrated that the fraudster had hidden tens of millions of dollars by money laundering through Switzerland. Roger was about to share this information with me for the first time, at our meeting with the Swiss counsel.
In some cases, offshore financial information discovered during an asset search suggests that a foreign criminal law has been violated. In Switzerland for example, one might conceivably violate criminal laws by lying about the beneficial ownership of a bank account, as mentioned in this legal memo from Swiss counsel:
(To Read The Legal Memo, Click On The Image Above)Continue Reading Following The Money Trail In Zurich
Parking assets offshore in one jurisdiction and then exercising control over them through another, sometimes indicates money laundering. One example of how multiple jurisdictions may have been used to facilitate money laundering, is the case of United States v. Proceeds of Crime Transferred to Certain Domestic Financial Accounts, U.S. District Court for the