Money Laundering

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This is the eighth post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series.  Like “Four Asset Concealment Tools” and “Four Ways Assets Can Be Secretly Transferred”, the post reveals methods a spouse may use to hide marital assets and keep more than his/her fair share of the marital estate.

Credit/Debit Cards- Using a credit or debit card which draws from a secret foreign bank account is one way divorcing spouses can secrete and/or launder assets.  This method is so common that the IRS established its Offshore Credit Card Program to detect tax cheats maintaining undeclared foreign accounts.

A ‘Zebra’ Strategy (a.k.a Commingling)- A divorcing spouse may conceal marital assets by commingling them with business or other assets.  This ‘zebra’ strategy of mixing assets, is mentioned by the article Cayman Bank Records Seized.   The article discusses Germany’s recent seizure of records and says that some Coutts Trust Company customers “followed a ‘zebra’ strategy of mixing legally declared and taxed accounts containing smaller amounts with undeclared accounts containing larger sums.”

Asset Protection Services- One promotor of these services is Capital Asset, Inc.  Its website claims that forming companies in Nevada, or Wyoming, or Delaware is preferable because: “Do you know that partnerships, corporations, LLCs in most states make you completely visible? If a judge can see your assets, he can seize them.”  Divorcing spouses may hire a promotor of asset protection services to establish such companies which can then be used to open bank accounts or maintain assets with anonymity.

Continue Reading Divorce & Hidden Money: Four Methods Spouses Sometimes Use To Conceal Assets

I will present my program “The Ins & Outs Of Recovering Assets Via Whistleblowers & Other Tipsters” in London at 11:40 AM June 23, 2014, during the Carmelite Chambers International Fraud & Asset Recovery Conference.   “The Ins & Outs Of Recovering Assets Via Whistleblowers & Other Tipsters” highlights how whistleblowers sniff out vast sums of money hidden through laundering and other asset concealment schemes.  I open the program by discussing the fact pattern of a divorcing husband hiding tens of millions of dollars from his wife and domestic tax authorities, by using shell companies, multiple jurisdictions, etc.

The program features Washington, DC attorney Jack Blum who will talk about the IRS Whistleblower Program.  Mr. Blum has been an expert witness for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service.  Mr. Blum additionally served as associate counsel, or assistant counsel, or special counsel to three U.S. Senate committees or subcommittees; and been quoted by or mentioned in thousands of newspaper and magazine articles around the world.

Since he resigned at the end of 2008, as “Of Counsel” to Baker & Hostetler’s Washington, DC office, Mr. Blum practices part-time for a select group of clients.  Just one of Mr. Blum’s clients is whistleblower Rudolf Elmer.  As described by “Swiss Banker Blows Whistle on Tax Evasion”, Mr. Elmer provided tips to the IRS, a U.S. Senate subcommittee and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, about suspected tax cheats with offshore bank accounts.  At a January 17, 2011 Frontline Club Press Conference, Mr. Elmer also supplied WikiLeaks with this same kind of information.  Mr. Elmer’s whistleblowing led to his criminal prosecution by Swiss authorities, on charges that he violated Swiss bank secrecy law.Continue Reading Carmelite Chambers International Fraud & Asset Recovery Conference

The search for the true identity of Bitcoin creator Mr. Satoshi Nakamoto is discussed by “Will the Real Satoshi Nakamoto Please Stand Up” and at a video:

Mt. Gox which was once the world’s largest Bitcoin currency exchange, is also in the news.  It made bankruptcy filings in Japan and the U.S. and reportedly lost virtual currency valued at $473 million.

Perhaps most important, is that Bitcoin and other virtual currency can be a major money laundering threat.  This is true because with anonymity, determined criminals may exchange their illicit monies for virtual currency.   As a USA Today editorial explains “drug dealers, tax cheats, money launderers and terrorists do have uses for such a currency. Bitcoin gives them a way to try to hide money or move it to places undetected.”

Moreover, a criminal’s hidden money would presumably be even harder to detect if that criminal used virtual currency like Bitcoin along with the kind of virtual office and internet bank mentioned at Wyomingcorporations.us.
Continue Reading Bitcoin & Other Virtual Currency As A Money Laundering Threat

The post “An Asset Search, Tax Fraud & Divorce” was first published at the Asset Search Blog on January 16, 2008.  It is republished below as the seventh post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series.  The post describes my investigation of a divorcing husband.  While I was the divorcing wife’s attorney, I discovered the husband had hidden money offshore in anticipation of the divorce.  I also suspected the husband concealed this money from the IRS in furtherance of a tax fraud.

If evidence of tax fraud is brought to the attention of a judge presiding over a divorce, the judge may report the fraud to the IRS.  When the divorcing husband admitted in his affidavit that he had not paid taxes, the judge in Hashimoto v. De La Rosa, 2004 slip op. 51081(Sup. Ct. N.Y. County, June 23, 2004) reported him to the I.R.S.  In Beth M. v. Joseph M., 2006 slip op. 51490 (Sup. Ct. Nassau County, July 25, 2006), the judge similarly reported a husband who testified during court proceedings that he had not filed tax returns for the years 1997 through 2001 and other times.

Some divorcing spouses meanwhile, directly tip the IRS about their spouse’s tax fraud.  The spouses supplying these tips may be eligible for a reward as participants in the IRS Whistleblower program.  It typically takes six or more years for an IRS whistleblower to collect any reward and a whistleblower can face many challenges.  More information about blowing the whistle is at the Reuters article Record $104 million reward boosts whistleblowing on tax cheats, which cites me; and the New York Times article The Price Whistle-Blowers Pay For Secrets.
Continue Reading Divorce & Hidden Money: Whistleblowing, Tax Fraud & Tipping The IRS

This is the sixth post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series.

“Four Ways Assets Can Be Secretly Transferred” mentioned methods some use to move assets across international borders.  My post regarding the 2011 divorce between Helga and Gaston Glock discussed additional asset concealment tools.  Any one or a combination…

This is the third post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series:

One divorcing wife explained to me that she believed her husband had hidden money in offshore bank accounts.  This divorcing wife found a box her husband inadvertently left  in the basement after he moved out of their marital residence.  The box had an account opening application from one offshore bank and brochures from others.

Another divorcing wife found some correspondence at the family’s summer home.  The correspondence  was between her husband and the foreign attorney who helped establish the husband’s secret offshore bank accounts.  A different divorcing wife found a scrap of paper on which her husband had scrawled the name of a Swiss banker and a Swiss financial account number.

The above-described matters raised the same question, how could these husbands secretly transfer funds across international borders into offshore bank accounts?  Like narco-traffickers, tax evaders, terrorist financiers and others, divorcing spouses may use the following methods to secretly transfer assets:

Bulk Cash Smuggling– Determined criminals routinely smuggle cash through porous borders.  Illicit cash couriers for instance, travel through Mexico-U.S. border crossings on behalf of  Mexican drug cartels.  German tax cheats are also known to smuggle undeclared cash into Liechtenstein by stashing the cash in luggage and then driving with it across the German-Liechtenstein border.

Portable Valuable Commodities Like Diamonds & Jewelry– After his arrest, Bernard Madoff seemingly tried to transfer watches, cufflinks and other jewelry worth more than $1 million.  Madoff attempted to mail these items to friends and relatives.  Bradley Birkenfeld the whistleblower, is believed to have similarly smuggled diamonds in a tube of toothpaste while on a jet flying across U.S.-Swiss borders.Continue Reading Divorce & Hidden Money: Four Ways Assets Can Be Secretly Transferred

This is the first post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series:

During ultra-high net worth divorces, one party can conceal vast sums of money from the other by going offshore.  Stated differently, divorcing spouses may hide their wealth by utilizing cross-border elements, as money launderers do.   The Financial Action Task Force…

Throughout its five seasons, Breaking Bad highlighted the ways narco-trafficker Walter White and his co-conspirators hid the illicit proceeds of their made-for-TV crimes.  Breaking Bad could even be considered a case study of how determined criminals and others hide assets.  For example, at Problem Dog, Season 4, Episode 7, Walter and his wife Skyler faced the dilemma of trying to conceal $7 million in drug profits, by laundering it through their A1A Car Wash.

During Mandala, Season 2, Episode 11, Skyler’s boss Ted Beneke admitted to hiding nearly $1 million in undeclared revenue from the IRS.  In furtherance of this tax fraud, Ted had cooked the books of his company, Beneke Fabricators.  At Caballo Sin Nombre, Season 3, Episode 2,  Walter’s partner Jesse Pinkman seemingly washed $400,000 through the cash purchase of his parent’s home.  In Gliding Over All, Season 5, Episode 8, Skyler disclosed she rented a storage unit to conceal a hoard of cash.  At the end of Crawl Space, Season 4, Episode 11, Walter was also shown next to some illicit cash he had earlier secreted beneath his house:

Continue Reading How Walter White Could Take His Money To A Swiss Bank

As a DEA Special Agent, Donnie worked in Bolivia, Puerto Rico and Peru.  He had also been a liaison with the Mexican Federal Judicial Police.  After retiring from the DEA, Donnie taught Iraqi border policeman a variety of things, including how to detect cash and drugs hidden through smuggling.  Through his work, Donnie became highly…