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 fourth post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series.
Mr. Gaston Glock’s creation of the ubiquitous Glock pistol turned him into a billionaire and he is thought to be one of the twenty wealthiest individuals in all of Austria. Mr. Glock’s ex-wife Ms. Helga Glock meanwhile, suspected he is concealing marital assets which could be connected to the couple’s 2011 Austrian divorce.
Ms. Glock therefore used civil law tools in an attempt to detect any marital assets / alleged hidden monies Mr. Glock supposedly possessed. The civil law tools Ms. Glock employed included: 1) her Swiss petition to freeze a UBS bank account reportedly maintained by Mr. Glock in Switzerland; and 2) the March 18, 2013 request for judicial assistance filed at In re application of: H.M.G., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Index No. 13-cv-02598.
Ms. Glock’s March 7, 2013 affidavit filed at her request for judicial assistance, claimed Mr. Glock had earlier started hiding and moving personal and corporate assets in anticipation of the couple’s divorce. The March 7th affidavit discussed Ms. Glock’s belief that Mr. Glock was trying to transfer assets out of her reach; and that there had allegedly been a steady flow of assets out of Austria.
According to the affidavit, there were financial transfers to the above-mentioned UBS Swiss bank account and to bank accounts in Liechtenstein or Luxembourg. Also according to the affidavit, Mr. Glock had a Bermuda trust formed so that it could receive $51 million from “Glock”. The affidavit additionally referred to the “worldwide Glock Group structure” and indicated the structure was thought to be partially depicted by this chart:
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
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
Domestic tax authorities, financial Intelligence units, bankruptcy trustees and banks rely on red flags to detect illicit assets, as mentioned by “Recognizing Hidden Assets, The Red Flags.” Recognizing Hidden Assets, The Red Flags notes that a broad range of litigants may uncover hidden assets by spotting the red flags. These red flags are
International asset recovery and suspected trade-based money laundering:
If you are a divorcing spouse, judgment creditor or anyone else who believes they may need to do a bank search to locate hidden assets parked offshore, below is a discussion of how individuals sometimes hide their assets and what legal remedies may be available.
Beneficial owners around the world are able to secretly transfer assets across international borders. As explained herein, they do this by conducting offshore banking through multiple jurisdictions; nominee incorporation services; and/or gatekeepers like lawyers. Various legal remedies are however, usually available for finding hidden assets transferred offshore. These remedies may even include seeking a court order directing a Swiss or other offshore bank to perform a bank search and disclose bank customer information.
Continue Reading Assets Hidden Offshore & A Bank Search To Find Them
“Swiss Banks, Smuggling & Other Asset Recovery Issues” will be presented from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM on April 18, 2013 in New York City, at the New York County Lawyers’ Association. Jack Blum, Esq., Advocate Robert Fiecther of the Des Gouttes & Partners law firm located in Geneva, Switzerland and Fred L. Abrams, Esq. are speaking at this program. To attend, please contact the New York County Lawyers’ Association at telephone no. (212) 267-6646. The program’s description and agenda are as follows:
In its 2007 National Money Laundering Strategy report, the U.S. government estimated that as much as $36 billion annually from just the former Soviet Union, was being secretly transferred through U.S. bank accounts and U.S. shell companies. Besides using U.S. bank accounts and shell companies, kleptocrats, Ponzi schemers, divorcing spouses, etc., can of course conceal assets by parking them in Swiss or other foreign bank accounts.
This program analyzes how bank secrecy laws, multiple jurisdictions and smuggling are utilized in schemes to conceal vast sums of money. The program discusses mutual legal assistance treaty relief and using letters rogatory as asset recovery tools. It mentions ways whistleblowers or other tipsters may help sniff out these monies and the difficulty lawyers face in dealing with whistleblowers either as clients or as tipsters.
One of the program’s speakers Jack Blum, Esq., will examine the IRS Whistleblower Program and the ethical concerns gatekeepers such as lawyers and accountants have in reporting illegal behavior in both the civil and criminal contexts. Mr. Blum served as associate counsel, or assistant counsel, or special counsel to three U.S. Senate committees or subcommittees; and has been quoted by or mentioned in thousands of newspaper and magazine articles around the world. He was also an expert witness for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service.
Mr. Blum’s select clients include Heinrich Kieber, who blew the whistle on customers with offshore accounts at Liechtenstein’s private bank, the LGT Group. Mr. Kieber sold his whistleblowing tips to the German government, which used them to track suspected tax cheats. Mr. Blum too represented former Julius Baer Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer, who supplied tips about suspected tax evaders to both WikiLeaks and the IRS.
Another one of the program’s speakers is Robert Fiechter, who is a partner at the Des Gouttes & Partners law firm of Geneva Switzerland, founded in 1834. Advocate Fiechter also serves as a Deputy Judge at the Court of Justice of Geneva, an appellate court. He too served as a substitute criminal judge and is the Deputy Secretary of the Supervisory Board of the Swiss Bank’s Code of Conduct. During the program, Advocate Fiechter will describe the ins and outs of Swiss bank secrecy laws. He will additionally review the legal remedies available for recovering assets hidden in Switzerland and elsewhere across the globe.
Continue Reading Swiss Banks, Smuggling & Other Asset Recovery Issues
A StarTribune article says that Trevor Cook’s currency program fraud was the second-largest Ponzi scheme in Minnesota history. The article too mentions that prosecutors have accused one of the scheme’s participants, Gerald Durand, of a murder-for-insurance plot. The suspected plot surfaced at the “Government’s Motion For An Evidentiary Hearing Regarding Durand“, filed December
A whistleblower claim against Deutsche Bank and HSBC’s settlement with U.S. Treasury:
