Bankrupt Banker

Bird Road Rudy,Hugo Olmo Gonzalez

Bird Road Rudy,Hugo Olmo Gonzalez

When detectives arrested reputed gangster Bird Road Rudy, they made an unsettling discovery inside the Southwest Miami-Dade home where he wa...

Vishing, the new scam

Vishing as an attempt to persuade consumers either by email, text message, or a telephone call, purportedly from their credit card/debit card company, to divulge their Personally Identifiable Information (PII), claiming their account was suspended, deactivated, or terminated. In one scenario, recipients are asked to contact their bank by calling a telephone number provided in the e-mail, or alternatively, by an automated telephone recording. When the potential victim calls the telephone number, they’re greeted with “Welcome to the bank of …” and then requested to enter their card number in order to resolve a pending security issue. In the email scam attempt, in order to persuade the recipient that it is not a scam, the fraudulent e-mail sets out all the caveats the potential victim should be aware of in dealing with this type of email. Who would consider that a scam artist would warn you that a bank would not contact customers to obtain their PII by e-mail, mail, and instant messenger? To further convince the recipient of the validity of the email, it goes on to state that the recipients should not provide sensitive information when requested in an e-mail, and not to click on embedded links, claiming they could contain “malicious software aimed at capturing login credentials.” Would this convince you that this email was genuine? It just might. A new version of this scam recently reported to IC³ involves the sending of text messages to cell phones claiming the recipient’s on-line bank account has expired. The message instructs the recipient to renew their on-line bank account by using the link provided. These types of attacks against financial institutions, and consumers, are occurring with such frequency that IC³ has called the situation “alarming”.

Vishing, the new scam

Vishing as an attempt to persuade consumers either by email, text message, or a telephone call, purportedly from their credit card/debit car...

Kevin Scott O’Brien ,Charles A. Henthorn , G. Thomas Garten

Ending months of speculation and rumors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charleston filed criminal charges Wednesday against a businessman, a former bank president and a former bank board member for alleged crimes stemming from a multimillion-dollar cattle scandal in Greenbrier County involving First National Bank of Ronceverte. Named in the information were Kevin Scott O’Brien of Ronceverte, Charles A. Henthorn of Lewisburg and G. Thomas Garten of Covington, Va. An information allows prosecutors to bypass a grand jury and usually indicates a defendant is cooperating with authorities. O’Brien, 27, was charged with one felony count of frauds and swindles, according to court documents. O’Brien first made headlines in April 2006 when State Police began investigating the cattle broker after he filed a multimillion-dollar bankruptcy case. Federal prosecutors say O’Brien brokered the sale of cattle in Greenbrier and Monroe counties and several other locations, including Virginia, Illinois, Nebraska and Texas, under the business names of Shamrock Farms and K&M Properties Investments. Prosecutors allege O’Brien devised “schemes” to “defraud and obtain money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses” while selling cattle “at the expense of numerous farmers, banks and other business entities.” The five-page criminal charge against O’Brien alleges in the spring of 2006 he under-reported his liabilities and distributed false financial statements to lenders and investors and “solicited and procured substantial sums of money” with the “false promise that he would invest the monies in specific cattle sale transactions.” “It is further part of the scheme that (O’Brien) defrauded these various investors and lenders out of a total of approximately $4.2 million,” federal prosecutor L. Anna Forbes wrote. O’Brien also allegedly engaged in “phantom herding” — selling the same group of cattle to multiple buyers — and pyramid schemes, where money from one investor is used to fund business dealings with another investor. Other allegations lodged against O’Brien include: - Giving Henthorn, former First National Bank of Ronceverte president, bribes totaling approximately $10,000. - Tendering worthless checks for large amounts of money. - Directing banks to stop payment on checks for the purpose of quelling the investors’ mounting suspicions of fraud and to dissuade investors from reporting him to police. - Engaging in check-kiting activities involving hundreds of thousands of dollars with various financial institutions to stave off financial disaster. O’Brien could not be reached for comment Wednesday. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, with five years of supervised released and a possible $1 million fine. Henthorn, who abruptly resigned as president and CEO of First National Bank of Ronceverte last June, was charged with one felony count of accepting bribes from O’Brien totaling about $9,700. Henthorn, a former bank examiner, had worked at the bank more than 10 years, starting out as a senior loan officer and vice president. “(Henthorn in his capacity as bank president) did accept said payments by a customer … intending to be influenced in connection with business and transactions between (O’Brien) and the First National Bank,” Forbes wrote. When reached by phone Wednesday, Henthorn refused to comment. Court documents indicated the bribe payments were paid in the fall of 2005 through December 2005. Garten, who had served on the bank’s board of directors since 1999, resigned last July. Garten was charged with one felony count of aiding and abetting the bribes that O’Brien gave to Henthorn. The criminal charge did not state that Garten received any bribe money from O’Brien. Garten, a Realtor, broker and auctioneer, owns Greenway’s Real Estate & Auction Co. and two car dealerships in Covington. When reached by phone Wednesday, he respectfully declined to talk about his pending charges. “Everything will work its way out in the end,” he said. Both Garten and Henthorn face maximum prison sentences of 30 years each, five years of supervised release and possible $250,000 fines. First National Bank chair Ron Snyder, who was out of town Wednesday, told The Register-Herald by phone he had not yet seen the charges leveled against his two former bank associates, but was “relieved to see this finally out in the open.” “We are happy that this has finally been filed and now the rumors can either be quashed or reinforced,” Snyder said. “We understand the only wrongdoing were by the actions of these two individuals and this bears that out because they are the only ones that were charged.” But left in the wake are nearly a dozen individuals, banks and businesses that O’Brien allegedly defrauded for millions of dollars. Lewisburg lawyer Steve Hunter, who represents Karin Nelson — who claims O’Brien cheated her out of more than $200,000 — said there are still many unanswered questions that need to be addressed. “There are still pending motions left in the bankruptcy case. I still don’t think we have gotten to the bottom of this whole story and we won’t know until O’Brien is questioned under oath by lawyers representing the victims,” Hunter said Wednesday. “We still don’t know whose cattle went where and there are a lot of people who are out of a lot of money.” Creditors named in O’Brien’s bankruptcy case include The Bank of Monroe, United Bank and Farm Credit of Lewisburg. These alone total $2.5 million. During his initial bankruptcy filing, O’Brien stated he owed First National Bank nearly $400,000. One Virginia cattle dealer filed worthless check charges against O’Brien two years ago totaling 270,000. In August 2006, O’Brien attended one bankruptcy hearing after skipping out on several others. At that time, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times. Hearings to accept pleas from the three men will most likely be set in the next five days.

Kevin Scott O’Brien ,Charles A. Henthorn , G. Thomas Garten

Ending months of speculation and rumors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charleston filed criminal charges Wednesday against a businessman, a ...

YUKOS: Vasily Aleksanian, Mikhail Khodorkovsky

A gravely ill former executive of the dismantled Russian oil giant Yukos complained that he was being forced to attend hearings in a Moscow court as his embezzlement and money-laundering trial got under way Wednesday. Vasily Aleksanian, who has AIDS, is the latest executive from Yukos to go on trial in the continuing criminal prosecution of officials from the company that was once Russia's largest oil producer. Among the executives who have been targeted is Yukos' billionaire founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud in a distant Siberian prison colony. Khodorkovsky's lawyers said the jailed tycoon has gone on a hunger strike in support of Aleksanian, who angrily denied assertions by prison officials that he had refused treatment for AIDS. "This is quite simply murder," an unshaven and weary-looking Aleksanian told reporters after being escorted by two armed prison guards to the courtroom cage where defendants in Russian criminal trials typically are kept. "If they could shoot people these days, it would be done that way. "This is illegal," he said. "I am physically unfit to be present at this trial." Aleksanian was arrested in April 2006, shortly after being named vice-president of Yukos. His arrest followed the May 2005 conviction of Khodorkovsky and the subsequent breakup of Yukos to pay back taxes and fines. Most of its assets were purchased at bargain prices by state-owned corporations. Many observers say Khodorkovsky and his company were targeted because of his political ambitions. Aleksanian told reporters that the case was brought against him for purely political reasons. "I was only arrested because I was made vice-president of the company," he said. Defence lawyer Yelena Lvova told reporters that she had asked the Simonovsky District Court for more time to study material from the case. She said given Aleksanian's declining health - he has developed tuberculosis and cancer while in prison - he is unable to study the material himself because his illnesses have left him virtually blind. The hearing went on for nearly seven hours before the court adjourned until Thursday. The European Court of Human Rights last week called on authorities to move Aleksanian from prison to a clinic specializing in AIDS treatment. Drew Holiner, Aleksanian's representative before the European Court, said Russian authorities had ignored three similar, interim rulings from the court last year. "I hope the Russian government will come to its senses and comply immediately," Holiner said Russia's government-appointed rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, also weighed in Wednesday, calling for authorities to provide the prisoner with appropriate medical treatment, the Interfax news agency reported. Leonid Nevzlin, a businessman who now lives in self-imposed exile in Israel trying to avoid Yukos-related criminal prosecution, said in a statement that Khodorkovsky's hunger strike was being carried out on behalf of all Yukos prisoners. "The Russian authorities have gone from imprisonment of innocent political prisoners to killing them," said Nevzlin said in a statement. Interfax also quoted the head of the federal prison service in Chita, where Khodorkovsky is serving time, could face disciplinary measures for refusing to take food.

YUKOS: Vasily Aleksanian, Mikhail Khodorkovsky

A gravely ill former executive of the dismantled Russian oil giant Yukos complained that he was being forced to attend hearings in a Moscow ...

Police charged Semyon Mogilevich with tax evasion

Police charged Semyon Mogilevich with tax evasion Wednesday, pursuing prosecution of a man wanted in the U.S. and suspected of playing a key role in Russia's lucrative natural-gas trade with Europe. Semyon Mogilevich, long sought by the FBI, had been living freely near Moscow until his arrest last week on a street outside the city's World Trade Center. Some observers say that, by removing Mogilevich, the Kremlin may be seeking to strengthen the hand of President Vladimir Putin's chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, who chairs the board of Gazprom, the state gas monopoly. Police investigators charged Mogilevich in the Moscow jail where he is being held, according to his lawyer, Alexander Pogonchikov. The charges are connected to alleged tax evasion at a Russian cosmetics store chain, whose majority owner was arrested with Mogilevich on Jan. 23. Mogilevich, who denied the charges, has no interest in the business, his lawyer said. "He is acknowledged as a financial genius all over the world and never deals with fake companies," Pogonchikov said. U.S. officials have accused Mogilevich, 61, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen, of running an organized crime ring in the 1990s, initially headquartered in Budapest, Hungary. FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a speech in 2005 that Mogilevich's organization engaged in "drug and weapons trafficking, prostitution and money laundering, and organized stock fraud in the United States and Canada in which investors lost over $150 million." Mogilevich was considered such a key figure that the FBI for several years operated a task force in Budapest to investigate his organization. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2003, accused of manipulating the stock of a Pennsylvania-based company, YBM Magnex Inc., which collapsed in 1998. The U.S. Justice Department's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section has been investigating Mogilevich's suspected ties to the trading company that has a monopoly on gas sales to Ukraine and supplies gas to Europe, a Justice Department official confirmed this week. Russia has no plans to hand over Mogilevich for prosecution in the U.S., said Anzhela Kastuyeva, a police spokeswoman. "He is a Russian citizen and we do not intend to extradite him," she said. The Swiss-registered company, RosUkrEnergo, which is owned jointly by Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen, has come under growing scrutiny since it was formed four years ago. The company played a controversial role in the settlement of a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over gas prices, which led to a brief shutdown of supplies to Ukraine in January 2006. The cutoff was also felt in Western Europe. The arrest of Mogilevich came after Yulia Tymoshenko was named Ukraine's prime minister in December. She has called for Russia and Ukraine to scrap the gas deal, charging it is corrupt. "I stress my position once again — Ukraine and Russia don't need any kind of intermediaries," she said Wednesday at a news conference in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. Tymoshenko said she believed Mogilevich was linked to RosUkrEnergo, although she acknowledged she had no hard evidence. Ukrainian law enforcement officials investigated possible ties between RosUkrEnergo and Mogilevich in 2005, during an earlier period when Tymoshenko was prime minister. But the case was closed after Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko fired her later that year. Vladimir Milov, president of the Institute of Energy Policy, said Mogilevich's arrest most likely was linked to Tymoshenko's planned visit to Moscow in February and Medvedev's bid to win the Russian presidency on March 2. "I think that the goal ... most likely was to protect Medvedev, to remove an undesirable witness to all the various suspicious operations connected to RosUkrEnergo," Milov said in a radio interview. Some others observers said they saw the arrest as part of a power struggle among Kremlin factions, with supporters of Medvedev pursuing the case against Mogilevich to weaken hard-liners who oppose his candidacy. Mogilevich's removal could also strengthen Medvedev's control over Gazprom, they said.

Police charged Semyon Mogilevich with tax evasion

Police charged Semyon Mogilevich with tax evasion Wednesday, pursuing prosecution of a man wanted in the U.S. and suspected of playing a ke...

City of Cleveland is suing 21 Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, claiming they encouraged mortgage lenders to keep making loans

Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating senior banking executives for insider dealing and fraud as part of a criminal inquiry into the sub-prime crisis, the agent leading the inquiry said yesterday. Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Attorney-General, has issued subpoenas to big banks as he seeks to determine whether they knew more than they let on about the risks posed by the mortgage bonds they underwrote Neil Power, the head of the FBI's economic crimes unit, is heading the most far-reaching criminal investigation into the practices of the mortgage industry since it began to melt down last year, after years of increasingly lax lending finally fed through into an increase in defaults on home loans. The FBI is investigating every level of the conspiracy that it believes perpetuated the housing boom and ultimately resulted in millions of Americans losing their houses, investment banks losing billions of dollars and the chief executives of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and UBS resigning. Mr Power said: “We're looking at the accounting fraud that goes through the securitisation of these loans. We're dealing with the people who securitise them and then the people who hold them, such as the investment banks.” He said he was also concerned that some banking executives might be guilty of insider trading, offloading collatoralised debt obligations (CDOs), pools of bonds and other securities backed by mortgages, before their true valuations came to light in the wake of the home loan meltdown. The FBI suspects that the house price boom, once seemingly endless, encouraged mortgage lenders to take increasingly large risks, making loans to people with weaker and weaker credit histories as they sought new customers. These lenders, and the brokers that arranged the mortgages, often encouraged borrowers to lie about their income. They told borrowers that if they could not meet their repayments they could always refinance their property and use the proceeds. The FBI also suspects that the Wall Street banks may have been complicit in the process, ignoring the risks posed by these home loans because they were making huge fees from packaging them into bonds and other securities and selling them on to investors. Finally, the FBI is investigating whether the Wall Street firms, which kept many of the mortgage bonds they packaged on their own balance sheets, may have failed to warn their investors of the risks they posed. The FBI is the main investigative arm of the US Department of Justice, working with the US Attorney General and sometimes state attorneys general to bring criminal cases to the courts. The Bureau will also share some of the information it uncovers during the course of its investigation with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which brings civil cases against alleged corporate criminals. Adam Compton, an analyst at RCM Global Investors in San Francisco, said: “The fact that the FBI is conducting such a wide-ranging investigation shows just how seriously the is being taken. There are so many angles to pursue.” Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor specialising in white collar crime, added: “Given the level of the losses associated with the sub-prime mortgage crisis, this investigation could turn out to be very significant.” The FBI launched a mortgage task force in December as it sought to step up its investigation into the home loan industry. In addition to the sub-prime inquiry covering 14 companies, the Bureau is investigating 1,200 separate cases of mortgage fraud. Many of these involve the sale of a house by one person, for an inflated price, to a “straw” buyer, who disappears from the scene, leaving the bank with a house worth less than the mortgage. The two people then split the proceeds. In 2003, the FBI investigated 436 mortgage fraud cases, rising to 818 in 2006. Meanwhile, the number of so-called suspicious-activity reports the FBI receives from the banks grew from 35,000 in 2006 to 48,000 last year. The FBI expects the number to rise to about 60,000 this year. The FBI investigation may be the most significant but it is only the latest in dozens of civil and criminal cases being prepared by the SEC, the attorneys general of various states, and class action law firms such as Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins and Brower Piven. Many of these cover the same ground as the FBI investigation. Others are investigating the role played by the credit ratings agencies, which frequently granted the top AAA rating to CDOs. Bond insurers are among the other targets of litigation. These firms, which guarantee the payment of interest and principal of the bonds they underwrite in the event of a default, stand accused of failing to inform their investors of the true extent of the dangers posed by the sub-prime securities they insured. — The City of Cleveland is suing 21 Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, claiming they encouraged mortgage lenders to keep making loans to people who could not afford them by buying even the most suspect and packaging them into bonds.

City of Cleveland is suing 21 Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, claiming they encouraged mortgage lenders to keep making loans

Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating senior banking executives for insider dealing and fraud as part of a criminal inquiry into ...

Europolice will be a Union agency funded by the EU budget

Europol will be a Union agency funded by the EU budget. The European Parliament is already calling for the Council Decision to be revised within a period of six months following the Lisbon Treaty’s entry into force, as it will have a greater say on decision-making (co-decision powers). These encroaching powers will not work in the UK’s favour. Under the terms of Lisbon, Europol will vastly extend its own powers and Member States will no longer be able to block any further extension of powers. Presently, the Europol Convention amendments are decided by the Council acting unanimously after consulting the European Parliament. It is amended through protocols which are then ratified by national Parliaments. Hence, national parliaments do have some influence over the content of a Protocol and can block its ratification. When the Europol Convention is replaced by a Council decision, rules governing Europol will be amended by Council decisions unanimously adopted but national ratification is not required. Therefore, such aspects will be defined by secondary legislation rather than by Protocols amending the Convention. The Lisbon Treaty puts forward some tasks that Europol will have in the future – it is clear that the list is not exhaustive and also that Member States will no longer be able to block further extension of Europol powers. However, while The Treaty does offer some attempt to provide scrutiny of Europol it falls drastically short of the kind of scrutiny needed for it to be an actual European police force as demanded in the Treaty provisions. This provision must be completely rejected.

Europolice will be a Union agency funded by the EU budget

Europol will be a Union agency funded by the EU budget. The European Parliament is already calling for the Council Decision to be revised wi...

Wesley Snipes is accused of failing to pay income taxes on $38 million

<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R6BGjIviPmI/AAAAAAAAA_U/AXzQdMwvTII/s1600-h/blade_wanted_poster.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5161202742422814306" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R6BGjIviPmI/AAAAAAAAA_U/AXzQdMwvTII/s320/blade_wanted_poster.gif" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Lawyers for Wesley Snipes rested their defense of the Orlando-born actor Monday without calling anyone from their star-studded list of witnesses -- not even Snipes, who smiled and waved to fans as he strode from the federal courthouse with his confident legal team. "We could have put on a big show, but we don't do that," said defense co-counsel Robert Bernhoft, a tax-case specialist from Milwaukee. "We're not going to waste the jury's time." Snipes, who portrayed a half-vampire hero in the Blade trilogy and played tough guys in Passenger 57, U.S. Marshals and other movies, faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted. Closing arguments to the all-white jury are set to begin at 9:30 a.m. today. Jurors could begin deliberations Wednesday. The abrupt and unexpected end of testimony disappointed some spectators who had hoped to catch a glimpse of a star at the federal courthouse in Ocala. "Not even Rambo," groused Jake Hawkins, 27, referring to the character portrayed by Stallone in a series of action films. "I can't believe I took off work for this," the truck mechanic said as he trudged to his pickup, a disposable camera in his hand. Berkley Bell, 47, of Orlando said he was satisfied that Snipes recognized him from their school days at Jones High in Orlando. "He said, 'Man, it's been a long time,' " said Bell and his wife, Glorice, recounting their encounter with Snipes on Monday. They had come to offer support to the actor and snapped photos not only with Snipes but also with M. Scotland Morris, one of the assistant U.S. attorneys prosecuting the star's case. Snipes, 45, is accused of failing to pay income taxes on $38 million he earned from films and investments from 1999 to 2004. Prosecutors built their case against the actor and two other Florida men -- Douglas Rosile, 59, of Venice and Eddie Ray Kahn, 64, of Mount Dora -- over seven days of testimony from 23 witnesses. A lawyer for Rosile also declined to present witnesses in defense of his client, an accountant who prepared tax returns that sought $11 million in refunds for Snipes. Kahn, who declared at the beginning of the trial that he was not "participating," has spent most of the proceedings in his cell at the Marion County Jail. The founder of Guiding Light of God Ministries, a tax-protest group based in Mount Dora, Kahn was previously accused by the Internal Revenue Service of promoting and selling abusive tax schemes at seminars and through the Internet. After court recessed, trial watchers questioned the wisdom of offering no defense witnesses. "I would have liked to hear why Mr. Snipes did the things he did, and I think the jury probably did, too," said J.J. MacNab, a Maryland insurance analyst who is documenting the trial for a book on tax protesters. The government's case relied heavily on angry correspondence from the actor to the IRS. Much of it ended up in a "funny box," where IRS employees set aside questionable returns filled with tax-protester rhetoric and frivolous arguments, according to agents' testimony. Defense lawyers labeled Snipes' letters to the U.S. Treasury officials, IRS investigators and federal prosecutors as evidence of a good-faith search for the truth by the actor, who was struggling with conflicting tax advice from consultants who were exploiting him. But IRS employees testified that Snipes' documents -- one of which warned of "significant personal liability" for agents who pursued him -- were identical to rambling correspondence sent by tax protesters sanctioned for promoting illegal schemes.

Wesley Snipes is accused of failing to pay income taxes on $38 million

Lawyers for Wesley Snipes rested their defense of the Orlando-born actor Monday without calling anyone from their star-studded list of witne...

Daniel Marino, Samuel Israel

The former finance chief of bankrupt hedge fund company Bayou Management was yesterday sentenced to 20 years in prison, among the harshest sentences meted out in the US for a white-collar crime, for his part in defrauding investors of more than $400m. The judge in Manhattan Federal Court said that in determining the sentence, she considered the size of the fraud and the role played by former finance officer Daniel Marino, who she described as the "linchpin'' of the scheme. Few corporate executives have been sentenced to 20 years or more in prison in recent times. Those that have include former WorldCom chairman Bernard Ebbers, jailed for 25 years for fraud, and former Enron chief executive officer Jeffrey Skilling, who was given a 24-year term. Mr Marino and Samuel Israel, former chief executive of the Stamford, Connecticut, based hedge fund company pleaded guilty in September 2005 to conspiracy, investment adviser fraud and other charges connected with a scheme to defraud investors through the improper inflation of the value of Bayou's funds. They also created a fake accounting firm, Richmond-Fairfield Associates, which they used to audit Bayou's annual financial statements. Mr Israel is awaiting sentencing. James Marquez, co-founder of several of Bayou's hedge funds, was sentenced to 51 months in prison last week after pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge. The maximum term allowable under the charges against Mr Marino, 48, was 50 years. Mr Marino, 48 had sought leniency due to his co-operation with the investigation but was ordered to be imprisoned immediately. Professor John Coffee, of Columbia University law school, said the sentence was harsh for a first-time criminal who had not committed a violent crime, but added that the large amount of money stolen made it understandable. Colleen McMahon, US district judge, yesterday told Mr Marino that he was "as much a career criminal as any mobster or any drug kingpin". She said she would order Mr Marino to pay restitution in the "nine figures'', adding she would set the amount within 90 days. Mr Marino's lawyers said he would appeal against the sentence. The fraud at Bayou came to light when an investor, Silver Creek Capital Management, sought to withdraw $53m from the hedge fund in August 2005. Mr Israel told Mr Marino to write a cheque, even though Bayou did not have sufficient funds.

Daniel Marino, Samuel Israel

The former finance chief of bankrupt hedge fund company Bayou Management was yesterday sentenced to 20 years in prison, among the harshest s...

Jacob "Kobi" Alexander

Former Comverse Technology Inc Chief Executive Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, who is fighting extradition from Namibia to face U.S. criminal charges, has sued his former company for more than $72 million in severance and other compensation. The lawsuit follows a case filed by the company accusing Alexander of fraud. Alexander says in his complaint that Comverse refused to live up to its obligations to him after he left the company in 2006, such as allowing him to exercise valuable stock options he received as part of his compensation. The company "has also refused to honor its other contractual obligations to Alexander, including, but not limited to his right to severance pay, indemnification and advancement of his legal fees, bonuses and fringe benefits," the lawsuit says. The contract breaches to Alexander "have caused him damages in excess of $72 million," the lawsuit contends. The case was filed late on Friday. Alexander, who founded New York-based Comverse in 1982, is wanted in the United States on several counts in connection with an alleged scheme to back-date millions of executive stock options at the company. He says he is innocent of the charges, blaming poor advice from his financial and legal advisers. He left the company after it said it was conducting a review of past stock options grants. A Comverse spokesman, Paul Baker, declined to comment on the lawsuit. An attorney for Alexander was not immediately available.

Jacob "Kobi" Alexander

Former Comverse Technology Inc Chief Executive Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, who is fighting extradition from Namibia to face U.S. crim...

Polycarpus Priyanto:Indonesia police reopen murder case

Ex-airline pilot Polycarpus Priyanto has been jailed for 20 years for murdering activist Munir Thalib [AFP] Indonesian police have reopened an investigation into the murder of a leading human rights activist after a former airline pilot was convicted of the crime. Police will question Indonesian intelligence agents for the first time about their reported involvement in the 2004 death by poisoning of Munir Thalib. Polycarpus Priyanto, an ex-pilot for national airline Garuda, was convicted in 2005 of poisoning Munir with arsenic during a flight from Amsterdam, but the supreme court acquitted him 10 months later. Thalib's widow Suciwati has claimed intelligence officers ordered her husband's murder. Usman Hamid, a human rights campaigner, told Al Jazeera the murder case was an important test for the government of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's president. "Only when the real masterminds of the murder are brought to court, can the government prove that even the most powerful in Indonesia are not above the law," Hamid said. The same court that acquitted Priyanto overturned the acquittal on Friday based on new evidence and ruled he had committed premeditated killing, a court spokesman, said. Priyanto was also convicted of using forged documents to board the plane posing as a security agent. He was sentenced to a total of 20 years in prison Al Jazeera's Step Vassen met Priyanto shortly on Friday before he was arrested Priyanto said: "I will never give up my fight. I did nothing wrong. I didn't know Munir. I had nothing to do with him. I didn't even know him, he was not my friend nor my enemy. It is not my business." More than a dozen security officers took Priyanto from his home on the outskirts of Jakarta and brought him to Cipinang Prison late on Friday Munir's widow has been fighting an uphill battle for more than three years to bring the perpetrators of her husband's killing to justice "The police say they will wait for official documents from the supreme court before they take any further steps," Suciwati told Al Jazeera.

Polycarpus Priyanto:Indonesia police reopen murder case

Ex-airline pilot Polycarpus Priyanto has been jailed for 20 years for murdering activist Munir Thalib [AFP] Indonesian police have reopened ...

Semyon Mogilevich,

<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5p-CIviPAI/AAAAAAAAA6I/7VLWukgNUkg/s1600-h/3045-770405.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159574898278022146" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5p-CIviPAI/AAAAAAAAA6I/7VLWukgNUkg/s320/3045-770405.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Semyon Mogilevich, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen whom the FBI has identified as a major figure in international crime, was detained in Moscow late Wednesday, said Angela Kostoyeva, spokeswoman for the Russian Interior Ministry's anti-organized crime unit. Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich (June 30, 1946 in Kiev, Soviet Union, in Russian Семен Могилевич, also written as Semyon) is a notorious organized crime boss who is believed to control the largest Russian Mafia syndicate in the world. His business activities are alleged to include arms dealing, drug trafficking, prostitution and money laundering. He is nicknamed "The Brainy Don", because of his business abilities and because he holds a degree in Economics from the Lviv University. Mogilevich was born into a middle-class Jewish family At the age of 22 he earned an advance degree in economics from the university in Lviv. In the early 1970s he became part of the Lyubertskaya crime group in Moscow and was involved in petty theft and fraud. He served two terms (3 and 4 years) for currency dealing offenses. During the 1980s scores of Russian Jews emigrated to Israel, on short notice and without ability to quickly transfer their possessions. Mogilevich offered to buy their properties, sell them on the markets and then send the money. Nothing was ever sent and the money were invested in black economy and crime. In 1990, already a millionaire, Mogilevich moved to Israel, together with several top lieutenants. Here he invested into wide range of legal businesses and continued to operate world-wide network of prostitution, arm and drug smuggling through complex web of offshore companies. [1] In 1991 Mogilevich married his Hungarian girlfriend Katalin Papp and moved to Hungary, obtaining Hungarian passport. At the time he was a citizen of Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Hungary. Living in a fortified villa outside Budapest he continued with investment in wide array of enterprises, including buying local armament factory "Army Co-Op" producing anti-aircraft guns. [2] Mogilevich is also suspected in participation in large scale fraud where un-taxed heating oil was sold as highly taxed car fuel. Estimates are that up to one third of sold fuels went through this scheme, resulting in massive tax losses for countries of Central Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia). [3] His criminal organisation became one of the largest and most feared in the world, employing private army of brutal killers. In 1993 Mogilevich joined forces with the Solntsevo crime syndicate (Solntsevskaya bratva), one of Moscow’s dominant crime families to trade with art and antiques stolen from churches and museums in Central and Eastern Europe. A 1995 meeting between Mogilevich and Solntsevo group in Prague, Czech Republic, in restaurant "U Holubů" owned by Mogilevich, was raided by police. Two hundred people (including dozens of prostitutes) were detained, thirty expelled from the country. [4] It was rumored that the Solntsevo group intended to execute Mogilevich at the meeting. [5] In 1994 Mogilevich group obtained control over Inkombank, one of the largest private banks in Russia. [6], in a secret deal with bank chairman Vladimir Vinogradov, getting direct access to the world financial system. Through the bank he obtained, in 1996, significant shared in Sukhoy, a large military aircraft manufacturer. The bank collapsed in 1998 under suspicions money funelling. [7] In 1997 he allegedly financed selling three tons of stolen enriched uranium (the deal failed when Czech police detained some of its participants in Karlovy Vary, city known as holiday resort of Russian mobsters). In 1997 and 1998, the presence of Mogilevich, Sergei Mikhailov and others associated with the Russian Mafia behind a public company, YBM Magnex International Inc., trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, was exposed by Canadian journalists. On May 13, 1998 dozens of agents for the FBI and several other U.S. government agencies raided YBM's headquarters in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Shares in the public company, which had been valued at $1 billion on the TSE, became worthless overnight. [8] Until 1998 Inkombank and Bank Menatep participated in US$ 10 billion money laundering scheme through Bank of New York. [9] [10] [11] [12] FBI put Mogilewich in 2003 on the "Wanted by the FBI List" for participation in scheme to defraud investors in Canadian company YBM Magnex International Inc. Mogilevich was detained under the alias of Sergei Schneider, the spokeswoman said, adding that he has used 17 other names and holds passports from several countries. A Moscow court approved his formal arrest Thursday. The arrest was made in connection with an investigation into an alleged tax evasion scheme by the owners of Arbat Prestige, a successful chain of Russian cosmetic stores. Police grabbed Mogilevich on the street near a supermarket, along with Vladimir Nekrasov, the majority owner of Arbat Prestige. The two men, who were accompanied by a large group of bodyguards, surrendered without resistance. Russian state television on Friday showed video of Mogilevich as police held him and some bodyguards up against a car. They also broadcast video of the seldom-photographed figure in custody, wearing jeans, a cap and leather jacket. Police said Arbat Prestige was suspected of evading about $2 million in taxes. The U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the arrest. The United States has no extradition treaty with Russia. Mogilevich is wanted by the FBI on charges of racketeering, securities fraud, mail fraud and money laundering, according to the bureau's Web site. He described himself as a commodities trader in a 1999 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. The U.S. charges stem from a 2003 indictment in Philadelphia, in which Mogilevich and an associate were accused of manipulating the stock of a Pennsylvania-based company, YBM Magnex Inc. The billion-dollar corporation collapsed in May 1998. In its ``wanted'' notice on Mogilevich, the FBI says the businessman set up a complex network of companies based in more than 20 countries to ``create the illusion that YBM was engaged in a profitable international business, primarily the industrial magnet market.'' Ukrainian officials said in 2005 they were investigating Mogilevich's alleged connections to several companies involved in gas exports to Ukraine. Media reports in 2006 linked Mogilevich to RosUkrEnergo, a Russian-Ukrainian joint venture that acts as a middleman in Ukrainian gas purchases. RosUkrEnergo officials said their company had no relationship with the fugitive. Mogilevich, who has an economics degree, has lived in Moscow for the past several years, according to news accounts. The 61-year-old businessman lived in Israel before moving to Hungary in 1995. The businessman moved again, this time to Moscow, in 1999, after the FBI set up a task force in Budapest targeting his activities there.

Semyon Mogilevich,

Semyon Mogilevich, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen whom the FBI has identified as a major figure in international crime, was detained in Mo...

Kamto,Vasno Jogdo, Aalapangla Vasunia,Fakru Bhabhor

Four persons involved in four robberies in the state - including a loot of 1 kg of silver ornaments from Bopal on January 12 - were nabbed by the crime branch on Thursday. The arrests come close on heels of a similar operation when eight robbers were arrested on January 18. However, police officials maintained that the two gangs have no connection, barring the fact that they both are from the same district. According to the officials, inspector Ajay Gakhkhar of crime branch got a tip-off that the ornaments looted in Bopal would soon be sold to a jeweller in Ratan Pol at Manek Chowk. Police kept a watch on the area and soon they spotted four youth on two bikes with a bag. The youths were placed under arrest and gold and silver ornaments worth Rs 1.10 lakh and cash worth Rs 42,635 were recovered. Those arrested are Kamto, 24, Khatro Bhabhor, 27, Vasno Jogdo, 27, and Aalapangla Vasunia, 30 - all from Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. "On January 12 Anil Soni, owner of Ambika Jewellers, was returning home with his family members. Soni was carrying gold and silver jewellery worth Rs 1.25 lakh. At that time, the arrested and two others waylaid and assaulted Soni," said HR Muliyana, ACP, crime. With this arrest, the police also solved the mystery of a train robbery reported at Godhra railway station. "The gang was headed by Fakru Bhabhor, an absconding criminal, who worked in a different track from Shobhan. He had no specific modus operandi. He used to loot households, rob train passengers, kill people and also was involved in petty thefts. He and his accomplice boarded a train from Jekot railway station ahead of Dahod and then robbed passengers at gun point. When a RPF jawan tried to stop them while descending from Piplod, Fakru fired at him and escaped," said Gakhkhar. The gang was also involved in a similar incident where a train was looted between Meghnagar station in MP and Dahod station in Gujarat. A total of Rs 4.57 lakh was looted from the passengers. "There is no direct connection between the two gangs. While the first one - Shobhan's gang - looted jewellers, this one targeted lone travellers or passers-by. However, two of the members of the second gang used to work with the Shobhan's gang earlier and were responsible for six criminal offences," said Muliyana.

Kamto,Vasno Jogdo, Aalapangla Vasunia,Fakru Bhabhor

Four persons involved in four robberies in the state - including a loot of 1 kg of silver ornaments from Bopal on January 12 - were nabbed b...

Madeleine in Morocco?

<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5phRoviO_I/AAAAAAAAA6A/0dbTIFXNqII/s1600-h/171202378_3_7alB.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159543278728788978" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5phRoviO_I/AAAAAAAAA6A/0dbTIFXNqII/s320/171202378_3_7alB.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Private investigators, who are being paid £50,000 a month to find the girl, have invested huge sums in sending teams to check out reported sightings of her in the Rif mountains of northern Morocco and Marrakech in the south. Watch: The man seen loitering on the beach at Praia da Luz One theory is that Madeleine, four, was abducted and brought there after vanishing from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz while on a family holiday on May 3. The agency Metodo 3 is following the line she was kidnapped by a paedophile gang to take to North Africa, where blonde children are said to be highly prized as a symbol of social status. More than 40 investigators are working on the case in Morocco, Spain and Portugal. However, some experts claim the line of inquiry is fruitless and is just being fuelled by tourists who have mistaken blonde local girls in Morocco for Madeleine. Fair-haired children are rare in the country, but not unheard of among the Berber population.

Madeleine in Morocco?

Private investigators, who are being paid £50,000 a month to find the girl, have invested huge sums in sending teams to check out reported s...

MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha

Mara Salvatrucha. MS-13, the Maras have 20,000 North American members. Mara cadres have set up in many American cities, creating the beginnings of a national command hierarchy, with some Maras on the East and West coast reporting directly to and paying gang dues to leaders in Central America. As these cadres grow and learn, they become more dangerous, and already they have begun to actively target law enforcement officers. Although the FBI and law enforcement agencies have tried to contain them using anti-racketeering statutes, which allow prosecutors to attack the structures of organized crime, the real problem lies beyond the border. MS-13 is the product of the vicious Central American civil wars of the 1980s. Thousands fled north, many of them veterans of both sides. Unable to find work because of a lack of education, some of these refugees decided to leverage their combat skills to survive, forming Mara Salvatrucha. As a result of toughened immigration polices, U.S. officials deported MS-13 members to their countries of origin. However, this solution proved facile and politically expedient. After their return home, MS-13 members ruthlessly destroyed the local gangs and took control of huge swathes of Central American cities. There are 70,000 Maras in Latin America. Like al-Qaida, they operate loose, autonomous cells that form a broad transnational network. Individual cells are surprisingly sophisticated. Some are devoted to intelligence gathering, propaganda, recruitment, and logistics, as well as their more common activities of drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, and murder. In the cities and provinces they control, the Maras have carved out zones of autonomy, parasite structures within the larger state where they provide a rudimentary system of patronage and protection to the people in return for allegiance and tribute. Paralyzed by a lack of resources and decades of authoritarianism, neglect, and economic disparity, Central American states have found it difficult to deal with this threat. The Maras are heavily armed with M16s, AK-47s, and military grade explosives. Gang-related violence has risen to pandemic levels. In El Salvador alone, gang-related violence is responsible for 60% of all murders. Many security experts fear that Central America could become like Colombia, with huge areas of the country governed by mini-narcostates. The Peten region of Guatemala has already become just that. It is devoid of government authority, with the economy and local life dominated by the Maras and other criminal gangs and oriented primarily around drug trafficking. Another fear is that the Maras will start to carve out a political identity, making the jump from criminal overlords to a fully functional, armed political movement--with the sole goal of loosening state authority to create a jungle of quasi-feudal narcostates. The Maras are part of a troubling trend in Latin America: the rise of transnational gangs, narcotraffickers, and terrorists. These anti-state formations have successfully created power networks of their own, overwhelming security forces and creating rudimentary fiefdoms in areas where state control is weak. These actors have thrived in an environment where neoliberal economic policies have exacerbated traditional inequalities. They have profited from the legacy of civil wars and U.S.-backed dictators. It is not a new trend but the latest twist in a century of violent upheaval and inequality. Although these actors are not representative of a decline in state power in general, their success at eluding and challenging the state and forming autonomous zones indicates that they have decisively broken the state's monopoly of violence. This does not bode well for the long-term security of the Americas. In Mexico, President Felipe Calderon's efforts to bring narcotics cartels to heel have produced no visible results. His most recent operation, a December 2006 6,000-man raid on narcotraffickers throughout the country, netted no important arrests. Drug prices in the United States have held steady or fallen, suggesting that the Mexican government's efforts to stem the supply of narcotics have failed. For the foreseeable future, things seem likely to only get worse. In poverty-stricken northern Mexico, cartels still run narco-states within the larger state superstructure. Corrupt local officials tolerate these cartels’ usurpation of state authority as long as it does not undermine their own positions. In response to Calderon's efforts, cartel thugs have only gotten bolder. Inspired by al-Qaida, they have added beheadings to their repertoire, slaughtering their rivals and leaving their heads for show. Drug cartels even videotape the killings of rivals and put them up on Youtube. Drug killings have climbed to a high of 2,000 per year.

MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha

Mara Salvatrucha. MS-13, the Maras have 20,000 North American members. Mara cadres have set up in many American cities, creating the beginni...

Alfredo Beltran Leyva: Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman

<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YZtnTa8jI/AAAAAAAAA0M/lBQ-AMTn02g/s1600-h/cheese.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158338694634730034" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YZtnTa8jI/AAAAAAAAA0M/lBQ-AMTn02g/s320/cheese.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YZt3Ta8kI/AAAAAAAAA0U/vsGueqEx3J0/s1600-h/newsweek-apnet.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158338698929697346" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YZt3Ta8kI/AAAAAAAAA0U/vsGueqEx3J0/s320/newsweek-apnet.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YZuHTa8lI/AAAAAAAAA0c/SzkNcafPeJw/s1600-h/sinicato.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158338703224664658" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YZuHTa8lI/AAAAAAAAA0c/SzkNcafPeJw/s320/sinicato.bmp" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Mexican army troops captured a leader of the country's most important drug trafficking organization Monday as the government's offensive against organized crime continued. <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YX93Ta8iI/AAAAAAAAA0E/3Ajebrk_Ufo/s1600-h/_44371501_arrest_ap_203b.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158336774784348706" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5YX93Ta8iI/AAAAAAAAA0E/3Ajebrk_Ufo/s320/_44371501_arrest_ap_203b.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Alfredo Beltran Leyva, a member of a family allied with the so-called Sinaloa Cartel drug smuggling organization, was captured during an army sweep in Culiacan, the capital of the violent Pacific Coast state for which the organization is named. Beltran Leyva had responsibilities for smuggling cocaine and other narcotics through a wide swath of western Mexico, officials said in announcing the arrest. The Sinaloa Cartel, under at least the nominal control of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is widely considered the most important organized crime syndicate in Mexico. The organization's rivalry with the Gulf Cartel, another gangster confederation from cities bordering Texas, has been responsible for much of the underworld violence now claiming more than 2,000 lives a year in Mexico. Much of the violence in recent years in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, has been blamed on the Beltran Leyva family's battle with Gulf Cartel gunmen. Members of the Gulf Cartel, whose purported leader Osiel Cardenas is jailed in Houston awaiting federal trial on drug charges, have long claimed that the government favors the Sinaloa gangsters. But authorities have gone after the Sinaloa group, seizing 23 tons of cocaine last fall from a ship docked in Manzanillo and arresting a number of its members. Monday's arrest follows a large-scale operation last week in the border city of Tijuana, home of yet another "cartel" that resulted in a number of arrests and deaths, including those of six kidnap victims being held in a gangster safehouse. Sinaloa Cartel Leaders: Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo. Ismael Zambada, El Mayo Lieutenants: The brothers Arturo y Héctor Beltrán Leyva, dealers in Sonora and all the Federal District Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, Nacho Coronel. Representative for Guadalajara, Head of Finance for the cártel. Edgar Valdés Villarreal, La Barbie, texan, Boss of the foot soldiers in Nuevo Laredo. Otto Herrera García, El Licenciado, guatemalteco, responsable for fast launches and logistics Manuel Alejandro Aponte Gómez, El Bravo, Head of Security for El Chapo. Gustavo Inzunza Inzunza, El Macho Prieto. Head of Security for El Mayo. Vicente Zambada Niebla, son of El Mayo. Logistics for distribution of cocaine from Columbia

Alfredo Beltran Leyva: Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman

Mexican army troops captured a leader of the country's most important drug trafficking organization Monday as the government's offen...

Alfredo Beltrán Leyva (updated) arrest is unleashing more violence

<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VZ33Ta8fI/AAAAAAAAAzc/A4BqzqetdQY/s1600-h/alfredo_beltran_c.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158127764495856114" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VZ33Ta8fI/AAAAAAAAAzc/A4BqzqetdQY/s320/alfredo_beltran_c.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> The government scored a success in Sinaloa on Monday when it captured Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, one of five brothers who are high-ranking lieutenants in the Culiacan-based cartel. Though the big bosses have slipped through the dragnet — the offensive that was started against the gunmen in late November after a prominent local politician was murdered in Río Bravo — it has paid off in many respects, officials said. The police have arrested about 40 reputed members of the gang and seized dozens of machine guns, rifles, side arms, grenades and boxes of ammunition. The federal police have also begun to submit local police officers to a battery of tests to determine who might be linked to organized crime. Among the tests are polygraphs, drug tests and the vetting of personal finances. The goal is to weed out collaborators. Many people here say they welcome the federal intervention, even if it means having columns of troops patrol their streets. But others voice doubt that government forces can ever stamp out the cartel, given its infiltration of the local police. All the federal forces have accomplished, they say, is unleashing more violence. “Living in Mexico has become very difficult,” said one man who had been searched at a roadblock near Matamoros. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of drug dealers. “Even Colombia is looking better.” Others complain that the presence of soldiers and federal agents, along with the gun battles, has scared away American tourists, an important source of income. Last year, about six million fewer people visited border towns than in 2006; hotel bookings are down and sales of package tours have fallen steeply, according to the Association of Mexican Hotels and Motels.

Alfredo Beltrán Leyva (updated) arrest is unleashing more violence

The government scored a success in Sinaloa on Monday when it captured Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, one of five brothers who are high-ranking lieut...

Peter Atkinson

Peter Atkinson is asking to be freed on bail while he challenges his fraud convictions, on the strength of the legal merit of his appeal. These grounds are likely to be echoed by Conrad Black, his co-defendant and former boss, in the near future. Mr. Atkinson will raise four "substantial issues" on appeal, according to court documents his counsel filed in Chicago this week. Most notable is whether trial Judge Amy St. Eve erred by giving the jury the so-called "ostrich" instruction, allowing them to convict when there was a lack of evidence that he was wilfully blind to suspect financial transactions at the core of the case. Lawyers for deposed Hollinger chief executive and chairman Lord Black have already announced their intention to advance the same argument on appeal. Former WorldCom chief Bernie Ebbers remained free while he attacked a similar "ostrich" instruction in 2005, when he was convicted of swindling US$11-billion from the company he helped start. The former WorldCom chief's appeal was ultimately dismissed and his 25-year prison term upheld. Mr. Atkinson was sentenced last month to 24 months in a U.S. prison and three years' probation after being found guilty of three fraud charges last summer alongside Lord Black, Hollinger's ex-chief financial officer Jack Boultbee and former in-house counsel Mark Kipnis. Mr. Atkinson is scheduled to report to jail on March 3. Mr. Atkinson's bail application outlines other arguments he will ask the Seventh Circuit Appeal Court to consider in hopes of "reversal, a new trial, a sentence that does not include imprisonment or a reduced sentence to a term of imprisonment less than the total of the time already served." If he is not released, Mr. Atkinson could end up serving more prison time than is ultimately meted out, his lawyers say, or else he could face the difficult choice of whether to give up his appeal in order to serve his time in a Canadian penitentiary to be near his family -- a dilemma his lawyers say would be "patently unfair

Peter Atkinson

Peter Atkinson is asking to be freed on bail while he challenges his fraud convictions, on the strength of the legal merit of his appeal. Th...

Vancouver:Ricardo Scarpino City recoils from another brazen gangland hit in a crowded entertainment district

Scarpino has served time for property theft and was also jailed for masterminding a cocaine smuggling ring in Victoria in the late 1990s.<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VTg3Ta8dI/AAAAAAAAAzM/JAp8Gck5FT8/s1600-h/scarpino.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158120772289098194" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VTg3Ta8dI/AAAAAAAAAzM/JAp8Gck5FT8/s320/scarpino.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a>Ricardo Scarpino, 37, was gunned down after he arrived at Gotham's Steakhouse with his fiancee for the couple's engagement party. A 38-year-old man who was also in the car was killed, too. Scarpino's fiancee and another passenger were not injured. The cocaine conviction was later stayed and Scarpino was released. In 1993, Scarpino shot and killed a man in a Los Angeles restaurant but charges were never laid because Scarpino was acting as a bounty hunter and investigators couldn't refute his claim that he shot in self defence. <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VThHTa8eI/AAAAAAAAAzU/eA_BItoQy9c/s1600-h/s5000355-web.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158120776584065506" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VThHTa8eI/AAAAAAAAAzU/eA_BItoQy9c/s320/s5000355-web.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Chief Jim Chu held a previously planned news conference Monday to announce his department's strategic plan to cut violence and property crime in an effort to make Vancouver one of the safest major cities in Canada. But he was inundated with questions about the weekend shooting outside a popular high-end steak house in which two men were murdered in their SUV while one's fiancee sat in the passenger seat. Chu admitted the kind of gangland violence that spasmed again Saturday after a spate of similar killings last fall is tough to get a handle on. "It is more difficult when you talk about targeted events and very often it's the victim who's living that lifestyle that is the biggest determinant whether they're going to be a victim of a shooting," Chu said. He said it depends on "who you've crossed or double-crossed, or who you've engaged in violence with and this is a retaliatory hit." Const. Tim Fanning, the police department's spokesman, said the public was at great risk following the shooting around 10 p.m. Saturday, not long after the Vancouver Canucks hockey game ended just blocks away.. "Flying bullets, and we've seen it in the past, stray bullets have hit and killed innocent people," said Fanning. "(It's) obviously a very, very concerning event for everybody that was in that area." Fanning said police will be getting dozens of videotapes from surrounding businesses and 200 people have already been interviewed. Fanning agreed with Chu, saying that stopping a targeted attack is "very difficult." He said police are out in the city's downtown core on the weekends, and that includes officers from the integrated gang task force. "We're well aware of the problems and we're doing as much as we can, appreciating we can't be out on every street corner, not yet," said Fanning. "This isn't New York." Last November, Chu announced the formation of another gang task force, consisting of 60 officers from various agencies. It was in response to the killings of four men in different events in one week - two at a busy intersection, one in front of his home, and the other in a restaurant. In October, the mass killing of six men in a suburban Surrey, B.C., apartment sparked outrage because two of the victims were innocent bystanders. But Chu noted Monday that violent crime in Vancouver is very, very low "unless you're a gang member and live a risky lifestyle." What really affects people is property crime, he said. "If you live in the city and talk to friends and neighbours, quite often you know somebody who's been a victim of property crime," the chief said. "You walk on downtown streets and you can see window glass from cars. "That's not an infrequent sight in this city. So we want to reduce that and one of the areas we're doing it in is focusing on chronic offenders." Chu noted the decision by the Vancouver force to start sending back people who have outstanding warrants in other provinces, even if the other jurisdictions won't pay for the trip. The police department's strategic plan calls for the force to dramatically reduce property crime. Chu said the force will act to reduce property crime by 20 per cent over five years. The plan notes much of the property stolen in Vancouver is converted into cash to buy drugs. In 2005, property crime cost citizens and business of Vancouver close to $125 million. The report notes that In 2004, the department set a goal for a 20 per cent reduction in property crime within five years. By the end of 2006, the department had reached a 16.2 per cent reduction. But the report also noted there's a long way to go before property crime rates in Vancouver are among the average of other major Canadian cities. "Using the average crime rate derived from the eight largest cities (population over 500,000) as a target, Vancouver requires a further 64 per cent reduction in reported property crime," the report says.

Vancouver:Ricardo Scarpino City recoils from another brazen gangland hit in a crowded entertainment district

Scarpino has served time for property theft and was also jailed for masterminding a cocaine smuggling ring in Victoria in the late 1990s. Ri...

Alfredo Beltran Leyva member of the Sinaloa cartel

Mexican elite soldiers, with the help of law-enforcement officials, seized $900,000 in cash, an AK-47 assault rifle, eight guns, a BMW vehicle and 11 luxury watches during the arrest, the statement said. President Felipe Calderon has used the army to crack down on drug trafficking and related violence since taking office in December 2006. Organized criminals killed more than 2,000 people in 2007 and more than 100 so far this year, according to daily newspaper El Universal. Police have netted dozens of hit men in northern states after deadly shootouts this month. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VPU3Ta8cI/AAAAAAAAAzE/hOYuioG3QqY/s1600-h/_44371501_arrest_ap_203b.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158116168084156866" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5VPU3Ta8cI/AAAAAAAAAzE/hOYuioG3QqY/s320/_44371501_arrest_ap_203b.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Special forces soldiers captured Alfredo Beltrán Leyva in the Sinaloa capital, Culiacán, along with three of his bodyguards, several weapons and $900,000 in U.S. currency, the Defense Ministry and the attorney general's office said in a joint statement. Mr. Beltran Leyva was then brought to Mexico City. Mr. Beltrán Leyva, whose nickname "El Mochomo" refers to a desert ant, is a purported key operator for the cartel run by his cousin, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as "El Chapo" Guzman. "This is one of the people who function as the right hand of Chapo Guzman," said Javier Ibarrola, who writes on military and drug issues for the magazine Milenio. "This is important." Mr. Beltrán Leyva had broad responsibilities in northern states and held a position at the top tier of the cartel, along with his four brothers, officials said. "Part of his functions consisted of directing drug transportation operations, money laundering and the cooptation of public officials for the organization in Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco and Nayarit," according to the government statement. The government also said Mr. Beltrán Leyva controlled two groups of hit men within the cartel, one in Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, and another in Sonora. Sinaloa cartel hit squads have been on the front lines of a turf war with the Gulf cartel, which is based on the Texas-Mexico border, and its paramilitary enforcement arm, the Zetas. Monday's arrest, Mr. Ibarrola said, appeared to be a nice piece of intelligence work by the federal government, which had said at the start of the year that its strategy had changed from patrolling streets in drug hot spots to more surgical strikes against top cartel operators. The arrest was also a welcome change, Mr. Ibarrola said, from the recent bloody streets fights in border towns like Reynosa and Tijuana, contributing to a death toll of more than 100 this year from drug-related violence. Last year, about 2,500 people were killed in drug violence. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza congratulated Mexican officials on the capture. "When Mexico takes dangerous criminals like Beltrán Leyva and his crew off the streets, the people of the United States also benefit," Mr. Garza said, adding that the U.S. commitment to working with Mexico against crime is "stronger than ever."

Alfredo Beltran Leyva member of the Sinaloa cartel

Mexican elite soldiers, with the help of law-enforcement officials, seized $900,000 in cash, an AK-47 assault rifle, eight guns, a BMW vehic...

Caudell Jones

Caudell Jones died in his sleep Saturday at a minimum-security federal prison in El Paso, Texas, his lawyer, Mike Puglise, told The Atlanta ...

Chavez ordered a halt to all cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement

Complaints about Venezuelan counter-narcotics operations have risen since August 2005, when Chavez ordered a halt to all cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. Since then, seizures have fallen, and drug shipments by aircraft and shipping containers have skyrocketed, U.S. officials have said. Then-U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said in 2006 that the amount of drugs flowing through Venezuela had quintupled in five years. In December, U.S. officials in Caracas said as many as 100 illicit airstrips, stretching from Tachira state in western Venezuela to Bolivar state in the east, were used to transport cocaine. The officials complained that the Chavez government had brought no major convictions of traffickers in several years. Walters said the volume of Colombian cocaine moving through Venezuela, believed to represent at least one-third of Colombia's production, continues to increase with no discernible effort by Chavez government to impede it. He provided no statistics to back up his assertion. Signs of increasing shipments are reflected in rising drug busts in Europe, especially in Spain and Portugal, Walters said. The European Union last year opened a command center in Lisbon to direct military interdiction efforts, similar to the Pentagon's Joint Interagency Task Force South command center in Key West. This month, Portuguese police announced that they had found nearly 10 tons of cocaine in a shipping container that had arrived from Venezuela. "On the destination side of this flow, there has been action, but on the departure side of the flow, Chavez has not responded, not even in the minimal way," Walters said.

Chavez ordered a halt to all cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement

Complaints about Venezuelan counter-narcotics operations have risen since August 2005, when Chavez ordered a halt to all cooperation with th...

We need a better understanding of the exact nature and threat posed by serious and organised crime

Meldrum, who leads the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said: "We need a better understanding of the exact nature and threat posed by serious and organised crime.Gordon Meldrum, the head of Scotland's "FBI", believes lessons can be learned from the war against the Mafia in the US. "The FBI started to have real success against the big Mafia families in New York in the mid-70s on the basis of a research paper that was written by a group of Harvard professors. "It was about, stop looking at the individual, look at the entire network and actually work out a strategy. "If you impact on that part of the network, then this will be the result on the rest of the network. "The individual who never goes anywhere near the front of the business might have to come a bit closer." The former Strathclyde Police officer added: "I am prepared to go anywhere and try anything with anyone. "It might be that we want to know more about the impact of organised crime on Scotland's economy. "That's something that could go to a think-tank or a particular university or maybe a business school or a group of economists." Meldrum, 41, was previously deputy to former agency chief Graeme Pearson. He has even done part of his training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. But he admits organised gangs will be a tough nut to crack - and remains alarmed at the amount of drugs available in Scotland. He said: "We are still seeing a lot of heroin on the streets. We had a large seizure last year, 170 kilos, in Glasgow. "All the work we did in the aftermath of that suggested that did not cause a blip in availability.

We need a better understanding of the exact nature and threat posed by serious and organised crime

Meldrum, who leads the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said: "We need a better understanding of the exact nature and threat...

Internet technology has given organized criminals unprecedented powers to operate "at arm's length"

The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) said on Thursday that Internet technology has given organized criminals unprecedented powers to operate "at arm's length" from their victims and across national borders.A new publication issued by the ACC said crime groups are easily linked with terrorist groups, exchanging information and skills, and professional agents and organizations are increasingly being implicated in crime.However, the Australian community was largely unaware of the widespread of organized crime, ACC chief Alastair Milroy said.In launching a declassified publication in Australia for distribution to businesses and the wider public, Milroy said drug trafficking and money laundering were common activities among organized crime groups, but cyber crime including identity theft and fraud were on the rise."It's very important to remember that what we are really talking about here is substantial planning and organization at a very sophisticated level," the Australian Associated Press quoted Milroy as said.

Internet technology has given organized criminals unprecedented powers to operate "at arm's length"

The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) said on Thursday that Internet technology has given organized criminals unprecedented powers to operat...

Car Insurance Fraud

<div align="left">The link between fraud and organised crime is revealed by the example of a drugs gang in a big English city. The people that we are finding and identifying at the heart of these particular frauds aren’t just working alongside the drug engineer insurance liability professional , they are the drug traffickers Chris Hill, Norwich Union The criminals have contrived hundreds of car accidents in which they lured members of the public to crash into the gang’s cars. “The scale of this operation is enormous,” Chris Hill said. “This gang had induced more than 400 accidents in the course of a year. “Witnesses appear out of nowhere and they typically target women or the elderly because it’s easier to get an admission of liability on the spot from them. What follows is a claim both for themselves and frequently for fictitious passengers, for personal injury against the innocent party’s insurer. “The people that we are finding and identifying at the heart of these particular frauds aren’t just working alongside the drug traffickers, they are the drug traffickers” Mr Hill said. What is going wrong? Norwich Union’s research reveals a deep frustration at the inability - and sometimes unwillingness - of the police to take action. The Norwich Union says it struggles to get any of its cases prosecuted, despite often providing masses of evidence, investigated by lawyers, and served up to the police as a complete case. As a result, fraudsters are getting away with their crimes, commercial insurance liability themselves and coming back a second and third time for more. According to the insurer, this situation is mainly because fraud is the one major crime for which the government does not set police targets. So police forces - with the exception of the City of London force and the Metropolitan Police - simply don’t devote enough money and resources to dealing with it. Last year the Norwich Union detected 4,000 clear cut cases of fraud against itself. But because of low take-up rates by the police it presented the authorities with only 41 of these cases - so called “super-frauds” involving significant public interest or organised crime. Of these cases, only 18 were taken to court, although all the prosecutions were in fact successful. But even then, fewer than half of these cases led to prison sentences. Norwich Union says that most UK insurance firms, and many banks, now simply don’t bother to report most of the frauds they discover. This lack of effective penalties is one reason, Mr Hill says, why fraudsters persist with their schemes. The problem is the hundreds of millions of pounds that are being salted away which is being used to finance other forms of criminality The clearest problem is that if fraudsters do get caught they usually get to keep their money. To stop fraud being low risk and high reward, the authorities must establish the principle that the fraudsters pay back their stolen money, Norwich Union argues. “We have to get away from the idea that people can serve their time, fly off to an island in the Pacific and live the life of reilly,” Mr Hill said. “Where we get those convictions the financial debt should stay with them, and we should recover the money in a more consistent and aggressive way.” The criminal revenues being salted away can then be recycled into fresh criminality - or simply taken as profits. The government has made recapturing the proceeds of crime a priority, and created new powers with the 2002 Proceeds of Crime Act. The act is widely appreciated by police economic crime investigators - but its use remains patchy, as a 2004 HM Inspectorate of Constabulary report showed. </div>

Car Insurance Fraud

The link between fraud and organised crime is revealed by the example of a drugs gang in a big English city. The people that we are finding ...

Alton Logan

<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5PuP3Ta8SI/AAAAAAAAAx0/uw0vBpML3Sg/s1600-h/Logan_edited-1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157727954580205858" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5PuP3Ta8SI/AAAAAAAAAx0/uw0vBpML3Sg/s320/Logan_edited-1.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Alton Logan. Today Logan is 54 years-old,and languishing in an Illinois prison cell for more than half of his life. Logan was young when he arrived on that prison bus, but that was 26 years ago. Logan became a convicted murderer, doing life for killing a security guard at a McDonald’s restaurant on Chicago’s South Side. During the January 11, 1982, robbery at the McDonald's at 11421 S. Halsted St., security guard Lloyd Wycliffe was killed by a shotgun blast and another security guard, Alvin Thompson, were wounded. The gunmen got no money, but stole the guards' handguns. Just one month later, another man Edgar Hope, Killed one Chicago cop and wounded another aboard a CTA bus Hope used a McDonald’s guard’s stolen handgun to do the deed. Soon Hope was arrested charged with the cop’s murder. Alton Logan was arrested and charged along with Hope for the McDonald’s crime based on an eye-witness’ identification of the two suspects for killing the security guard. Days later on February 9th two more Chicago cops, William Fahey and Richard O’Brien were murdered. The officer’s service revolvers also stolen by the killers during the crime. Police identified Andrew and Jackie Wilson as the cop’s killers and launched one of the largest manhunts in department history. On Feb. 13, officers raided a South Side beauty parlor where they learned Andrew Wilson had been hiding. Cops were unable find Wilson, but they did find the revolvers belonging to Fahey and O'Brien, as well as a shotgun. Ballistics tests matched the shotgun to a shotgun shell found at the McDonald's restaurant according to a crime lab report. Chicago Police Commander, Jon Burge and some of his detectives caught up with the Wilson brothers and interrogated them. Trials were held and the Wilson brothers along with Edgar Hope went to death Row for their crimes and all later had their death sentences commuted by Illinois Governor George Ryan who is doing time of his own in a federal prison cell. The Wilson brothers and several others involved in despicable murder cases accused Commander Burge and his men of torturing them in order to gain confessions. Burge was fired, sued and is still under investigation decades later because of the allegations. Andrew Wilson died of natural causes while in prison but one of his best kept secrets did not die with him.

Alton Logan

Alton Logan. Today Logan is 54 years-old,and languishing in an Illinois prison cell for more than half of his life. Logan was young when he ...

Mark D. Siljander

Mark D. Siljander, 56, a Washington lobbyist who served in the House from 1981 to 1987, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in a multicount indictment by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo. Federal officials said Siljander was hired in 2004 by the Islamic American Relief Agency of Columbia, Mo., after the group had been listed among organizations banned from receiving government contracts because of concern that the organizations supported international terrorism. Siljander was paid $50,000 to lobby Congress to restore the firm's eligibility to receive government work. According to the indictment, the money was stolen by the Islamic American Relief Agency from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had hired the organization to do relief work in Africa. Siljander was charged with conspiring to engage in money laundering by transferring stolen USAID funds, and obstructing justice by lying to a federal grand jury and making false statements to FBI agents, officials said. Siljander allegedly told federal agents that he had not been hired to do any lobbying or advocacy work for the relief agency, and that the funds he received were charitable donations intended to assist him in writing a book about Islam and Christianity. James R. Hobbs, Siljander's lawyer, said his client was innocent. "Mark Siljander vehemently denies the allegations in the indictment and will enter a not-guilty plea," Hobbs said in a statement. "Mr. Siljander, a former congressman, is internationally recognized for his good-faith attempts to bridge the gap between Christian and Muslin communities worldwide." Hobbs said Siljander was never an officer of the Islamic agency or involved in any efforts to engage in prohibited financial transactions with terrorists. Most of the charges in the 42-count indictment target the Islamic agency and several of its former officers. The group was shuttered in October 2004 when it was designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department. In an indictment filed in March, it was charged with transferring funds to Iraq in violation of federal law. Also named was the group's former executive director, Mubarak Hamed, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sudan. The new, expanded indictment alleges that the group funneled some $130,000 to bank accounts in Pakistan "purportedly for an orphanage" that was housed in buildings controlled by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar is founder of Hezb-i-Islami, a militia allied with the Taliban. The U.S. government put Hekmatyar on a list of global terrorists in 2003, making it illegal to support him or his interests. Siljander, a former salesman of prefabricated homes and state legislator, won a special election in 1981 to fill the House seat vacated by David A. Stockman, who had been named budget director in the new Reagan administration. Siljander, a favorite of religious conservatives, declared war on abortion, pornography, the Equal Rights Amendment and school busing. But he lost his 1986 reelection bid after urging clergy members to support him in order to "break the back of Satan." He later was appointed a public delegate to the United Nations by President Reagan. Since leaving Congress, published reports indicate, Siljander has represented a variety of interests, including officials from the governments of Liberia and Sudan. According to federal court records, he was once hired to do business development work for a Michigan man convicted in 1995 of using embezzled public funds in a failed plan to sell military weapons to Croatia. Officials said at the time that Siljander was not aware that funds he had received might have been stolen. In 2001, Siljander was a government witness in the federal trial of two executives of a Virginia-based company that promised green cards to foreign investors who invested at least $500,000 in a U.S. business. Siljander testified that he worked as a consultant to the two defendants but later came to harbor serious doubts about the integrity of the business. The website for Global Strategies Inc., the lobbying firm Siljander heads in Great Falls, Va., lists references including President George H.W. Bush, assassinated former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and several current and former members of Congress.

Mark D. Siljander

Mark D. Siljander, 56, a Washington lobbyist who served in the House from 1981 to 1987, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and ob...

Ebrahim Mansouri

A Canadian trucker will lose more than $267,000 found hidden in his rig during a traffic stop in Somerset County. Fifty-three-year-old Ebrah...

World Bank’s Municipal Development Project for Armenia’s Yerevan water utility

Corruption surrounding the World Bank’s Municipal Development Project for Armenia’s Yerevan water utility was from start to finish, from top to bottom. This was seen during the Armenian Parliamentary Commission study into the project in 2004; through discussions, site meetings, and studying project related documents, which, because Richard Walkling had been improperly appointed in a dual role as General Director of the Yerevan Water & Sewerage Company (YWSC), included the YWSC accounts, which were audited through the years of the Municipal Development Project by KPMG The list below is taken from the Government Accountability Project (GAP) ‘Demand Letter’ to the Director of the Bank’s investigation unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), and includes the fraud, corruption and embezzlement which were comprehensively documented during the time of the Parliamentary study in 2004. Many other areas of fraud, corruption and embezzlement were witnessed, but were not sufficiently well documented to be included in the claim that GAP made on behalf of Bruce Tasker, the British engineer, who managed the Parliamentary Commission study. The PMU Director falsely represented the registration of the PMU; A conflict of interests had been created in the person of Mr. Richard Walkling; Project objectives had been improperly altered; Project targets had been improperly altered; Project works had been accounted for and not implemented; Deficient material had been used in the construction of a reservoir; Water meters had been purchased with project funds yet the revenues went unrecorded; “Ghost” consultants had been extensively used; Company accounts had been manipulated in annually audited financial statements, resulting in the embezzlement of public funds – through The transfer of an electricity debt to a public utility under the IFRP; Incorrectly stated and revalued company assets; Incorrectly stated and inflated increase of company charter capital. Mr. Tasker presented the evidentiary documentation related to the above list at a 22nd November meeting with Mr. Aristomene Varoudakis, the Bank’s Armenia Country Manager, involving Dr. Beatrice Edwards, Director, International Programs for the Government Accountability Project.

World Bank’s Municipal Development Project for Armenia’s Yerevan water utility

Corruption surrounding the World Bank’s Municipal Development Project for Armenia’s Yerevan water utility was from start to finish, from top...

Yu Zhifei

<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5CXU3Ta8LI/AAAAAAAAAw8/kDcKiABtDRM/s1600-h/xin_03100319092768579938.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156787958037803186" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5CXU3Ta8LI/AAAAAAAAAw8/kDcKiABtDRM/s320/xin_03100319092768579938.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Yu Zhifei, former general manager of Shanghai International Circuit Co, which hosts China's Formula One race, misappropriated the money from Shanghai Shenhua Football Club in the late 1990s to help pay for his purchase of a house, Xinhua reported. A flamboyant sports entrepreneur who helped bring Formula One motor racing to China was sentenced to four years in jail on Thursday for embezzling 1.05 million yuan (73,000 pounds), the official Xinhua news agency said Yu, 54, is one of more than a dozen officials and businessmen who were detained in the wake of a scandal last year over embezzlement of Shanghai's social security funds. The furore led to the dismissal of the city's Communist Party boss Chen Liangyu. Yu moved from running a small manufacturing company to controlling the famed Shenhua football club before he took the motor racing job. He brought Manchester United to Shanghai to play against his club in 1999. The 177 million pound Shanghai race track, which can hold 200,000 people, hosted China's first Formula One Grand Prix in September 2004 and also holds world championship motorcycle races. Yu, who was tried in the city of Wuhu in east China's Anhui province, said he would consult with his lawyer on whether to appeal the verdict, Xinhua reported.

Yu Zhifei

Yu Zhifei, former general manager of Shanghai International Circuit Co, which hosts China's Formula One race, misappropriated the money ...

A people who pays the pizzo is a people without dignity

<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5CILnTa8KI/AAAAAAAAAw0/VrgiUyyixqg/s1600-h/0,,2097897_1,00.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156771306449596578" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5CILnTa8KI/AAAAAAAAAw0/VrgiUyyixqg/s320/0,,2097897_1,00.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> Sicilian businesses are using the internet to join forces in the battle against the mafia.Using the slogan "A people who pays the pizzo is a people without dignity", the web campaign hopes to change the shopping habits of locals as well as provide organised resistance for businesses. Consumers are being encouraged play their part by supporting the companies who refuse to pay the pizzo. Supporters from all over the world have left more than 2,000 messages of encouragement on the campaign's online forum. The AddioPizzo web campaignAmong posts from Poland and China, Connie Marcus from Buffalo in the US writes that she is supporting the movement because her great grandfather was killed over the pizzo in the 1920s. "I am proud that my great grandfather refused to give in to their demands," she posts. "He died for something he believed in." "The web is providing a way of co-ordinating these groups that that were previously so diffuse that the mafia could pick them off," he explained. The internet can help protect people's anonymity, he added, saying: "You can provide resources to this group without the letting the mafia know who you are."

A people who pays the pizzo is a people without dignity

Sicilian businesses are using the internet to join forces in the battle against the mafia.Using the slogan "A people who pays the pizzo...

Black Mafia

Gregory West of Hollywood, Fla., also must forfeit any money he made by selling drugs. The money will be applied to a $270 million judgment ...

Ebrahim Mansouri,Canadian

A Canadian has been sentenced in federal court in Johnstown on his conviction of bulk-currency smuggling. Ebrahim Mansouri, 53, of Toronto, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson to time served in jail, about 16 months; and three years of supervised release; and was ordered to be turned over to immigration officials; and to forfeit $267,400. According to information presented to the court by Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Valkovci Jr., on Sept. 26, 2006, Mansouri concealed $267,400 in a motor vehicle and, with the intent to evade currency-reporting requirements, transported the money from Canada to the U.S. Mansouri was arrested by state police at Somerset while driving a large truck on the turnpike. Police said the money was hidden and testing revealed that the cash was contaminated with high levels of cocaine and heroin. In an unrelated federal case in Johnstown, a Westmont woman was sentenced to three years’ probation for making false statements to two federally-licensed-firearms dealers. Gibson imposed the sentence on Andrea M. Drake, 31, of the 800 block of Albright Ave., according to a Thursday news release. According to information presented to the court by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Haines, on Dec. 21 and 30, 2004, in connection with the purchase of four firearms, Drake knowingly made false statements to deceive Windber Builders Supply. On Jan. 7, 2005, in connection with the purchase of three firearms, Drake knowingly made a false statement to deceive Sporting Good Discounters of Richland Township. Haines said Drake represented to both businesses that she was the actual buyer of the firearms, when, in fact, she was purchasing the firearms on behalf of someone else

Ebrahim Mansouri,Canadian

A Canadian has been sentenced in federal court in Johnstown on his conviction of bulk-currency smuggling. Ebrahim Mansouri, 53, of Toronto, ...

Land Mafia

Goa is again in the news for all the wrong reasons. The political crisis that has gripped the coastal state's seven-month-old Digambar Kamat government with the resignation of three ministers had been waiting to happen. Political analysts say the state was pushed into political instability by the leaders' lust for power and money, the land mafias and the bitter rivalry between the two major players - Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The role of the land mafia is the quietest but the most important. Each time a government has toppled in Goa, some green part of the 3,700-sq km state has gone under concrete. The latest toppling game began with allies of the ruling Congress-led coalition targeting the pet project of Finance an IT Minister Dayanand Narvekar - the proposed Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat. On Wednesday, Vishwajit Rane (Independent), Micky Pacheco and Jose Philip (both of Nationalist Congress Party - NCP) resigned over their differences with Finance and IT Minister Dayanand Narveker. Nilkanth Halarnkar, a legislator, also tendered his resignation to the governor. The four resignations put the coalition in a minority in the 40-member Goa assembly. The trouble began with some of the coalition members criticising Narvekar. But it was Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane, an independent MLA and the son of former Congress chief minister Pratapsing Rane, who has been accused of leading the revolt. Rane and Atanasio Monserratte, United Goans Democratic Party MLA, who extended an issue-based support to the Kamat government, were targeting Narvekar. Monseratte, in particular, was opposing the IT habitat project while the finance minister was keen on it. Meanwhile, the BJP, led by ambitious IITian-turned-politician Manohar Parrikar, had been pulling the strings for the ouster of the Kamat government. Alleging irregularities in the allotment of land for the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), the BJP had been running a massive campaign against the Congress-led government in the state.

Land Mafia

Goa is again in the news for all the wrong reasons. The political crisis that has gripped the coastal state's seven-month-old Digambar K...

The Scorpions; investigative arm of the National Prosecuting Authority

Research by the Institute for Security Studies indicating that the Scorpions have had success in fighting organised crime and convicting high-profile people has reinforced calls for the elite unit not to be incorporated into the police. This week the United Democratic Movement called for the Scorpions, the investigative arm of the National Prosecuting Authority, to be spared imminent inclusion into the SAPS. The ANC national conference last month resolved that the Scorpions should be disbanded or incorporated into the police within six months. The ISS findings show that the Scorpions were succeeding in their fight against organised crime. ISS researcher Tshehla Boyane said the Scorpions had arrested and convicted high-ranking people. DA parliamentary leader Sandra Botha on Wednesday lashed out at the ANC’s rhetoric about the criminal justice system and the judiciary. Addressing businesspeople in Welkom, Free State, Botha said the ANC had taken it upon itself to champion the “transformation and restoring the integrity of the law enforcement units and the criminal justice system”. “But we find that what the Zuma-led ANC means by transformation and integrity amounts to no more than ensuring that the deployment of the party faithful is extended to the judiciary and to threaten any opposition to such moves with the full extent of its wrath,” said Botha . In the wake of the deteriorating relationship between the police and the Scorpions, the SA Human Rights Commission said the problem needed to be resolved. SAHRC chief executive Tseliso Thipanyane said that these tensions “undermine public confidence in the agencies that are crucial in fighting crime and protecting the rights of all South Africans”.

The Scorpions; investigative arm of the National Prosecuting Authority

Research by the Institute for Security Studies indicating that the Scorpions have had success in fighting organised crime and convicting hig...

narco-euros , euro laundering

<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5CG_nTa8JI/AAAAAAAAAws/MRuKaKWY6RA/s1600-h/Euro_banknotes.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156770000779538578" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ANNSRoaDZro/R5CG_nTa8JI/AAAAAAAAAws/MRuKaKWY6RA/s320/Euro_banknotes.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a> A cocaine boom in Europe and the continent's strong currency have combined to fuel a thriving industry: euro laundering. With the euro approaching $1.50 and soaring demand for cocaine in countries like Spain and Italy, Europe has become a far more lucrative place to do business for Latin American drug cartels than in previous years. To obscure the origins of the funds, and escape government scrutiny in the process, the cartels use a complex system to launder their proceeds -- much of which is landing on U.S. shores. In late March, U.S. authorities arrested a man carrying a leather duffel bag who had just landed at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Santiago, Chile. Inside the bag was more than $1.9 million in cash, mostly in bundles of €500 and €200 notes. Authorities are struggling to make a dent in the booming drug trade in Europe. WSJ's Mark Schoofs tags along with Spanish police as they search for clues to the source of cocaine that keeps pouring into the country. U.S. and Chilean law enforcement officials believe the man was at the end of a money-laundering trail that begins in Europe. Over a period of four and a half years, he and his associates flew to the U.S. from Latin America some 280 times, openly toting more than $244 million worth of euros into the country, according to documents in a case brought by federal authorities in U.S. District Court in New York. The big bills have become so symbolic of the lush life that they have recently crept into pop culture: The rapper Jay-Z's video for Blue Magic -- the debut single from his new album "American Gangster" -- features a suitcase full of €500 notes and someone thumbing through a stack of them as Jay-Z raps the words, "the kilo business." Hype Williams, director of the music video, said that he and Jay-Z chose euros because they are "more valuable" and because they wanted to "one-up" their hip-hop competitors by showing "the things people are into now." The wads of euros carried by people like the man arrested at LAX are often the spoils of Europe-bound cocaine shipments -- many of which transit through Africa, law-enforcement officials say. Consumption of the drug has soared in much of Western Europe, according to a report released last year by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. In Italy, use of the drug rose to 2.1% of the general population in 2005 from 1.1% just four years earlier. In France, it tripled from 2000 to 2005, from 0.2% to 0.6% of the adult population. Cocaine use in England doubled from 1998 to 2006, according to Britain's National Health Service, to 2.4% among adults. Some narco-euros are laundered directly in Europe. But officials say the lion's share is routed back to South America as cash and eventually ends up in the U.S. "This is still a cash business," says Donald Semesky, the Drug Enforcement Administration's head of financial-crimes investigations. The first step is to convert small bills accumulated from thousands of street sales into €500 notes, which are easy to transport. Obtaining large quantities of these conspicuous notes, though, isn't easy. So drug traffickers turn to specialized criminal rings -- whose members are often involved in banking and real estate -- to gain access to them, says José Manuel Álvarez Luna, chief of the money-laundering section of the Spanish police. Spain is the center for such aggregation, according to authorities. A high-level Spanish banking official says a disproportionate share of the euro zone's €500 notes, known as Bin Ladens for their scarcity, circulate in Spain. The purpose of money-laundering is to disguise the criminal origins of ill-gotten gains so the funds appear legitimate. In most cases, laundering also helps criminals escape the notice of tax collectors and law-enforcement officials, boosting the value of their illegal proceeds. Particularly since 9/11, tightened antilaundering regulations, known by banks as "know your customer" rules, have forced drug cartels to use more circuitous routes to circulate their funds around the globe. For starters, the drug cartels do not themselves bring their narco-euros to the U.S. Instead, they usually sell their euros to South American black-market currency brokers or to foreign-exchange houses, known in Spanish as casas de cambio. The casas' business as currency-exchange houses gives them a natural cover for moving large amounts of cash. But in South America, there are few if any legitimate buyers for the huge sums of euros that the casas obtain -- directly or indirectly -- from the traffickers. So the casas funnel most of the narco-euros, sometimes via middlemen, through a chain of exchange houses in countries like Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Chile, says the DEA's Mr. Semesky. Often, the drug traffickers will sell their euros for Colombian pesos, and then the euros entering the U.S. no longer belong to the drug cartels but to the casa de cambio. In other cases, says Mr. Semesky, traffickers pay the casas to move funds into one of their U.S. bank accounts. These funds aren't usually intended for withdrawal, but rather to pay various debts. This is achieved by wiring funds to the account of whomever the trafficker wishes to pay. On a recent night at a bar on Madrid's bustling Gran Vía, a shirtless, tattooed waiter served tables and a buxom drag queen in a nurse's uniform worked the crowd. In the trendy venue was a man in his 30s who talked by cellphone with his dealers. A few minutes later, he stepped outside, leaned into the window of a small car and handed over €60, or about $90. For that sum, he received one gram of cocaine. Such street sales have surged. Spain now has a larger percentage of its population (3%) using cocaine than the U.S. (2.3%), the previous top per-capita consumer, according to United Nations figures. In the first half of 2007, a kilo of cocaine sold for €33,000, or about $43,900, in Madrid, more than triple the $12,500-$14,600 it fetched in Los Angeles and far more than the $13,000-$26,000 it sold for in New York, according to the Spanish police and the DEA. Last year, seven European countries banded together to form the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center-Narcotics, or MAOC-N, an international agency dedicated to stopping drug traffic over the Atlantic. Already, the center is helping to make major busts. In October, on the high seas off West Africa, Spanish authorities -- acting on a tip from MAOC-N -- seized an aging, cockroach-infested trawler. Called the Opnor, it allegedly had more than three metric tons of cocaine hidden below the floor of its cargo hold. Apparently registered in Panama, the vessel was captained by a grizzled Dutch man in his late 60s and is believed to have been heading toward Senegal. The boat was following a typical pattern, authorities say. They surmise that, if it hadn't been seized, its cocaine would have been warehoused in West Africa, where crushing poverty, weak law enforcement and, often, rampant corruption make for an ideal way station. The traffickers would have then sent the drugs to Europe by boat, either directly or via North Africa. Increasingly, say Spanish and American authorities, cocaine is also being flown from North Africa in small planes landing in Spain and Portugal on clandestine airstrips. The traffickers were forced to take those routes because Spanish, Portuguese and British authorities were intercepting boats coming to Europe directly from South America. Spain is a favorite entry point because of its proximity to Africa, its long coastline and its language, which it shares with Colombia and most other South American countries. Spanish officials say they seized almost 100 metric tons of cocaine in 2005 and 2006. According to United Nations statistics, Spain seized more cocaine than any European nation between 1999 and 2005. Authorities suspect that Europe's thriving cocaine business likely provided the euros in the duffel bag of Mauricio Mazza-Alaluf, the man arrested at LAX in March. Along with a cousin, Luis Mazza-Olmos, he ran an exchange house in downtown Santiago, Chile, according to U.S. and Chilean law-enforcement officials. The probe into the Mazzas began in August 2004, says Christian Caamaño, an investigator for the Investigative Police of Chile. The tip-off was a Peruvian passenger on a flight from Colombia who arrived at the Santiago airport carrying a backpack stuffed with €600,000, according to Mr. Caamaño. Alarmed, Chilean authorities began monitoring such couriers and noticed that they dropped off their bags full of euros at the Mazzas' exchange house. Later, the Mazzas' routine evolved: A courier from Colombia, allegedly carrying European proceeds, would deliver cash at the Santiago airport to an armored-car service. Personnel would count the money in a parked truck and turn it over to the Mazzas or one of their associates, says Hernán Peñafiel, the lead prosecutor in a parallel case brought in Chile against the Mazzas. One of the Mazzas or their associates would then board a U.S.-bound flight with the money, Mr. Peñafiel says. Once on U.S. soil, according to authorities, the Mazzas allegedly moved their euros with breathtaking openness. Their main tactic was to dutifully fill out paperwork at customs points and financial institutions, using real family and business names, according to law enforcement officials and court documents from the U.S. case. After the Mazzas or their associates cleared customs at Los Angeles International Airport, they would transfer their cash to Associated Foreign Exchange Banknotes Inc., a currency-exchange firm headquartered in Encino, Calif. AFEX Banknotes then converted the euros into dollars and wired the dollars to U.S. bank accounts the Mazzas had opened, according to law-enforcement officials and two AFEX Banknotes employees. The Mazzas had accounts with at least three banks in the U.S., according to the court documents from the New York case: Israel Discount Bank of New York; Harris Bank in Chicago; and J.P. Morgan Chase in Dearborn, Mich. In opening each account, the Mazzas gave their company's real name and openly described it as a tourism and currency-exchange agency. The Mazzas proceeded to move huge sums of money through these accounts, according to the court documents, often after receiving faxed instructions, intercepted by Chilean authorities, from people or entities with suspected ties to Colombian traffickers. In a single year, according to court documents, the Mazzas wired $133 million into the Harris Bank account and $117 million out. At their J.P. Morgan Chase account, they wired $35.5 million in and $34 million out in less than three months, and their IDB checking account recorded more than 2,500 transactions totaling more than $29 million during 2003 and 2005, according to the court documents. Asked to comment, Harris Bank said in a written statement that it "identified suspicious activity" after conducting its own investigation and "closed the account in accordance with banking regulations." IDB said in a statement that the events outlined in the New York case "occurred under former management" and it no longer maintains accounts for unlicensed money transmitters, including the Mazzas' casa de cambio. Chase declined to comment. AFEX Banknotes compliance officer Andrew Scherer says his company is "mortified" that it may have helped facilitate illegal activity, but added that it has strong anti-money-laundering policies and has taken "substantive measures" to improve its anti-money-laundering policies in the wake of the Mazza case. He declined to be more specific, citing security concerns. When Mr. Mazza-Alaluf landed at LAX on March 31, he didn't attempt to conceal his money. Like he and his associates had done hundreds of times before, he filled out the standard declaration forms, a requirement for passengers entering the U.S. carrying more than $10,000 worth of currency. But this time, he was immediately arrested. The 55-year-old Chilean maintained his innocence. Mr. Mazza-Alaluf has pleaded not guilty to federal felony charges of conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. His attorney, Bernard Alan Seidler, calls the charges "a classic case of the government overreaching." Chilean authorities nabbed members of the Mazza clan and their associates in a coordinated operation. They are now in jail in Santiago, facing money-laundering charges. Their lawyer, Yieninson Yapur, says they are all innocent. In an email sent via Mr. Yapur, Mr. Mazza-Olmos said he is a legitimate businessman and has done nothing illegal. The U.S. investigation of the Mazza case was conducted by a multi-agency task force based in New York and led by the DEA and the Internal Revenue Service. Officials tout it as an important success. But it's unlikely to significantly restrict the flow of narco-euros gushing out of Europe.

narco-euros , euro laundering

A cocaine boom in Europe and the continent's strong currency have combined to fuel a thriving industry: euro laundering. With the euro a...

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