Bankrupt Banker: Thailand

Gerald McAfee more than 21 years after being indicted in absence for bilking College Hospital out of $1.6 million in federal court

Gerald McAfee was hired as comptroller of a small hospital in Downey two decades ago, he quickly convinced his new boss to let him move $1.6 million of the hospital's money from low-risk, low-yield CDs into a more aggressive bond fund, authorities said. Four months after that authorization, hospital officials were shocked to learn that the account McAfee set up contained just $11, according to court documents. And McAfee, who was supposedly dealing with a family emergency in Illinois, was nowhere to be found. Barry Weiss, the hospital's executive director, later learned that McAfee, operating under an assumed identity, had allegedly converted the hospital's money to bearer bonds and fled the country, authorities said. On Monday afternoon, more than 21 years after being indicted in absence for bilking College Hospital out of $1.6 million, McAfee appeared in federal court in downtown Los Angeles to face the charges. "They say we always get our man," said FBI Agent Scott Schofield, who was 10 years old when McAfee allegedly absconded with the money. "This one just took a little while." Schofield and another agent flew to Thailand to retrieve McAfee, whom authorities said had been living there for years under yet another name. According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, as well as interviews with authorities, McAfee began making preparations to rip off College Hospital before he was even hired.In August 1985, while working for a company called Hospital Home Care, he stole the identity of a man named David Nathan Ward of Van Nuys, prosecutors allege. A month later he applied for the comptroller job and got it. Several months after he started working at the hospital, McAfee obtained a Colorado driver's license and a U.S. passport bearing Ward's name and his own photo, according to court papers. In the meantime, he'd contacted a PaineWebber broker in Mission Viejo and told him he would soon be coming into a substantial amount of money, court records show. In July 1986, he transferred $1.3 million to a PaineWebber account in the name of a bogus company, telling the broker he was president of the firm, authorities allege. A month later, McAfee allegedly arranged for the transfer of $300,000 to another account and had lunch with the broker, telling him he was thinking about buying a hospital in Lucerne, Switzerland, according to the indictment. After lunch, authorities say, McAfee took possession of $1.3 million in bearer bonds -- payable to whoever possesses them. He casually asked if such bonds could be traced, authorities allege. That fall, McAfee allegedly hopscotched the globe making preparations to convert the bonds to cash and laying the ground work for his imminent departure from the country, law enforcement officials said. All the while, McAfee had been showing College Hospital officials dummied up PaineWebber statements indicating that their investment was doing fine, according to the indictment and authorities. But by November, Weiss had apparently grown suspicious. The hospital director had been trying for some time to get the PaineWebber broker on the phone, but none of the numbers McAfee gave him seemed to work, authorities said. He finally got through and the news was not good: Just $11 remained in the account. By that time, McAfee had shipped all his belongings to Europe and was nowhere to be found, authorities allege. Over the years, the FBI periodically sought the public's help in locating McAfee. At one point the bureau put the handsome, wavy-haired former swimming coach on a wanted poster that listed five of his alleged aliases. But the case was essentially gathering dust until last year when a tipster informed the bureau that McAfee was living in Thailand. Special agents at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, working with Thai police, traced McAfee to a condominium purchased under the name David K. Smyth. A check of immigration records revealed that Smyth's passport bore McAfee's photo, authorities allege. McAfee was arrested late last year and was being held in a Thai prison pending extradition to the U.S. Schofield, the FBI agent, said McAfee, 65, was polite and friendly during the 14-hour flight to Los Angeles. McAfee was happy to be coming back to the U.S., Schofield said. He said McAfee intimated that prison in Thailand "is not very pleasant."

Gerald McAfee more than 21 years after being indicted in absence for bilking College Hospital out of $1.6 million in federal court

Gerald McAfee was hired as comptroller of a small hospital in Downey two decades ago, he quickly convinced his new boss to let him move $1.6...

British national Ariyakunathasa Pirathesan, who lived at the "veritable fraud factory"

British national Ariyakunathasa Pirathesan, who lived at the "veritable fraud factory" and was described by Judge Martin Beddoe as a "very principal player" in the conspiracy. Further inquiries led to a Leicester warehouse he had rented, which contained more equipment and extensive "footage from covert cameras of pin numbers being inputted into pads". He was jailed for four-and-a-half-years. Also detained were two illegal immigrants.  Sri Lankan Sombalu Jeyaganesh, 34, of Allan Drive, Raynhill, Liverpool, helped emboss the cloned cards. In addition, a "commercial valuation" found for a petrol station in Bootle, Merseyside, was found in a bedroom he was using at the Coventry address. The third man to be arrested was Sivanesan Mayilvaganam, of Garden Avenue, Mitcham, Surrey, 28, who was also recruited to help "process" the fake cards. They each got three years and were recommended for deportation. All three admitted one count of conspiring to defraud clearing banks between January 1, 2007, and March 13 this year. Passing sentence, the judge told them: "This was a massive, very determined, well-organised and sophisticated operation. This particular form of credit card fraud is becoming widespread. "It is a real and significant scourge on the banking industry and the holders of their credit cards. Financial damage caused by this activity is substantial, and it was substantial in this case. "The need for substantial deterrent sentences in cases such as this is obvious," he added. Mr Coltart told the court although the actual amount stolen- mainly as a result of cash machine withdrawals abroad - was £254,000, the "average loss figures for compromised cards" suggested the fraud could eventually have netted up to £3.5 million. "The vast majority of credit cards in this case were being used at petrol stations.  All of the evidence suggests it was petrol stations used to capture electronic data and physically film customers entering their pin numbers. "This can be done by fraudsters acquiring petrol stations and running them as legitimate businesses and alternatively bribing staff working there already." He added: "The international dimension of the fraud is best encapsulated by the passport stamps which indicated between January 2006 and December 2007 Pirathesan made a total of 29 foreign trips to India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the US."

British national Ariyakunathasa Pirathesan, who lived at the "veritable fraud factory"

British national Ariyakunathasa Pirathesan, who lived at the "veritable fraud factory" and was described by Judge Martin Beddoe as...

Viktor Bout arrested Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIxpoqPBRbk3tQI6u1ieP5a81llzdbuvFuMRWDA1bZufNNwB-KX0xZdU4pqG6lvcMPl0wY6mw7RlJVGfO26TWpBrcPY8Edc55rGhtAOzSAwEFO3T9WGBSZvkNVbb7PD60b3zqzRATqTkmY/s1600-h/bout.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174925165537192994" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIxpoqPBRbk3tQI6u1ieP5a81llzdbuvFuMRWDA1bZufNNwB-KX0xZdU4pqG6lvcMPl0wY6mw7RlJVGfO26TWpBrcPY8Edc55rGhtAOzSAwEFO3T9WGBSZvkNVbb7PD60b3zqzRATqTkmY/s320/bout.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a>The United States is seeking the extradition of suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, but he will remain in Thailand pending an investigation into whether he used the Southeast Asian nation as a base to negotiate arms deals, officials said Friday. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUwQ4UlYYFG9Lo9n7dBPNUmUnSwU5z4qXLbjfcAWDt_enf-KhyphenhyphensCcP0pEoNc8_5aXDZLuLDVx2cESaiBo6b4rC3DHfQul1axcmqUgzjOWTRcYZGzbPwiPUXPLlzDYgIo0LXfkg333P_myW/s1600-h/P1TA.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174924980853599250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUwQ4UlYYFG9Lo9n7dBPNUmUnSwU5z4qXLbjfcAWDt_enf-KhyphenhyphensCcP0pEoNc8_5aXDZLuLDVx2cESaiBo6b4rC3DHfQul1axcmqUgzjOWTRcYZGzbPwiPUXPLlzDYgIo0LXfkg333P_myW/s400/P1TA.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" /></a>Bout, 41, dubbed "The Merchant of Death" for supplying weapons for bloody conflicts in Africa, was arrested at a Bangkok hotel on Thursday, just hours after flying into the country from Moscow, Thai police said. He faces up to 10 years in prison in Thailand if found guilty on charges of procuring weapons for terrorists, police Lt. Gen. Aidsorn Nontree told a news conference. Police believe he was planning to negotiate arms deals in Thailand. Thai authorities issued an arrest warrant for Bout at the request of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "We do intend to extradite him," Thomas Pasquarello, regional director of the DEA, told the news conference. But the timing still has "to be worked out between the two nations." Handcuffed and expressionless, Bout was paraded before journalists at the news conference but refused to answer questions. "He is called the 'Merchant of Death' and 'Man of War' for a reason," Pasquerello said. Regarded as one of the world's most wanted arms traffickers, Bout's list of alleged customers in Africa includes former dictator Charles Taylor of Liberia, the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, now known as Congo, and both sides of the civil war in Angola. One of his companies also served as a subcontractor involved in transporting U.S. military personnel and private U.S. contractors in Iraq, according to a book about Bout by journalists Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun published last year. The 2007 book about Bout, "Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible," also says that a plane in Bout's fleet made several airdrops of weapons to FARC guerrillas between December 1998 and April 1999. It says the flights dropped about 10,000 weapons to the rebels, "enabling them to greatly enhance their military capabilities." Bout has been investigated by police in several countries, but has never been prosecuted for arms dealing. In 2005, the U.S. Treasury Department said "Bout has the capacity to transport tanks, helicopters and weapons by the tons to virtually any point in the world. The arms he has sold or brokered has helped fuel conflicts and support U.N.-sanctioned regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan." U.N. reports say he set up a network of more than 50 aircraft around the world, owned by shadowy companies with names such as Bukavu Aviation Transport, Business Air Services and Great Lakes Business Co. A U.N. travel ban imposed on Bout that was still current as of last November said he supported former Liberian President Charles Taylor's regime in efforts to destabilize Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds, which became known as "blood diamonds" for the warring they inspired. In October 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush issued an executive order freezing the assets of Bout and several associates and warlords in Congo and barring Americans from doing business with them. They were accused of violating international laws involving targeting of children or violating a ban on sales of military equipment to Congo. Bout had been under similar sanctions since 2004. A U.S. Treasury sanctions announcement in 2005 said air transport companies controlled by Bout "played a key role in supplying arms to Charles Taylor's regime in Liberia and the Sierra Leone rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front," both of which were accused of conducting atrocities against civilians. "In exchange for these supplies, Bout received payment from Liberia's international ship registry as well as diamonds and other valuable commodities acquired illegally by Taylor's associates and the RUF," it said. Liberia's maritime registry provides a "flag of convenience" for shipping companies the world over, and is a major legitimate source of revenue for the country. In 2002, Belgium issued an international arrest warrant through Interpol, the international police agency, on charges of money-laundering and criminal conspiracy. Bout won his nickname in November 2000, when Peter Hain, then Britain's Cabinet minister for African affairs, called him "the chief sanctions-buster" flouting U.N. arms embargoes against warring parties in Angola and Sierra Leone and dubbed him "a merchant of death." Bout is believed to have served in an air transport outfit of the Russian military until about 1991. He built his business on the huge drawdown of weapons and aircraft in the communist Eastern bloc as the Cold War After Bout's arrest, U.S. federal authorities in New York unsealed a criminal complaint charging that Bout conspired to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons, including 100 surface-to-air missiles and armor-piercing rockets, that he thought were going to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The FARC has been fighting Colombia's government for more than four decades, and funds itself largely through the cocaine trade and kidnapping for ransom. Thai police Col. Petcharat Sengchai said a second suspect identified as Andrew Smulian was also being sought. The DEA complaint filed in New York federal court said Bout's arrest stemmed from a sting operation over several months in which DEA agents posing as FARC rebels negotiated with Bout for the purchase and delivery of millions of dollars (euros) of armaments and surface-to-air missiles. In New York, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia would not say how much the weapons involved in the alleged deal were worth but said the cost of transporting them alone was set at $5 million (£á3.26 million). He said the weapons were to be parachuted to FARC fighters in Colombian territory. The arrest "marks the end of the reign of one of the world's most wanted arms traffickers," Garcia said. Bout's best-documented activities have been in Central and West Africa, where he has been accused of funneling weapons since the early 1990s. Bout's business, centered around a fleet of transport aircraft owned and operated by several closely held companies, also reportedly involved him in supplying warring parties in Afghanistan before the 2001 fall of the Taliban.

Viktor Bout arrested Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

The United States is seeking the extradition of suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, but he will remain in Thailand pending an investi...