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Yesterday, the trial for Alberto W. Viler began. From 1986 to 2005, he was involved in a number of illegal activities at Amerindo Investment Advisers. Full details of the trial's first day can be read here at the New York Times. Charges against Mr. Viler and his partner, Gary Tanaka, include conspiracy and securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
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Mohamed Essa of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, his wife and a third member are responsible for Medicare fraud totaling $1.5 million. They cheated Medica, the Medicaid public health program in Minnesota, by submitting claims for translations services that never took place.
As reported by the Star Tribune, the wife, Indadeeq Omar, was sentenced to six years in prison in July, convicted under the following charges: one count of health care fraud conspiracy, 12 counts of health care fraud, one count of money laundering conspiracy, 19 counts of concealment money laundering and seven counts of promotion money laundering. Mohamed Essa failed to return to the United States in 2007 to face the charges he is facing. A date is not set for the sentencing.
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The SEC, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, has determined Michael Lauer, from Lancer Management Group and Lancer Management Group II, is liable for fraud. Lauer, a hedge fund manager, and acquired $1.1 billion from investors then lost around $500 million. SEC stopped the fraud in 2003 by freezing assets, and is not seeking $50 million as a penalty for his "allegedly fraudulent activity". Lauer has chosent to represent himself in the criminal case and has chosen not to comment.
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Earlier this decade, the U.S. experienced a huge jolt when Enron collapsed and in the wake there was a five year investigation by the FBI relating to fraud. Now, the U.S. is experiencing another financial crisis with the collapse of several investment banks and as the Washington Post reports here, another round of investigations by the FBI is to commence. As has been reported by CNN, Federal Officials will be investigating potential criminal wrongdoing at the five firms of Fannie Mae, Freddi Mac, Lehman Brothers, Countrywide Financial and AIG. With these new additions, the total number of firms under investigation for corporate fraud is now 26, while the number of individuals under investigation, is closer to 1,400. It will be interesting to see how many more firms are put under investigation as the crisis continues.
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DA Ronnie Earle, from Travis County in Texas, has requested for the appeals court to have another look at the money laundering case against Jim Ellis and John Colyandro, who were associates of Tom DeLay former U.S. House Majority Leader. For the original case the judicial panel had “volunteered that the state’s money laundering statute in 2002 did not cover checks,” as reported in this article. One of the justices on the panel, Diane Henson, felt that the case had not been handled correctly and asked that the panel review the constitutional challenge that was presented before the court. The panel turned this suggestion down, and as a result, Earle reacted by writing a strongly worded complaint that included some of Henson’s comments. A lawyer for Ellis, J.D. Pauerstein, responded by saying:
“It is way out of line. That sounds like it was written by a politician instead of a lawyer.”
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Taiwan's first family is in a bit of hot water over alleged money laundering. The family has reportedly opened accounts across the globe and have allegedly used these accounts for questionable activity. According to Taiwan News, the Swiss accounts that have been opened by the family will receive the utmost inspection, within legal boundaries, to combat any alleged laundering by the first family. But according to Swiss law, there must be proven criminal activity for the Swiss to have access to these accounts opened by the first family. Unfortunately, the criminal activity may only be proven if authorities are given access to these accounts. If there is probable cause to be criminal activity in these accounts, do you think the Swiss should step in further?
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The Franklin News Post reports that Jody Alton Smith and Margaret Smith have been found guilty on charges related to money laundering, conspiracy, and distribution of illegal whiskey in
A jury will later decide if they will have to forfeit thousands of dollars in property and money. Agents from ABC and ATF raided the illegal still in
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The Associated Press reports that
The Brazilian authorities have accused Boris Berezovsky of being the mastermind behind a huge money laundering scheme with the soccer club Corinthians. The president and vice president of the Brazilian soccer club have been suspended for three years for allegedly letting the team be part of the money laundering front. Berezovsky remains in exile in
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The Associated Press reports a former
The former state Rep. Ron Sailor Jr’s lawyers initially asked the district judge for 30 months of probation, but the judge sentenced him to federal prison time instead. Agents arrested him on Dec. 19th and took $300,000 in cash which he planned to launder. Sailor was arrested for taking out a fraudulent $250,000 loan and using his church as collateral.
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Mark Ingram, a star in the 1991 superbowl winning team, faces nearly 10 years in prison when he is sentenced on Tuesday for charges related to bank fraud and money laundering according to this article in AM New York.
Mark Ingram pleaded guilty back in 2005 for money laundering charges associated with narcotics deals, bank fraud, and cashing counterfeit checks. For the past three years he has sought to revoke the plea and have hired and fired many court-appointed attorneys during this process.
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We’ve been keeping a watchful eye on the Follieri money laundering case over the past couple of weeks. Australia.TO reports that Follieri has pleaded guilty in a
In addition, Follieri agreed to forfeit 12 watches and 9 pieces of jewelry as well as a payment of $2,4440,000.
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Leib Pitner, former Brooklyn Mortgage executive has pleaded guilty for defrauding Fannie Mae of $44 million with a colleague. In federal Court on Thursday, he entered his guilty plea specifically for the charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He had collected money from payoffs of 257 loans. Maximum penalty he could face is 20 years in prison, but as this article states, it is unlikely to be over 10. Pitner’s sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 19, while his partners case is still pending.
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As this article reports, the victims of the Enron Scandal will finally be getting their restitution. Enron shareholders, and investors alike, which totals approximately 1.5 million individuals, will be splitting the sum of $7.2 billion dollars. This amount is to be divided up and is not inclusive of the legal fees to be paid for the handling of this case. These monies have been sitting and accruing interest since 2002. It has finally been decided that the attorney’s fees to be paid out will come out to a final total of around $688 million. The total fees are said to be the largest payout for a securities fraud case.
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We posted two months ago that Raffaello Follieri, Anne Hathaway’s ex, was being charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering because of a scheme in which he led potential investors to believe that he had close connections to the Vatican, which enabled him to purchase the Catholic Church’s unwanted real estate properties in the US at bargain prices. The Wall Street Journal reports in this article that Follieri is nearing an agreement to plead guilty to the money laundering charges in which he could possibly serve up to five years in prison.
In addition to crimincal charges, Follieri is being sued by Burkle’s Yucaipa investment operation for charges of misappropriating more than $1.3 million from their real-estate ventures to fund his private jets and lavish lifestyle.
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In 2007, there were 207 publically disclosed security breaches. As of August 22, 2008, there have been 449 publically disclosed security breaches according to the
Cyber criminals have adopted more sophisticated ways to break into data systems. Business are doing little to combat this, as the majority are spending little money protect the mass amount of data they are now housing on their clients. There are 44 states that required business to disclose security breaches, and when they go public with the information, they’re rarely punished for the lack of security around their data.
Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at BT Group belivies that there are two ways to solve these problems: is if the government creates an incentive, either by allowing individuals to hold businesses liable for data breaches or by introducing regulations that impose criminal or stiff civil penalties on businesses that experience a breach.
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Officials are preemptively preparing for disaster fraud expected after the wake of Hurricane Gustav. As reported in this article, U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton, stated that his office, as well as the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force, is already getting ready for the onslaught of fraud cases expected. The Hurricane Katrina Task force was created in 2005, has already seen 898 defendants charged across 43 judicial districts, 25,000 complaints, with 17,000 cases being sent to law enforcement agencies for pending investigation. Another fact of note, is that the “largest fraud case in terms of loss,” for South Mississippi, was after Hurricane Katrina in
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China Daily reports that the Central Bank of
Last year the People’s Bank of China imposed over 26.5 million yuan on 350 financial institutions that didn’t comply with strict anti-money laundering regulations. The PBOC has signed and approved all international treaties passed by the United Nations. What are some examples of other countries that have began to crackdown on money laundering?
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In a recent story reported by the Houston Chronicle, U.S. Representative Tom DeLay and two others were absolved of their money laundering charges. The law that absolved them was passed eight months after their original indictment. The law was also authored by a representative who received some of the money.
In 2002, John Colyandro, James Ellis and DeLay, were all involved with a check for $190,000 that was sent to Republican National State Elections Committee in
However,
"We were working on insurance fraud, and we had prosecutors from all over the state wanting us to help them. They said we also have another issue we have trouble prosecuting. In this electronic age, the drug smugglers are not just using cash. They said they weren't able to prosecute money laundering under the old statute."
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In related news to this post from us, former Bank of China managers and their wives have been convicted on charges of racketeering and laundering $485 million they defrauded from the lender, as stated by the U.S. Department of Justice. This article reports that Xu Chaofan, and Xu Guojun, along with their respective wives, Kuang Wan Fang and Yu Ying Yi, were convicted by a federal jury in
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Arabianbusiness.com reports that Dubai Islamic Bank has signed an agreement to buy software to crack down on money laundering. The bank has bought the systems from Norkom Technologies, and will implement the solutions across operations in the UAE and
The Software will allow the bank to monitor and analyze the transactions and customer interactions across its entire database to investigate criminal activity. Waheed Rathore, head of Group Compliance at Dubai Islamic Bank mentions:
"This initiative demonstrates DIB's commitment to improve its defences against money laundering and terrorist financing. It also reflects DIB's belief that sustainable growth can only be achieved by maintaining high standards of regulatory compliance."
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