Scott Rothstein’s wife, others charged in money-laundering plot to sell jewelry

By Jay Weaver
Miami Herald

The wife of imprisoned Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein and two other people were charged Thursday with plotting to hide and sell more than $1 million worth of jewelry from the former Fort Lauderdale lawyer’s waterfront home before federal agents seized his assets three years ago.Kimberly W. Rothstein, her friend, Stacie Weisman, and the wife’s lawyer, Scott F. Saidel, were charged with money-laundering conspiracy, obstruction of justice and tampering with a witness in federal court.
Prosecutors said that by concealing the valuable jewelry, the three defendants prevented Internal Revenue Service agents from confiscating the property when they searched Rothstein’s home in November 2009. His wife and Weisman are accused of selling some of the jewelry to others, including Eddy Marin and jeweler Patrick Daoud, who were indicted on separate charges Thursday.
Among the jewelry items: a 12.08-carat diamong ring, according to federal prosecutors.
Kimberly Rothstein, Weisman and Saidel are also accused of seeking to have Scott Rothstein testify falsely during his deposition in a related civil bankruptcy proceeding involving his defunct law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt & Adler.
All five defendants are also accused of concealing the true location of certain items of jewelry during the bankruptcy proceeding to prevent the former law firm’s trustee from recovering them for victims of Rothstein’s $1.2 billion scheme. Marin and Daoud are separately accused of commiting perjury during depositions in the bankruptcy case.
“When a witness lies under oath or conspires to obstruct justice, the integrity of our system of justice is undermined,” U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said.
Rothstein is serving a 50-year sentence after pleading guilty to racketeering and other fraud charges involving the sale of purported legal settlements to investors from Florida to New York. Eight other people have been convicted on charges related to his scheme, among the largest in Florida history.
Kimberly Rothstein’s defense attorney, David Tucker, issuing a statement, saying while she claims she was not aware of her husband’s racketeering activities, “She takes full responsibility for her actions in regard to the charge filed today.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/06/v-print/2987970/scott-rothsteins-wife-others-charged.html#storylink=cp
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Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at www.launderingmoney.com and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com

Griselda Blanco Queen of Cocaine....hardly!

By Michael Hearns
http://launderingmoney.com


The recent murder of Griselda Blanco in Medellin Colombia closes a sad a and tragic chapter on the brutality of the cocaine trade. At least that is what many would like for you to believe.  Griselda Blanco's murder should be viewed for exactly what it is; another violent end to marginalized sociopath who has been given undeserved iconic status by the print and visual media.

Griselda Blanco was a sociopathic remorseless entrepreneur who slithered through a crevice in American law enforcement that was unprepared and without capable resources and foresight to recognize the tsunami of illicit dollars and power that was being ushered in through the cocaine trade of the 1980's and 90's. Griselda Blanco was an opportunistic individual who used her guile and sociopathology to insulate her as she trampled across the boundaries of decency in what we know to be an indecent business; drug trafficking. She has been given demigod status  for her harsh, abrasive, quick tempered, ruthless, conniving ways and her fast penchant for ordering the execution of those she opposed by her spineless groveling minions.  For all the bluster and for all the talk that that her hired henchmen now spout from the confines of this nation's penitentiaries they themselves had plenty of opportunity to dispatch Griselda Blanco but for either lack of conviction or lack of cerebral mass they  continued to carry out her murderous ways helping to support the fallacy of  Griselda Blanco as a Godmother of Cocaine.

Lets face facts. Griselda Blanco was an integral cocaine trafficker within the Medellin Cartel and she sanctioned, paid for, and demanded that many of her competitors, those who crossed her, and those who stood in the way of her ascension for wealth be murdered. Her distinction from her contemporaries was simply gender. Aside form that she is no different than many of the male drug traffickers who partook in their craft in the 1980's and 90's. As a society we lionize women villains because it grates against the American psyche of women being maternal, nurturing, and a source of comfort. Ma Barker, Bonnie Parker, Aileen Wournos, and Annie Palmer have all ascended to a folklore like status as queens or godmothers of crime and murder.

It is easy to view the life of Griselda Balnco from the viewfinder of a movie camera or the soft glow of a computer monitor and surmise she was the "Queen of Cocaine" or "The Godmother of Cocaine."  Not having the privilege of either but being one of the few who actually had his feet on the ground in the cocaine world for a long time  it is apparent to me that the reality is she was a large scale cocaine trafficker who clawed, cheated, and murderously existed in a business that rewards the victor regardless of the method.

Nothing more.
Nothing less.

The biggest current mistake being made is the assumption that Griselda Blanco was murdered  to settle an old score or to appease a long time  former adversary. More than likely it is because the criminal element of Medellin has been able to exist quietly in the shadow of the Mexican Cartel and Griselda Blanco's notoriety was becoming troublesome. Talks of more movies and books have filled the air. Crime and notoriety usually never mix well. In this case the celluloid film and the pen may have actually been stronger the sword.


Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at http://www.launderingmoney.com/ and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney  and http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com/  

Where the mob hides their money

 

 

By Roberto Saviano

New York Times

The global financial crisis has been a blessing for organized crime. A series of recent scandals have exposed the connection between some of the biggest global banks and the seamy underworld of mobsters, smugglers, drug traffickers and arms dealers. American banks have profited from money laundering by Latin American drug cartels, while the European debt crisis has strengthened the grip of the loan sharks and speculators who control the vast underground economies in countries like Spain and Greece.

Mutually beneficial relationships between bankers and gangsters aren’t new, but what’s remarkable is their reach at the highest levels of global finance. In 2010, Wachovia admitted that it had essentially helped finance the murderous drug war in Mexico by failing to identify and stop illicit transactions. The bank, which was acquired by Wells Fargo during the financial crisis, agreed to pay $160 million in fines and penalties for tolerating the laundering, which occurred between 2004 and 2007.

Last month, Senate investigators found that HSBC had for a decade improperly facilitated transactions by Mexican drug traffickers, Saudi financiers with ties to Al Qaeda and Iranian bankers trying to circumvent United States sanctions. The bank set aside $700 million to cover fines, settlements and other expenses related to the inquiry, and its chief of compliance resigned.

ABN Amro, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Lloyds and ING have reached expensive settlements with regulators after admitting to executing the transactions of clients in disreputable countries like Cuba, Iran, Libya, Myanmar and Sudan.

Many of the illicit transactions preceded the 2008 crisis, but continuing turmoil in the banking industry created an opening for organized crime groups, enabling them to enrich themselves and grow in strength. In 2009, Antonio Maria Costa, an Italian economist who then led the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told the British newspaper The Observer that “in many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks at the height of the crisis. “Interbank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities,” he said. “There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” The United Nations estimated that $1.6 trillion was laundered globally in 2009, of which about $580 billion was related to drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime.

A study last year by the Colombian economists Alejandro Gaviria and Daniel Mejía concluded that the vast majority of profits from drug trafficking in Colombia were reaped by criminal syndicates in rich countries and laundered by banks in global financial centers like New York and London. They found that bank secrecy and privacy laws in Western countries often impeded transparency and made it easier for criminals to launder their money.

At a Congressional hearing  in February, Jennifer Shasky Calvery, a Justice Department official in charge of monitoring money laundering, said that “banks in the U.S. are used to funnel massive amounts of illicit funds.” The laundering, she explained, typically occurs in three stages. First, illicit funds are directly deposited in banks or deposited after being smuggled out of the United States and then back in. Then comes “layering,” the process of separating criminal profits from their origin. Finally comes “integration,” the use of seemingly legitimate transactions to hide ill-gotten gains. Unfortunately, investigators too often focus on the cultivation, production and trafficking of narcotics while missing the bigger, more sophisticated financial activities of crime rings.

Mob financing via banks has ebbed and flowed over the years. In the late 1970s and early 1980s organized crime, which had previously dealt mainly in cash, started working its way into the banking system. This led authorities in Europe and America to take measures to slow international money laundering, prompting a temporary return to cash.

Then the flow reversed again, partly because of the fall of the Soviet Union and the ensuing Russian financial crisis. As early as the mid-1980s, the K.G.B., with help from the Russian mafia, had started hiding Communist Party assets abroad, as the journalist Robert I. Friedman has documented. Perhaps $600 billion had left Russia by the mid-1990s, contributing to the country’s impoverishment. Russian mafia leaders also took advantage of post-Soviet privatization to buy up state property. Then, in 1998, the ruble sharply depreciated, prompting a default on Russia’s public debt.

Although the United States cracked down on terrorist financing after the 9/11 attacks, instability in the financial system, like the Argentine debt default in 2001, continued to give banks an incentive to look the other way. My reporting on the ’Ndrangheta, the powerful criminal syndicate based in Southern Italy, found that much of the money laundering over the last decade simply shifted from America to Europe. The European debt crisis, now three years old, has further emboldened the mob.

IN Greece, as conventional bank lending has gotten tighter, more and more Greeks are relying on usurers. A variety of sources told Reuters last year that the illegal lending business in Greece involved between 5 billion and 10 billion euros each year. The loan-shark business has perhaps quadrupled since 2009 — some of the extortionists charge annualized interest rates starting at 60 percent. In Thessaloniki, the second largest city, the police broke up a criminal ring that was lending money at a weekly interest rate of 5 percent to 15 percent, with punishments for whoever didn’t pay up. According to the Greek Ministry of Finance, much of the illegal loan activity in Greece is connected to gangs from the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Organized crime also dominates the black market for oil in Greece; perhaps three billion euros (about $3.8 billion) a year of contraband fuel courses through the country. Shipping is Greece’s premier industry, and the price of shipping fuel is set by law at one-third the price of fuel for cars and homes. So traffickers turn shipping fuel into more expensive home and automobile fuel. It is estimated that 20 percent of the gasoline sold in Greece is from the black market. The trafficking not only results in higher prices but also deprives the government of desperately needed revenue.

Greece’s political system is a “parliamentary mafiocracy,” the political expert Panos Kostakos told the energy news agency Oilprice.com earlier this year. “Greece has one of the largest black markets in Europe and the highest corruption levels in Europe,” he said. “There is a sovereign debt that does not mirror the real wealth of the average Greek family. What more evidence do we need to conclude that this is Greek mafia?”

Spain’s crisis, like Greece’s, was prefaced by years of mafia power and money and a lack of effectively enforced rules and regulations. At the moment, Spain is colonized by local criminal groups as well as by Italian, Russian, Colombian and Mexican organizations. Historically, Spain has been a shelter for Italian fugitives, although the situation changed with the enforcement of pan-European arrest warrants. Spanish anti-mafia laws have also improved, but the country continues to offer laundering opportunities, which only increased with the current economic crisis in Europe.

The Spanish real estate boom, which lasted from 1997 to 2007, was a godsend for criminal organizations, which invested dirty money in Iberian construction. Then, when home sales slowed and the building bubble burst, the mafia profited again — by buying up at bargain prices houses that people put on the market or that otherwise would have gone unsold.

In 2006, Spain’s central bank investigated the vast number of 500-euro bills in circulation. Criminal organizations favor these notes because they don’t take up much room; a 45-centimeter safe deposit box can fit up to 10 million euros. In 2010, British currency exchange offices stopped accepting 500-euro bills after discovering that 90 percent of transactions involving them were connected to criminal activities. Yet 500-euro bills still account for 70 percent of the value of all bank notes in Spain.

And in Italy, the mafia can still count on 65 billion euros (about $82 billion) in liquid capital every year. Criminal organizations siphon 100 billion euros from the legal economy, a sum equivalent to 7 percent of G.D.P. — money that ends up in the hands of Mafiosi instead of sustaining the government or law-abiding Italians. “We will defeat the mafia by 2013,” Silvio Berlusconi, then the prime minister, declared in 2009. It was one of many unfulfilled promises. Mario Monti, the current prime minister, has stated that Italy’s dire financial situation is above all a consequence of tax evasion. He has said that even more drastic measures are needed to combat the underground economy generated by the mafia, which is destroying the legal economy.

Today’s mafias are global organizations. They operate everywhere, speak multiple languages, form overseas alliances and joint ventures, and make investments just like any other multinational company. You can’t take on multinational giants locally. Every country needs to do its part, for no country is immune. Organized crime must be hit in its economic engine, which all too often remains untouched because liquid capital is harder to trace and because in times of crisis, many, including the world’s major banks, find it too tempting to resist

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at www.launderingmoney.com and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com http://launderingmoney.com

Treasury Targets Drug-Money Laundering Network, Hezbollah Fundraiser

By Samuel Rubenfeld
Wall Street Journal

The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday it designated four individuals and three entities under the Kingpin Act for their role in laundering drug money for alleged international drug trafficker Ayman Joumaa.
The Treasury also designated a Colombia-based individual as a terrorist for directing the Americas fundraising activity of Hezbollah, a U.S. State Department-listed foreign terrorism organization.
“The Joumaa network is a sophisticated multinational money laundering ring, which launders the proceeds of drug trafficking for the benefit of criminals and the terrorist group Hezbollah,” said David S. Cohen, the undersecretary of Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in astatment.
Abbas Hussein Harb and Ibrahim Chibli were designated for collaborating with Joumaa to move millions in drug-related money, Treasury said. Harb’s Colombia and Venezuela-based organization launders money for the network through the Lebanese financial sector, while Chibli used his position as manager of a branch of Fenicia Bank in Lebanon to help Joumaa and Harb, Treasury said.
Ali Mohamad Saleh, a Lebanese Colombian national, was designated as a global terrorist for acting as a Hezbollah facilitator, directing the group’s activity in Colombia, Treasury said. Saleh was the acting leader of a support cell in Maicao, Colombia,which raised funds for Hezbollah; he solicited donations and coordinated the transfer of checks and donations to the group in Lebanon via Venezula.
Saleh was placed under Kingpin Act sanctions in December 2011 for his role as a Maicao-based money launderer for a reputed criminal organization with links to the Joumaa network.
Also placed under sanctions Wednesday are Harb’s brother, Ali Houssein Harb, and Saleh’s brother, Kassem Mohamad Saleh, for their links to the Joumaa network. They control the three companies targeted in Wednesday’s action.
Joumaa, for his part, was designated in January 2011 under the Kingpin Act. He was charged in December 2011 with cocaine distribution and money laundering through, among other venues, the Lebanese Canadian Bank, whose untainted assets were bought—with American blessings—by a Beirut-based branch of Societe Generale after Treasury issued a finding against it as a “primary money-laundering concern.”
“The [Drug Enforcement Administration] investigation of Ayman Joumaa that helped lead to today’s Treasury actions is critical to protecting the U.S. financial system from illicit activity and is another tool used to disrupt and dismantle these drug and money laundering networks,” said John Arvanitis, DEA financial operations chief, in the statement


Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at: http://www.launderingmoney.com/ and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney

U.S. bank looked other way to Mexican drug war money laundering, agent says

A former compliance officer with the U.S. bank Wachovia, Martin Woods has seen the Mexican drug war and its illicit money unseen by even the most seasoned observers. Woods started asking questions about billions of dollars pouring into Wachovia accounts in the U.S. from Mexican currency exchanges back in 2006. "I guess what surprised me most was my own naïveté . I aggravated my own employers (by bringing forward evidence of laundering) and also the regulators themselves."

Wachovia, currently owned by Wells Fargo, settled out of court for the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act in U.S. history in 2010, paying a fine of $160 million for laundering a staggering $378.4 billion from Mexican currency exchange houses between the years 2004 and 2007.  The majority of the cash is believed to be drug money, moved without proper documentation from Casa's de Cambio in Mexico to U.S. banks.

"There was no consequence for anyone dealing with that money. Some other compliance officers broke the rules and they kept their jobs. I obeyed all the rules, blew the whistle and lost my job," Woods says. This is a side of the Mexican drug war that few people see. Ever since Mexican President Felipe Calderon used his nation's military against the drug cartels, an estimated body count has soared past 50,000 people dead.  Public beheadings have become commonplace and the cartels have brazenly gunned down unarmed civilians in public. Financial analysts, then say there is no exaggeration in accusing bankers of laundering blood money for international assassins.

"The whole point of being a drug dealer is money," Heather Lowe, a Washington-based lawyer with Global Financial Integrity says. "Identifying and stopping that money flow is crucial." The U.N. Organization on Drugs and Crime estimates that illegal narcotics represent the world's third-biggest export, after oil and the arms trade, worth more than $300 billion annually. "You have these horrendous crimes being committed, people being shot 10, 20 or 30 at a time," Walter MacKay, a former Canadian police officer who has trained Mexican security forces says. "This dirty money washing through economies just exacerbates everything," he told Al Jazeera.

Illicit drug sales in the United States generate annual revenues between $18 billion and $39 billion, according to the U.S. Justice Department's Federal Bureau of Investigation. The money in turn flows back into Mexico, where cartels use it to pay underlings, bribe politicians, invest in legitimate businesses and purchase raw product. Most tragically, the "war on drugs" doesn't seem likely to end anytime soon. Many analysts believe the military solution isn't working as violence is increasing. Some policy experts and forensic accountants believe tracking money earned by cartels, along with waging a PR campaign to tackle the demand side of the equation in the U.S., is the best in a series of bad options.

"In order to weaken organized crime, it is far safer and more effective in the long run to erode its financial base," Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas program of the International Relations Centre in Mexico City says. Currency exchange houses, like the ones used by Wachovia, are probably the most common way for cartels to launder funds. Traffickers normally "contract with money brokers to use their networks of bank accounts and business connections to structure large sums for transport across the border"; former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told a gathering at Woodrow Wilson Center said.

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at:
http://www.launderingmoney.com/ and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney 

Fresno California men indicted in money laundering case

A federal grand jury returned an indictment against 41-year-old Joseph Edwin Gable, aka Mike Jones; 41-year-old Elgeron Graves; 52-year-old Vincent Graves; 45-year-old Herman Graves; 43-year-old Damone Kelley; 45-year-old Catatea James; all of Fresno, and 27-year-old Kevin Eugene Spencer Jr. of Roseville.
The indictment charges Gable, Elgeron Graves, Vincent Graves, and Kelley with conspiring to cultivate, distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, distributing marijuana, and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. Elgeron and Herman Graves are also charged with cultivating marijuana in Fresno County. Gable is charged with structuring cash derived from marijuana trafficking in order to evade currency transaction reporting requirements. Gable, Kelley, James and Spencer are charged with conspiring to launder the proceeds of marijuana trafficking and with several counts of money laundering.
According to court documents, Gable allegedly was in charge of a long-term interstate marijuana-trafficking conspiracy. Some of the marijuana was grown by Elgeron Graves and his brother, Herman Graves, on property leased by Elgeron Graves in Fresno County. The Graves brothers recruited people to obtain California medical recommendations from a local physician for the purpose of growing marijuana, which was in fact being shipped to Alabama, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The Graves brothers also allegedly used a now defunct marijuana dispensary in Fresno as a front business for the interstate shipment of marijuana.
Kelley and Vincent Graves, who is unrelated to the Graves brothers, are alleged to have transported or assisted in the transportation of marijuana to Birmingham, Alabama for distribution through DK Transport, a trucking business owned by Kelley. DEA has already seized a DK Transport semi-tractor trailer valued at $25,000 and equipped with a hidden compartment used to conceal marijuana that was shipped outside of California.
During the course of the conspiracy, Gable allegedly obtained over $600,000 from the sale of marijuana in Alabama and directed the deposit of those funds into bank accounts of friends and relatives in California and Oregon in amounts less than $10,000 in order to avoid IRS reporting requirements. He directed his friends and relatives to withdraw the cash in amounts less than $10,000 and give the money back to him. According to court documents, most of the drug proceeds went through bank accounts maintained by James, an IRS employee and Gable’s half-sister, and Spencer, formerly of Fresno.
“The defendants in this case are alleged to have used California medical marijuana recommendations to camouflage a profitable interstate trafficking network,” said U.S. Attorney Wagner. “Unfortunately, the misuse of California laws on medical marijuana by those who seek to profit from the interstate sale of marijuana for non-medical purposes has become all too common.”
This case is the product of an investigation by the DEA and IRS Criminal Investigation with assistance from the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration (TIGTA), U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Birmingham, Ala., the California Highway Patrol, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, the Fresno Police Department, and the Madera County Narcotics Enforcement Team (MADNET). If convicted, each drug offense carries a statutory mandatory minimum prison term of five years and a maximum prison term of 40 years, along with a fine of up to $5 million. The money laundering charges carry a maximum prison term of 20 years and a fine of more than $1 million. The structuring charge carries a maximum prison term of 10 years and a fine of up to $250,000. The charges are only allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendants are scheduled to appear in federal court in Fresno for arraignment on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gary S. Austin.


Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at http://www.launderingmoney.com/ and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com/   and http://launderingmoney.com/

Alert over rise of ‘money mules’ used to launder criminals’ cash

Criminals  are increasingly using “money mules” to launder cash through bank accounts, new research has revealed.

Often those who get involved are innocently lured into the practice without realising they are being duped by criminals to pay money into their personal accounts and transfer it on, allowing illegal gains to disappear into the system.
Sometimes those involved know exactly what is happening but there are concerns fraudsters are persuading innocent people to do personal favours or are offering what appears to be a genuine job to people in return for a small fee but, in fact, they are laundering cash.
In a recent development, the UK’s fraud prevention service said companies are also being used, with crooks hijacking an established name to dupe victims into illegally moving money under the pretext they will be working for the well-known company.
Sending emails and other information claiming to be from an established firm with a good name encourages the victim to believe they are being paid to do a genuine role.
Often those carrying out the frauds only realise what has been going on when they are contacted by their bank. By this time the fraudster has disappeared and the victim is left to shoulder the blame and persuade the authorities he or she had no idea what was going on.
One such student, who cannot be identified, answered a job advert on the internet for staff needed to work at home.
“Obviously, extra amounts of money for only a few hours work per week from home seemed ideal,” she said. “I never questioned it, as there seemed nothing untoward: I would be a sales and delivery agent for some legitimate goods, working for a small company.
“For arranging some ‘sales’ and sending the goods, I’d receive a cheque for pay and costs, and then forward money to my ‘employer’. The first few months were fine when – after a very successful month – I got a phone call from my bank saying that the cheque for my pay and costs that had just been paid in was fraudulent and investigations had proved that the account from which it was drawn was fraudulent too.
“I was out of pocket and suspected of being ‘in on it’ of course.”
Figures from Cifas, the UK’s fraud prevention service, show there has been a 12 per cent hike in the numbers of accounts legitimately obtained but later used fraudulently, in the first ten months of this year, in comparison with 2010. Over the same period there has been a six per cent increase in the misuse of personal current accounts.
Cifas says a large proportion of these frauds display the hallmarks of money laundering.
In one recent case the boss of a well-established travel company discovered that crooks had hijacked her company’s good name, sending out emails claiming to be from her company, giving the impression the victim was working for her.
She said: “Although they’re using my corporate and not my personal details to defraud another company, the situation is practically identical: duping others into acting criminally under the pretence of working for me. All, of course, using the internet – making it even harder to track the culprits down and stop them.”
Richard Hurley, Cifas communication manager, said: “Whether they are referred to as scams or frauds, the effect is the same: people are duped into committing fraud. This often leaves the innocent victim who acted as the mule needing to prove that they were duped. This can be a truly traumatic experience for the mule victim: committing fraud can have some very serious consequences, as businesses have a regulatory and commercial requirement to suspend or close accounts that are involved in fraud.
Mr Hurley added: “Being asked to receive and then pay monies while keeping a fee for your services – whether for an individual or company – will almost always prove to be nothing more than a scam designed to use your good name and financial records to mask someone else’s criminal greed. And it is the mules, even the innocent ones, not the fraudsters, who are left to sort out the consequences.”

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at

http://www.launderingmoney.com/ and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com/ and  http://launderingmoney.com/

Relatives of Le Nature's founder convicted of money laundering

The wife and son of the former head of bankrupt soft drink maker Le-Nature’s were found guilty Tuesday of laundering millions of dollars to buy expensive diamonds, sapphires and even patio furniture.
Karla S. Podlucky was convicted of three money laundering counts but was found not guilty of conspiracy and another money laundering count. Her 30-year-old son, G. Jesse Podlucky, was convicted of one count of conspiracy and four counts of money laundering.
Defense attorneys had argued that Karla Podlucky was a stay-at-home mom and her son a lower-level employee who didn’t know about the widespread fraud at Le-Nature’s, which went bankrupt in 2006, idling 240 workers. The jury heard over three weeks of testimony in the case.
Former CEO Gregory Podlucky was sentenced last month to 20 years in prison for a massive fraud scheme that vastly overstated the company’s revenues so the Latrobe-based Le-Nature’s could get $800 million in loans. Meanwhile, prosecutors said, Podlucky looted the company and underreported his income. Authorities said $33 million was siphoned off to buy jewelry for Karla Podlucky.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Garrett said the family tax returns showed income that could not support the massive jewelry collection.
Garrett said the suspicious ways the defendants handled various transactions — moving money through multiple accounts, buying a car out of state, using different post offices and addresses — seemed to give the jury enough circumstantial evidence to conclude that the family members knew the money came from fraud.
The Podluckys will be sentenced April 26 and are free on bond, with electronic monitoring.

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at http://www.launderingmoney.com/ and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com/       http://launderingmoney.com