Tag: money laundering

‘From drug cartels and human traffickers to Russian oligarchs and African kleptocrats’: How America became the #1 choice for money-laundering

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Money laundering has long been a major issue in the United States but over the last several years, the evolution of technology has made the laundering threat far worse. 

Last fall, BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released a groundbreaking expose highlighting banks’ reporting of suspicious transactions that amounted to more than $2 trillion from 1999 to 2017, according to The New Republic. Those complaints were reportedly forwarded to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a small entity within the U.S. Department of the Treasury that is comprised of only 300 employees.

According to the publication, leaked documentation about the complaints sheds new light on “how the U.S became a magnet for money launderers from around the world, from drug cartels and human traffickers to Russian oligarchs and African kleptocrats, due in good measure to systemic regulatory problems.” Continue reading.

Deutsche Bank Faces Criminal Investigation for Potential Money-Laundering Lapses

New York Times logoFederal authorities are investigating whether Deutsche Bank complied with laws meant to stop money laundering and other crimes, the latest government examination of potential misconduct at one of the world’s largest and most troubled banks, according to seven people familiar with the inquiry.

The investigation includes a review of Deutsche Bank’s handling of so-called suspicious activity reports that its employees prepared about possibly problematic transactions, including some linked to President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, according to people close to the bank and others familiar with the matter.

The criminal investigation into Deutsche Bank is one element of several separate but overlapping government examinations into how illicit funds flow through the American financial system, said five of the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the inquiries. Several other banks are also being investigated.

View the complete June 19 article by David Enrich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum on The New York Times website here.

Trump, Inc.: Why Did Deutsche Bank Keep Lending to Donald Trump?

Whispers of money laundering have swirled around Donald Trump’s businesses for years. One of his casinos, for example, was fined $10 million for not trying hard enough to prevent such machinations. Investors with shady financial histories sometimes popped up in his foreign ventures. And on Sunday, The New York Times reported that anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank internally flagged multiple transactions by Trump companies as suspicious. (A spokesperson for the Trump Organization called the article “absolute nonsense.”)

The remarkably troubled recent history of Deutsche Bank, its past money-laundering woes — and the bank’s striking relationship with Trump — are the subjects of this week’s episode of the “Trump, Inc.” podcast. The German bank loaned a cumulative total of around $2.5 billion to Trump projects over the past two decades, and the bank continued writing him nine-figure checks even after he defaulted on a $640 million obligation and sued the bank, blaming it for his failure to pay back the debt.

“Trump, Inc.” isn’t the only one examining the president’s relationship with the bank. Congressional investigators have gone to court seeking the kind of detailed — and usually secret — banking records that could reveal potential misdeeds related to the president’s businesses, according to recent filings by two congressional committees. The filings were made in response to a highly unusual move by lawyers for Trump, his family and his company seeking to quash congressional subpoenas issued to Deutsche Bank and Capital One, a second institution he banked with. Trump’s lawyers have contended that the congressional subpoenas “were issued to harass” Trump and damage him politically.

View the complete May 24 article by Heather Vogell and Andrea Bernstein on the National Memo website here.

In Vancouver, a new anti-money laundering law will impact Trump’s company

New legislation puts British Columbia at the forefront of combating money-laundering practices in real estate—including the kinds of purchases made at the president’s property.

Thanks to new legislation coming out of the Canadian province of British Columbia, set to become law next year, we might soon learn the identities of people using shell companies to buy units in one of President Donald Trump’s most lucrative — and controversial — foreign real estate projects. The legislation would create a registry of real names behind anonymous shell companies and trusts — both of which are commonly used in money-laundering, and both of which have turned Vancouver into a global haven for dirty money.

Since its inception in 2017, the $360 million, 616-foot-tall Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver has been dogged by controversy, especially as it pertains to worries about foreigners investing in the building in order to try to influence presidential decision-making. In 2018 U.S. counterintelligence officials began investigating the building, according to CNN, looking into the financing of the building’s construction and sales. Continue reading “In Vancouver, a new anti-money laundering law will impact Trump’s company”

How money laundering works in real estate

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website January 4, 2018:

Former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel probing Russian interference in the 2016 election, on Capitol Hill on June 21, 2017. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

If Michael Wolff’s reporting is to be believed, Stephen K. Bannon’s assessment of the most dangerous threat posed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation is not the one you might have assumed.

“You realize where this is going,” Bannon reportedly told Wolff. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to f—ing Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner. … It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner s—-.”

Two quick explanations. Weissmann refers to Andrew Weissmann. He was one of Mueller’s early hires, although not the first, and does have a lot of experience prosecuting financial crimes. Deutsche Bank is a German financial institution that has been an apparent focus of federal prosecutors, although not necessarily by Mueller’s team, because of a loan of more than a quarter-billion dollars issued to Kushner’s firm a month before the 2016 election. Continue reading “How money laundering works in real estate”

With money laundering charges against Paul Manafort, Trump’s ‘fake news’ claim is harder to defend

The following article by Amber Phillips was posted on the Washington Post website October 30, 2017:

President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Manafort’s former business associate Rick Gates and Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos have all been charged in the special counsel’s investigation into Russian election interference. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

This post has been updated. 

The independent investigation into Trump-Russia collusion just made its most serious move since it began in May. Three former campaign officials have been charged with crimes; one has pleaded guilty. President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his former business partner Rick Gates have been charged with 12 counts of financial crimes related to their work in Ukraine over the past decade.

And the special counsel announced that Trump’s foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty earlier this month to giving false statements to the FBI about his ties to a Russian-connected professor who promised “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

Nothing to see here, Trump said of the news: Continue reading “With money laundering charges against Paul Manafort, Trump’s ‘fake news’ claim is harder to defend”