Turkish gold trader implicates Erdogan in Iran money laundering. He told jurors in a New York federal court that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally authorized a transaction in a scheme to help Iran evade US sanctions….. Department of Justice

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was not charged in the indictment, but he seemed to loom over the Federal District Court case in Manhattan during the monthlong trial and even before it began. Testimony suggested that he had approved the sanctions-busting scheme….NYtimes/ Turkey-Iran-Sanctions

Turkey’s Erdogan threatens to cut ties with US over jailing of banker and is now threatening the United States with a libel suit.

Senior Moldovan Judge’s Daughter Lived In Posh London Flat — With Tainted Money.

Most of the money went to a real estate agency to cover the rent of a luxurious apartment not far from Buckingham Palace in which Mihaela Muruianu lived while studying in London. A smaller portion was deposited directly into her personal bank account.

She is the daughter of Judge Ion Muruianu, the former president of Moldova’s highest court. The money was funneled from Russia through a series of ghost companies registered in the United Kingdom (UK), and its precise origin is not known.

But the payments raise questions about the Muruianu family’s access to significant wealth, given that their total declared income for 2012 stood at 752,000 lei ($62,000) – a little less than the $66,000 estimated cost of the apartment for a single year.

When reached for comment, the judge and his daughter both said they knew nothing about the Russian Laundromat. Mihaela Muruianu further denied any knowledge of the ghost companies from which the transfers originated.

“I do not know the kind of activity these companies are involved in or who their founders are,” Mihaela Muruianu said.

Money from Ghost Companies. The Laundromat scheme was elaborate, involving the fraudulent transfer of massive sums out of Russia and into the European Union with the help of corrupt Moldovan judges…. OCCRP.org

According to Transparency International (TI), an anti-corruption watchdog, Moldova is the most corrupt country in south-eastern Europe, ranking 123rd out of 176 on the group’s Corruption Perceptions Index. In its 2015 report, TI noted that Moldova’s judicial system has been “compromised by the non-meritocratic promotion of judges and by selective justice applied to political competitors.”

New Scottish links to $20bn Russian Money-Laundering scheme as judge’s daughter paid by Edinburgh shell firm

Congo Presidents Daughter Charged with Corruption

President Donald Trump made tens of millions of dollars in profits by allowing Colombian drug cartels and other groups to launder money through a Trump-affiliated hotel in Panama, according to a new investigation by the organization Global Witness.

How an alleged fraudster in Panama, working with Donald Trump’s daughter, helped make Trump’s first international hotel venture a success. The broker was in business with a money-launderer and two criminals from the former Soviet Union….
Globalwitness.org/ Corruption and Money Laundering
Reuters.com/Investigates/ Ivanka and the fugitive from Panama
Newsweek.com/
Money Laundering

The billion dollar fraud

Will Donald Trump go down due to his dubious ties to the former Soviet Union? The president seems to be getting in deeper and deeper. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating if Trump colluded with Russia in order to win the elections, is also digging into Trump’s past as a business man. In that past, one of Donald Trump’s business partners plays a crucial role, Felix Sater. A convicted felon who has ties with the Russian mafia. Last May, Zembla disclosed how an American real estate company, run by Sater, used Dutch mailbox companies within a network, which has been suspected of laundering money. Allegedly $1.5 million dollars had been diverted. Donald Trump developed hotels and apartment complexes with this suspicious company.

In the last few months ZEMBLA received indications of a greater fraud. A billion dollar fraud. And here Sater, Trump’s questionable business partner, shows up, as well. The money trail leads to Kazakhstan, to real estate projects in New York and again to the Netherlands. ZEMBLA investigates: How compromising is this case for the current president of America?

The Dubious Friends Of Donald Trump: Part Two: King Of Diamonds
The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump: Part One: The Russians

Daphne Caruana Galizia leading journalist of the Panama Papers investigation in Malta was killed by a car bomb Galizia car exploded Monday afternoon as she left her home in a town outside Malta’s capital, Valetta.

Galizia had been leading the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta, according to The Guardian, and was even described by Politico as a “one-woman WikiLeaks” who was “shaping, shaking and stirring” Europe with her reports.

The Panama Papers refer to the 11.5 million documents that were leaked from large offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca in 2015.  Galizia is survived by her husband and three sons, The Guardian reported.
Journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia Final Words

The exchange BTC-e is alleged to have facilitated cybercrime, drug trafficking and payments to corrupt officials.

Bitcoin: A Russian man has been arrested in Greece on suspicion of laundering more than £3bn as part of a Bitcoin exchange allowing users to trade the digital cash…
Accused of Laundering 3bn in Bitcoin
Reuters.com

FinCEN fines BTC-e $110 million for violating anti-money laundering laws.
One of the largest digital currency traders in the world has been assessed a $110 million dollar civil money penalty by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of California.

BTC-e, or Canton Business Corporation (BTC-e), was the target of the Treasury’s first action against a foreign-located money services business for knowingly violating U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) laws, and was hit with a $110,003,314 penalty. The company was also complicit in their facilitation of digital transactions involving “ransomware, computer hacking, identity theft, tax refund fraud schemes, public corruption, and drug trafficking,” according to an official statement.

BTC-e is an online, foreign-based money transmitter that takes fiat currency and virtually all popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Novacoin, Peercoin, Ethereum, and Dash. The company processed over $300,000 in bitcoin stolen from Mt. Gox, one of the world’s largest bitcoin exchanges, from 2011 to 2014, and over $296 million in bitcoin in total. The company also facilitated at least $3 million in transactions related to ransomware operations dubbed “Cryptolocker” and “Locky”, in addition to sharing customers and conducting transactions with the since-dead money laundering website Liberty Reserve.

“We will hold accountable foreign-located money transmitters, including virtual currency exchangers, that do business in the United States when they willfully violate U.S. anti-money laundering laws,” said Jamal El-Hindi, Acting Director for FinCEN in the statement. “This action should be a strong deterrent to anyone who thinks that they can facilitate ransomware, dark net drug sales, or conduct other illicit activity using encrypted virtual currency.

The facilities of BTC-e were seized by various law enforcement agencies, including the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service. One of BTC-e’s operators, Russian national Alexander Vinnik, was also arrested in Greece this week and assessed a $12 million fine.

BTC-e’s transactions included funds sent and received domestically, despite the company being foreign-based and masking their geographic location and ownership.

The failure to comply with U.S. AML laws and regulations necessitated law enforcement action, and BTC-e’s civil money penalty represents “the second supervisory enforcement action FinCEN has taken against a business that operates as an exchanger of virtual currency, and the first it has taken against a foreign-located MSB doing business in the United States,” according to the statement.

Investigators have widened a corruption probe into the French assets of three African ruling families, charging the daughter and son-in-law of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, judicial sources told AFP on Sunday. Julienne Sassou Nguesso, 50, and her 53-year-old husband Guy Johnson were placed under investigation this week for “money laundering and misuse of public funds”, the sources said.

Investigators are trying to determine how the couple in 2006 were able to purchase a mansion valued at 3 million euros ($3.4 million) in the swanky Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine just north of the ritzy 16th arrondissement, according to a judicial source.

The tentacles of the case also reach out to ruling families in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Julienne Sassou Nguesso is an insurance agent by profession and her husband is a lawyer…..Congo Presidents Daughter Charged with Corruption

The Mediterranean republic of Malta operates a tax system where companies pay the lowest tax on profits in the EU – only five per cent.

Over the last three months, journalistic network European Investigative Collaborations EIC dug into over 150,000 documents that show how international companies take advantage of this system, using Malta as a pirate base for tax avoidance in the EU.

Although benefiting from the advantages of EU membership, Malta also welcomes large companies and wealthy private clients looking to dodge taxes in their home countries. This has made Malta a target for firms linked to the Italian mafia, Russian loan sharks and the highest echelons of the Turkish elite.

This damages the budgets of other EU countries, and reveals a weakness in the union, which allows member states sovereign rights over their taxation. The research was undertaken by the EIC, which has brought together 12 media and over 40 journalists in 16 countries.

This is how the scheme works:
A company in Geneva, London or Paris can open a parent firm in Malta, where it is taxed at 35 per cent, the highest income tax band.

However if the shareholders of the company are not based in Malta, and the bulk of the firm’s business does not take place in Malta, the Maltese Inland Revenue can refund up to 6/7 of this amount to the company.

De facto, this makes corporate tax in Malta only five per cent.
This compares to an EU average of around 22 per cent. In 2015, this scheme saw a shortfall of almost four billion Euro in taxes, according to a study by newspaper Malta Today. This figure has been steadily rising year on year. This is money “lost” to both the Maltese exchequer and to the tax base of European countries where the companies are headquartered.

Even if this situation appears legal, it seems Malta has not met all the requirements to control possible fraud cases associated with the fiscal status of the islands state. Malta joined the EU in 2004 and holds the EU Presidency between January and June 2017 – during a climate where the fight against tax evasion, tax avoidance and money laundering is top of the EU agenda.

Maltese Finance Minister Edward Scicluna says that due to Malta’s location and lack of natural resources, the country must be attractive for international companies.

Malta itself is the smallest country in the EU, with only 450,000 people. Its leaders have complained that controlling tax policy is the only tool left for small EU countries to remain competitive.

Using leaked documents and the Maltese company registry, The Black Sea reveals how companies have planned and operated these schemes to deprive countries across the world of valuable revenues…The Blacksea.EU/Malta-Files

Mark Scicluna
www.markscicluna.com

Although still in its early days, Donald Trump’s presidency is coming under fire. The Russians are alleged to be in possession of sensitive information about Trump. And that exposes Trump to blackmail. Fake news, tweets Trump: “I have nothing to do with Russia – no deals, no loans, no nothing!” Trump swears he has no ties with the Russians. But is that actually the case?

In the second part of our programme about Donald Trump’s controversial friends, we will set our sights on the Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, who is controversial because he is suspected of trading in blood diamonds. He is one of the world’s biggest diamond traders and owns prestigious stores in New York and Moscow, but he is also the owner of Siebel, the Netherlands’ biggest jewellery chain. Leviev has ties with Russian president Putin, US president Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Trump, however, claims he hardly knows this “King of Diamonds” . Zembla investigates Lev Leviev’s business empire.  The dubious friends of Donald Trump part two: King of Diamonds

Watch the first part of the dubious friends of Donald Trump: ‘the Russians’ here.

Blood Diamond/  Cartoon Movement