Between 1993 and 2018, Russia had massive trade surpluses:
approximately 10% of GDP per annum on average for 25 years, or a total in the rage of 250% of GDP (two and a half years of national production). In principle that should have enabled the accumulation of the equivalent in financial reserves. This is almost the size of the sovereign public fund accumulated by Norway under the watchful gaze of the voters. The official Russian reserves are ten times lower – barely 25% of GDP.

Where has the money gone? According to our estimates, the offshore assets alone held by wealthy Russians exceed one year of GDP, or the equivalent of the entirety of the official financial assets held by Russian households. In other words, the natural wealth of the country, (which, let it be said in passing, would have done better to remain in the ground to limit global warming) has been massively exported abroad to sustain opaque structures enabling a minority to hold huge Russian and international financial assets. These rich Russians live between London, Monaco and Moscow: some have never left Russia and control their country via offshore entities. Numerous intermediaries and Western firms have also recouped large crumbs on the way and continue to do so today in sport and the media (sometimes this is referred to as philanthropy). The extent of the misappropriation of funds has no equal in history.

Rather than apply commercial sanctions, Europe would do better to finally go for these assets and to address Russian public opinion. Today post-Communism has become the worst ally of hyper-capitalism: Marx would have appreciated the irony but this is not a reason for putting up with it….Capital in Russia

Book Review: ‘Putin’s Kleptocracy’ by Karen Dawisha

Arend van Dam
www.w-t-w.org/en/arend-van-dam/

BRITAIN likes to see itself as a leader in the fight against illicit finance and corruption. The government has recently been talking even tougher, as worsening relations with Russia have focused attention on the number of oligarchs who have interests in London. Anyone looking to stash dirty money “should be in no doubt that we will come for them,” warns Ben Wallace, the economic-crime minister….Time to clean up

Britain’s war on dirty money lacks oomph
It is strong on transparency but weak on enforcement

London has been accused of being a major centre of money laundering.                                 Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

A Cautionary Tale about Online Anonymity.
Are bitcoin and the Darkweb as anonymous as people think?

But bitcoin isn’t actually that anonymous after all. Experts call it “pseudonymous,” comparable to writing a book under a pen name. Users are anonymous so long as there’s no connection between their identity and an account number. Obscuring that connection is not so easy. If you buy bitcoins in an online exchange office, you leave a bank or credit card receipt. If you pay in an online shop with bitcoins, you enter a delivery address. There’s a trail to almost every transaction.

Ross Ulbricht can spend the next decades thinking about the distinction between anonymous and pseudonymous while he’s serving a life sentence in prison. In 2011, he created a digital marketplace where customers could order anything from heroin to fake IDs. But relying on the anonymity of bitcoin and the dark side of the internet eventually led to Ulbricht’s downfall….The Silk Road a Real Thriller

How Dirty Money Disappears Into the Black Hole of Cryptocurrency
Journal investigation documents suspicious trades through venture capital-backed ShapeShift..

After hackers believed to be from North Korea extorted millions of dollars in the so-called WannaCry ransomware attack on businesses and governments, the criminals used ShapeShift to convert bitcoin into an untraceable cryptocurrency called Monero, security researchers found. For the next year, ShapeShift made no changes to its policy of not identifying its customers, and continued to process millions of dollars in criminal proceeds, according to the Journal investigation.

Many cryptocurrency exchanges say they follow federal rules intended to combat money laundering, even though the question of whether they are subject to them hasn’t been tested. They keep records of their customers’ identity and monitor transactions to root out and report suspicious activity…The Black Hole Of Cryptocurrency

US House Passes Bill for Task Force to Combat Crypto Use by Terrorists/Cointelegraph.com

Over the past few years, Hezbollah operatives engaged in money-laundering, narcotics trafficking, and other illegal schemes.

Hezbollah’s European Criminal Network:

Across Europe, in countries large and small, intelligence and law enforcement officials have tracked the movement of Hezbollah operatives involved in a wide array of activities. Over the past few years, Hezbollah operatives engaged in money-laundering, narcotics trafficking, and other illegal schemes have been arrested in Lithuania[15] and France,[16] offices were raided and a Hezbollah-linked charity blacklisted in Germany,[17] and individuals and companies were designated as Hezbollah terrorist entities for carrying out illicit business activity for Hezbollah in Europe….
Hezbollah’s European Criminal Network

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the identification of The Lebanese Canadian Bank SAL together with its subsidiaries (LCB) as a financial institution of primary money laundering concern under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Section 311) for the bank’s role in facilitating the money laundering activities of an international narcotics trafficking and money laundering network.  This network moves illegal drugs from South America to Europe and the Middle East via West Africa and launders hundreds of millions of dollars monthly through accounts held at LCB, as well as through trade-based money laundering involving consumer goods throughout the world, including through used car dealerships in the United States.  Treasury has reason to believe that LCB managers are complicit in the network’s money laundering activities. Today’s action also exposes the terrorist organization Hizballah’s links to LCB and the international narcotics trafficking and money laundering network.  ..Treasury Identifies Lebanese Canadian Bank Sal as a “Primary Money Laundering Concern”

Cocaine Money Laundering

Rodrigo Matos
www.w-t-w.org/en/rodrigo-de-matos
www.rodrigocartoon.com

Women Networks Fight Against Corruption and Money Laundering

The Finance Sector provides a crucial backbone to the European Economy and -like many other sectors- its increasing dependency on ICT Infrastructures, Providers and their Supply Chain. The importance of ICT Security and Resilience supporting the Finance Sector grew considerably and the objective of protecting automated Inter-Banking transactions and more generally all types of Communications is altogether more critical and complex at the same time.

A stable Financial System in Europe is however the underlying foundation for Economic stability; and the reliance on IT is now life critical for the entire Sector.

Technical Cooperation between the key actors of the Finance Sector at pan-European level becomes an urgent need as the sector faces stronger and larger scale challenges. The following effects of the current silo approach for the protection of the Banks and Finance Institutions presents many inconveniences, such as:

• • • the Implementation of a multitude of security and technical standards, difficult to maintain;
    • the Loss of Interoperability;
    • Imposibility to implement Safe Harbouring, Mutual Aid Assistance;
    • Hosting of more System types, less secure;
    • General Vulnerability to Cyber Attacks.

  NIS support to Financial Resilience
  Twitter :  @enisa_eu

Financial crises | The Economist