Financial Crime Online

An end to one of the most spectacular Swiss banking criminal cases. Zurich based banker Holenweger was acquitted of money laundering charges. Eight years after Holenweger was first arrested on charges of laundering money for South American drug cartels, the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona on Thursday cleared him of all charges, which also included [...]

According to the Guardian, ‘ Operation Eaglewood’  led to Scotland Yard’s largest-ever simultaneous raid in February 2008. The investigation focused on money laundering and cocaine distribution. A taxi cab business was in the middle of the laundering scheme; is was used as a front store. 33 gang members were sentenced. From the information that surfaced, [...]

The US DOJ reported that former (JP Morgan) vice president James Hertz ´Pleads Guilty for Role in Bid-rigging and Fraud Conspiracies Involving Municipal Bonds´. JP Morgan was was a provider of investment agreements and other municipal finance contracts, such as swaps, to public entities. Public entities typically hire a broker to conduct a competitive bidding [...]

So let’s say you made a mistake and invested your money in a ponzi scheme. By the time you find out about your mistake, the bad guy is probably broke. How to recoup your money. Sue the bank; that is where the money is. Not your money (that went to boats, juwelry, cars, real estate [...]

Another rogue banker…. This banker at the Oberbank in Austria is reported to have embezzled over 8 million euros of client’s funds. Internal controls apparently did not pick up the abnormalities until this month while the fraud started in May 2008. The banker allegedly forged client’s signatures to transfer money to accounts in Hungary to [...]

Laundering leaders and their families…. The son in law of Kazakh leader Nazabayev, Timor Kulibayev, is subject of a Swiss money laundering probe according to multiple sources. He allegedly used Swiss bank accounts to launder money. One of the transactions under investigations is probably related to a real estate deal. He bought the Duke of [...]

The police in San Salvador found two barrels full of (suspected) drug money buried 6 ft under. One of the barrels was found near a ranch in Penitente Abajo. After three (!) days of counting, the police concluded this barrel contained $9 million in $100, $50 and $20 bills. A second barrel was found nearyby, [...]

BadB; not a gangsta rapper but allegedly a credit card fraud kingpin. Vladislav Horohorin, 27 years old, has a Ukrainian and Israeli passport and is the main suspect in an US led undercover investigation. BadB has been around (on the internet) for years bragging and boosting about his fraud. He has been offering stolen credit [...]

In court documents filed on Monday, US prosecutors revealed that Barclays facilitated payments with a total value of $500 million related to Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma between 1995 and 2006. According to FT, the investigation into Barclays, (and similar probes into Lloyds and Credit Suisse) started in 2008 when US  authorities launched a [...]

Michelle Aiello was sentenced to 15,5 years in prison for being a mafioso and for corruption and fraud (but the last 2 obviously come with the job of being a maffioso). This week the Italian police confiscated his entire business empire with an estimated value of 800 million euro ($1 billion). In the treasure chest [...]