Today's earthquake in Chile, which measured 8.8 on the magnitude scale, has resulted in 300 reported deaths to date. Be advised that communications with Santiago are said to be sporadic. Unverified reports state that buildings have collapsed there, and that electricity and telephone lines are down. Note that I was unable to access www.chile.com . A State of Catastrophe has been declared by the president. Eleven aftershocks, some of which were sizeable, have also been reported. On the positive side, Chile has an outstanding emergency preparedness programme for such natural disasters, and recovery is already underway.  

The OFAC designations [SDN]* of the heads of the Mexican criminal organisation known as La Familia Michoacan were accompanied by photographs of the individuals involved. You can access them here:

The Government of Libya has reportedly banned all travel into that country, officially called the Great Socialist Peoples' Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, by nationals from the 25 countries in Europe which are in the Schengen Zone (excludes the UK and Ireland). Whilst this situation may have allegedly occurred after Switzerland banned 180 Libyan PEPs from entry visas, it nevertheless exists at this time. This will impact not only your personal business travel, but also that of clients. 

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, speaking at this week's joint Cancun conference of the Rio Group, and CARICOM, directly threatened the status of the Dutch Caribbean possessions of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, as well as the United States Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Chavez, after berating the United Kingdom for initiating oil exploration in the Falkland Islands, then went after Caribbean possessions. He said, " In the cases of Puerto Rico, Aruba, Curacao or Bonaire, under Venezuela's nose, that is colonialism."

Lewis Freeman*, the prominent attorney-forensic accountant who has handled many of the major fraud cases in Miami and Fort Lauderdale during the past 20 years, was himself the subject of a criminal Information** for Mail Fraud Conspiracy, filed in United States District Court in Miami yesterday. It is alleged that he used his position of court-appointed receiver to embezzle $6m from fiduciary accounts his firm handled during the past decade.  The Defendant, who is apparently cooperating with law enforcement, has been a regularly-appointed receiver, Liquidating Trustee and Assignee for the Benefit of Creditors in many state and Federal cases in Florida. His firm provided forensic accounting, fraud investigations, assistance with restructuring, and bankruptcy & dissolution consulting to clients and the courts.

Readers in San Juan please note that I will be lecturing this Friday, 26 February, at the Seventh Annual Puerto Rico Symposium of Money Laundering. The conference, which is being held at the Puerto Rico Convention Centre, begins on 25 February.The sponsor is the Association of Puerto Rico Bankers, and the venue is 200 Convention Centre Boulevard, in San Juan.

The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, in a public statement made after the news that his country was named to a new list created by the Financial Action Task Force [FATF], has charged that the inclusion of his nation upon what many call the "blacklist" was solely for political reasons, and due to Ecuador's growing relationship with Iran. The FATF report stated that Ecuador was "not committed" to global AML/CFT standards, and that it was not "constructively engaged" with that international organisation. World-Check has previously warned* that regulators and international bodies were looking closely at its activities. We also advised our readers to raise country risk for Ecuador**. 

Last week's military coup, which deposed president Mamadou Tandja, also resulted in the suspension of the country's constitution, and dissolution of all state institutions. The military junta, known as the Supreme Council for the restoration of Democracy, has not been recognised by the African Union, which has suspended Niger's membership in that body. Tandja, who had reportedly dissolved Parliament last year, and was ruling by emergency decree, was seeking to abolish the existing presidential term limits, so that he would be able to rule indefinitely; he is said to be in military custody. The reported leader of the coup is Major Salou Djibo.

A number of those individuals attending my lecture this week at the FIBA AML Compliance conference requested that I summarise my presentation. The purpose of the lecture was to alert compliance officers to the methods through which Ponzi schemes successfully operate, and the "red flags," or indicators, of Ponzi scheme banking. I wish to express my appreciation to the Florida international Bankers Association [FIBA] for the opportunity to present to its members at the conference.

In a case that demonstrates how far US prosecutors will go to shut down terrorist financing, Miami-based exporters, freight forwarding companies companies, and individuals, that were engaged in the sale and delivery of consumer electronics to a Paraguayan mall sanctioned as a Hizballah Funding Source, have been indicted* on terrorism charges. The shopping mall, located in the notorious tri-border region of South America [Ciudad del Este, Paraguay] is a named Specially designated Global Terrorist [SDGT] organisation, allegedly pays a portion of its revenues directly to Hizballah.