Newswire:
World-Check releases White Paper on Piracy
|
World-Check releases FCPA White Paper
|
World-Check expert seminars attract 600 delegates in 13 cities worldwide
|
World-Check renews partnership with the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
|
More Newswires...
CONFESSIONS OF A
MONEY LAUNDERER by Kenneth Rijock
MONEY LAUNDERER by Kenneth Rijock
Financial Crime Consultant, for World-Check
Confessions of a Money Launderer - Part 78
8 November 2008
Now on with the conclusion of last week's segment on how and why I testified against my clients. I went off to the minimum-security prison at Eglin Air Force Base, in the Florida Panhandle, with a four-year sentence. Gain Time, or time deducted from one's assigned sentence, is only 15% since the Federal Sentencing Guidelines became law in 1987. That meant I would be serving roughly 41 months in custody. This was not a very pleasant thought, understanding three and a half years of confinement. It was difficult to take, because I knew I was there because clients whom I had zealously (and recklessly) protected for a decade had put me there to lessen their own sentences. Since they had thrown me under the bus, my loyalty was gone, and that would represents a problem for the clients, as it was yours truly who had started a lot of their drug profits on a long journey into the tax havens of the world. I knew intimate details of their placement, layering and integration techniques, as I had created many of them myself. In short, I knew where the financial bodies were buried.
Around six months after I went off to prison, a law enforcement agency contacted me, through an intermediary, with an interesting proposition.
My sentence was reduced to only two years, and after serving only twenty-one months, I was released from Eglin, and that's wny I sometimes get irritated when people accuse me of gaining my freedom at the expense of my clients.
Next week: back to my days as an enthusiastic, and effective, compliance officer, and how I did it.
- The Swiss government had just organised the first Swiss-American joint investigation, seeking to identify drug profits in Swiss banks, for eventual seizure and forfeiture, and also the lawyers and bankers who were representing drug traffickers and assisting them with opening up banking relationships in Switzerland.
- Law enforcement wanted some with first-hand knowledge of the entire money laundering pipeline that the clients operated, from bulk-cash smuggling into the tax havens of the Caribbean and on into Swiss banks. The promise of a reduced sentence for cooperating was a strong incentive, but even more was the chance to hit the former clients in their pocketbooks; All bets were off.
- One day, I was abruptly picked up and placed in the Federal Prison in Tallahassee, I was to testify before a Swiss magistrate sent specially to Florida to hear me trace the flow of dirty money, from drug profits on the streets of America, to its present location, in Swiss financial institutions. The funny thing was, I had expressly vetoed the idea of sending any large amounts of cash into Swiss banks, for I knew that there was a chance that the money could be seized at a later date. Unfortunately, wealthy and successful clients, even in the drug businesses, can be incredibly arrogant, and they disregarded my advice. Now they would pay dearly for that mistake.
- The bilingual DEA Agent who was the liasion with the Swiss served as an interpreter, and I detailed the entire operation to the magistrate. Did it trouble me to expose these secrets? Certainly, but in my new reality, where the clients had become enemies and the law enforcement agencies friends, it made sense to change horses in mid-stream, to return to the side of the law that I has left a decade earlier.
- The US and Swiss governments eventaully seized millions of dollars of my former clients' money, and it did hurt. Years later, the client's present lawyer/money launderer refused to shake my hand when we met by accident in the law library, and he told a lawyer friend that I had "cost his clients a lot of money." I couldn't be more pleased with that intelligence; call it payback for betrayal of trust.
My sentence was reduced to only two years, and after serving only twenty-one months, I was released from Eglin, and that's wny I sometimes get irritated when people accuse me of gaining my freedom at the expense of my clients.
Next week: back to my days as an enthusiastic, and effective, compliance officer, and how I did it.
The facts and opinions stated in this article are those of the author and not those of World-Check. World-Check does not warrant the accuracy of any facts and opinions stated in this article, does not endorse them, and accepts no responsibility for them.
Read more in this exciting series
8 March 2010
8 February 2010
24 January 2010
6 December 2009
27 September 2009
9 August 2009
3 August 2009
30 March 2009
9 March 2009
2 March 2009
22 February 2009
18 February 2009
26 January 2009
18 January 2009
11 January 2009
5 January 2009
29 November 2008
24 November 2008
17 November 2008
8 November 2008
3 November 2008
27 October 2008
20 October 2008
13 October 2008
4 October 2008
28 September 2008
20 September 2008
15 September 2008
15 June 2008
8 June 2008
1 June 2008
26 May 2008
19 May 2008
12 May 2008
4 May 2008
27 April 2008
20 April 2008
13 April 2008
31 March 2008
18 March 2008
4 March 2008
25 February 2008
16 February 2008
10 February 2008
3 February 2008
27 January 2008
20 January 2008
14 January 2008
6 January 2008
16 December 2007
9 December 2007
1 December 2007
25 November 2007
18 November 2007
11 November 2007
3 November 2007
27 October 2007
21 October 2007
14 October 2007
7 October 2007
1 October 2007
23 September 2007
16 September 2007
3 June 2007
27 May 2007
21 May 2007
6 May 2007
30 April 2007
22 April 2007
15 April 2007
8 April 2007
2 April 2007
24 March 2007
19 March 2007
12 March 2007
5 March 2007
25 February 2007
19 February 2007
12 February 2007
4 February 2007
28 January 2007
22 January 2007
15 January 2007
7 January 2007
2 January 2007
16 December 2006
10 December 2006
3 December 2006
27 November 2006
19 November 2006
11 November 2006
5 November 2006
29 October 2006
22 October 2006
16 October 2006
9 October 2006
2 October 2006
Print Confession
Email Confession
More Confessions
Subscribe to Newsletter
PRODUCT INFORMATION
COMPLIANCE OVERVIEW
NEWSWIRE
World-Check releases White Paper on Piracy
World-Check releases 'Piracy in the Horn of Africa' a White Paper by Rear Admiral Chris Parry CBE. With antecedents that reach back to classical times, piracy has sprung up and thrived in vari...more
World-Check releases White Paper on the Forei...
Titled “The FCPA and why it matters” this paper provides insight for multinational organisations into the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and highlights the basis for a sound compl...more
World-Check expert seminars attract 600 deleg...
Since July 2009 World-Check, the leading provider of end-to-end risk management services, has presented expert seminars in Monaco, Frankfurt, Madrid, Lisbon, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Copenhagen, M...more
World-Check renews partnership with the UK's ...
Since November 2008, the World-Check database has been used in over 130 enquiries by the CEOP's financial investigators to ascertian background intelligence on child abuse cases. To read the full ...more
Jersey convicted narcotics trafficker profile...
Read the full press release to see why it makes sense to use the World-Check se...more
Make this my homepage
Bookmark
