PEP ALERT ... FORMER CAMEROON MINISTER JAILED

This month Alphonse Siyam Siwe (UID 142249) the former minister of Energy and Water Affairs in the Cameroon (2004-2006) was jailed for 30 years for corruption. It is reported that Siwe was part of a group who embezzled more than $90m during his tenure as Director General of the Port of Douala, his post prior to his appointment to a ministerial position. Three others were also sentenced Ret. Col Eduard Etonde Ekoto (UID 512104), Simon Pierre Ewodo Noah (UID 767234) and Marie Nitcheu Siewe (UID 767233). The judge also ruled that the property of the four would be seized and their bank accounts frozen. Check out their profiles to see the prison sentences meted out by the judge.

On December 11th Blanca Cazares (UID 769052) was named as one of 22 individuals in an Office of Foreign Assets Control order. OFAC ordered that the assets of these individuals and the 19 entities also named be frozen and listed them all as Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficking Kingpins (SDNTK). Cazares is the sister of drug lord Victor Emilio Cazares (UID 577277) who was indicted by the DEA in February 2007 for allegedly heading up a narcotics smuggling operation from Mexico through California. Authorities have already seized more than US$45m in illicit monies. Cazares is named as being connected to the Sinaloa Cartel and is a fugitive. World-Check monitors all major sanction watch lists and its globally situated research team updates the database within hours of the information being released, ensuring that our clients have the most up-to-date information at their fingertips.

SWISS BANKER ARRESTED IN FRANCE

François Rouge (UID 763085) the former head and shareholder of a Geneva based private bank has been arrested in Marseilles, France. It is alleged that Rouge was mixed up with Corsican organised crime. The authorities have charged him with both money laundering and criminal conspiracy. Rouge is reported to have invested large sums of money in three restaurants run by Paul Lantieri (UID 769009) who authorities have linked to the Corsican mafia. Lantieri is apparently on the run. Use our unique profile specific news search engine News-Check to alert you to further developments in the case.

INSURANCE SCAM COUPLE CHARGED

This month John Darwin (UID 762400) and his wife Anne (UID 764127) were charged with obtaining money by deception. In March 2002 John Darwin allegedly disappeared whilst canoeing in the sea close to Hartlepool and was declared dead presumed drowned a year later. Anne Darwin duly claimed more than £150,000 on her husband’s life insurance. Earlier in December Darwin walked in to a local police station and declared that he was a missing man. However, it was reported that John Darwin had in fact been hiding out in a flat next door to the family home for much of his 'disappearance'. Photos also surfaced on the Internet of the Darwins together in Panama allegedly taken in 2006. John Darwin was additionally charged with making a false declaration to obtain a passport. To read the entire tale with all its twists and turns take a look at the hyperlink sources on their profiles.

AUSSIE CONMAN JAILED

Back in January 2007 we highlighted the case of Peter Foster (UID 53942) who was wanted for fraud. This month 10 months after his arrest at Brisbane Airport after returning from Vanuatu, he has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail. Foster was found guilty of fraudulently obtaining more than $300,000 from a bank to fund a development in Fiji. Instead Foster used the money to pay off personal debt. The judgement also handed down a repatriation order for the full amount outstanding. Foster has been in the World-Check database since 2002, and has had numerous brushes with regulatory bodies in Australia as well as running foul of the law in the United Kingdom.

Wilmer Jose Ruperti Perdomo, a leading independent ship owner in Venezuela, has been sued in the US District Court in New York, and charged with committing massive fraud against companies owned by the Russian state. The total amount claimed, including attorneys' fees, is US$17.1m. Ruperti, who controls his Panamanian-domiciled companies, Sea Pioneer Shipping Corporation, and PMI Trading Inc., is charged with a breach of his fiduciary duties, in earning secret profits and undisclosed covert payments, in connection with charters of Plaintiffs' oil tankers by PdVSA, Venezuela's government-controlled petrochemical agency. He is accused of committing charter party fraud. …read more

This month authorities in Britain arrested Faiz Baluch (UID 766943) and Herbayar Marri (UID 445171) and charged them under Britain's Terrorism Act with inciting another person "to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the U.K. which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder." They claim they are innocent and are peaceful activists calling for the independence of Baluchistan, a province of Pakistan. The pair are accused of links with the Baluchistan Liberation Army, an organization that is banned in Britain.

Donald Stewart-Whyte (UID 482104) was granted bail by a British judge. It is alleged that Whyte was involved in a plot to blow up aircraft traveling to the USA through the use of liquid based explosives. He is not one of the eight who have been charged with conspiracy to murder. Our TIRU team will monitor and update accordingly as more news becomes available on this high profile case. To reveal his associates and co-accused look at the Display Graph on his profile.

World-Check is proud to report that on a number of occasions during 2007 we were once again ahead of the major sanctioning bodies in identifying risk. Check out our Press Releases to see who we identified and why we are relied on by more than 2,400 institutions world-wide.

In October 2007 we introduced the Terrorism Briefing to our Newsletter stable. The Tbrief gives our clients a heads up on terrorism and terror financing. World-Check’s terrorism coverage is unsurpassed in the industry; our database contains more than 24,000 terrorism related profiles far outstripping the four major watch lists which contain less than 1,000 unique names between them.

Another addition to our editorial content is Expert Talk a series of informative and authoritative analysis articles on terrorism. Expert Talk runs concurrently with the T-Brief. The first three articles penned by John Solomon, the Head of World-Check’s Terrorism and Insurgency Research Unit (TIRU) dealt with Trends in Terror Finance – The Unregulated sector.

Kenneth Rijock’s insightful articles in “From a Different Angle” and his enthralling series about his former life in “Confessions of a Money Launderer” have proved to be extremely popular with compliance professionals.

In September World-Check hosted the Third Annual Compliance Leadership Forum. This event is by invitation only where committed professionals from the financial, legal, regulatory and enforcement sectors meet to discuss and identify common issues and challenges faced by the financial community as a whole.

World-Check has also hosted a number of well attended informative seminars with expert industry speakers including Kenneth Rijock, in the United Kingdom as well as in the Americas, Australia and tax havens.

Next year we look forward to more of the same as well as some exciting additions, so watch this space.

"Confessions of a Money Launderer" will be taking a short break over the festive season. The popular weekly series will resume on 6th/7th January 2008.

The World-Check team would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your continued support and to wish you a very peaceful end to 2007 and a prosperous and risk free 2008.

For information and frequently asked questions please visit our website by clicking here.