PEP ALERT ... PM STEPS DOWN OVER ENERGY SCANDAL

This month Tanzanian Prime Minister Edward Lowassa (UID 5903) stepped down from office. In December 2007 a parliamentary committee was formed to evaluate the tender process that gave 'Richmond Development Company LLC', a US company the $172.5 million contract to provide for an emergency power supply. According to reports both 'Richmond' and its successor failed to deliver. It emerged that Lowassa was named in the report which found energy tender irregularities. In January 2008 Daudi Ballali (UID 5893) the Governor of the Tanzanian Central Bank was removed from his post after fraudulent transactions were revealed in an audit of the repayment of external debt. To read the full story of how the country’s coffers were depleted by SH1000 billion in energy charges take a look at the verification hyperlinks on Lowassa’s profile.

This month criminal lawyer Ben Kuehne (UID 800302) was indicted on money laundering charges. It is alleged that the money used to pay for the defence of the former leader of the Colombian Medellin cartel, Fabio Ochoa Vasquez (UID 38253) was linked to drugs. The indictment, however, says that Kuehne and Ochoa’s attorney Oscar Saldarriaga Ochoa (UID 800304) and his personal accountant Gloria Florez Velez (UID 800303) knew that the money was linked to the proceeds of drug related crime. They have all denied the charges levelled at them.

US WIN FIRST STEP TO EXTRADITE ALLEGED FRAUDSTER

For the last four years British hotelier Stanley Tollman (UID 70449) has been fighting extradition to the United States. The US accuses Tollman of a £45m bank fraud, which he denies. This month a court in the United Kingdom ruled that it was not ‘oppressive’ to extradite Tollman to face trial for the alleged offences which date back 16 years. The Tollman family runs a chain of hotels in Europe, South Africa and the US. In March 2004 their son Brett Tollman (UID 70550) was sentenced to 33 months in jail in the US and fined for failing to pay more than US$3m in tax to the IRS. Our research analysts are watching the current story closely and will update the relevant profiles as soon as more information becomes available.

DRUG KINGPIN SENTENCED TO 30 YEARS

This month a New York court sentenced Manuel Felipe Salazar-Espinosa (UID 357361) to 30 years in prison. Salazar-Espinoza was charged with importing cocaine from Colombia into the United States via Mexico between 2002 and 2005. Over that time period it is reported that he oversaw a network that imported more than US$100 million worth of cocaine into the United States and is believed to have laundered tens of millions of dollars monthly. World-Check’s database contains more than a dozen risk related categories including individuals and organisations associated to narcotics crime. Our database is used by more than 200 enforcement and regulatory agencies world-wide.

BULGARIAN ORGANISED CRIME BOSS JAILED

Dimitar Zhelyazkov (UID 367879) was arrested in April 2007 and charged with 'organising an armed group and drug trafficking'. This month Zhelyazkov reportedly made a plea bargain with the prosecution and received a reduced sentence of four years and six months, less time already spent behind bars whilst he awaited trial. Zhelyazkov was also ordered to pay restitution. His main associate Yanko Gyurov (UID 595352) will serve more than four years in jail. World-Check profiled Zhelyazkov in October 2005.

The criminal case in US District Court in Miami, which charges the defendants with acting as unregistered agents of a foreign power, and is more commonly known as the Antonini case, is but the opening act in a major pending investigation looking into allegations of money laundering, arms smuggling, and narcotics trafficking amongst not only the present defendants, but other closely linked, usually wealthy Venezuelan businessmen who have extensive dealings with their government, and are known as the Bolivarian Elite. …read more

This month the US Government charged six Guantanamo Bay detainees with crimes related to the 9/11 terrorists attacks. The main suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (UID 41241) is alleged to have conceived the attack and obtained funding. Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash (UID 417358), Ramzi Binalshibh (UID 39086) Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (UID 411797) Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi (UID 40658) and Mohamed al Kahtani (UID 454491) were also charged.

This month Qatar based cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi (UID 163751) was denied entry to the United Kingdom. Al-Qaradawi was barred from entering the United States as far back as 1999. Reports state that authorities in the United Kingdom feared his visit would spark inter-community violence. Al-Qaradawi visited Britain in 2004 and spoke at a conference in London where it is alleged he spoke in an inflammatory manner reportedly by defending and encouraging suicide bombings and other terrorist activities.

This month British authorities confirmed that Abu Hamza (UID 60004) the former imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in London will be sent to New York to face terrorism charges. Hamza has been charged with attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and has been linked to the attacks in Yemen in 1998 where four hostages were killed. The US has accused Hamza of being a principle recruiter of terrorists at the Finsbury Park mosque. No date has yet been confirmed for his trial to commence. Hamza appears on a number of major sanction and watch lists, all of which are key worded for our users convenience in our database

Yemeni Salim Ahmed Hamdan (UID 40683) who is reported to have been Osama Bin Laden’s driver and personal bodyguard between 1996 and 2001 is to undergo trial by a military tribunal. Hamdan was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba the following year. Since then Hamdan has appealed against his trial by tribunal on a number of occasions, his appeals have been rejected, most recently in October 2007. His claim for prisoner of war status was also denied in December last year. A US Prosecutor described Hamdan as ‘designated by the military to be an irregular "enemy combatant," and therefore neither the US constitution nor Geneva Convention rulings apply in his case.

World-Check, is proud to announce that we were once again ahead of the sanctioning bodies in identifying and profiling risk. In the February 12, 2008 US Treasury OFAC alert, the main designate Carlos Mario Jimenez Naranjo, a Medellin based drug lord, was identified and profiled by our dedicated team of research analysts as early as August 2004, three and a half years ahead of the sanctioning body. Of the 15 new OFAC designates World-Check already had 9 of them on its database. If you would like to read the full press release, you may do so here.

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