USA Patriot Act – The Alacer Group

Where Money Laundering Hides in America — Medium

Posted on June 21, 2016 - 5:27 pm by Reid Wegley

The soft underbelly of rural America provides perfect hiding places for even the most unusual schemers

If you want to find bison roaming freely on the prairie or long, dusty roads where the vistas stretch for empty miles, Oklahoma is where you want to be. Until recently, this sparsely populated landscape is also where you could have found a lucrative horse ranch that two leaders of Los Zetas, a ruthless Mexican drug cartel, used to launder more than $22 million.

Money laundering in America isn’t just happening in the more obvious places such as Atlantic City’s gambling district or Manhattan’s high-priced real estate market. Thieves are getting craftier…and thinking outside of the box when it comes to choosing a home base for illegal operations.

One wonders why federal authorities didn’t figure out in quicker fashion that the Oklahoma horse ranch was shady, since a number of the racing horses had vanity names such as “Number One Cartel” and “Morning Cartel.” But eventually, justice was served. . . Click here to read the rest of this story: Where Money Laundering Hides in America — Medium

Money laundering is not a victimless crime – Medium

Posted on June 20, 2016 - 10:32 pm by Reid Wegley

When discussing money laundering, I rarely dig into the details of the victims. Instead, I’ve focused on the actions and possible motives of the criminals, the size of their crimes and the resulting penalties. This may have given the impression that money laundering is a largely victimless crime, but nothing could be further from the truth. Typically, the victims of money laundering are reimbursed for the financial crimes perpetrated against them, but often face little recourse in terms of getting compensated for physical pain and/or mental anguish in civil court — unless that case is focused on some aspect of terrorism.

Americans can legally sue foreign governments and the banks that support them for compensation related to terrorist attacks. By linking money laundering with terrorism, there may be some justice for these victims in the court system. Here are just two instances:

A Father’s Love Uncovers Iranian Mess

In 1995. Stephen Flatow’s 20-year old daughter Alisa was killed in a terrorist attack by a suicide bomber on the Gaza Strip. What followed is simply incredible. . . Click here to read the rest of the story on Medium.com.

Actress Accused of Laundering El Chapo’s Cash – Medium

Posted on June 20, 2016 - 10:11 pm by Reid Wegley

Did Kate del Castillo Go Gangster to Launch Tequila Brand?

Kicking off the New Year actor Sean Penn, best known for his roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Milk and Dead Man Walking, published a story in Rolling Stone that featured an interview he conducted with the infamous Mexican drug lord, El Chapo, entitled El Chapo Speaks. The story quickly went viral, mostly because of the fact that El Chapo was on the run from authorities at the time and considered ‘the most wanted man in the world’, but also because he has become almost a mythical figure in a society obsessed by fame, and was interviewed by someone almost as famous.

As a result, Sean Penn story nearly broke the Internet. With words.

Immediately questions were raised about how Penn could arrange a meeting that the authorities could not, even though it was revealed in the story that Mexican actress Kate del Castillo orchestrated it. Who is del Castillo? There are rumors that she is El Chapo’s mistress. . . Click here to read the rest of the article on Medium.com.

AML Scandals that Flew Under the Radar in ’15 – American Banker’s BankThink Blog

Posted on June 20, 2016 - 10:06 pm by Reid Wegley

In addition to anti-money-laundering scandals involving global banks and worldwide organizations such as FIFA that grabbed headlines last year, there were plenty of damaging laundering convictions and accusations in 2015 that went unnoticed but still took a heavy toll on midlevel banks.

Money laundering is a crime that occurs more often than the general public realizes, and in most sectors of our economy. In the past year alone, charity officials, a mortuary owner, a church director and a doctor providing chemo treatments were at the center of appalling cases you probably never heard about.

1. Tayfun Karauzum, of Newport Beach, Calif., was sentenced to five years in prison for distributing $1 million to $2.5 million of Potion 9, which contained a solvent that metabolizes in the body to become gamma-Hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, a known date-rape drug. He then laundered the proceeds.

2. Charles and Diana Muir were sentenced to 48 and six months in prison, respectively, and forced to return the $1.1 million they stole from a 140-year-old college scholarship charity in Louisville, Ky. — the Woodcock Foundation — that was run by Charles Muir. The couple then laundered the proceeds through Diana Muir’s dental business.

To view the rest of the top 10 most unheralded, yet just as disturbing money laundering stories from 2015 please click here.