http://www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id605/pg1.html washing dirty dollars by Preston Peet ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - December 01, 2000 "What are we going to do? We've got the Fortune 500 involved in the drug money laundering-process," said former Drug Enforcement agent and current government advisor on drug trade economics, Greg Passic, to the New York Times (October 10th, 2000). According to remarks made by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control (September 21st, 1999), international illegal drug profits have surpassed an estimated $55 billion annually, and "this money obviously has to be laundered." Grassley's myopic sights, however, are focused upon the Black Market Peso Exchange, through which an estimated $5 billion a year is laundered by "international money brokers, working in league with drug traffickers." The brokers "sell cheap American dollars, proceeds of the drug trade, to Colombian importers of appliances, cigarettes, liquor and other products. They use those dollars to buy legitimate goods in the United States from top US companies and their distributors. The money brokers often pay for the goods in strange ways, like wire transfers from unrelated third parties," as the process is described in the PBS Frontline special report, Drug Wars: US Business and Money Laundering. The New York Times (October 10th, 2000) reported on a private meeting (June 6th, 2000) held between twenty senior Fortune 500 companies, US Attorney General Janet Reno, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat. Neither the press nor the public were invited to attend or informed beforehand. Hewlett-Packard, General Electric (described alone among them as a "good corporate citizen" by US Customs man Allan J. Doody, quoted by Frontline), Ford, Whirlpool, Sony, and General Motors, were amongst the corporations represented. Doody later explained that, "the meeting was called to try and educate companies about how they are being victimized in the drug money laundering process and to enlist their help. The government realizes it cannot arrest its way out of this problem." Try this rhetoric with Bell Helicopter, which is contributing forty-two helicopters to Plan Colombia, the anti-insurgency/anti-drug package approved by the US Congress. As a consequence of selling a helicopter to Colombian Victor Carranza, Bell is embroiled in a public relations disaster. The helicopter was paid in part with twenty-nine separate money orders and cheques from companies and people who Carranza claims he doesn’t know. Bell claims that it didn’t know of Carranza's rumored connection to drug traffickers and money launderers. US tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris was sued by Columbia’s taxation office, in another case. Philop Morris products, such as Marlboro-brand cigarettes, were regularly used to launder money through the BMPE in early 2000, through New York’s Eastern District courts. Philip Morris was accused in 1995 of laundering $40 million through similar tactics. So if the cartels are laundering only $5 billion or so a year through US companies using the BMPE, where is the other $50 billion in drug profits mentioned by Senator Grassley going? NarcoNews publisher Al Giordano, says, "a good rule of thumb is that 80% of drug monies go to the laundering agents themselves, that is to say, banks and financial institutions. In that sense Grassley's figure is not that far off. It's his screening process that is myopic. The traditional and stereotypical narco only keeps about 20% of the proceeds, and engages in small time laundering, (i.e. build a hotel where there are no customers, keep it empty but expensive, pay the taxes as if every room is full all year round, and, viola, you have legal proceeds). But the bankers are the super narcos and have been the real capos all along." Above and beyond the $55 billion figure quoted by Grassley from narco-trafficking, the total illegal money estimated to be annually laundered through US banks ranges from $250 billion to $500 billion.The Bank of New York allegedly has laundered over $500 million via Swiss bank accounts for Russian mobsters and crime syndicates. Two Russian emigres, Peter Berlin and his wife and "former vice-president of the bank," Lucy, were convicted in a US court (February, 2000), New York Times reporter Elizabeth Olson revealed (November 15th, 2000). Peter and Lucy Berlin helped facilitate the laundering, but now investigators are urging that Bank of New York accounts be checked again for even more as-yet undiscovered illicit dirty funds. Is it believable that these two managed to move this much money on their own? Bank of New York accounts are suspected by US authorities of being used to launder "at least $7 billion," between February, 1996, and August, 1999, for a number of Russians trying to avoid Russian taxes. Associated Press reporter Marcy Gordon uncovered that one of the US's largest banks, Citibank, was also under investigation by the US Senate for its Private Banking services. "Citibank's private banking services cater to the ultra-rich, ultra-corrupt, politically connected who have at least $3 million in their accounts. Other notables who have used Citibank's special private service include Raul Salinas, brother of a former President of Mexico, and who laundered at least US$100 million, the President of Gabon, Omar Bongo, who is reported to have more than US$50 million in his secret account, and the sons of Nigeria's late military dictator Sani Abacha, who have amassed more than US$110 million by some figures." But where are the American names? Over 350 government officials from around the world have or had accounts Utilizing Citibank's special services, including ex-CIA director John Deutch. The Money Laundering Act of 1986 turned it into a "predicate act," reported Gordon, for US banks to handle money for foreign clients profiting from drug trafficking, bank fraud, and kidnapping, but bribery, theft, and simple fraud are not prosecutable through the Act, "a loophole some in Congress want to change." No one is above reproach. Even the Vatican, an institutional role-model of steadfast morality and religious faith, has come under recent attacks. The Vatican is urging the US government to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it in California (January 2000), on behalf of victims, and their families, who were robbed, tortured, and murdered by Croatia's World War II-era fascist Ustasha regime. Along with the Swiss National Bank and the Franciscan Order, the Vatican is alleged to have helped hide "hundreds of millions of dollars in gold, property and cash," stolen from Croatian Jews at the end of the war by the Ustasha. However, Reuters correspondent Michael Khon reported (November 24th, 2000) that the Vatican is claiming sovereign immunity as an independent state from prosecution. What the Vatican is pointedly not asserting is that it is innocent of collaborating in war crimes. There are senior US government and law enforcement personnel, notably the Departments of Justice and Treasury, that specialize in ensuring that enforcement focus remains anywhere but the top levels of American financial institutions. These officials ensure that the US government's fury and its financial police’s might is targeted at mid-level BMPE brokers, and foreign banks and officials. Concurrently, US-based Fortune 500 companies that have bought and paid for the very same politicians who write and enact the laws, are getting advice on how to avoid prosecution through legal loopholes, whilst maintaining a public relations stance that they are cracking down upon internal corruption and everyday dealings with white collar criminals and money launderers. -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. 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