Money Laundering

December 4, 2018

In connection with their work for the "Panama Papers" law firm of Mossack Fonseca & Co. and its affiliates, Ramses Owens, Dirk Brauer, Richard Gaffey, and Harald Joachim Von Der Goltz have been indicted for actions related to the firm's efforts to circumvent U.S. tax laws on behalf of their clients through the use of offshore accounts and shell companies which Mossack Fonseca created.  The defendants then used an alleged “playbook” to repatriate un-taxed money into the U.S. banking system. The defendants are charged with wire fraud, tax fraud, and money laundering, among other offenses. In the last two months, three of the defendants have been arrested; Ramses Owens remains at large.  DOJ

November 27, 2018

Following a guilty plea for receiving over $1 billion in bribes, the former Venezuelan national treasurer, Alejandro Andrade Cedeno ("Andrade"), was sentenced to ten years in prison and agreed to a forfeiture money judgment of $1 billion.  Andrade received the bribes in cash as well as private jets, yachts, cars, homes, champion horses, and high-end watches, in exchange for selecting the bribers to conduct currency exchange transactions for the Venezuelan government. DOJ

November 20, 2018

The owner of Venezuelan news network Globovision, Raul Gorrin Balisario, has been charged in an international money-laundering conspiracy that included the payment of millions of dollars in bribes to two high-level Venezuelan officials to secure the rights to conduct foreign currency exchange transactions at favorable rates for the Venezuelan government.  Two others pleaded guilty to charges arising under the same scheme.  Alejandro Andrade Cedeno, the former Venezuelan national treasurer, admitted to receiving over $1 billion in bribes.  Gabriel Arturo Jimenez Aray, the former owner of Banco Peravia in the Dominican Republic, admitted that he conspired with Gorrin and others to acquire the bank, through which he helped launder bribe money and other proceeds of the scheme.  DOJ; USAO SDFL

October 29, 2018

Matthias Krull, a former executive of Swiss bank Julius Baer Group Ltd., was sentenced to ten years in prison following his guilty plea to charges arising from his involvement in an international scheme to launder more than a billion dollars embezzled from Venezuela’s national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA or PDVSA.  DOJ