Banks all over the world are under fire for not being able to stop over $2 trillion USD of suspicious money that was being funnelled throughout their own systems. Leaked documents coming from the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network otherwise known as FinCEN revealed that there were actually 90 banks from all over the globe that were processing funds with certain ties to both crime and corruption.
These personalities were people that not a lot of people expected would be involved in this particular dirty money bank scandal.
Here are the top names on the list:
Paul Manafort
Known as the former chair of the president's previously successful 2016 presidential campaign, his name was included in the leaked documents. According to the documents, Manafort was actually a central player in the whole Special Counsel Robert Muello's investigation looking into Russian interference back during the 2016 US elections.
Banks were already lodging certain suspicious activity reports otherwise known as SARS that were related to Manafort's own transactions back in 2012 before the scandal actually broke out.
Back in 2017, JPMorgan Chase reported about $320 million in suspicious wire transfers from certain shell companies that all linked to Manafort covered by a so-called "secrecy jurisdiction". At least $40 million of the money that JPMorgan Chase flagged came from Manafort directly.The banks started to raise concerns when Manafort began receiving payments from certain pro-Russian political parties.
Manafort is serving seven and a half years as he pleaded guilty towards conspiracy to defraud the US as well as witness tampering.
Low Taek Jho
Jho Low embezzled $4.5 billion from Malaysia's own sovereign wealth fund or 1Malaysia Development Berhad otherwise known as 1MDB. Jho Low was able to channel out over $100 million from 1MDB itself to actually finance the hit firm.
Mr. Low even reportedly transferred money to buy a steak in a known hotel located near Central Park as well as a lavish penthouse located in New York. This was reported by JPMorgan Chase.
Najib Razak
The former prime minister of Malaysia was the one responsible for establishing the known 1MDB fund and was also found guilty of a number of financial crimes back in 2012. He is now facing 12 years in prison but is actually believed to be hiding over somewhere in China.
Ruja Ignatova
Inventor of a cryptocurrency scheme called OneCoin convinced investors to buy over $4 billion of fake tokens. The currency was a fake and worked as a typical pyramid scheme.The Bank of New York Mellon reported over $137 million in certain suspicious payments towards the fake currency.
Among the documents uncovered, it was seen that Ms. Ignatova had an exit strategy for leaving the whole business. Ms. Ignatova then disappeared back in 2017 and her own location is still unknown until today.
Dmytro Firtash
Ukrainian energy baron made billions just by working as a particular middle man for a low-key Russian gas company called Gazpromo. They imported gas to Ukraine at a sort of artificially low price. He would then funnel the money into certain pro-Russian political groups within the country of Ukraine.
A report from the Nadra Bank (which he actually owned) showed a transfer of $1 billion from that bank through certain New York branches of both Standard Chartered and also the Bank of New York Mellon.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
