UBS
Underworld Bank Secrets
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
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February 19, 2009
UBS admits US tax fraud, to identify
scofflaw clients
By Veronica Smith
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Swiss banking giant UBS has admitted US tax fraud and agreed to pay 780 million dollars to the US government, cooperate in an ongoing probe and name scofflaw clients, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
"UBS AG, Switzerland's largest bank, has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)," the Justice Department said in a statement.
"As part of the deferred prosecution agreement and in an unprecedented move, UBS, based on an order by the Swiss Financial Markets Supervisory Authority (FINMA), has agreed to immediately provide the United States government with the identities of, and account information for, certain United States customers of UBS's cross-border business," it said.
The Swiss bank also agreed to "expeditiously" exit the business of providing banking services to United States clients with undeclared accounts, the department said.
UBS's agreement "to pay 780 million dollars in fines, penalties, interest and restitution" was accepted earlier Wednesday by a US federal judge in Florida.
"In light of the bank's willingness to acknowledge responsibility for its actions and omissions, its cooperation and remedial actions to date, and its promised continuing cooperation and remedial actions, the government will recommend dismissal of the charge, provided the bank fully carries out its obligations under the agreement," the Justice Department said.
Under Swiss banking secrecy law, banks in Switzerland are prohibited from divulging any information to authorities or any third parties about their clients, except in cases involving recognized criminal investigations.
Switzerland and UBS have been under pressure from the United States since the tax fraud case first emerged in a Florida court last year.
UBS announced in July that it was halting its offshore banking services for US citizens in light of the probe.
The Justice Department said Wednesday US court documents showed that UBS in 2000, after it purchased the US brokerage firm Paine Webber, had voluntarily entered into an agreement with the IRS that required the bank to report to the tax agency income and other identifying information for its US clients who held US securities in a UBS account.
Court documents allege that the agreement also required UBS to withhold income taxes from United States clients who directed investment activities in foreign securities from the United States.
The documents state that, "in order to evade those new reporting requirements, employees and managers within the cross-border business, with the knowledge of certain UBS executives, helped United States taxpayers open new UBS accounts in the names of nominees and/or sham entities."
According to court documents, the assets of the individual’s accounts were then transferred to the newly created shell accounts, which UBS used to justify evading its reporting obligations and help US taxpayers to continue to conceal their identities and assets from the IRS.
The documents describe a sophisticated web of marketing Swiss bank secrecy to US clients. In 2004 alone, Swiss bankers allegedly traveled to the United States approximately 3,800 times to discuss their clients’ Swiss bank accounts.
In November 2008, UBS executive Raoul Weil was indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and charged with conspiring to defraud the US for his alleged role in overseeing the United States cross-border business.
The district court recently declared him to be a fugitive, the Justice Department said.
In June 2008, former UBS private banker Bradley Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to defraud the US for similar conduct. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 1.
February 3, 2009
Barbados Money Laundering Advisory Sends Bombshell Letter To Giant Swiss UBS Bank
“To assist the anti-money laundering initiatives at UBS, (Barbados Money Laundering Advisory is) also including a list of names of persons who were members or operatives of the former Barbados government during the past 15 years.
While Prime Minister Thompson did not mention specific names of those who presumably are under investigation for money laundering, we respectfully suggest that your internal investigators should compare these names against your banking records for individuals and corporate clients worldwide.
Should UBS determine that any of these persons or their proxies have or had dealings with any of your UBS businesses worldwide, it would seem prudent that their financial activities with UBS should be carefully examined, considering the allegations made by the Prime Minister of Barbados.”
… from a letter sent by Barbados Money Laundering Advisory to the Chairman of the Board and almost 200 employees of Swiss banking giant UBS.
Letter Names BLP Operatives” Suspected Of Money Laundering!
When Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson told a Toronto, Canada audience last September that “operatives” of the previous BLP Government had illegally taken “millions and millions” of dollars from Barbados and stashed the the money in foreign accounts, I wonder if he gave consideration to the thought that somebody might act upon his revelations?
A new blog called Barbados Money Laundering Advisory (BMLA) has just sent Prime Minister Thompson’s comments to about 200 senior executives of UBS - the huge Swiss bank that is “the world’s largest handler of private wealth assets.”
Oh… along with Thompson’s allegations, BMLA also sent a “list of names of persons who were members or operatives of the former Barbados government” so UBS can check the names against their banking records.
Wuhloss!
Who is on “the list”?
Start with Owen $ Arthur and work your way along!
Swiss banking giant UBS got nailed by U.S. tax authorities last year when bank employees were arrested in the USA while smuggling assets and records across the border. Barbados Free Press related in our article a few weeks ago that U.S. prosecutors have alleged UBS helped clients hide $18 billion of untaxed American money in undeclared accounts. This amounts to around $300 million of annual unpaid taxes.
We agree with commenter “Oldrooster” at Barbados Money Laundering Advisory blog…
“UBS will be anxious to prove they are through with illegal offshore monies. This letter could be problematic for some on the list!”
Further Reading
BMLA: UBS Bank Switzerland Advised Of Barbados Prime Minister’s “Secret Bank Accounts” Speech
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
UBS loses favour with angry Swiss
UK Guardian: Swiss private banks unrepentant about siphoning off other gove…
Banks not playing fair with TARP money — should lend at lower rates!
http://barbadosfreepress.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/
June, 2008
Is UBS Failure Next?
by AL MARTIN
Global equity markets, which have already been falling for weeks, came under renewed pressure last week, when on Wednesday (June 18), RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), one of the largest banks on the planet, warned of dire pending economic conditions, advising clients "to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets."...
We also saw that Morgan Stanley Europe warned of a world wide economic "catastrophe." This refers to market rumors that another major European financial institution is about to collapse....
There is much speculation as to which institutions are in danger. The prime contender, based on available news flows, would be UBS....
May 28, 2008
UBS, Josh Marshall, John McCain and Barack Obama
This is the limit. The absolute limit.
Josh Marshall, in a recent post, castigates John McCain for taking economic advice on
the sub-prime mortgage crisis from former senator Phil Gramm. Why? Because
Gramm was a lobbyist for the Swiss bank UBS. (Gramm no longer lobbies, but
continues to serve as a bank vice president.)
The UBS connection is of concern because that firm is a huge part of the sub-prime
mortgage crisis:
Forbes says that UBS is among the banks worst hit by the global credit crisis, particularly in their direct exposure to the US subprime market. According to Forbes, UBS has some $37 billion in write-downs on assets tied to bad US mortgages. In other words, the bank's very life appears to be on the line in how the US government chooses to handle the matter.
Needless to say, I agree with Marshall -- up to this point. What I don't agree with is his
hypocrisy, his special pleading on behalf of the Savior From Illinois.
I've used this quote before, but let's trot it out again, since it compresses a whole huge
chunk of stinkiness into one small stink-ball:
Seven of the Obama campaign’s top 14 donors consisted of officers and
employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the
public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made
mortgages. These latest frauds have left thousands of children in some of our
largest minority communities coming home from school to see eviction notices
and foreclosure signs nailed to their front doors. Those scars will last a lifetime.
These seven Wall Street firms are (in order of money given): Goldman Sachs,
UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley
and Credit Suisse. There is also a large hedge fund, Citadel Investment
Group, which is a major source of fee income to Wall Street.
UBS is or was Obi's second largest contributor, after Goldman Sachs. We must
quickly note that Hillary has also taken lots of money from Goldman Sachs, and from
others on this list -- though I've yet to see any evidence of a substantial contribution to
her from UBS, the company which (for good reason) has aroused Marshall's particular ire.
Since strained rationalization is my favorite form of humor, I would love to see Marshall
defend Obama while attacking McCain on the UBS connection. Could the former King
of Bloggers possibly be more hypocritical?
By the way: As I've noted many times, Obama's chief economic adviser is a Milton
Friedmanite and free-trade fundamentalist named Austan Goolsbee. In terms of basic
economic weltanschauung, the difference between Gramm and Goolsbee is...what,
exactly?....
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2008/05/ubs-josh-marshall-john-mccain-and.html
CHECK THIS OUT
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3308.htm
! ! ! ! ! !
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/intelwhispers/intelligence_whispers.htm
June 20, 2005
Intelligence Whispers
WASHINGTON, DC -- Two criminal investigations based in New York are getting close to exposing a major Bush family and associates' international money laundering operation that has spanned more than a generation and has been used to illegally fund U.S. elections since the Nixon era. According to CIA sources, most Bush family assets are tied up in off-shore accounts that are masked from investigators through the use of pass through companies and secretive interlocking board directorships.
The investigations of the secret Bush money tranches are coming to the fore as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer focuses in on the scandal involving Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and the inflation of the worth of American Insurance Group (AIG) through shady affiliates, including AIG reinsurer Coral Re of Barbados. Greenberg was the CEO of AIG but was forced to step down amid the Spitzer probe.
AIG was founded from Asia Life/CV Starr, a Shanghai-based international import/export and insurance firm founded in 1919 by Cornelius V. Starr, an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative in Southeast Asia during World War II. AIG's largest shareholder is Starr International Company (SICO), an off-shore corporation incorporated in Panama with headquarters in Bermuda.
Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who prosecuted President Clinton, is the nephew of Cornelius Starr. Greenberg inherited the CEO job and Chairmanship from Starr as well as the $3.5 billion Starr Foundation.
Another probe by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is focused on long-time Bush backers Sam and Charles Wyly of Texas and a Bank of America off-shore account in the Isle of Man. According to intelligence sources, that probe is getting very close to an Isle of Man multi-billion dollar account controlled by the Bushes through an off-shore contrivance known as Five Star Trust.
Charles Wyly serves on the board of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). Critics have charged that hundreds of millions of dollars of UTIMCO's $11 billion in public funds have been steered to investment funds run by Bush family friends and supporters.
A number of UTIMCO's past and current directors are members of George W. Bush's "$100,000 Club." These include, in addition to Wyly, former UTIMCO chairman Tom Hicks, a vice chairman of Clear Channel and head of Muse, Tate & Furst, Inc.; L. Lowry Mays, the chairman of Clear Channel; former Texas Representative and current lobbyist Tom Loeffler (who received illegal laundered campaign contributions from the failed Vernon Savings & Loan); A. W. Riter, a former chairman of NCNB Bank in Tyler, Texas; A. R. "Tony" Sanchez, Chairman of Sanchez-O'Brien Oil & Gas, owner of the Texas border-based International Bank of Commerce and the failed Tesoro Savings & Loan; and Woody Hunt, Chairman of Hunt Building Company.
Some of UTIMCO's investments were directed to firms with close ties to Bush "Pioneer" contributors Lee Bass (Bass Brothers Enterprises), Henry Kravis (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), and Charles Wyly (Maverick Capital Fund), as well as George W. and H.W. Bush (The Carlyle Partners II Fund, managed by The Carlyle Group).
Questions have been raised about the sudden resignation of Hugh McColl, ostensibly a Democrat, from the Bank of America in 2001 just after George W. Bush's election. McColl's departure was reportedly a year earlier than originally planned. McColl contributed $104,000 to Bush in the 2000 campaign and gave a mere pittance to Al Gore. Earlier, in 1983, McColl became head of NCNB Bank, which became Nations Bank in 1991. In 1988, NCNB had acquired the failed First Republic Bank of Dallas and, according to intelligence insiders, assumed responsibility for a number of questionable Bush family business deals.
Texas money laundering is the tip of an Bush family financial iceberg that extends below the surface to shady financial deals around the globe. However, investigators who dare venture into Texas will have their jobs cut out for them. The Bushes have been major recipients of campaign cash from senior partners the largest law firms in Texas -- Vinson & Elkins, Baker Botts (law firm of James Baker III), Andrews Kurth (the law firm of contentious U.S. District Judge Priscilla Owen), Jenkins & Gilchrist, Haynes Boone and Bracewell & Patterson -- that have also been involved in defending those Texas companies and principals who have benefited from massive illegal financial flows.
For example, Andrews Kurth was the law firm for MAXXAM. The firm figured prominently in the failure of the United Savings Association of Texas in December 1988, a savings & loan owned by United Financial Group, Inc., a company in which two firms connected to Texas banker Charles Hurwitz -- Federated Development Company and MAXXAM Group Inc. -- had a significant interest. MAXXAM was an artifice financed with junk bonds from the failed Drexel Burnham Lambert investment firm and its chief junk bond master Michael Milken. The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision and the Treasury Department brought charges against Hurwitz and his colleagues for several violations of the law. The late House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez attempted unsuccessfully to have George H. W. Bush impeached for the massive S&L, BCCI, and other rip offs of the American taxpayers, investors and depositors. Gonzalez realized that the Bush family has concocted a series of financial tranches, off-shore shells, and artifices to conceal criminality unseen in the history of modern financial systems.
The Bank of America-Wyly investigation by Morgenthau, who prosecuted a number of BCCI principals, is noteworthy because of the Isle of Man connection. According to Enron insiders, the same Houston-based attorney who set up the Five Star Trust for the Bushes in the Isle of Man also set up Isle of Man trusts for Enron and the trusts often co-mingled funds and funding sources. The most important bit of intelligence to come forward from seasoned CIA financial operatives, speaking on a strict condition of anonymity, is that Osama bin Laden has had an interest in some of the same Isle of Man trusts used by the Bushes and Enron.
Spitzer's investgation of AIG is starting to dovetail with that of Morgenthau. One focus of the investigation is on some questionable Enron "cash flow" notes payable to Citicorp and J. P. Morgan Chase and purchased in May 2001 by AIG and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. On August 21, 2001, just a few weeks before the 911 attacks, a UBS Warburg/Paine Webber broker named Chung Wu advised his investors to sell their Enron stock, whereafter UBS quickly fired the broker.
In an email Wu advised customers, “Financial situation is deteriorating in Enron and price drops another $7.00. I would advise you to take some money off the table even at this point.” The House Committee on Government Reform investigated the sacking of Wu and his warning but little came from the GOP-run committee. In December 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy in New York City, not in Houston, where its headquarters was located. The New York bankruptcy court appointed Steven Cooper of Zolfo-Cooper LLC to run Enron.
After Enron's bankruptcy, UBS Warburg conveniently purchased Enron”s energy trading unit, the group that was the subject of much of the investigations directed against the defunct firm, especially the role of the trading unit in inflating energy costs in California and ensuring the recall of Democratic Governor Gray Davis and replacement by the GOP's Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The deal involving Cooper's assumption of control of Enron raised eyebrows among regulators, chiefly because Cooper's Catalyst Equity Partner's Fund included Citicorp and J.P. Morgan Chase, two of Enron's major creditors. Financial investigators report that the Enron notes to Citicorp and Chase and sold to AIG and MacArthur were unusual, out of the ordinary, and "lacked teeth." A former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor referred to such financial instruments as "feints" designed to mask illegal transactions by keeping them off the books and away from the eyes of U.S. government regulators.
In September 2002, Kroll Inc., a shadowy firm with ties to the U.S. intelligence community, acquired Zolfo-Cooper and Cooper was named managing director of Kroll Zolfo Cooper. In May 2004, Marsh & McLennan acquired Kroll and Zolfo Cooper. Jeffrey Greenberg, the son of AIG's Hank Greenberg, had earlier left AIG to run Marsh & McLennan.
The revolving doors and musical chairs involving Enron, Kroll, Zolfo-Cooper, Marsh & McLennan, and AIG became the subject of Spitzer's probes. Another insurance firm investigated by Spitzer for price fixing of property casualty insurance coverage and conspiracy was ACE, headed by Hank Greenberg's other son, Evan. In October 2004, Jeffrey Greenberg quickly stepped down from Marsh & McLennan amid Spitzer's investigation.
Hank Greenberg has had a long time relationship with Henry Kissinger, the partner of Richard Perle in Trireme Partners, the firm that, according to Seymour Hersh, attempted to negotiate deals with Saudi Arabia using Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi as an intermediary.
Greenberg and Khashoggi, according to CIA sources, have long had an interest in exploiting the oil and natural gas reserves of Uzbekistan and the construction of pipelines across the Uralskaya region of Russia. Uzbekistan has also featured prominently in oil and natural gas plans of Enron and UNOCAL.
According to Enron insiders, on Saturday, September 7, 1996, 42 representatives of Enron and UNOCAL met in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, with Khashoggi, Taliban representatives, and Uzbek government officials. The subject was the CentGas pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan, a project that involved UNOCAL, Enron, and Saudi support. Current Afghan President Hamid Karzai was a consultant on the pipeline for UNOCAL.
Prior to the Tashkent oil summit, on June 23, 1996, a $10 billion wire transfer was made from Cyprus, via Barclays Bank in London, to Enron in Houston. Cyprus is a major banking center for illicit activity.
The Tashkent meeting was followed by a spring 1997 meeting between Enron, UNOCAL, and Taliban representatives at the posh Houstonian Hotel in Houston.
www.mail-archive.com/cia-drugs@yahoogroups.com/msg00200.html
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Originally posted February 20, 2009.
Last updated on February 20, 2009, by The Catbird