#Credit Suisse Leaks

[infoflexx]

The Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime and Corruption opens a pre-investigation procedure for the accounts of Jordanov, Mehandziski and Kling

Three days after the release of the documentary "Swiss Secrets" which was broadcast on IRL and MRT1, the Public Prosecutor's Office for Prosecution of Organized Crime and Corruption will open a pre-investigation procedure for the accounts of Jordanov, Mehandziski and Kling, writes IRL.

"After the published documentary as well as the investigative texts which contain details according to which two Macedonian businessmen owned private accounts in Switzerland, on which accounts were allegedly made millions of transactions, the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office for Prosecution of Organized Crime and Corruption will study the allegations and "in accordance with its competencies, it opens a pre-investigation procedure after a voice is heard," said the prosecution.

"The case has attracted attention. "We watched the film and we expect the IRL to share its information with us, and at the moment prosecutors have already opened a pre-investigation procedure and are reviewing the available findings so far," Ruskovska told the IRL.

The Investigative Reporting Laboratory revealed that among the hundreds of people interested in the leaked bank data from the controversial Swiss bank "Credit Suisse" were the Macedonian businessman and former Deputy Prime Minister Mincho Jordanov, businessman Blagoj Mehandziski and Swedish investor Lars Kling.

[st-just]

Above, I quoted yesterday’s joint SNB/Finma statement about Credit Suisse being fine. I should say that the statement does not lead with Credit Suisse being fine. It leads with making fun of America...Credit Suisse has spent the last decade finding astonishing new ways to lose money and embarrass itself, so this is a little rich, but it is accurate. “Credit Suisse’s failings have included a criminal conviction for allowing drug dealers to launder money in Bulgaria, entanglement in a Mozambique corruption case, a spying scandal involving a former employee and an executive and a massive leak of client data to the media,” notes Bloomberg QuickTake, not to mention its losses on the Archegos and Greensill scandals. Credit Suisse’s current troubles are obviously related to those errors. But they were immediately precipitated by a run on Silicon Valley Bank, which had nervous concentrated tech-industry depositors and was mark-to-market insolvent due to losses on its portfolio of long-dated US Treasury bonds. For all its problems, Credit Suisse does not have those problems.

-Mat Levine

[jordanianprincesses]

where the jordanian royal get their wealth from? knowing the country doesn't have much oil field like their neighbor countries

-It is reported by the government that the king is not paid for his services.

-Abdullah inherited king Hussein's fortune. It's impossible that he inherited that crazy amount of money given that he has 11 other siblings with whom he shared the same fortune hhhh like how much was king Hussein's net worth?

Well, logically he has other wealth sources , probably he invested his own money ( inherited from KH ) and that's how his wealth grew.

- Plus King Abdullah is exempted from paying taxes in Jordan according to the law.

It's a screenshot from an article posted by the Guardian:

His wealth and incomes are really suspicious but the thing is : there's no actual proof at all that he's misusing public money or foreign aids and we can never know ( given it's an authoritarian regime and nobody can criticize the king ) and corruption is common in Jordan.

However,

In 2021 Pandora papers and 2022 Credit Suisse Leak it was revealed that he disguised his vast empire of wealth through off shore companies and tax heavens.

It's an interesting article ( if you want you can read it , not too long 😛)

[thesecrettimes]

Billionaire Bill Ackman on US Banking Crisis: ‘I Fear We Are Heading for a Train Wreck’

Billionaire Bill Ackman has warned that the U.S. economy is “heading for a train wreck” if the government allows the current banking crisis to continue. “Trust and confidence are earned over many years, but can be wiped out in a few days,” he said. “Hopefully, our regulators will get this right.”

Bill Ackman’s Warning

Billionaire Bill Ackman, CEO and portfolio manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, has warned of an incoming train wreck. Pershing Square is a hedge fund management company with approximately $18.5 billion in assets under management. Ackman’s net worth is about $3.4 billion. Commenting on the current banking crisis following the failures of major banks, including Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Ackman tweeted Wednesday: Consider recent events impact on the long-term cost of equity capital for non-systemically important banks where you can wake up one day as a shareholder or bondholder and your investment instantly goes to zero. Systemically important banks (SIBs) are banks that are considered to be so large or complex that their failure could have a significant impact on the financial system and the wider economy. On the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) 2022 list, there are 30 systemically important banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC, and the troubled Credit Suisse. “When combined with the higher cost of debt and deposits due to rising rates, consider what the impact will be on lending rates and our economy,” Ackman continued, warning: The longer this banking crisis is allowed to continue, the greater the damage to smaller banks and their ability to access low-cost capital. Trust and confidence are earned over many years, but can be wiped out in a few days. I fear we are heading for a train wreck. Hopefully, our regulators will get this right. The billionaire believes the government should guarantee all bank deposits. On March 22, he tweeted explaining that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s “reassuring comments” the previous day “led the market and depositors to believe that all deposits were now implicitly guaranteed.” He also referenced “a leak” suggesting that Yellen, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) “were looking for a way to guarantee all deposits reassured the banking sector and depositors.” However, Yellen then “walked back yesterday’s implicit support for small banks and depositors, while making it explicit that systemwide deposit guarantees were not being considered,” Ackman’s tweet adds. “We have gone from implicit support for depositors to Secretary Yellen’s explicit statement today that no guarantee is being considered,” he further opined, noting that the Federal Reserve has raised the federal funds rate to 4.75%-5.00%. “5% is a threshold that makes bank deposits that much less attractive. I would be surprised if deposit outflows don’t accelerate effective immediately,” Ackman cautioned, elaborating: A temporary systemwide deposit guarantee is needed to stop the bleeding. The longer the uncertainty continues, the more permanent the damage is to the smaller banks, and the more difficult it will be to bring their customers back. Do you agree with Bill Ackman? Let us know in the comments section below. Read the full article

[waizu-blog]

When do the pins stop being bowled over?🎳

Stealing the SVB thunder, Credit Suisse Group AG has taken the European banking sector by a storm. 🌪

Note: After the SVB collapse, Regulators across the world have been behind banks. ☠ 👮‍♂️

Quick facts about Credit Suisse: 🏦

One of the 30 banks identified by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as a global systemically important bank. 💹

Established in 1856, Zurich. Founder: Alfred Elschen 🏔

Major shareholders : Saudi National Bank(SNB), Qatar Holding LLC, Olayan Group and BlackRock, Inc. (approx. shareholdings attached below) 🇦🇪

Notorious Reputation (which has made it impossible for them to be profitable as they have been paying back their fines): The bank has been involved in a string of controversies, few of which are mentioned below:

👎 Allowed drug dealers in Bulgaria to launder money. -   $2.1 million fine. 👎 Corruption case in Mozambique. - CS was fined £350m over "tuna bonds" loan scandal. 👎 Spying on the top executives - Ex- HR head was snooped on 👎 Sensitive data leaked to the media 👎 Collapse of the US hedge fund Archegos Capital cost CS $5.5 billion.

Collapse:

🔴 Inconsistent Cash Flow Statement: The bank admitted to "material weaknesses" implying that there were lapses and that their "internal control over financial reporting was not effective".

🔴 Restructuring in the organisation which failed to impress investors and Notorious Reputation (cited above).(Let’s not forget it’s extensive involvement in the Lehman brother’s financial crisis of 2007-08)

🔴 SNB's clear "NO" to invest: SNB Chairman, Ammar Al Khudairy, due to regulatory compliance issues, refused to invest further and this news alarmed investors because they've witnessed some major banks of the US (SVB and Signature) collapse.

*Due to a mandate the SNB cannot invest more than 10% (not because they didn't want to or that they questioned the stability of the bank). Even Swiss Central Bank has given a green signal regarding their regulatory capital, even though their equity capital isn't okay.

After effects: Stocks and bonds lost one quarter of their value after it posted its biggest annual loss since the financial crisis in 2008. (Record low stock price: 31%🔻)They had to raise money. They borrowed $54 billion from the Swiss Central Bank in case they faced a SVB scene of withdrawals (CS allegedly witnessed withdrawals close to $10 billion last week.) It's CDS (it wants to buy back its own debt: $3 Billion ) hit a record low.

Cometh the hour, Cometh the bank! WHY?

🔵 UBS Group AG (Switzerland's largest banking group) has acquired it's distressed rival bank for approx. $3.2 billion.

♣ Deal brokered by the Swiss government (& regulators) in a bid to contain the crisis of confidence in CS and stop the contagion to other banks. The Swiss National Bank also provided more than $100 billion of liquidity to UBS to help facilitate the deal.

#economy#banking#crisis

[newstfionline]

Monday, March 20, 2023

Claims of Chinese Election Meddling Put Trudeau on Defensive (NYT) The leaked intelligence reports have set off a political firestorm. They describe plans by the government of China and its diplomats in Canada to ensure that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party took power in the last two elections, raising troubling questions about the integrity of Canada’s democracy. But as two prominent Canadian news organizations have published a series of leaks over the past month, Mr. Trudeau has refused calls to launch a public inquiry into the matter, angering political opponents and leading to accusations that he is covering up foreign attempts to undermine his country’s elections. The news reports do not present any evidence that the Chinese carried out any of their plans for meddling or changing election outcomes. And an independent review released this month as part of Canada’s routine monitoring of election interference upheld the integrity of the 2019 and 2021 votes. Even so, the leaks pose a risk for Mr. Trudeau of appearing weak in the face of potential Chinese aggression and indecisive as a leader acting to preserve election integrity. His political opponents have accused him of being disloyal to Canada.

Swiss banking giants combine to quell growing global bank crisis (Washington Post) Credit Suisse, the battered Swiss bank, has agreed to an emergency takeover by its rival UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, a move engineered by the Swiss government to stave off immediate concerns of a global financial crisis. The hasty deal, which was announced Sunday following a weekend of negotiations, offers a temporary reprieve after days of panic in global markets triggered by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. But it does little to ease longer-term worries of instability in the banking system. A “swift and stabilizing solution was absolutely necessary,” Alain Berset, president of the Swiss Confederation, said during a Sunday afternoon news conference. The UBS deal, he added, was “the best solution for restoring the confidence that has been lacking in financial markets recently.” But many banking experts remain doubtful that the banking turmoil is over. "The forced merger of UBS and Credit Suisse ends one potentially systemic problem, but this is far from over,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the consulting firm RSM. “Now the question is: What other banks are at risk and what is the nature of that risk? This is the start of a multi-month adjustment.”

Trump says he expects to be arrested, calls for protest (AP) Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that his arrest is imminent and issued an extraordinary call for his supporters to protest as a New York grand jury investigates hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president. Even as Trump’s lawyer and spokesperson said there had been no communication from prosecutors, Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be taken into custody on Tuesday. His message seemed designed to preempt a formal announcement from prosecutors and to galvanize outrage from his base of supporters in advance of widely anticipated charges. Within hours, his campaign was sending fundraising solicitations to his supporters. The rhetoric raised the prospect of civil unrest: “IT’S TIME!!!” he wrote. “WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”

Most expensive US cities (Bloomberg) A salary topping $100,000 a year can feel like a mark of success, but if you live in New York City, that’s worth just $36,0000 after taxes and accounting for the steep cost of living. That’s according to SmartAsset, a consumer-focused financial information provider. The city tops the company’s list of most expensive in the US, followed by Honolulu, San Francisco and Washington, DC. Memphis, Tennessee, is where you keep the most of your take-home pay, SmartAsset contends, though the median salary is about $44,000 compared with a little over $70,000 in New York.

TikTok went from teen sensation to political pariah (Washington Post) In the seven years since TikTok was born as a niche lip-syncing app for Chinese teens, the platform has reshaped the media landscape—forcing U.S. tech giants to reckon with a foreign rival. The short-form video platform has amassed startling economic power, with more than a billion users and revenue expected to surpass YouTube’s, at nearly $25 billion by 2025. Critics argue that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, makes the app a national security threat, potentially allowing it to share data about its American users or steer its algorithms at Beijing’s behest. This concern has spiraled into a slew of political action: A former president tried to ban the platform, and more than two dozen states have barred the app from government-owned devices—a panic that some describe as a threat to free speech in America. TikTok has gone from a teen sensation to Washington’s boogeyman.

Vatican closes embassy in Nicaragua after Ortega’s crackdown (AP) The Vatican said Saturday it had closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the country’s government proposed suspending diplomatic relations, the latest episode in a yearslong crackdown on the Catholic Church by the administration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. The Vatican’s representative to Managua, Monsignor Marcel Diouf, also left the country Friday, bound for Costa Rica, a Vatican official said. Relations between the church and Ortega’s government have been deteriorating since 2018, when Nicaraguan authorities violently repressed anti-government protests. Some Catholic leaders gave protesters shelter in their churches, and the church later tried to act as a mediator between the government and the political opposition. Ortega branded Catholic figures he saw as sympathetic to the opposition as “terrorists” who had backed efforts to overthrow him. Dozens of religious figures were arrested or fled the country.

Macron’s leadership at risk amid tensions over pension plan (AP) A parody photo appearing on protest signs and online in France shows President Emmanuel Macron sitting on piles of garbage. The image references the trash going uncollected with sanitation workers on strike, but also what many French people think about their leader. Macron, 45, had hoped his push to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 would cement his legacy as the president who transformed France’s economy for the 21st century. Instead, he finds his leadership contested, both in parliament and on the streets of major cities. His brazen move to force a pension reform bill through without a vote has infuriated the political opposition and could hamper his government’s ability to pass legislation for the remaining four years of his term. Demonstrators hoisted the parody photo at protests after Macron chose at the last minute Thursday to invoke the government’s constitutional power to pass the bill without a vote at the National Assembly. He has remained silent on the topic since then.

Putin tours occupied Mariupol in show of bravado (Washington Post) Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Mariupol, the city devastated last year in a deadly Russian siege, in a show of defiance against the warrant for his arrest that the International Criminal Court issued over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. It was his second foray of the weekend into occupied Ukraine, several dozen miles from the front, in what the Kremlin press service on Sunday described as a “working trip.” Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to begin a state visit Monday to Moscow, where he will meet with Putin in Beijing’s strongest show of support since the war began. The Kremlin said the two will discuss “deepening Russian-Chinese cooperation.” Beijing, which insists it is neutral in the conflict and has sought to portray itself as a potential mediator, said Xi will promote peace talks.

The war in Ukraine has created more refugees than the world has seen since WWII, according to a new UN report (Insider) More than a year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a new report released by the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found evidence of war crimes including the systemic rape, torture, and murder of civilians and indiscriminate attacks on infrastructure that have left millions displaced. More people have fled Ukraine or been displaced within the country since the start of the war than the world has seen since WWII, according to the United Nations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that, as of February 21, about eight million refugees from Ukraine have been displaced across Europe—of which around 90 percent are women and children. In addition, there are about 5.4 million people currently displaced across Ukraine who remain in the country.

Israelis protest legal overhaul plans for 11th week (AP) Israelis on Saturday took to the streets in protests, now in their 11th week, against plans by Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government to overhaul the country’s legal system. The protesters say the proposed changes undermine the country’s democracy by restricting the power of the Supreme Court. Netanyahu and his allies say the plan is needed to curb what they claim are excessive powers of unelected judges. The main protest in the central city of Tel Aviv drew tens of thousands of people who waved Israeli flags and traffic sign banners that read “Dead End!” and “Risk Ahead!” Smaller protests were reported in other parts of the country. Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and religious coalition allies have pledged to plow ahead with the legal changes despite the demonstrations. Business leaders, legal experts and retired military leaders have joined the protests, and Israeli reservists have threatened to stop reporting for duty if the overhaul passes. In the latest step of the overhaul plans, the Israeli parliament on Monday advanced a bill that would make it harder to oust Netanyahu over the corruption charges against him, as it plowed ahead with the broader plan to overhaul the judiciary.

More Students Are Turning Away From College and Toward Apprenticeships (WSJ) Last spring Dina Sosa Cruz sat with her parents and sister in the family’s living room and reviewed her options: a full academic ride to the University of the District of Columbia, or an apprenticeship in the insurance industry. The college route meant at the end of four years the 22-year-old would have a degree, a little debt and no work experience. The apprenticeship would leave her with a two-year degree, money in the bank and training in a profession that appealed to her. Her family was unanimous: Take the apprenticeship. “You’ll be worry free,” her mother said. The pandemic prompted a historic disengagement from school. In the past decade, college enrollment has declined by about 15%, while the number of apprentices has increased by more than 50%, according to federal data. Companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Delta Air Lines Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. have responded by dropping college degrees as requirements for some positions and shifting hiring to focus more on skills and experience. Pennsylvania has cut college-degree requirements for some state jobs, and Maryland has set a statewide goal of 45% of high-school students starting a registered apprenticeship by 2031.

[sronti]

Eltelt pár év azóta, változhatott a világ, a Credit Suisse is megrogyott azóta, de itt egy kis bepillantás.

Az USA-ban talán nem tartanak pénzt, de Londonban biztosan például.

Security-camera footage obtained by The Times shows that Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president, spent two nights at the Hungarian Embassy in an apparent bid for asylum.

[transfin1]

All About the "Leaked" Credit Suisse Secrets

A major data leak has revealed how Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-biggest bank, had ties to account holders involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and several other crimes.

The revelations are drawing strong reactions from EU regulators and threatening to damage Switzerland's financial sector. Some have even suggested adding the country to a "money-laundering blacklist".  

What does it all mean? Click in the link below to find out. 

https://transfin.in/all-about-the-leaked-credit-suisse-secrets

[cryptoinfowatch]

A Credit Suisse Leak Exposes Clients Linked To $109 Billion in Illicit Funds

A Credit Suisse Leak Exposes Clients Linked To $109 Billion in Illicit Funds

A leak of data involving 30,000 clients show that Credit Suisse failed in its due diligence responsibility to bar clients linked to illicit funds. A recent leak by a whistleblower shows that the Swiss private banker, Credit Suisse has not lived up to expected due diligence level with regard to pledges to serve clients with dubious sources of wealth. In the leak seen by several media outlets, it…

[thesecrettimes]

Billionaire Bill Ackman on US Banking Crisis: ‘I Fear We Are Heading for a Train Wreck’

Billionaire Bill Ackman has warned that the U.S. economy is “heading for a train wreck” if the government allows the current banking crisis to continue. “Trust and confidence are earned over many years, but can be wiped out in a few days,” he said. “Hopefully, our regulators will get this right.”

Bill Ackman’s Warning

Billionaire Bill Ackman, CEO and portfolio manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, has warned of an incoming train wreck. Pershing Square is a hedge fund management company with approximately $18.5 billion in assets under management. Ackman’s net worth is about $3.4 billion. Commenting on the current banking crisis following the failures of major banks, including Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Ackman tweeted Wednesday: Consider recent events impact on the long-term cost of equity capital for non-systemically important banks where you can wake up one day as a shareholder or bondholder and your investment instantly goes to zero. Systemically important banks (SIBs) are banks that are considered to be so large or complex that their failure could have a significant impact on the financial system and the wider economy. On the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) 2022 list, there are 30 systemically important banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC, and the troubled Credit Suisse. “When combined with the higher cost of debt and deposits due to rising rates, consider what the impact will be on lending rates and our economy,” Ackman continued, warning: The longer this banking crisis is allowed to continue, the greater the damage to smaller banks and their ability to access low-cost capital. Trust and confidence are earned over many years, but can be wiped out in a few days. I fear we are heading for a train wreck. Hopefully, our regulators will get this right. The billionaire believes the government should guarantee all bank deposits. On March 22, he tweeted explaining that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s “reassuring comments” the previous day “led the market and depositors to believe that all deposits were now implicitly guaranteed.” He also referenced “a leak” suggesting that Yellen, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) “were looking for a way to guarantee all deposits reassured the banking sector and depositors.” However, Yellen then “walked back yesterday’s implicit support for small banks and depositors, while making it explicit that systemwide deposit guarantees were not being considered,” Ackman’s tweet adds. “We have gone from implicit support for depositors to Secretary Yellen’s explicit statement today that no guarantee is being considered,” he further opined, noting that the Federal Reserve has raised the federal funds rate to 4.75%-5.00%. “5% is a threshold that makes bank deposits that much less attractive. I would be surprised if deposit outflows don’t accelerate effective immediately,” Ackman cautioned, elaborating: A temporary systemwide deposit guarantee is needed to stop the bleeding. The longer the uncertainty continues, the more permanent the damage is to the smaller banks, and the more difficult it will be to bring their customers back. Do you agree with Bill Ackman? Let us know in the comments section below. Read the full article

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A(nother) massive Swiss banking leak

Look, there’s been another massive banking leak, this one from Credit Suisse, showing complicity in laundering money for the world’s greatest monsters: human traffickers, despots, criminals. They’re calling it Suisse Secrets.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/20/credit-suisse-secrets-leak-unmasks-criminals-fraudsters-corrupt-politicians

They had to call it that, because Swiss Leaks was already taken, for the 2015 UBS leaks that revealed UBS’s complicity in the same fucking thing.

As Jeffrey Neiman — lawyer for the Credit Suisse whistleblowers — told the Guardian, “How many rogue bankers do you need to have before you start having a rogue bank?” I’d add, given that this rot extends beyond Credit Suisse to UBS and undoubtably further, “How many rogue bankes do you need to have before you start having a rogue banking system?”

The friend who emailed me about this wrote, “After so many of these, I am accepting that these leaks don’t matter, and that those in power don’t actually want to fix the system. Sunlight isn’t doing any disinfecting at all.”

He’s not wrong, but that’s not the whole story.

The problem isn’t the transparency, it’s the inaction.

They money laundering revealed in Suisse Secrets abetted the worst criminals on Earth, like Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, who looted $5b from his people and laundered hundreds of millions (or more) through Credit Suisse. Abacha is in good company — CS also laundered for the Marcoses and their bagman, and other looters from Syria to Madagascar.

Also mafiosi, killers, human traffickers, embezzlers, fraudsters, corrupters and worse. The facts laid out in the Guardian story (and stories in partner outlets like Süddeutsche Zeitung), there is no question that Credit Suisse knew whose money they were handling, and knew just how dirty it was.

What’s more, the reporting makes it abundantly clear that Swiss banking secrecy is designed and maintained for the express purpose of laundering this blood money. Despite Swiss officials’ claims to have ended banking secrecy, the country is still a rogue state, a criminal haven. It’s not only failing to end money-laundering, it’s encouraging it: Switzerland is broadening its banking secrecy law to allow it to punish whistleblowers who reveal the nation’s role in global finance crime:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-banking-secrecy-exclusive/exclusive-swiss-prosecutors-seek-widening-of-secrecy-law-to-bankers-abroad-idUSKBN1D01CI

To my friend’s point, we kind of knew all of this. The leaks — SwissLeaks, LuxLeaks, IRS Files, Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Pandora Papers — keep revealing that the marble facades of the world’s greatest banks are holding back oceans of blood and misery:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/04/avoidance-is-evasion/#transparency

We haven’t done anything about it.

Yet.

500 new billionaires were minted in 2020. Then it got worse. There’s a new billionaire being minted every 17 hours:

https://www.dw.com/en/forbes-a-new-billionaire-every-17-hours/a-57135443

Behind every great fortune is a great crime:

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/09/fortune-crime/

It’s a nightmare and it shows no sign of ending.

Knowing about it isn’t enough. But knowing about it is a start.

The knowledge we’ve gained from the reporting on these leaks — reporting at great expense and risk, which has resulted in a journalist’s assassination — isn’t the reason for the inaction.

Indeed, if the action ever comes, it will be because of this reporting. You can’t solve a problem until you know it exists.

A truism of the free/open source world is that “with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” That is, with enough scrutiny, a solution will emerge.

That idea came under enormous strain with 2014’s Heartbleed Bug. It turned out that a widely used free/open piece of web-server infrastructure had a longstanding bug, just hanging out there in plain sight. The code was there for anyone to scrutinize, but no one had looked hard enough to find it.

https://heartbleed.com/

That was a wakeup call for the community. It wasn’t enough to simply publish sourcecode for important infrastructure. We had to build and fund systems that would audit that code. Having the code where anyone could see it would make their job easier, but the job wouldn’t do itself.

We got lucky with Heartbleed. The good guys found it before it was ever exploited in the wild, and they coordinated a massive, global upgrade that patched the majority of webservers before the bug was disclosed.

But we didn’t get so lucky the next time. When the Log4j bug was discovered last November, it was already too late. We’d hit snooze on Heartbleed’s wakeup call and holy shit had we ever overslept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log4Shell

Competent, serious people are worried about the vulnerabilities presented by the software that underpins our digital world, but none of them argue that the problem with that software is that it’s available for inspection. The problem is that we don’t inspect or act on it in a systemic, coordinated way. We don’t take it seriously.

We should take it seriously.

The problem isn’t that we know about these deep and worrying flaws. The problem is that we’re not doing anything about them. Knowing these specifics — whether it’s Log4j or SuisseSecrets — is the necessary, but insufficient condition for change.

These leaks are claim-checks on the people who sold us out. Someday, we’ll collect on them.

Image: Ready.gov (modified) https://www.ready.gov/floods

[jordanianroyals]

Revealed: king of Jordan used Swiss accounts to hoard massive wealth

Martin Chulov Middle East correspondent Mon 21 Feb 2022 11.00 GMT

Leak shows King Abdullah was beneficial owner of at least six Credit Suisse accounts

Revealed: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians

What is the Suisse secrets leak and why are we publishing it?

In 2011, as popular revolts reverberated around the Middle East, a monarch in the midst of it all made some banking decisions. Sometime that year, as neighbouring Egypt and Syria withered in the face of momentous civil protests, King Abdullah II of Jordan opened two new accounts with Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank that had discreetly served the region’s well-heeled for decades.

Abdullah, one of the world’s longest-serving current monarchs, had chosen a banker that shared his approach to secrecy, particularly surrounding his personal wealth. Over the next five years, the king was the beneficial owner of at least six accounts with Credit Suisse, while his wife, Queen Rania, had another.

According to a massive trove of data leaked from the bank that names both royals as account holders, one account would later be worth a remarkable 230m Swiss francs (£180m).

At home, King Abdullah had been experiencing a rocky ride. The revolts, which came to be known as the Arab spring, led to leaders being toppled in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and a brutal, protracted war breaking out in Syria. Jordan, one of the region’s more efficient security states, was able to stave off a threat from a nascent opposition, through suppression of dissent and promises of better days.

But in the decade since, a struggling economy, persistent levels of poverty, high unemployment, cuts to welfare and seemingly ever-present austerity measures have continued to stir resentment across the country. One particular gripe has been the juxtaposition between the apparent wealth of the king and the constant grind endured by most citizens just to get by. As the IMF agreed to bail out Jordan, on the condition that its people tighten their collective belts, the king was moving enormous amounts between his Swiss accounts.

The Credit Suisse data contains details of 18,000 bank accounts leaked to Süddeutsche Zeitung by a whistleblower who said Swiss banking secrecy laws were “immoral”. The data was shared with the Guardian and 47 other media outlets as part of a global investigation called Suisse secrets.

Lawyers for King Abdullah and Queen Rania said there had been no wrongdoing by the clients, and gave an account of the source of their funds, which they said were compliant with applicable tax law. King Abdullah is not required to pay taxes in Jordan, where the monarch is exempt by law. His lawyers said a large proportion of the funds in the Swiss bank derived from inheritance from his father, King Hussein, and there are no inheritance tax laws in Jordan.

The revelations come at an uncomfortable time for King Abdullah and his family, surfacing six months after the monarch featured prominently in the leak of the biggest ever trove of offshore data, the Pandora papers, which revealed he had acquired a $100m luxury property portfolio stretching from Malibu in California to Belgravia in central London.

Details of more offshore accounts will add to allegations that Jordan’s king of 22 years lives a life disconnected from the demanding realities faced by most of its citizens, who live by a different set of rules.

Read more on The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/21/revealed-king-jordan-used-swiss-accounts-hoard-massive-wealth

[sronti]

Credit Suisse has asked hedge funds and other investors to destroy documents relating to its richest clients’ yachts and private jets, in an attempt to stop information leaking about a unit of the bank that has made loans to oligarchs who were later sanctioned. Investors this week received letters from the Swiss bank requesting that they destroy the documents relating to a securitisation of loans backed by “jets, yachts, real estate and/or financial assets”, according to three people whose firm received the request. The letters tell the investors to “destroy and permanently erase” any confidential information Credit Suisse previously provided in relation to the transaction, citing a “recent data leak to the media” that it said had been “verified by our investigators.

(FT)

Küldeném a Credit Suisse-nak és persze mindenkinek, aki szereti:

[beardedmrbean]

A global media investigation dubbed Suisse Secrets has revealed that Switzerland's second-largest bank failed to crack down on illicit funds passing through accounts held by dictators, criminals and corrupt politicians.

Banking giant Credit Suisse has for years opened accounts for autocrats, drug dealers, suspected war criminals and human traffickers, a consortium of global media outlets reported Sunday.

The Suisse Secrets investigation, from massive data leaked by a whistleblower to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), reveals the owners of 100 billion Swiss francs ($109 billion, €96 billion) held in the secretive Swiss-based institution.

SZ, German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, Britain's Guardian and the New York Times were among more than 40 media organizations involved in the investigation under the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

What did the Suisse Secrets probe uncover?

The media outlets analyzed the leaked data from 30,000 Credit Suisse clients from all over the world.

The accounts were opened anytime from the 1940s to well into the past decade. More than two-thirds were opened after 2000, and many still exist today.

Those exposed include a human trafficker convicted in the Philippines, a Hong Kong stock exchange boss jailed for bribery and an Egyptian billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend.

Other clients include numerous heads of state and government, ministers, intelligence agents as well as oligarchs and entrepreneurs with dubious reputations, the media outlets said.

SZ reported that a former Siemens manager who was convicted of bribery in 2008 was named as having six accounts.

In 2006, one of the former Siemens manager's accounts had assets worth more than 54 million Swiss francs (currently worth around €51.66 million) — a sum the newspaper said cannot be due to his Siemens salary.

The leak also reveals secret accounts held by Jordan's King Abdullah II, Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Algerian autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the Armenian ex-President Armen Sarkissian.

Sarkissian resigned as president in January, shortly after SZ contacted him to inquire about his accounts at Credit Suisse.

The former president said he had closed all accounts before he was required to declare his assets.

Bank failed to fully probe suspect clients

The leak points to a widespread failure of due diligence by Credit Suisse in evaluating and rejecting dubious clients and those handling illegal funds.

SZ reported��that fraudsters could have opened accounts or kept accounts even "if the bank could have known long ago that they were dealing with criminals."

Reporters spoke to several former employees of the bank, who described a "highly toxic corporate culture that incentivized taking on risk to maximize profits — and bonuses," OCCRP wrote on its website.

Former employees said this led to a culture of two sets of rules for two sets of clients: the rich and the ultra-rich.

The whistleblower, whose name remains unknown to the media partners, described Swiss banking secrecy as "immoral."

"The pretense of protecting financial privacy is just a fig leaf to cover up the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators with tax evaders," the whistleblower said.

[bountyofbeads]

https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article232799597.html?__twitter_impression=true

FYI Epstein just engaged a new law firm .

Steptoe & Johnson specializes in representing clients who face specific government investigations. Why does Jeffrey Epstein need a law firm that specializes in criminal defense of ; Anti-Money laundering , Cartels & Conspiracies, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act , Fraud ? https://t.co/7K99pFlt25

NEW from Miami Herald: Leaked documents show Jeffrey Epstein kept funds offshore. Can the money even be tracked?

Leaked documents show Jeffrey Epstein kept funds offshore. Can the money even be tracked?

BY KEVIN G. HALL AND NICHOLAS NEHAMAS | Published JULY 18, 2019 07:00 AM | Miami Herald | Posted July 18, 2019 |

Washington

Jeffrey Epstein’s attorneys, hoping to persuade a judge to release the accused sexual predator on bail while awaiting trial, submitted a bare bones accounting of his financing this week.

Prosecutors — and the judge — seemed unsatisfied with the level of disclosure.

Now, documents obtained by McClatchy and Miami Herald provide a more detailed — but still very limited — look at Epstein’s wealth. They also underscore the challenge his accusers and the U.S. legal system might face in seeking restitution if he is convicted of the federal sex trafficking charges filed last week.

The records show that Epstein in February 1997 became a client of Appleby, a Bermuda-based law firm specializing in the creation of offshore companies and investment vehicles for the ultra-wealthy. A client profile cryptically describes Epstein’s job as “Manager of Fortune.”

These documents also show that from at least 2000 to 2007 Epstein was chairman of a company called Liquid Funding Ltd., which was initially 40 percent owned by the Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns, where Epstein worked after his short stint as a schoolteacher. Bear Stearns’ spectacular collapse and sale to JP Morgan Chase in March 2008 set in motion what months later devolved into the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Epstein’s wealth has become a flash point in whether he is released from jail pending trial, a decision that should come Thursday. Federal prosecutors in New York cite his enormous wealth as a flight risk, and when asked to document his wealth lawyers for Epstein this week told a judge that the answer is complex.

He’s right about that. It’s unclear how long Epstein ran Liquid Funding, which tied back to a similarly named company in Delaware, and how much it contributed to the known narrative of Epstein losing big sums during the financial crisis.

But coupled with the fact that many of his businesses were operated in or with help from Caribbean offshore tax havens, the documents raise the likelihood that Epstein’s wealth is spread secretly across the globe. Wealthy people commonly employ opaque offshore companies to mask their true fortunes from tax authorities and creditors, although the companies also have legitimate business and tax-planning uses.

The client profile gives a glimpse into Epstein’s wealth, referencing two separate accounts with money kept in a bank. One listed more than $880,507 in the account in 2006/2007, while another bank account under Epstein’s name held almost $3.46 million at a high point over that period. This pales in comparison to the claimed value of his holdings — reported by his attorneys in court as $559 million — but suggests he had the ability to keep money in far-flung places. A check of the bank coding in the profile shows that Epstein banked at the time with HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA in Geneva.

The Epstein documents were among 13.4 million leaked to German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. ICIJ assembled a team of international journalists to investigate what became known as the Paradise Papers when published in October 2017.

Within the Paradise Papers documents, there isn’t much underlying information. For example, it’s unclear why the Epstein client profile spreadsheet that appears in the database references sums of money for the 2006/2007 time-frame.

That’s shortly before Epstein was accused in 2008 of sexually abusing girls as young as 14. He took a lenient state plea agreement, which became the focus of a Miami Herald investigation in November 2018 that resulted in this month’s resignation of U.S. Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who in 2008 was the Miami-based U.S. Attorney working the plea arrangement.

That same Appleby client sheet on Epstein lists billionaire Leslie Herbert Wexner under “legal entities in relation with profile.”

Wexner is the wealthy founder of clothing company The Limited and co-invested with Epstein in the redevelopment of an area in Ohio where The Limited was headquartered. Both men appear tied in the document to Family Interest LP, which was owned by Financial Trust Company Inc., Epstein’s investment firm in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, where he owns an entire island, Little St. James. and where he had registered yachts and planes.

And on a curious note, given courtroom revelations about Epstein having an Austrian passport listing a Saudi address from the 1980s and a fake name, the Appleby client profile provides Epstein’s U.S. passport number but a date of birth of Jan. 20, 1963. He was born on that day in 1953, not ‘63. It’s unclear if he provided a false date, had a false passport or if Appleby officials simply fat-fingered an incorrect date.

Appleby officials did not respond to emails seeking comment about the offshore business provider’s relationship to Epstein. Neither did one of Epstein’s attorneys.

On another client spreadsheet, Epstein appears with his St. Thomas address. But the client profile lists a Palm Beach mansion address and 457 Madison Ave. in New York. That is a historic property called the Villard House, and the building is currently owned by the Sultan of Brunei.

In a notation on the client profile, correspondence to that New York address is directed to Harry Beller, whose LinkedIn profile shows that at time he worked for New York Strategy Group, a financial advisory firm to clients worth $1 billion and up.

Beller is a partner today in Louis J Septimus & Co, a New York firm offering tax, accounting and financial planning to corporations, partnerships, trust and estates. A person at the office confirmed that Beller had worked as an accountant for Epstein’s business, but said Beller was vacationing out of the country and unreachable.

The most voluminous document about Epstein in the Paradise Papers is a 541-page document detailing Liquid Funding Ltd., a company that was innovative for its time in trying ways to broaden the kind of debt that accepted on repurchase, or repo market. These involve a lender giving a borrower cash in exchange for securities that the borrower will buy back at an agreed upon date for a fixed price.

Rather than having stocks and bonds as the underlying security, Liquid Funding had commercial mortgages and investment-grade residential mortgages bundled into complex securities. The three main credit rating agencies — Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service — all helped Bear Stearns create the securities in a way that would allow the creative product to get a gold-plated AAA rating.

The early directors of this company included some big-name investors. One was Paul A. Novelly, CEO of St. Louis-based FutureFuel Corp., a fuel, biofuel and chemicals company. He is also CEO of Apex Oil Company Inc., a privately held oil company in St. Louis. He did not respond to requests for comment to his investor relations department.

Documents show Novelly was replaced as a director by James R. Burritt, at the time a hedge fund executive at Thomas H. Lee Capital but today managing director of alternative investments for California insurer Pacific Life. Burritt did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

A third director was Austrian national Marcus Klug, now a member of the governing board of Bundespensionskasse AG, a large Austrian pension fund. Reached by phone he confirmed he was a director when he worked for an Austrian insurance company that had invested in Liquid Fund, leaving the post in 2005.

Directorships of this company were not the same as a directorship of a brick-and-mortar company and instead were part of the structure of the investment vehicle.

“There was neither a physical board meeting or a call between board members,” Klug explained, adding of Epstein, “I never met him.”