Support NeoGAF

[Dalek]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/anonymous-inc-60-minutes-steve-kroft-investigation/

Video at link

If you like crime dramas and movies with international intrigue, then you probably have a basic understanding of money laundering. It's how dictators, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, and other crooks avoid getting caught by transforming their ill-gotten gains into assets that appear to be legitimate.

They do it by moving the dirty money through a maze of dummy corporations and offshore bank accounts that conceal their identity and the source of the funds.

And most of it would never happen without the help -- witting or unwitting -- of lawyers, accountants and incorporators; the people who actually create these anonymous shell companies and help move the money. In fact, the U.S. has become one of the most popular places in the world to do it.

Tonight, with the help of hidden camera footage, we're going to show you how easy it seems to have become to conceal questionable funds from law enforcement and the public.

You need look no further for evidence than the changing skyline of New York City, where much of the priciest residential real estate is being snapped up not by individuals, but by anonymous shell companies with secret owners.

There's nothing illegal about it as long as the money's legitimate, but there's no way to tell, if you don't know who the real buyers are. It is one of the reasons Global Witness, a London-based nonprofit organization that exposes international corruption, came to New York City 19 months ago. It wanted to see how helpful U.S. lawyers would be in concealing questionable funds.

This hidden camera footage was shot in law firms across Manhattan without the lawyers' knowledge by the man in the gray coat with the German accent.

Lawrence Gabe: OK, so it's Ralph?

Ralph Kayser: Ralph Kayser.

"Ralph Kayser" is not his real name. He's an investigator for Global Witness posing here as the representative of a government official from a poor West African country who wants to move millions of dollars in suspicious funds into the U.S., and he needs the lawyers' help.

**********

The irony is that the White House, the Justice Department and the U.S. Treasury have been among the world's strongest proponents for cracking down on money laundering. Yet the U.S. is one of the easiest places in the world to set up the anonymous companies that facilitate it.

Charmian Gooch: It's a heck of a paradox, isn't it? And, you know, I think that the American Bar Association needs to get behind the need for regulation, in the way that European lawyers have had to do exactly the same. And I think that you know, it-- it's-- I think the American government needs to answer that question.

Global Witness may have inadvertently gotten a sassy answer to that question from attorney Marc Koplik in its hidden camera video. Koplik explained to the representative of the phony African minister why he never worried about government subpoenas.

Marc Koplik: They don't send the lawyers to jail, because we run the country.

Ralph Kayser: Do you run the country?

Marc Koplik: Still do.

Ralph Kayser: I love it.

Marc Koplik: Still do.

Albert Grant: I should say, some lawyers run the country.

Ralph Kayser: So, you are, you are some of them? Two of them?

Marc Koplik: We're still members of a privileged, privilege class in this country.

 

[Foffy]

America and corruption seems like a sky and clouds: these are just normal things to happen.

How sad. Those quotes say it all, honestly.

 

[Pakkidis]

I love the one lawyer who had a disgusted look on his face and asked him to leave. ONE lawyer out of 16 did the right thing.

 

[Kieli]

I love the one lawyer who had a disgusted look on his face and asked him to leave. ONE lawyer out of 16 did the right thing.

Kudos to this person for still having scruples.

 

[PS3GamerKyle]

3 of those lawyers were wearing suspenders..

why

 

[jellies_two]

there was a recent article on Bloomberg - which means it partly is news and partly a service to rich readers - on how the USA has quietly become the tax avoidance capital of the world.

Overseas residents are moving funds FROM cayman islands and switzerland TO Nevada and Delaware because, amazingly, the USA has not signed the OECD information sharing agreement so a country that might be interested in their citizens offshore wealth has no way to get that information. But they can get it from switzerland and other traditional tax cheat places now. In fact, if you set up a Nevada Trust and an Nevada LLC there are no actual records that COULD be sent to anyone that contain anything meaningful.

And of course there are plenty of lawyer and accountants happy to help your overseas corrupt official or russian oligarch place millions in a US bank out of sight of anyone outside USA.

 

[Joyful]

But the bill has never made it out of committee...in part because of strong opposition from the American Bar Association.

Steve Kroft: What's the American Bar Association's objection to this?

Carl Levin: The lawyers are helping form corporations, and they're afraid, I guess, that if you put a damper on the formation of corporations, that you're putting some damper on legal business.

follow the money

 

[Hyun Sai]

Big respect for Jeffrey Herrmann, the one lawyer who told the investigator to fuck off.

 

[old]

Creating a corporation used to take an act of congress. Now it just takes filling out a form.

Perhaps it's time to find a middle ground so as to cut down on all of these bullshit shell corps.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Creating a corporation used to take an act of congress. Now it just takes filling out a form.

Perhaps it's time to find a middle ground so as to cut down on all of these bullshit shell corps.

But then how would the money trickle down?

 

[TheLaughingStock]

Overseas residents are moving funds FROM cayman islands and switzerland TO Nevada and Delaware because, amazingly, the USA has not signed the OECD information sharing agreement so a country that might be interested in their citizens offshore wealth has no way to get that information.

You cannot move Cayman Island $ or Swiss francs into the US banking system. Only US$ can move between US banks and their affiliates.

 

[Marky Mark]

3 of those lawyers were wearing suspenders..

why

http://freakonomics.com/2015/09/24/how-did-the-belt-win-a-new-freakonomics-radio-episode/

 

[numble]

You cannot move Cayman Island $ or Swiss francs into the US banking system. Only US$ can move between US banks and their affiliates.

You can deposit USD in Cayman and Swiss banks.

 

[Aztechnology]

follow the money

Thats about all it ever comes down to isn't it...

 

[Rhaknar]

Too bad its not Albuquerque