The Komisar Scoop » Fraud

How multinational, aided by Ernst & Young, tried to launder profits & cheat on taxes through offshore Bermuda shell

Lucy Komisar — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:53:05 +0000

Jan 20, 2010 - In September 2004, David Beringer, the tax director of the $20-billion Noble Group based in Hong Kong, wrote a memo to company officials expressing concern that if Swiss officials discovered that employees of a Swiss subsidiary were doing work for a company that claimed to be operating out of Bermuda, the subsidiary might have to pay Swiss taxes. This story has not been reported before. He said, “In the disclosure to the Swiss tax authorities we have not advised that personnel working in Switzerland conclude NIL’s contracts for fees for products structure and portfolio performance; and NIL’s intermediary agreements.” NIL was a Bermuda shell company called Noble Investments Ltd. The document was provided by Rudolf Elmer (shown here), a German who worked for Noble Investments SA, Zurich (NISA), a hedge fund consultant, as operations manager from June 2003 to October 1, 2005.

Exclusive: Florida banking agency helped Stanford set up unregulated office to sell his phony CDs

Lucy Komisar — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:18:26 +0000

State aided suspect in huge swindle

Miami Herald, July 5, 2009 -

Years before his banking empire was shut down in a massive fraud case, Allen Stanford swept into Florida with a bold plan: entice Latin Americans to pour millions into his ventures — in secrecy.

From a bayfront office in Miami in 1998, he planned to sell investments to customers and send their money to Antigua.

But to pull it off, he needed unprecedented help from an unlikely ally: The state of Florida would have to grant him the right to move vast amounts of money offshore — without reporting a penny to regulators. He got it.

The Real AIG Scandal: How the Game is Rigged at Wall Street’s Casino

Lucy Komisar — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:36:24 +0000

AlterNet, March 26, 2009 - Congress has deftly avoided the real story of AIG's collapse, which will make a few million in bonuses seem like peanuts. Most legislators at a House Finance subcommittee hearing last week deftly avoided the real story of AIG's collapse. Instead, they homed in on the public relations disaster of hundreds of top AIG officials and staff getting $165 million (later revealed as over $218 million) in bonuses. The key issue ignored by the congressmen and women was the potential catastrophe represented by as much as $2.7 trillion in AIG derivative contracts and how AIG and the U.S. government are dealing with them. To put that number in context, we've so far provided the company only about $170 billion.

Palin’s campaign operations chief was VP of IDT, telecom investigated for bribery

Lucy Komisar — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:38:30 +0000

Sept 2, 2008 - Michael Glassner, in charge of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s campaign operations, was till April 18th a vice-president of IDT, the New Jersey-based telecom fined $1.3 million by the FCC in July for failing to file its Haiti contract. The contract, effective in 2004, revealed payments to an offshore shell company in the Turks & Caicos which sent only part of the fees to Haiti’s phone company. The case is under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. A former IDT insider, Michael Jewett, who managed the company's Caribbean region, says the missing money represented kickbacks to former Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Questions Linger About Bushes and BCCI

Lucy Komisar — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:54:27 +0000

Inter Press Service (IPS), April 4, 2007 Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W. Bush's statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Critics dismissed that as an invention. They were wrong. There was a link, but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist -- it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father.

US/Haiti: Top Republicans Leave Telecom Accused of Bribery

Lucy Komisar — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 21:00:39 +0000

Inter Press Service (IPS) - Nov 6, 2006 The company is under investigation by the SEC, the United States Attorney in Newark, New Jersey, and a U.S. federal grand jury for allegedly paying bribes to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former president of Haiti. Five nationally prominent US Republicans, the independent board members of a corporation that has been charged with paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to get a sweetheart telecom deal in Haiti, are leaving its board. The company is IDT, the world's third-ranked international phone company. IDT is run by James Courter (shown here), a former New Jersey Republican congressman. The other Republicans are Rudy Boschwitz, former senator from Minnesota; James S. Gilmore III, former Virginia governor; Thomas Slade Gorton III, former senator from Washington State; Jack Kemp, former congressman from New York and 1996 vice presidential nominee; and Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.S. ambassador to the UN under President Ronald Reagan.

The Fall of a Titan

Lucy Komisar — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 04:38:23 +0000

AlterNet, March 17, 2005. Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, one of the world’s richest men, and head of AIG, one of the world’s largest financial companies, was forced to resign this week as prosecutors closed in on him and the company. Given his economic and political power, the fall of Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the 59th richest man in America and CEO of the American International Group (AIG), the world's second-largest financial conglomerate (after Citigroup), is stunning.

Take The Money And Run Offshore

Lucy Komisar — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 04:34:59 +0000

AlterNet, Dec 22, 2004 How insurance companies are aiding tax evasion by over-charging in America and shipping the money to offshore firms. Terry Mills was working in Wilmington, DE, for J. Montgomery, one of the largest insurance agencies in the region, when in 1993 he was called in to get to the bottom of a messy insurance problem. Little did he know that he would uncover a story – as yet unreported – about tax evasion through offshore firms, but with a twist. The scheme Mills came across seemed to be taking place with the aid of AIG, a major U.S. insurance giant.

Cooking the Insurance Books: A Decade of Lax Regulation Lays Groundwork for Scandal

Lucy Komisar — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 03:38:25 +0000

CorpWatch, Nov 17, 2004 In October, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against the world’s largest insurance broker, Marsh, accusing it of rigging bids and receiving kickbacks in order to defraud clients such as other corporations, city governments, school districts and individuals of billions of dollars through inflated premiums. “Greedy trial lawyers were the usual excuse for premium increases. Now we know that greedy corporations also have a starring role," Spitzer said, accusing several insurance companies as co-conspirators in making phony or inflated bids and paying kickbacks to the brokerage to get business.

Cooking the Insurance Books

Lucy Komisar — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 21:00:00 +0000

Nov 2004 Insurance giant AIG has used offshore structures in Barbados and Bermuda to circumvent or violate U. S. state laws regarding reinsurance and to help at least one crooked client evade taxes. In the late 90s, four state insurance departments were aware that AIG was secretly hiding its debts offshore but, despite substantial evidence of wrongdoing, no sanctions were ordered.