The fourth article in a series of four from The Globe and Mail.
globeandmail.ca
Broker tied to web of lawlessness
Court documents include allegations of mob connections, murder by others
PETER KENNEDY
British Columbia Bureau
Monday, July 12, 1999
Vancouver -- A Vancouver broker who allegedly traded stocks for mob figures through accounts at Pacific International Securities Inc. and Yorkton Securities Ltd. was caught up in a web of lawlessness including murder on the part of others, court documents allege.
Last month, the Vancouver Stock Exchange fined Jean-Claude Hauchecorne $200,000, and banned him for life for his role in trading stocks through Bahamanian accounts at the request of alleged organized crime figures.
An indictment filed last month in the U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla., alleges a Bahamanian woman who signed the documents that enabled alleged mob figures Philip Abramo and Philip Gurian to open accounts at Pacific International and Yorkton was murdered three years ago.
"On or about June, 1996, Joy Cartwright was murdered in her sleep with two gunshot wounds to the back of her head," says the indictment, filed by U.S. Attorney Charles Wilson.
The indictment, obtained by the Vancouver-based publication Canada Stockwatch, says Mr. Abramo and Mr. Gurian are charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, extortion and money laundering. Mr. Hauchecorne was not charged.
These charges have yet to be proven in court.
There are no allegations of wrongdoing by either Toronto-based Yorkton or Pacific International, which is based in Vancouver and is 35 per cent owned by National Bank of Canada.
The indictment alleges Mr. Abramo and Mr. Gurian opened accounts at Yorkton and Pacific International in 1995, between March and May, for Umbiquity Holdings SA, a Bahamanian company, and that Mr. Hauchecorne was the account executive.
It also says the signatures on the account-opening documents were those of the late Ms. Cartwright and her boss, Lynden Pindling.
Mr. Pindling is a Nassau lawyer and son of former Bahamian president, Nelson Pindling.
One of the key allegations in the indictment is that Ms. Cartwright was shot just weeks after Mr. Gurian and Mr. Abramo threatened to kill Mr. Hauchecorne during a meeting in a New York hotel in May, 1996.
Armed with a handgun and baseball bat, Mr. Abramo and two accomplices told Mr. Hauchecorne that he would die if he didn't return $1.7-million (U.S.) that Mr. Gurian had asked him to wire from an Umbiquity account at Pacific International to a separate account in Hong Kong, the indictment alleges.
According to the indictment, Mr. Abramo was a "captain" of the DeCavalcante family of the New York-based Cosa Nostra mob.
A senior official at Yorkton did not want to comment on the allegations involving Mr. Hauchecorne, who left the company's Vancouver office to work at Pacific International about a month after he became manager of the Umbiquity accounts.
Last month Mr. Hauchecorne, 41, was fined $200,000 and had his broker's licence revoked for life by the Vancouver Stock Exchange following the discovery of a series of securities violations and his alleged links to organized crime.
According to the British Columbia Securities Commission, the alleged violations included assisting in the unauthorized transfer of funds, disclosing confidential information and accepting orders from people he knew or ought to have known had histories of securities violations and links to organized crime.
On June 2, a VSE panel concluded that he had not done due diligence on accounts opened by two men linked to organized crime and had accepted orders on those accounts from third parties without written approval.
Mr. Hauchecorne, who left his job at Pacific the same day, has since asked the BCSC to stay the VSE ruling on the basis that it was biased in claiming offshore companies were conduits used mainly to avoid taxes, launder money or conduct insider trading.
The BCSC has scheduled three days of hearings starting July 20, when a panel will review the VSE's decision.
Pacific International -- which has been mentioned three times, but not charged or itself the subject of any criminal allegations, in cases involving stock market manipulation and money laundering schemes -- has hired a number of high-level consultants to review its compliance procedures. One of its consultants is former RCMP commissioner Norman Inkster.
In one of the indictments, two Pacific International brokers, Dirk Rachfall and Michael Patterson, are charged with being caught up in a stock manipulation scheme headed by a New York crime family and the Russian mob. The scheme is alleged to have defrauded investors of about $10-million.
VERBATIM
From an indictment filed on July 8, 1999, with the U.S. District Court, Tampa Bay, Fla.:
"On or about May 24, 1996, defendants Philip Abramo, Philip Gurian and Louis Consalvo met with Jean-Claude Hauchecorne at the Drake Hotel in New York. At that meeting, defendants Mr. Gurian and Mr. Consalvo assured Mr. Hauchecorne that he would be killed if the money was not returned."
"On or about June, 1996, Bahamian national Joy Cartwright was murdered in her sleep with two gunshot wounds to the back of her head."
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