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Strategies & Market Trends : Scamthony Cataldo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scion who wrote (23)	1/14/2004 4:38:09 PM
From: scion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 137

Bankof New YorkInvestigation A short description of the Bank of New York transactions is a helpful introduction. The key players include Lucy Edwards, a former Vice President for the Bank of New York in London, her husband, Peter Berlin, who maintained connections with a number of Russian businessmen and high officials, and Alexei Volkov, a well-known political and economic elitist in Russia.7 Berlin would open accounts for businesses used to funnel money out of Russia, often with only basic information on the business. U.S. laws are complex, but generally are “know your customer” laws that require banks to inquire about the business before opening an account.8 Edwards has admitted to paying a mid-level employee, Svetlana Kudryavtsev, $500 a month to carry out the transactions in addition to personally agreeing to many of the account transactions. 9 A federal grand jury indicted Edwards, Berlin, and Volkov on criminal charges of illegally operating a money transferring business in September 1999.10 Edwards and Berlin have entered guilty pleas in federal court to charges including conspiracy, and Berlin entered a guilty plea to charges to commit money laundering and aiding and abetting Russian banks in conducting unlawful and unlicensed banking operations.11 Volkov is presumed to be in Russia, but his location is unidentified. Edwards and Berlin have been participating in a criminal investigation in the United States District Court in Manhattan.12 The Manhattan District Attorney is investigating accounts held at the Bank of New York suspected to have been used by Russians to transfer funds outside the authority of Russian tax police.13 In addition the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, the FBI and members of Congress are conducting their own probes.14 The accounts under investigation for transferring money without a license include: Benex International Company, Torfinex Corporation, BECS International, LLC, and Lowland Corporation. In addition, Edwards’ guilty plea claims that she set up accounts for Depozitarno-Kliringovey Bank (DKB) and Flamingo “at the behest of Russian bankers who had obtained control.”15 Flamingo and DKB were subsidiaries of Moscow Business World Bank (MDM) and Sobinbank.16 Benex is the most notorious account reported to date. Berlin opened the account in 1995 and, listed as the director of the company, ran the electronic banking for the account for both Benex and DKB bank, which transferred funds daily in bulk amounts to unnamed third parties.17 Volkov was also a signor on the Benex account.18 Investigators said they can trace funds from Russian banks (Menatep, Flamingo and DKB), the IMF, proceeds from ransom money, and a Russian oil producer named Sibneft through the Benex account.19 There are strong and complicated connections between the corporate structure of these accounts, and Moscow’s most influential elite. DKB is connected with Sobinbank, which is owned in part by Moscow Mayor Luzhkov and the oil company Lukoil. Sibneft, which usually transferred funds through and intermediary to the Bank of New York such as Belka Trading for East Coast Petroleum, has ties with Yeltsin’s son in law.20 In August 1996 Lucy Edwards opened Kristine Kassekert