Money Laundering

Your article on money laundering (front page, June 26) testifies to the futility--indeed, the hypocrisy--of our latest "war" on drugs. Is anyone surprised? When President Bush declared his war in September, 1989, the prestigious Economist had already dismissed it as "Mission Impossible," with no more chance of success than our disastrous prohibition of alcohol. Bush had to know this, if only on the basis of his experience as head of the south Florida drug interdiction task force, just when crack cocaine use was reaching epidemic proportions, and while our illicit Contra supply planes were alleged to be returning loaded with drugs.

Los Angeles County prosecutors say they are probing possible campaign money laundering that may be connected to a local water board member who is part of a powerful political family in the City of Commerce. The inquiry into the financial dealings of Art Chacon, a board member at the Central Basin Municipal Water District, comes in response to a Times story that reported on his fundraising for a political action committee in 2008. The committee was advised by Chacon's brother, Hector, who is a school board member in Montebello and veteran campaign consultant in southeast L.A. County.

The indicted former manager of the Bank of Coronado's San Ysidro branch may have participated in the illegal laundering of as much as $20 million, according to government affidavits unsealed this week. In addition, the documents, unsealed in U.S. District Court on Monday, reveal that many of the alleged money-laundering dealings involved either known or suspected narcotics traffickers. Guadalupe M.

Perhaps it was the multiple bags of $500 in coins used to buy lottery tickets that tipped authorities off to the theft.  Two former Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority employees pleaded guilty Monday to stealing at least $445,000 from subway fare machines in Virginia, Maryland and Washington. John Vincent Haile, 52, a former transit officer from Virginia, and Horace Dexter McDade, 58, a Maryland resident who worked as a revenue collection technician for the transit agency, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to theft concerning programs receiving federal funds and conspiring to commit money laundering, according to the U.S. attorney's office.  The men face a maximum penalty of 10 years on the theft charges and 20 years on the conspiracy charges when they are sentenced June 15. They were arrested in January after authorities observed them hiding and later retrieving bags of change from beneath an overpass.

Former Rep. Pat Swindall was convicted today of nine counts of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury about a money-laundering scheme. The 38-year-old conservative Republican, who served two terms in Congress from Atlanta's suburbs before being defeated in November, could receive up to five years in prison plus fines of $250,000 on each count at sentencing Aug. 25. Swindall left the courtroom saying he was "numb, disappointed, but not...

The former chief executive of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant is facing dozens of additional charges of fraud and money laundering in a new federal indictment. Former Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin is being held on 12 counts of bank fraud, harboring illegal immigrants, document fraud and identity theft after a May 2008 federal raid at the Agriprocessors plant that netted nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers -- including 18 juveniles. The new indictment adds 86 counts of bank fraud, money laundering and violating an order of the U.S. secretary of Agriculture.

A federal court jury in Los Angeles, after confirming the convictions of four men accused of laundering $350 million in drug profits through jewelry companies, was ordered Thursday to resume deliberations on undecided counts. The jury on Wednesday found Nazareth Andonian, his brother, Vahe Andonian, and Juan Carlos Seresi guilty of conspiring to launder money. However, the panel was dismissed before it could confirm the verdicts and make them official. That confirmation took place Thursday.

Limelight Films seemed from the outside like so many upstart production companies in Hollywood: It had a Sunset Boulevard address, a connection to Tinseltown royalty and deals to distribute a small slate of low-budget films. But federal authorities have alleged that the film corporation was a front for an international drug-smuggling and money-laundering operation stretching from Los Angeles to Switzerland.

In your otherwise excellent editorial, "Banks Wearing Blinders" (Feb. 8), you describe the U.S. banks as "unwitting links" in the international money laundering trade, as if they stumbled into this $1.5-trillion-a-year (your figure) bonanza by accident. Gimme a break. WILLIAM D. WOLFF Los Angeles

Hollywood may be in for tighter government scrutiny of its overseas operations. Producers Gerald and Patricia Green were found guilty late Friday on charges of bribery and money laundering related to their running of a local film festival in Thailand, a decision that experts say could lead to further investigation into the huge amounts of business film studios do overseas. The two were convicted of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, eight counts of violating the act and seven counts of money laundering.

The U.S. government has blacklisted more Mexican individuals and companies this year than any other single country or group — and that includes North Korea, Iran, Syria and Al Qaeda. Three hundred Mexicans and 180 Mexican companies are on the so-called kingpin designation list, the Treasury Department's roster of people and entities suspected of laundering money for drug traffickers or working for them in other capacities. U.S. banks, companies and people are barred from doing business with them.

The last time he was in Panama, former dictator Manuel Noriega was being bombarded around the clock with deafening pop and heavy metal music as American troops tried to flush him out of the Vatican diplomatic mission where he had taken refuge. Now, after more than two decades in prison in the United States and in France, the ex-general who ran the strategic Central American state with an iron fist between 1983 and 1989 is likely to be back home for Christmas after a Paris court on Wednesday approved his extradition.

The Obama administration slapped Iran with a new round of sanctions for its alleged nuclear and terrorist activities, but stopped short of the tough economic punishments favored by many in Congress. In an announcement coordinated with Britain and Canada, U.S. officials said they were imposing new punishments aimed at Iran's petrochemical sector and organizations involved in the country's nuclear program or terrorism, such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its elite Quds Force.

Yet another high-profile drug-prosecution case in Mexico careened toward collapse Wednesday when federal officials were forced to release the former mayor of Cancun, arrested 14 months ago for allegedly consorting with violent cartels. Gregorio "Greg" Sanchez, toting a red Bible, walked out of a jail cell into the summer light around midday and proclaimed, again, his innocence. But federal prosecutors said they planned to charge him with the smuggling of undocumented Cubans.

Two online poker sites shut down by the federal government last week have been permitted to start up again, but only to help players get their money back, authorities said. Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars regained access to their domain names after striking agreements with the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, which Friday accused founders of the sites of bank and wire fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. The agreements prohibit the sites from allowing patrons in the U.S. to play for money on the venues.

Bradley Franzen, one of 11 executives charged in a crackdown against the three largest online poker sites open to U.S. players, has pleaded not guilty. Franzen, 41 and from Illinois, was released on $200,000 in bail after turning himself in to the FBI on Monday in New York. The 11 executives — three of whom were the respective founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker — were charged Friday with bank fraud, money laundering and violating gambling laws. The government also sought to recover $3 billion from the companies.

As part of his administration's fight against organized crime, Mexican President Felipe Calderon proposed new steps Thursday to curb money laundering. Calderon said he will give Congress a package of legislation that would limit big-ticket cash purchases through which drug traffickers launder billions of dollars smuggled south across the U.S.- Mexico border. It would also stiffen reporting requirements for businesses and strengthen the government's hand in detecting transactions aimed at helping drug lords launder proceeds.

Norwegian police said they had arrested seven people suspected of money laundering and possibly linked to Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. Police seized mobile telephones, computers and documents after raiding several homes and businesses in Oslo, said Siw Ellen Omland, a spokeswoman for Norway's economic crime unit. Omland said most of the people arrested were Norwegian citizens of Somali background.

A thriving online poker industry catering to Americans but operating from abroad to evade U.S. gambling laws could be wiped out by criminal charges against top executives in the business. Eleven people, including the founders of the three largest poker sites open to U.S. players, were charged by a federal grand jury with bank fraud, money laundering and violating gambling laws. The government also is seeking to recover $3 billion from the companies. The FBI had shut down two of the sites, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, by Friday evening and were working to do the same with the third, Absolute Poker.

The federal government's Medicare Fraud Task Force on Thursday brought criminal charges against doctors, nurses and healthcare company executives ? 111 people in nine cities ? in what officials described as the nation's "largest-ever federal healthcare fraud takedown. " Authorities said the defendants, including five in Los Angeles, cheated the government out of more than $225 million in false billing schemes that included fraudulent claims, kickback operations, money laundering and identity theft.