Money Laundering

It's strange how "scandal" gets defined these days in Washington. At the moment, everyone is screaming about the "scandal" of the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing conservative nonprofits before granting them tax-exempt status. Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity.

A federal appeals court Monday reduced a former South Gate official's corruption convictions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out former Treasurer Albert T. Robles' convictions for public corruption and money laundering but let stand five counts of bribery. Robles, who was accused of plundering the small, working-class city, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2006 for illegal conduct involving city contracts. The 9th Circuit ruling could trigger a reduction of his sentence, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or even possibly a retrial.

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.

In a case that could have impact statewide, a Los Angeles jury Friday found the operators of a west San Fernando Valley charter school guilty of illegally taking or misappropriating more than $200,000 in public funds. Together, Yevgeny "Eugene" Selivanov, 40, and his wife, Tatyana Berkovich, 36, faced 26 felony counts for using state money in ways they insisted were legal under laws that apply to nonprofits and charter schools in California. Over several years, for example, they spent more than $34,000 on meals, entertainment and gifts that they classified as business expenses or gestures of appreciation for teachers.

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.

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 Nicaraguan rebel leader, unveiling a mountain of previously secret bank statements, announced Thursday that the main contra guerrilla force received at least $32 million in private funding during the two-year ban on U.S. aid to the rebels and said that $18 million of the money was spent on weapons bought through three American arms dealers. In an attempt to prove that he received no money from U.S.

A James Bond-style ultrasonic gun disguised as a pair of binoculars was used to stun a top thoroughbred during a race, and could have become the key tool in a massive drug and betting conspiracy, a British court was told Tuesday. Defense attorney Jonathan Goldberg said the high-pitched sound from the gun caused the thoroughbred, Ile de Chypre, to veer suddenly and throw jockey Greville Starkey as they were heading for victory at Ascot racecourse on June 16, 1988.

Brian Bennett grew up in a three-bedroom house with seven brothers and sisters on a fading stretch of West Florence Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles. By the time he was 22, he was paying his rent in a fashionable apartment complex off Wilshire Boulevard with $100 bills and doing business from Detroit to Denmark, where, according to federal investigators, he once ran up an $11,000 hotel bill in four days.

VATICAN CITY - As he begins work, Pope Francis will find a pile of files in his in-tray on sex abuse and squabbling cardinals. But he will also come across a thick dossier on the Vatican's secretive bank, which his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, tried to drag into the daylight after years of suspicion that it was a haven for money launderers. After struggling to get the Vatican onto a coveted European "white list" for clean banks, Benedict suffered a setback last year when his top manager, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was fired by the bank's board, officially for incompetence.

SACRAMENTO - State authorities have accused two brothers who served together as Republican legislators of illegally laundering $40,000 in political donations. State Sen. Tom Berryhill (R-Modesto) and former Assemblyman Bill Berryhill (R-Ceres), grape farmers who represented adjacent legislative districts, allegedly funneled the money through two county Republican central committees to skirt contribution limits. An administrative law judge will decide whether the men are guilty of charges drafted by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

JERUSALEM - Israel's attorney general said Thursday that he would charge Avigdor Lieberman, the nation's combative foreign minister, with fraud and breach of trust but would drop a more serious money-laundering case that had been looming for years. It remained unclear whether Lieberman, who is seeking reelection Jan. 22 as head of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, would be forced to resign or whether the indictment would hurt his party's chances in upcoming national elections.

NEW YORK -- British banking giant HSBC will pay $1.92 billion to settle a wide-ranging investigation by U.S. authorities into money laundering at the bank. In a deferred prosecution agreement, confirmed by the bank Tuesday, HSBC will undergo independent monitoring for five years as it puts in place safeguards to make sure it does not again become a conduit for illicit transactions. Quiz: The year in business HSBC said the agreement, which the U.S. Department of Justice had yet to formally announce early Tuesday, noted the bank had "provided valuable assistance to law enforcement," providing information and employees for interviews.

A real estate development company that regularly received funds from Los Angeles leaders to build affordable housing projects has agreed to pay $165,000 to end an ethics investigation into allegations of campaign money-laundering. Investigators with the city Ethics Commission concluded Advanced Development and Investment Inc. and its affiliated construction company, Pacific Housing Diversified, made 33 contributions totaling $23,850 under assumed names between 1999 and 2009. Advanced Development executives used cash and checks from company accounts to improperly reimburse employees who had made the contributions, the agency found.

The U.S. government is likely to file criminal charges related to money-laundering against HSBC Holdings, the international banking giant said in its third-quarter financial report. London-based HSBC, Europe's largest bank, reported Monday that it set aside an additional  $800 million to cover its liability in the case, bringing the total so far to $1.5 billion. The potential penalties could be "significantly higher," it said. Banks have fallen under heightened scrutiny amid evidence they have been used to funnel funds to terrorists and process dirty money for drug lords.

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

In a case that could have impact statewide, a Los Angeles jury Friday found the operators of a west San Fernando Valley charter school guilty of illegally taking or misappropriating more than $200,000 in public funds. Together, Yevgeny "Eugene" Selivanov, 40, and his wife, Tatyana Berkovich, 36, faced 26 felony counts for using state money in ways they insisted were legal under laws that apply to nonprofits and charter schools in California. Over several years, for example, they spent more than $34,000 on meals, entertainment and gifts that they classified as business expenses or gestures of appreciation for teachers.

British banking giant Standard Chartered has agreed to fork over $340 million to settle an investigation by New York state regulators. New York's Department of Financial Services announced the settlement, which includes an agreement that the bank's transactions with Iranian clients in question totaled at least $250 billion. Under the settlement, Standard Chartered will install for at least two years a monitor to keep tabs on the bank's efforts to root out money laundering. The DFS will also install examiners at the bank.