Category: Money laundering

Money Laundering! Learn how a Crook Finds the Best Hidey-Hole for Ill-gotten Payola

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 1 Comment

If you have been wondering how one of the Senate’s least wealthy Senators is now a millionaire and you have also heard about presidential candidate Joe Biden’s numerous ‘homes,’ Revolver News has pulled together a few stories from recent years to help give us some clarity.

First this from Town and Country magazine:

All of Joe Biden’s Homes, In Photos

 

For most of his 44-year-long career in public office, Joe Biden had a nickname: Middle Class Joe. He also often called himself “one of the poorest members of Congress.” His scrappy roots—born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a father who suffered a number of financial setbacks—are now a big part of his 2020 presidential campaign’s plan to appeal to American voters. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the reason why Biden was often at the bottom of the wealth ladder among his colleagues in the Senate had a lot to do with his life-long obsession with real estate. “Even as a kid in high school I’d been seduced by real estate,” he wrote in his 2007 autobiography, Promises to Keep.

Biden began buying homes—especially those that were outside his budget—in his twenties, taking out multiple mortgages and receiving loans against life insurance policies. His net worth was often in the negatives—in 2007, he was ranked the least wealthy senator.

Today, the 77-year-old Democratic presidential nominee is hardly middle class anymore. According to a 2019 Forbes estimate, Biden and his wife Jill are worth $9 million, much of that accrued from speaking fees and book deals that came pouring in after his vice presidency. About $4 million of that worth is in his real estate.

More here.

Then this…..

From Curbed which features

Why financial criminals use real estate to launder money

 

The 2018 story featuring Paul Manafort tells us the steps for how to hide dirty money from scrutiny. Buying luxury items/real estate is a common practice.

 

Real estate is often the preferred destination for a financial criminal’s ill-gotten gains for the same reason real estate is attractive to any investor: Real estate prices are generally stable and will appreciate over time. Real estate is also functional; a money launderer could use the property as a second home or rent it out, earning income from the investment.

“You’re not gonna lose money on the transaction,” said Chris Quick, a former FBI agent who now runs a private investigation firm in South Carolina. “You buy a piece of real estate for a million, you’re gonna get rent on it or you’re hoping it’ll appreciate in value so when you sell 4 or 5 years down the road, you’re gonna make 25 percent on it. That’s one of the reasons why it’s attractive.”

Real estate also offers a path to legitimacy that is more efficient than the purchase of stocks or other assets related to financial institutions. It’s also less subject to scrutiny—those institutions have a legal requirement to report suspicious activities.

Buying real estate is the last step in what law-enforcement officials describe as a three-step money-laundering process.

Continue reading here.

Remember we also heard that Socialist Bernie Sanders owned a few ‘homes.’ Hmmmm!

Fraud Rampant in Chinese Virus Unemployment Handout; Those Darn Nigerians Again!

~ Ann Corcoran

Here is some news from a week ago that I would have missed completely except for the sharp eyes of ‘Meanymom.’

From the Foundation for Economic Education:

Runaway Fraud Plagues the Massive Unemployment Program Congress Is About to Extend, Report Finds

The debate over expanded unemployment benefits has proven particularly fractious, given that the $2 trillion CARES Act Congress passed in March set up a broken economic system where nearly 70 percent of the unemployed can get paid more in benefits while staying home than they would make by going back to work. Yet as important as the ramifications of this distorted big government labor policy are, one largely overlooked consequence of the massive expansion of unemployment is skyrocketing fraud and abuse.

A new report from the fiscally conservative Foundation for Government Accountability exposes the stunning extent to which fraud has corrupted the hastily-crafted unemployment expansion.

FGA Senior Research Fellow Josh Waters found that fraud will consume more taxpayer dollars under this expansion than the entire unemployment program paid out in 2019.

Remember that the unemployment system was already very wasteful before COVID-19, with roughly 10 percent of payments being made in error in 2019. Waters explains that even generously assuming this fraud rate remains constant—it will likely be worse this year due to system overload and COVID-19 chaos—his calculations show a whopping $26 billion will be lost to fraud as a result of this expansion.

“As states try to respond to the historic increase in claims due to shutdowns and layoffs, the $600 bonus payments are making it very lucrative for fraudsters who know many states probably lack the staffing and resources to combat fraud while the systems are overloaded with an unprecedented amount of claims,” Waters writes.

The FGA report documents how this fraud is playing out at the state level:

Mississippi is estimated to have paid out at least $76 million in improper payments so far, and the governor warns the state has been “attacked with false claims”

Washington State was hit by Nigerian scammers and is estimated to have paid out at least $650 million improperly

Oklahoma already reports 65,000 fraudulent unemployment claims and has likely paid out tens of millions improperly

Arizona estimates that its fraud rate has doubled since the expansion and that nearly 10 percent of benefits being paid out are fraudulent

Needless to say, the reference to Nigerian scammers snapped me to attention.

What is that all about?

Here is the story from May:

The Nigerian Fraudsters Ripping Off the Unemployment System

As millions of people around the United States scrambled in recent weeks to collect unemployment benefits and disbursements through the federal Cares Act, officials warned about the looming threat of Covid-19-related scams online. Now they’re here.

On Thursday, the Secret Service issued an alert about a massive operation to file fraudulent unemployment claims in states around the country, like Washington and Massachusetts. Officials attributed the activity to Nigerian scammers and said millions of dollars had already been stolen. New research is now shedding light on one of the actors tied to the scams—and the other pandemic hustles they have going.

The email security firm Agari today will release findings that an actor within the Nigerian cybercriminal group Scattered Canary is filing fraudulent unemployment claims and receiving benefits from multiple states, while also receiving Cares payouts from the Internal Revenue Service. So far this has netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in scam payments. Regular unemployment, the extra $600 per week that out-of-work Americans can claim during the pandemic, plus the one-time $1,200 payment eligible adults are receiving under the Cares Act are all vulnerable targets for cybercriminals. In the midst of a pandemic and critical economic downturn, though, the theft of those benefits could have particularly dire consequences.

The Secret Service warns that hundreds of millions of dollars could be lost to such scams just as states are running out of money to fund unemployment on their own.

More here.

Oh goody, Washington state recovered some of its losses.

But, it wasn’t only Washington state where the Nigerians were busy ripping us off.  According to CBS News, seven states experienced attacks.

 

See my file on Nigerians!

P.S. How is your prepping going?  There is an excellent chapter about situational awareness in the book I mentioned in this post recently.

Boston “Man” Nabbed for Stealing Millions from PPP Program

~ Ann Corcoran

Reader Tom sent me a story from Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse about how Elijah Majak Buoi has been busy amassing millions of dollars meant to help small businesses survive the Chinese virus crisis.

The Conservative Treehouse story is here.  And the press release from the US Justice Department is here.

There is lots of coverage of the “man” who I am guessing is a ‘new American’ from Africa (Sudan maybe?), but I was searching for a story that might have a photo and found this one at Universal Hub:

Area man charged with $2 million in coronavirus loan fraud

Federal prosecutors today charged a Winchester man with wire fraud for his four applications for federal loans aimed at helping small businesses continue to make payroll despite losses related to Covid-19, alleging he made up employee numbers and that the few employees he does have are all based in India.

According to a federal complaint unsealed today, Elijah Majak Buoi of Winchester was rejected for three of his applications for Paycheck Protection Program loans – which can be converted to grants – but was granted $2 million on the fourth, despite giving different employee and payroll numbers on the applications.

In addition to having Buoi arrested today, the US Attorney’s office is asking a judge to freeze his bank accounts so he cannot transfer the money he received out of the country. At his arraignment, a federal magistrate judge in Worcester set cash bail of $15,000.

[….]

The affidavit*** states that Buoi first filed a PPP application with Bank of America in April for $7.5 million, based on the 353 employees he said he had, all allegedly in Massachusetts. After the bank rejected his request, he tried again with three other lenders, asking each for $2 million, with his employee count on applications ranging from 18 to 96 employees.

The first two lenders also rejected his requests, but the final one, to which he claimed he had 96 US employees, approved his request and he had $2 million deposited in his Bank of America checking account earlier this month.

According to the affidavit, Buoi’s LinkedIn page says he has just five employees, and all are in India, making them ineligible for PPP coverage.

[….]

According to the affidavit, Buoi transferred some $1.2 million of the PPP payment from one Bank of America account to another and has withdrawn $27,000 of it – $20,000 in a wire transfer to India.

More here.

The US government was able to get most of our money back.

***Affidavit is attached to the article.

Nigerian Fraud Ring at Work Ripping Off America Again

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

As our Chinese virus-generated economic collapse continues, helping to move that process along, the Secret Service is investigating a complex Nigerian fraud scheme to rip us off using the unemployment assistance meant for Americans who have lost their jobs.

Several states have been hit so far by the “sophisticated” attack, but authorities believe the hit will become more widespread.

Nigerian fraudsters have played a major role on the pages of ‘Frauds and Crooks.’  See my Nigeria tag!

From the New York Times:

Feds Suspect Vast Fraud Network Is Targeting U.S. Unemployment Systems

 

SEATTLE — A group of international fraudsters appears to have mounted an immense, sophisticated attack on U.S. unemployment systems, creating a network that has already siphoned millions of dollars in payments that were intended to avert an economic collapse, according to federal authorities.

The attackers have used detailed information about U.S. citizens, such as social security numbers that may have been obtained from cyber hacks of years past, to file claims on behalf of people who have not been laid off, officials said. The attack has exploited state unemployment systems at a time when they are straining to process a crush of claims from an employment crisis unmatched since the Great Depression.

Suzi LeVine

With many states rushing to pay claims, payments have gone straight to direct-deposit accounts. In Washington State, the agency tasked with managing unemployment claims there began realizing the extent of the problem in recent days when still-employed people called to question why they had received confirmation paperwork in the mail.

“This is a gut punch,” said Suzi LeVine, the commissioner of Washington State’s Employment Security Department.

In a memo obtained by The New York Times, investigators from the U.S. Secret Service said they had information suggesting that the scheme was coming from a well-organized Nigerian fraud ring and could result in “potential losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” Roy Dotson, a special agent who specializes in financial fraud at the Secret Service, said in an interview investigators were still working to pinpoint who was involved and exactly where they were.

[….]

Mr. Dotson said it appeared the fraud was being aided by a substantial number of “mules” — people, often in the United States, who were used as intermediaries for money laundering after making connections with fraudsters online. He warned people to be wary of quick-money job offers or other suspicious financial arrangements.

The Secret Service memo said Washington State had emerged as the primary target thus far, but there was also evidence of attacks in Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Wyoming. The agency warned that every state was vulnerable and could be targeted, noting that the attackers appeared to have extensive records of personally identifiable information, or P.I.I.

[….]

Ms. LeVine said she did not want to put a number on the losses so far in Washington State but believed it was in the millions of dollars.

More here.

One more reason that the Trump Administration should be praised for making it harder for Nigerians to get into the US!

California: Armenian Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Multiple Charges; Bribed FBI and Homeland Security Agents

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

….among other things!

Thanks to reader Judy for alerting me to the story at the Washington Times from yesterday entitled:

ICE, FBI agents took bribes to provide ‘protection,’ cook books on immigration cases, feds say

I’ll let you read that yourself.  LOL! The story has so many twists that I figured it would be easiest to first check out the press release from ICE, here.

LOS ANGELES – A Calabasas man has agreed to plead guilty to five federal offenses – one related to a credit card bust-out scheme, and the others related to more than $250,000 in bribes he paid to two federal agents for assistance that included sensitive law enforcement information.

Photo at Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edgar-sargsyan-913925153

Edgar Sargsyan, 39, an attorney with law offices in Beverly Hills, was charged today with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, two counts of bribing a public official, and two counts of making false statements to federal investigators. In a plea agreement also filed today in U.S. District Court, Sargsyan agreed to plead guilty to the five felony counts, which cumulatively carry a statutory maximum penalty of 50 years in federal prison.

In the plea agreement, Sargsyan admitted paying tens of thousands of dollars from the beginning of 2015 through early 2017 to a special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

[….]

Sargsyan paid the HSI agent at least $32,000 in checks and at least $45,000 to $50,000 in cash in return for assistance that included the HSI agent searching law enforcement databases to corruptly obtain information that he passed to Sargsyan, according to the plea agreement. The HSI agent also altered a Department of Homeland Security database to make it more likely that a foreign national who was a client of Sargsyan’s law firm would be allowed to enter the United States. In another corrupt act detailed in the plea agreement, the HSI agent prepared a document on HSI letterhead in an unsuccessful attempt to have one of Sargsyan’s relatives from Armenia admitted into the United States.

Sargsyan also admitted he paid the FBI agent monthly cash bribes of up to $10,000 beginning in 2015 in exchange for the agent providing protection, which included running queries on law enforcement databases and warning Sargsyan to stay away from certain individuals who were the targets of criminal investigations. The agent, who worked out of the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office, accepted the cash payments on trips to Southern California, where he stayed at luxury hotels that were paid for by Sargsyan. The FBI agent also accepted from Sargsyan a $36,000 racing motorcycle as a bonus for running database checks on a particular person. Sargsyan also gave the FBI agent a $30,000 cashier’s check that was made to appear to be a payment to the agent’s business, according to court documents.

In his plea agreement, Sargsyan also admitted he participated in a conspiracy that defrauded financial institutions by fraudulently obtaining credit cards in the names of aliens who had previously been in the United States on J1 visitor visas. Once the credit cards were issued by the financial institutions, Sargsyan and his co-conspirator charged purchases, including more than $941,000 that Sargsyan personally charged at two businesses he controlled, Pillar Law Group and Regdalin Group.

Who is the alleged corrupt FBI agent?

His name is Babak Broumand:

https://news24-680.com/2020/04/25/lafayette-resident-former-fbi-agent-arrested-on-suspicion-of-accepting-bribes-in-exchange-for-agency-intel/

 

From the Los Angeles Times:

Beverly Hills lawyer is at center of FBI agent corruption scandal, sources say

The FBI agent charged last week, Babak Broumand, ran Cisneros’ and Dermen’s names in restricted law enforcement databases, according to an affidavit supporting charges against Broumand. The queries showed both men were the subjects of ongoing investigations, the affidavit said.

Broumand retired last year after a 20-year career at the bureau. Prior to his departure, he was assigned to the FBI office in San Francisco, trusted with recruiting sources for investigations into national security matters. It was unclear from court records whether he’d retained an attorney.

Learn more about Broumand here:

East Bay FBI Agent Took Bribes From Armenian Mob, Feds Say

Now get this!

If there isn’t another Edgar Sargsyan  in the Los Angeles area we find his name pop up again in a 2018 report from Fox News:

Clinton donor’s dealings and murky connections questioned by watchdog group

EXCLUSIVE: The murky nature of Hillary Clinton’s former presidential campaign fund continues to rise to the surface.

Fox News has learned that one of the top donors to the “Hillary Victory Fund” (HVF) in 2016 was a Los Angeles-based attorney who is alleged to have misused company funds to create his own $22 million real estate portfolio. He has also been considered by California to be one of the state’s biggest tax cheats, and allegedly has ties to the Kremlin.

The donor, Edgar Sargsyan, contributed $250,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, ands chaired a $100,000-a-couple Clinton fundraiser in Beverly Hills in September 2016. He is also being sued by his former company for allegedly diverting those funds to start his own real estate company.

There is much more in each of the links above!

I sure wish I knew how to draw one of these for this story!