Super Fitness Health BlogDeveloped Country Investment Problems and the International Finance Business
The a previous article we outlined the history of Offshore finance that all Belize attorneys need to understand to better serve their clients in these financially hard times. This article is Part Two and covers some of the recently financial scams that have been perpetrated in developed nations.
A US financier charged with swindling wealthy, experienced and well advised first world citizens around sixty-five billion dollars. His businesses were located not “offshore”, but right in London. He was supposed to be regulated by the US government and even the famous and various departments did not raise an eyebrow. These include the Internal Revenue Service, the domestic investigation department and the CIA that were all supposed at the time to be tracking “suspect” banking actions and money laundering activity based on the earlier pushed through Patriot Act. It can be said that at least $65 B of illicitly obtained cash, were thus “laundered” right under the watchdogs’ noses.
Another US Citizen has been the poster child for “offshore” scams. However, only his bank was based in Antigua and his main Stanford Financial Group was actually based in Houston. Further, being a US citizen, the US authorities had extra territorial jurisdiction over him wherever he was located. He still operated with impunity right under, from and with, the North America, American citizens and international investors. His bank associates were even in Belize soliciting clients at one point in time, but fortunately, the small number of approached Belizeans were a bit more financially savvy due to their offshore exposure.
Also Lone Star State based, was the giant Enron that was the model of how to fake accounting records. Some other examples of creative accounting include now reputable companies like Xerox, AOL, Bristol Myers Squibb, Duke Energy (once an investor in BECOL/BEL), Freddie Mac, Halliburton (of Iraq/Afghan war fame), Kmart, Merck, Merril Lynch, Qwest, Tyco International, Worldcom, Chiquita and AIG. These were all perpetrated to a large extent by one of the following accounting firms: KPMG, Arthur Andersen. Though some no longer exist in their former states due to the scams they participated or rather, structurally advised.
Then there was the European trader Jerome Kerviel that caused loss to the Russian Mafia laundering billions through the (then) respected Bank of New York. Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros. BCCI and Northern Rock WAMU and Bear Sterns are just a few of the more best known fiascoes. Their products included derivatives and swaps and the list goes on.
This history would help all Belize attorneys or lawyers in Belize better explain why the Offshore industry in companies like Belize should not suffer undue regulation since financial scams can be and have been implemented in all countries of the world.
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