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An unprecedented glimpse into the staggering amounts of shady money flowing through the international banking system is revealed in leaked files from an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury that have been spotted by The Irish Times.
The files show that the world’s largest banks play a key role in the massive flow of funds from Russia to the West, as well as in the transfer of the proceeds of corruption in countries such as Venezuela, Malaysia and Ukraine, and in the management of money belonging to criminal organizations.
Among the files, which were shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with The Irish Times and 109 other media organizations, including the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung, is a classified report on a Russian. -organized money laundering network that processed up to one billion dollars (844 million euros) per month.
The secret report and other documents in the leaked files, the FinCEN files, contain multiple references to the company’s services business, International Overseas Services (IOS), which had links to an address in Ranelagh, Dublin.
The highly confidential files, from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) agency in Virginia, were originally leaked to BuzzFeed News, which was in turn shared with them by ICIJ and its media partners.
Some of the leaked records were collected as part of US Congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
The documents shed new light on how UK legal entities called limited liability companies (LLPs) are playing a massive role in the flow of suspicious funds through the global banking system.
IOS has its origins in an Irish company created in 1995 by Dublin businessman Philip Burwell in a rented house on Chelmsford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
IOS created hundreds of LLPs in the UK that have subsequently emerged in scandals around the world.
Dublin businessman Philip Burwell said he had nothing to do with the banking activities of the LLPs he established for International Overseas Services.
Burwell said it began doing business with banks in Latvia as it developed as a hub for the movement of funds outside of Russia.
IOS opened an office in Riga and the company grew to become the largest company formation agent in the Baltic countries.
In the early 2000s, Burwell told The Irish Times, he had become uncomfortable with what was happening in Latvia and had parted ways with the Riga operation, while continuing to do business with it. “I had strayed as far as I felt comfortable,” he said.
He accepted that the companies he had established had been used to launder money. “I created the companies. If you sell a car and they use it in a robbery. I mean that was my job. He was in the company formation business. ”Mr. Burwell said he had nothing to do with the banking activities of the LLPs he established for IOS.
LLPs with links to IOS are listed in a $ 230 billion money laundering operation involving Danske Bank in Estonia. The files seen by The Irish Times include documents that were signed by Mr Burwell at a lawyer’s office on Aungier Street, Dublin and then used to open the account of one of the UK LLPs involved in the Estonian operation. .
Subsequently, millions of dollars traveled through the LLP bank account. Under US law, banks based there are required to report transactions they deem suspicious. Suspicious Activity Reports (Sars) are not evidence of wrongdoing. They reflect the views of the control bodies within the banks, that the transactions had characteristics of financial crimes or that they involved clients with high risk profiles or confrontations with the law in the past. Often times, the bank’s clients behind the transactions do not know that the reports have been made.
FinCEN’s files primarily comprise reports submitted by US branches of the world’s major banks which, in turn, were processing dollar transactions made by non-US bank customers.
Because non-US dollar transfers involve correspondent banks in the US, FinCEN ends up receiving reports of suspicious financial activity around the world.
Earlier this month, FinCEN issued a statement saying it was aware that media organizations intended to publish reports based on “Illegally Disclosed Suspicious Activity Reports (Sars).”
“The unauthorized disclosure of Sars is a crime that can affect the national security of the United States, compromise police investigations, and threaten the safety of the institutions and individuals who make such reports,” he said.
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