Danny Schechter - ColdType

19
These suggestions may or may not be true, but a real life
conspiracy like the Madoff scam inspires many other conspiratorial
suggestions.
We live, of course, in a globalized economy where financial
crime is also often international. Critics in the US challenge
a “shadow banking system” but, outside the US, there are
reports of Italian financiers working with the mafia, and even
underground banks. Financial Crime OnLine reported on one,
suggesting there may be many others available for laundering
illegal transactions like the ones documented in the Madoff
affair:
Police in south China say they have broken up an underground
bank that illegally sent 10 billion yuan (1.46 billion in
U.S. dollars) of laundered criminal cash abroad since 2004.
Around 200 police officers raided the underground bank
in Fangchenggang in May this year and seized 70 deposit
books, 590 bank cards, two cars, six computers and 680,000
yuan of cash. They also froze 327 banking accounts involved
in the money-laundering case with book value of 47.5 million
yuan…..
The group acted as a bank and offered financial services to
criminals that wanted to move their money out of the China.
Since the group had no real financial network, they had
to rely on the infrastructure of other banks to wire transfer
funds. All they did is open accounts and use these to funnel
criminal funds for third (criminal) parties.
Some Chinese investors who want to speculate in foreign
real estate and other markets have turned to underground
banks, such as the one run by the alleged gang, to evade
government restrictions on money transfers. But such limits
have been eased in recent years. Criminals have always
been drawn to similar setups since they allow for a anonymous
shell that hides their own identities.”
The real question is: will we ever get to the bottom of the