Obama’s Brother Malik Obama: Investor For Muslim Brotherhood’s Money! 

Exposed ->

Report says Malik directs radical Islamic movement’s investments

NEW YORK – President Obama’s half-brother in Kenya could cause the White House more headaches over new evidence linking him to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and establishing that controversial IRS supervisor Lois Lerner signed his tax-exempt approval letter.

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pResident Barack Obama’s polygamist half brother in Kenya Malik Obama has married a woman who is more than 30 years younger than him. The 19-year-old’s mother told The Associated Press on Friday Oct. 15, 2010 she is furious that her daughter quit high school and married the 52-year-old. Malik Obama, who is Muslim, has two other wives. Polygamy is legal in Kenya if it falls under sharia. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

A High Profile businessman has been laundering millions of euros stolen during a spree of nationwide robberies.

http://inlnews.com/MoneyLaundering-Ireland.php

A prolific burglary gang have linked up with well-known figure to profit form their operation.....The well known businessman- who is a household name ... which is the capital city of Ireland – has become a major target for .... the Organised Crime Unit, the Criminal assets Bureau and National Drugs Unit…A Source said: “These gang members are well-known to police …. they need someone who appears to be a legitimate businessman to launder the money,” “And that’s what this individual and some of his closest associates do – they are pumping the money into building projects and other such ventures while the general public don’t suspect a thing….”…..read the full story  in the INLNews.com website

http://inlnews.com/MoneyLaundering-Ireland.php

International
Monday Newspaper Review - Irish Business News and International Stories
By Finfacts Team
Jul 11, 2005, 06:55

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/printer_10002530.shtml

The Irish Independent reports that a money-laundering racket uncovered by the gardai was used by the Provisional IRA to 'cleanse' at least �5m (�7.2m) in sterling notes from the proceeds of the Northern Bank robbery.

The extent of the racket was revealed last night as gardai worked closely with the PSNI to build up a case against the masterminds of the scam.

The massive investigation, which involves several national garda units, is being carried out alongside inquiries into the Belfast robbery in which the IRA got away with 38m.

Senior garda officers are satisfied that the cash traced and seized in their investigation is directly linked to the robbery last December.

A detailed picture of the money trail emerged last night as inquiries continued here and overseas:

 Gardai seized 2.4m in used £20 notes stashed into holdall bags in the basement of a bungalow owned by Cork financier Ted Cunningham whose firm, Chesterton Finance Company, is alleged to have been used to help launder the cash.

 Another £1.5m in new sterling notes went up in smoke when a man in Passage West burnt the cash in his fireplace after the scam organisers panicked because they feared the new notes could be traceable.

 The remaining �1.1m was identified in the paper trail across a series of financial institutions and has either been seized or spent.

Gardai recovered almost £0.5m of the latter tranche when they were either contacted by businessmen or raided houses or business premises in Cork city, Douglas, Millstreet, Co Cork; Killarney and Rathmore, Co Kerry; Tullamore, Co Offaly; and Dunboyne, Co Meath.

Detectives also seized £93,000 in a Daz washing powder packet after searching a jeep at Heuston rail station in Dublin. Gardai surrounded the jeep on the afternoon of February 16 after an intelligence tip-off resulted in the monitoring of two Derry men who travelled to Dublin in the vehicle to meet a suspected republican, who had travelled from Cork.

Gardai allege that the money had previously been taken south from Derry in sterling to be 'laundered', and was being handed back in 'clean' euro notes when it was seized.

At that stage, the garda investigation had already been under way for about nine weeks and the intelligence about the meeting in Dublin forced officers into moving against a number of suspects at the centre of their inquiries.

Apart from raiding Cunningham's home in the village of Farran, 10 miles outside Cork city, gardai detained two other men and a woman - including a Sinn Fein activist who had been a former councillor and party election agent.

But from a total of seven arrests, only one person has so far been charged and he is now awaiting trial on accusations of being a member of an illegal organisation.

Last month, the PSNI carried out a series of raids in Derry and seized more than �30,000 in 11 searches of houses and businesses; while a related raid was carried out by gardai in Co Donegal.

The Northern Bank estimates the IRA made off with about �9.9m, but the rest of the missing money has not yet surfaced.

The money trail has also led overseas, and gardai have made visits to Britain and to Bulgaria where an Irish-based company had intended to invest in property.

A number of bank accounts had been set up by the company in relation to its legitimate investment plans following a visit to Sofia by an Irish delegation that included Ted Cunningham and Phil Flynn, a former vice president of Sinn Fein and senior trade unionist.

The Irish Independent also reports that Cognotec, the foreign exchange trading software group headed by Brian Maccaba, lost $4.9m in 2003 to take its accumulated deficit to $91.65m, the latest accounts show.

The huge accumulated losses meant that the company's liabilities exceeded its assets by $915,785, causing auditors Ernst & Young to warn that this balance sheet situation may require the convening of an extraordinary general meeting.

"The balance sheet shows an excess of liabilities over assets and, in our opinion, on that basis there did exist at 30 November 2003, a financial situation which under Section 40 (1) of the Companies (Amendment) Act 1983 may require the convening of an extraordinary general meeting of the company," the auditors noted.

According to the financial statement, the accounts were prepared on a going-concern basis as the directors believe current working capital is sufficient to meet the needs of the company until positive cash flow is generated.

Turnover for the year to November 30 2003 was $12.6m, down from almost $15m the previous year.

Staff numbers dropped from 91 in 2002 to 57 in 2003.

The average staff cost is $8,294.

Directors' remuneration shot up by 88pc in the period to $552,285, although it is unclear how many directors were paid in 2003, as four directors resigned that year.

The Maccaba-headed company paid corporation tax of $326,366 in the period but a note in the accounts shows it had a tax loss carried forward at year end of $80.4m. The group had debts of $11.55m, according to the accounts.

Maccaba, one of the highest profile Irish businessmen during the tech boom at the end of the nineties, hit the front pages for all the wrong reasons last year. He lost a case against a London rabbi over lurid allegations about his private life.

During what became known as the 'Indecent Proposal case' - echoing the plot of the Hollywood film starring Robert Redford - Mr Maccaba had accused a rabbi of spreading "poisonous" allegations that he was a "sexual predator" and "serial adulterer" who chased after young married Jewish women.

The entrepreneur is thought to have been hit with legal costs of nearly �3m, the longest slander case in legal history.

Maccaba founded Cognotec in Dublin in 1991 and the company has raised about $90m from international investors, including SoftBank and Warburg Pincus.

The Irish Times reports that Dublin solicitor Brian O'Donnell has emerged as the preferred bidder for a �115 million (�167.43 million) office property in London's docklands, less than four months after he spent �135 million on a neighbouring development.

Mr O'Donnell, a former managing partner of William Fry, and his wife Dr Mary Patricia O'Donnell were told late last week that they had beaten off a number of other wealthy bidders, including at least two Irish businessmen, to win control of 17 Columbus Courtyard in Canary Wharf.

The 18,600 square-metre office building is currently occupied by investment bank, Credit Suisse First Boston on a letting agreement that has another 23 years to run.

The occupancy yields about �6.5 million each year in rent.

Mr O'Donnell, who was advised on the deal by the corporate finance team at Deloitte in Dublin, will buy the property from the Canary Wharf Group.

He is thought to have submitted a highly-leveraged bid that could see him put down less than �20 million of his own funds.

His status as preferred bidder means he has been selected ahead of at least four other would-be buyers.

These are thought to have included two prominent Irish businessmen who were respectively advised by Bank of Ireland Private Banking and KPMG.

Other interested parties included a Middle Eastern consortium and a teachers' pension fund from the US.

The Columbus Courtyard is just the second building to be sold off by Canary Wharf since the group was taken private by Morgan Stanley's Songbird consortium a year ago.

Mr and Mrs O'Donnell bought the first such property, 15 Westferry Circus, in March just days after the British Chancellor, of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, abolished stamp duty in "deprived" areas, including Canary Wharf.

Stamp duty could previously have been charged at 4 per cent of the purchase price.

The yield of about 5.5 per cent that the O'Donnells will draw from the Columbus building marks a decline from the 6.2 per cent that came with 17 Westferry Circus, with the fall linked to the downward movement in UK swap rates in the interim.

The 17 Columbus Courtyard property was built in 1998 and has been occupied by Credit Suisse First Boston from the start.

The Irish Times says that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern successfully fought off moves to harmonise European tax rates in the troubled draft constitutional treaty for the European Union (EU).

But a new battle on taxation may now be looming after the Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel suggested that the EU could part-fund its budget with a levy on international financial transactions.

Such a tax is unlikely to find support on Merrion Street. It would hit Ireland harder than most EU members, given the very high level of international transaction in the IFSC in Dublin.

Yet Mr Schuessel, who takes over the EU's rotating presidency at the end of this year, said said it should not continue to be the case that "every euro that we need for [ the EU] is drawn from national budgets".

Interviewed in the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, he said fundamental budget reform was required to that provide the EU with its own source of cash.

"I suggest there should be an automatic financing mechanism for part of the EU budget - for example through taxation of international financial transactions," he said.

About half the EU's budget, worth �106.3 billion in 2005, is paid for by contributions from member states based on their gross national product (GNP). The rest comes mainly from levies on agricultural imports and customs duties and VAT .

EU leaders meeting in Brussels last month failed to agree on the bloc's 2007-2013 funding and Mr Schuessel said budget talks were becoming "ever more brutal". He warned that if the EU was not given its own source of cash, there would be an "unprecedented scrap over distribution".

His proposal for a tax on international transactions similar to one made by French President Jacques Chirac to help fight Aids.

The Irish Examiner reports that recruitment activity remained buoyant in the second quarter of the year, Bank of Ireland said yesterday. 

The bank said the level of job advertising in the three months to June was 6% ahead of the same period last year and the retail and professional sectors were particularly strong. 

Chief economist Dan McLaughlin said the demand for labour continued to grow strongly and immigration was playing �a key role� in filling the gap between demand and Irish-based supply.

�Ireland is at full employment and this pace of job creation is significantly outstripping the growth in the indigenous supply of labour, so the balance can only be met by tapping into the excess supply of labour available across the EU,� said Dr McLaughlin.

Job ads in the financial sector were 48% ahead of the same quarter last year, while ads placed by retailers were 35% higher. 

There were 20% more professional jobs on offer, but slowdowns were recorded in construction, information technology and manufacturing, where job ads were down by around 15%.

The Irish Examiner also reports that Irish people who regularly buy goods and services over the internet believe it is a relatively safe method of shopping, according to a new EU survey. 

Just over 2% of customers who made purchases online experienced difficulty in obtaining redress or repair following an initial complaint.

Some 3.6% of respondents said they were annoyed that delivery costs were higher than anticipated, while 3% complained that suppliers failed to provide a satisfactory response to a complaint. 

Only 1.4% of e-shoppers in Ireland expressed concern about a lack of security with regards to payment over the internet with just half that number experiencing fraudulent use of either credit or debit cards. 

The most frequent complaint by Irish internet users was the fact that delivery times were longer than promised a fault experienced by almost 7% of those who bought goods online.

The Financial Times reports that European Union (EU) regulators have expressed concerns that any US government decision to prosecute the US business of KPMG, one of the big four accounting firms, could badly damage the already-concentrated audit market.

The regulators have stopped short of demanding that the US government refrain from bringing criminal charges against KPMG for past tax work but they do not want to see the number of big accounting firms falling to three.

Arthur Andersen, once the world's biggest accounting firm, collapsed after the US justice department brought criminal charges against its US partnership in 2002.

KPMG could suffer a similar fate if the department presses criminal charges against its US partnership over past sales of tax avoidance products to clients.

A decision is expected soon but the justice department and KPMG declined to comment.

KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and PwC dominate the auditing of multinational companies.

Since Andersen's demise, regulators have often expressed concerns about the high concentration of the audit market and the lack of choice big companies have.

European regulators accept they cannot interfere with the US justice department's decision on KPMG but they are concerned about the potential consequences.

An official at the European Commission said: "It was already an issue going down to four big accounting firms. Obviously, having only three would be an even bigger problem."

Some European regulators have relayed their concerns about the potential consequences of the KPMG case to their counterparts in the US.

Andersen's international network of accounting businesses disintegrated after the justice department pressed obstruction of justice charges against its US partnership, which had been auditor to Enron, the energy company that collapsed in 2001.

The US Justice Department's investigation into KPMG's US business focuses on sales of tax avoidance products to clients between 1998 and 2002.

Last month KPMG admitted some former partners had engaged in unlawful conduct during that period.

The Financial Times also reports that at the end of a shortened, dramatic trading week, shares on Wall Street went out on high after good economic news prevailed over terrorist attacks and surging oil prices.

With no trading on Monday because of the Fourth of July holiday, oil prices, spurred on by a vicious hurricane season that threatens the country�s oil supplies, continued to be of major concern on Wall Street.

Positive data on unemployment and consumer confidence coupled with some strong figures from the US earning season helped the markets to weather the storm and all three indices rose more than 1 per cent on Friday.

Friday�s data showed from the Labor Department showed that US employers added 146,000 jobs in June. This was below Wall Street forecasts, but the unemployment rate fell to its lowest since September 2001, a government report showed. �What we have seen is a tug of war between politics and corporate fundamentals,� said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at The Hartford.

One such corporate fundamental was the gains made by Alcoa, the world�s biggest aluminium maker, that on Friday posted the best quarterly profit in its history. Its shares gained 4.3 per cent on Friday, taking it to $27.20. Over the week it was up 4.1 per cent.

By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had climbed 1.4 per cent to 10,449.14 and the broader S&P 500 was up 1.2 per cent at 1,211.86. The technology heavy Nasdaq gained 1.8 per cent, taking it to 2,112.88.

Since the close of trade last Friday the Dow was up 1.4 per cent, the S&P 1.2 per cent and the Nasdaq 1.8 per cent.

The recovery makes for a striking contrast with other recent atrocities that sent markets reeling and showed traders now fully �price in� terrorism. While the markets recovered in one session from the London blast, it took the S&P 500 more than two years to recover to its pre-September 11 levels. It took 14 session to recover from the Madrid blasts.

The market was helped in its swift recovery, said Ms Krosby, in part because of the impressive show of resolve by Tony Blair and George Bush and because of strong underlying consumer and economic news.

One of the most striking comebacks of the week was by the airline industry, which was badly hit by the double whammy of an oil spike and a terrorist attack but still managed to rally. The Amex Airline index was up 1.8 per cent at 48.03. Delta shares rose by 3.6 per cent on Friday after its share price plummeted in the wake of the news from London. However, it was still down 6 per cent over the week, finishing at $3.50.

The tourist sector also made a comeback with the Marriott International hotel group up on last Friday by1.2 per cent at $69.49. The cruise operator Carnival also recovered after Thursday, and ended the week virtually unchanged at $54.74.

Ms Quincy said the continued good health of America�s shoppers had also helped to lift markets.

�The consumer confidence figures and the good retail sales showed that, despite higher prices at the pump, the US consumer is still alive and well,� he said.

Wal-Mart, the world�s biggest retailer, certainly had a good week with shares up 3.4 per cent at $49.90. The company was helped by an announcement on Thursday that its June same-store sales rose 4.5 per cent, helped by seasonal merchandise such as air conditioners and summer clothes.

Shares of Gap were up 5.8 per cent at $20.97 and Target advanced 4.3 per cent, to $56.93.

By mid-week, Exxon was among the biggest drags on both the Dow and the S&P 500, falling 1.7 per cent to $59.11 on Wednesday. However, it finished 1.9 per cent up from the previous week at $59.40.

The most dramatic gains of the week came from a group of little-known specialist security companies that saw their shares leap on the terrorist news from London.

Ipix and Digital Recorders, two companies that make surveillance devices, both saw their share prices jump on the news of the London attacks. Ipix soared 23.7 per cent on the day before finishing the week 2.8 per cent higher at $2.90.

Wolfgang Munchau in the FT, under a headline Europe must tackle terrorism, writes:  

We do not know the next target of the terrorists after Madrid and London. Maybe Rome, where prime minister Silvio Berlusconi will be facing an election next year. Or maybe Copenhagen. The Danish government also helped US President George W. Bush in the war against Iraq. But the surprise of the timing of the London attack reminds us that the terrorists do not usually behave as we expect them to.

The French and Germans also have reason to fear that Paris and Berlin, too, may be future targets despite their governments� opposition to the Iraq war.

But even if we have no clue where the al-Qaeda network will strike next, we know they operate on a pan-European level. After September 11, al-Qaeda has focused increasingly on the Middle East and Europe, which are today far more vulnerable and less prepared to cope with terrorist attacks than the US.

One reason is the way the European Union has chosen to organise the fight against terrorism. Anti-terrorism is not the business of the EU and its institutions. Europol, the EU�s nascent police services, has extended its official remit to include anti-terrorism. But it hardly matters. The fight against terrorism has remained primarily the job of national agencies, intelligence services and police forces. They were set up at a time when the main terrorist threat in Europe was indeed national � the IRA in the UK, Eta in Spain, Baader-Meinhof in Germany or the Red Brigades in Italy.

The trouble is that the al-Qaeda terrorists are thinking more European than Europe�s national anti-terrorism agencies. It is therefore a legitimate question to ask whether our present institutional set-up is still appropriate. Or rather, whether it is the best conceivable system we could think of, whether we would reinvent it in this manner if it did not exist today.

The answer to all these questions is an emphatic No. If we had to build a new system from scratch, we would not establish independent national systems in each country. After the Madrid bombings last year, the EU only went so far as to set up an embryonic anti-terrorism unit, headed by the Dutchman Gijs De Vries, the European co-ordinator for counter-terrorism.

As his title suggests, the main job at EU level is co-ordination. It is essentially a bureaucratic agency, very much the kind of thing one would expect the EU to do. Mr De Vries is not the head of a European Central Intelligence Agency. He has no agents in the field. His job is to provide a bird�s-eye view analysis of terrorist threats in Europe.

There has been some good progress in bringing together national security and anti-terrorism analysts as part of Mr de Vries�s activities. The European arrest warrant and the setting up of joint investigation teams of national police forces were also helpful.

While the EU has a limited role in intelligence analysis, it has no operational responsibilities. The defenders of the status-quo always say there already exists a great deal of co-operation between the national security services, on a �need-to-know� basis, mostly bilaterally or trilaterally. We are assured � and have no reason to disbelieve � that this system works reasonably well. The agencies have apparently prevented several deadly attacks. One case we know of occurred in December 2001 when French and German police foiled a terrorist attempt to blow up the Christmas market in Strasbourg.

Despite these successes, it is doubtful that this is the best the EU can do. Richard Falkenrath, a former White House adviser on homeland security, has argued that the EU should tear down the wall between military intelligence and civil law enforcement.

The EU is the natural level at which to base an effective homeland security agency, comprising an analytical and an operation arm.
>The reason is that the EU has become a deeply integrated political and economic area. In the so-called Schengen area, citizens enjoy passport-free travel. Travelling to the non-Schengen parts of the EU is not difficult either. In such an area it would be nonsensical to have different standards of airport security or different national systems for the protection of the EU�s external borders.

You might say that this is politically impossible. After all, national security is at the heart of national sovereignty. But this is not how the EU�s citizens see it. Opinion polls � even in eurosceptic Britain � suggest a large majority want the EU to fight terrorism. They no longer believe that national governments can deliver the appropriate level of security in the EU.

This is the fundamental trouble with the EU. It does what it should not be doing, such as running discriminatory agricultural price support systems, while it does not what it should be doing, such as fighting terrorism and providing security.

We have all marvelled at the stoicism and defiance of Londoners in the aftermath of Thursday�s attacks. But it is not our attitude that will defeat terrorism. It is the way we organise the fight. We should have had a fundamental debate about the effectiveness of our anti-terrorism systems after the Madrid bombing last year. We urgently need it now.

The New York Times reports that  Goldman Sachs and Allianz of Germany are in talks to acquire a $1 billion stake in China's largest state-owned bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, according to a person briefed on the discussions.

The talks come at a time when some of the world's biggest financial institutions are rushing into China to acquire stakes in some of the country's large but troubled state-owned banks ahead of planned initial public offerings in the next few years. The Bank of America said last month that it would pay $3 billion for a 9 percent stake in the nation's third-largest lender, the China Construction Bank, which is expected to offer shares to the public late this year.

And UBS said last month that it was considering investing as much as $500 million in the Bank of China, another huge state-owned bank.

"All the big financial institutions want a piece of the action," said Jack J. T. Huang, who oversees China coverage for the law firm Jones Day in Taipei, Taiwan. "This is not necessarily a rational decision when you look at the numbers. But these institutions believe the government won't allow these banks to fail. They will step in to help them succeed."

I.C.B.C. has nearly 400,000 employees, more than 100 million customers and about $500 billion in assets. It is unclear how large a stake in the bank Goldman and Allianz may get. The negotiations were reported by the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong on Saturday.

Goldman and other large investment banks may be positioning themselves to help take the banks public in the next few years in deals that could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in investment banking fees.

Citigroup was initially expected to help take China Construction Bank public, but bankers said that deal is now likely to be handled by Morgan Stanley and its Chinese joint venture partner, the China International Capital Corporation, after Citigroup passed on buying a stake.

But the huge investments could be risky for some of the financial institutions because China's banking system has been struggling for years with massive debts, poor management and deep-rooted corruption.

The Chinese government has consistently stepped in to help bail out the banks. For example, it injected $45 billion into the China Construction Bank and the Bank of China in 2003. And analysts say the government is determined to revitalize the nation's banking system as it prepares to open the market to foreign banks.

I.C.B.C. is one of the most troubled. For years, the bank has racked up bad loans tied to poorly operating state-owned enterprises. It has also been plagued by corruption. In the past year, more than 350 I.C.B.C. officials were punished after an auditor found over $800 million in irregularities at the bank. Some bank officials were arrested on charges of trying to steal about $900 million.

The bank has also been a victim: a private company used forged documents to borrow nearly $900 million from the bank, according to reports in state news outlets.

But analysts say the government has pressed the big financial institutions to help clean up the banking system by taking sizable stakes in the four largest state-owned banks, which also include the Agricultural Bank of China.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley - considered the two most powerful foreign investment banks in China - have each purchased a substantial number of bad loans from China's financial institutions.

Goldman, J. P. Morgan Chase and I.C.B.C. have also teamed up to agree to loan about $9 billion to the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, one of China's largest state-owned oil companies, if it succeeds in acquiring theUnocal Corporation, an American company. The Chinese oil company, known as Cnooc, is in a bidding war with Chevron over Unocal, and Goldman and J. P. Morgan are Cnooc's financial advisers in that effort.

Indeed, Goldman has moved aggressively in recent years to strengthen its operations in China and solidify its ties to the government in the expectation that the country could some day be a source of billions of dollars in profits.

Henry M. Paulson Jr., Goldman's chairman, has made dozens of trips to China in recent years. And last year, Goldman agreed to donate $67 million to the government to bail out a Chinese brokerage firm.

Goldman then got approval to form a joint venture that could operate in China's domestic securities market. Altogether Goldman's investment in the joint venture is expected to top $200 million in the first few years.

Goldman has ample money to invest in a deal now. It finished raising $8.5 billion in April for Goldman Sachs Capital Partners V, one of the largest investment funds created this year.

The NYT says that banner ads, the Internet's favorite petri dish, have begun yet another round of experimentation, this time as shopping assistants.

Late last month, Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka), an advertising company based in Marlborough, Mass., began testing eMiniMalls, a technology that scans a Web page, chooses a product the reader might be interested in, then displays banner ads that are miniature shopping comparison pages, with prices, product reviews and links to merchants.

Analysts and online executives say the idea may find a market if consumers can overcome their longstanding habit of ignoring anything that appears in a rectangular box toward the top of a Web page.

"I know it's interactive, and shopping search is a good idea, but it's still perceived as this thing, this space," said Gary Stein, an analyst with Jupiter Research, an online consultancy. "Banners just aren't all that great at attracting attention."

Chitika's unusual approach to banners is aimed at attracting attention. The ads, which are being tested by a handful of online publishers, including the college savings site Upromise.com, allow users to click on different tabs to view various features of a product without being whisked away to another site.

For instance, on a client's Web page that mentions MP3 players, Chitika could instantly send to the publisher a banner ad featuring iPods available at three different retailers. Next to the merchants' names and their prices, users could click on a tab to see brief product reviews, descriptions and quotes about iPods from selected online Web logs. Only when users click on a merchant's link are they taken to the retailer's product page for that item.

At that point, the merchant pays a fee averaging about $1, whether there is a purchase or not, to Chitika, which shares an undisclosed portion with Shopping.com, the product comparison site that feeds merchant and product data to Chitika.

Indeed, the affiliation with Shopping.com is one of two fairly strong factors that could help Chitika gain the attention of advertisers and publishers. Besides the ascendancy of shopping search engines, there is a growing appetite among publishers for so-called contextual advertising.

Online merchants and investors have grown fond of shopping comparison sites in the last year. Sites like Shopzilla, Shopping.com, Nextag, Pricegrabber and others were visited by about one-third of all active online users in the United States in May, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, an Internet consultancy. Those numbers will probably climb during the holiday season, when shoppers look to comparison sites for bargains and gift ideas.

Merchants, who typically pay to list their products on the shopping sites, report fairly good success in attracting customers this way. The resulting increases in shopping search revenues at Shopping.com and Shopzilla led to those companies being bought last month, when eBay acquired Shopping.com for $620 million, and E. W. Scripps, the media company, purchased Shopzilla for $525 million.

Google has helped invigorate the market for contextual ads, with its AdSense service. In that program, publishers devote a certain amount of space - typically near the bottom of the page - to text advertisements. Google scans the Web page and plugs in text ads for products that are somehow related to its content. When someone clicks on an ad, Google sends the publisher a commission.

AdSense has gained a huge following over the last two years among Web publishers, who particularly like that Google sells and places the ads on their behalf.

Chitika can offer the same benefits to publishers, while also offering them the ability to control what goes into the banner and, in the near future, when and how its banners can be displayed. For instance, they may opt to leave the Chitika ads aside until readers click on pages for which the publisher has been unable to attract high-paying advertisers. Or, they may block the listings of merchants who compete with the publisher's existing ad clients. Chitika clients may also eschew the banner format in favor of a square display.

According to Venkat Kolluri, Chitika's chief executive, a handful of mostly small publishers began testing the service in the last week of June, including bloggers, home decorating sites and a site offering money-saving advice. Mr. Kolluri said "several hundred" more publishers have applied to receive the ads - a process that requires no fees, and the insertion of only one line of computer code to pages on which the ads will appear.

Mr. Kolluri said early results suggest that people click on more than 1 percent of the eMiniMall ads they see, compared with the industry average of less than half of 1 percent for banner ads.

For now, the biggest publisher to sign up for the eMiniMalls is Upromise, which offers its members the ability to open a college fund with cash rebates they receive by shopping at certain merchants.

David Coppins, vice president of the online mall for Upromise, said his site would introduce eMiniMalls on the site's home page before the end of September. The eMiniMalls will feature only products from the site's 350 retail affiliates.

"I've been dying to do something like this," he said, "but it would've involved us changing our backend systems."

For now, Shopping.com will retain the rights to distribute its listings through Chitika, but Mr. Kolluri said he planned to solicit other shopping search engines, so the engines would be competing to offer the best terms to merchants.

Josh Wetzel, director of business development for Shopping.com, which is based in Brisbane, Calif., said Chitika's initiative could help Shopping.com increase exposure for merchants. "I definitely think it's got a future," he said. "It's taking the AdSense idea to the next step, and making it very specific to commerce."

Corey Jeffery, an analyst with Nielsen/NetRatings, said the concept was so close to Google's AdSense model, in fact, that Chitika "should keep an eye in their rearview mirror."

Google would not say if it might consider a similar offering, but even if it did not, others could be watching for the market's response to Chitika, Mr. Jeffery said.

http://www.reportingproject.net/proxy/en/following-the-magnitsky-money

Following the Magnitsky Money

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Published on Sunday, 12 August 2012 16:09

This dilapidated house in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova, is the headquarters of Bunicon-Impex SRL a phantom company that received and sent on money from the huge heist discovered by Magnitsky

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/financial-advisor-denies-charges-of-money-laundering-some-of-the-proceeds-of-northern-bank-raid-1.1690984

By OCCRP

Novaya Gazeta story (in Russian)

As Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky slowly died in a Russian prison from abuse and neglect, US$230 million (5.4 billion Russian Rubles) in taxes stolen from his client disappeared into a maze of phantom companies, crooked banks and offshore accounts.  Magnitsky, accused of the largest tax scam in Russian state history despite being the whistleblower who reported it, knew who pulled off the theft but not who the powerful people behind them were.

 He died rather than admit to a crime he didn’t do. Magnitsky was the loser.  But the winners until now have not been identified. Reporters from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Barron's and Novaya Gazeta, spent months tracking banking records and offshores companies to identify two beneficiaries of the deal: businesses of a Russian state transportation official’s son and the ex-husband of a tax official who granted the refunds.

 The Money Flow

 The scam began with a Russian police raid on the offices of Magnitsky’s client:  Hermitage Capital Management investment fund. People impersonating company employees then used official stamps and documents seized in the raid and pled guilty to various crimes. The company was fined amounts that offset the company’s earnings for the year, and the impersonators then filed for a giant tax refund.

 Three phantom businesses, shell companies that exist only on paper, applied at Moscow tax offices #28 and #25 on behalf of Hermitage for a refund which was instantly granted.  Magnitsky, who reported the fraud, believed wrongly that if officials only knew what was happening they would react. They reacted by imprisoning him for tax evasion, demanding he write a confession, denying him medical care and beating him repeatedly. He lasted one year dying in 2009.

 In 2009 and 2011, secret trials in Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court fixed legal blame for what was a massive, arcane scam on two low-level ex-convicts: sawmill worker Viktor Markelov, once found guilty of manslaughter, and a robber,– Vyacheslav Khlebnikov.

 Both pled guilty. Both got minimum sentences of five years in a correctional colony. They were not even ordered to pay back the stolen money. Irina Dudukina, a spokeswoman for the Investigative Department of the Russian police, announced to the public that it was impossible to find the refund money because documents of the Moscow bank UBS were burned up in a truck crash. She had no details on when or where this crash occurred or why the documents were in a truck. And she didn’t specify why investigators didn’t try to get the same documents from the Russian Central Bank, which had copies of many of the transactions.

 No government executive or bureaucrat involved in the deals that sparked the rebate, in the illicit tax refund, or in Magnitsky’s death has ever been charged with anything.

 A government investigation concluded that the tax officials who handed out the rebates had been tricked by fraudsters, so it was not their fault.

 Tracking the Money

Banking records of the three companies that got the illegal tax refund -- Makhaon, Parfenion and Rilend -- show that the stolen money dissipated into phantom companies through thousands of banking transactions. Soon after these transactions, the three companies dissolved. Phantom companies fronted by proxy shareholders and directors designed to hide the real owners, made certain for years that who really was benefitting from the huge heist remained a secret.

 OCCRP reporters worked out a money trail that Russian officials were either unable or unwilling to follow.

 In January and the beginning of February 2008, for example, Parfenion wired $63 million USD to the bank accounts of two phantom companies: ZhK and Fausta .  Another transaction took place directly where Fausta sent $21 million USD to ZhK’s accounts.

 ZhK, which received in total about $39 million USD, was established in November 2003, by Marta Dmitrieva of Moscow. Dmitrieva told OCCRP reporters that while, yes, she did file documents with the tax office, she knew nothing of ZhK.

 “I have never been a shareholder or director of the company,” she said. “I didn’t have a job, and I found an Internet commercial that said there was a possibility to work as courier and applicant for different companies.”

 The sole shareholder of ZhK was Anatoly Dvoinikov from the village of Poselki in the Penzenskaya region, 640 kilometers from Moscow. Court records OCCRP reviewed show that Dvoinikov is likely a proxy shareholder and the director of many phantom companies.

 In November 2008, ZhK was folded into a new commercial entity along with two other companies. The address of this new corporate creation was in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, more than 6,400 kilometers from Moscow.

 Russian organized crime commonly uses the tactic of reorganizing companies to cover up fraud.

 Fausta, the other company that got money from Parfenion – about $45 million USD -- was registered in July 2007by Sergey Kirillov from Moscow.  Kirillov told OCCRP he did not establish the company.

 “I don’t know anything about this company,” he said. “Nobody asked me to establish it. Maybe some people got my passport details from banks where I took loans.”

 In March 2008, just a month after getting the Parfenion millions, Fausta was dissolved, according to the Russian Tax Service.  Fausta's banking records show that the money went from its bank account into the bank account of Univers another Moscow company.

 Univers was registered in October 2007 with Natalya Senchukova listed as the sole shareholder and director. The Russian state commercial registry lists her as a shareholder in more than 30 companies and she is likely another proxy.

 In November 2008, Univers was reorganized too in much the way ZhK had been. It was folded in with another company and the headquarters also were moved from Moscow to Vladivostok.

 OCCRP has obtained documents showing that the same registration agents reorganized both Univers and ZhK.

 Univers received money from Rilend and Makhaon, too. But bank records show that these transactions were made not directly, but through an intermediary company, called Anika.

 From the accounts of Univers and ZhK in Sberbank, the largest state-owned bank in Russia, and in Mosstroyeconombank, a small Moscow bank, money went into what is called a “correspondent bank account” held by tiny Krainiy Sever bank in one of Russia's biggest banks, Alfa Bank. Small banks commonly keep correspondent accounts within large banks so that they can more easily make foreign money transfers.

 From Feb. 5-13, 2008, $33 million poured into to Krainiy Sever’s correspondent account from Univers and ZhK. OCCRP has obtained court documents from cases unrelated to the Magnitsky case which indicates that this account has been a major recipient of money stolen from the Russian budget. Court decisions mention a number of phantom companies (including Starmiks, Optimtorg) which wired money to this account. (Doc1, Doc2, Doc3,Doc4, Doc5).

 Police files OCCRP has obtained also mention many of these companies including ZhK, Univers, Starmiks, Optimtorg, as phantom firms used to launder money stolen from the Russian budget in December 2007.

 The Krainiy Sever account was used as a kind of “border point” from which money flowed to companies registered abroad.

 On Feb. 13, 2008, a Russian court ordered that account seized and a month later the Central Bank of the Russian Federation cancelled Krainiy Sever’s banking license for violation of the law “to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism”.

 In a press release the Central Bank said that Krainiy Sever managers had lost control of their Moscow subsidiary. Court records show that during two weeks in February of 2008, bank clients, mostly phantom companies, suspiciously wired $300 million into bank accounts in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Cyprus belonging to companies from the United Kingdom, British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Belize .

 OCCRP got in touch with an ex-police officer who investigated money laundering proceeds in Krainiy Sever.

 “When we raided the Moscow office of the bank, we met a guy there with a laptop from which he wired billions of rubles to different countries through the Internet. The guy was crying that he is from the FSB [Federal Security Service, the main secret service in Russia] and promised us a lot of problems”, said a former law enforcement officer who asked that his name not be mentioned for fear of retribution.

Vladlen Stepanov

 Two phantom companies from Moldova, on the eastern border of the European Union, were among the foreign recipients of money from Krainiy Sever.  Bunicon-Impex SRL and Elenast-Com SRL had accounts in Banca de Economii in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.  OCCRP obtained banking records of these two companies which show they received $52 million from Feb. 4-13 from the Krainiy Sever account where the Magnitsky money had gone. The last transaction was on the day the account was seized by Russian authorities.  Almost all of their other transactions were also from Russia.  Money came into the two companies as rubles and went out in dollars to dozens of companies located in different countries.

 A third recipient of Magnitsky funds was Nomirex Trading Ltd. even though it was listed in United Kingdom records at the time as inactive.  Nomirex and Bunicon are known to be part of an interconnected laundering network, dubbed the Proxy Platform by OCCRP, which has been used by Mexican drug cartels, Vietnamese, Russian and Moldovan organized crime and others. (see Sidebar: Russian Laundering Machine).

 On Feb. 4, 2008, Bunicon received rubles from the Krainiy Sever account and the same day converted it into $4.5 million USD. The next day, $726,000 was wired to Nomirex through its bank account with the Latvian Trasta Komercbanka.

 The day after Nomirex got the money from Moldova, it wired $1.9 million to Quartell Trading Ltd in the British Virgin Islands. Swiss prosecutors are investigating Quartell based on a Money Laundering Suspicion Report that Hermitage filed with Swiss Attorney General Erwin Beyeler. Quartell transferred the money it received from Russia to Baikonur Worldwide Ltd from BVI. And it in turn wired it to a Cyprus company, Arivust Holdings Ltd, which had a bank account at Credit Suisse.

Olga Stepanova was the head of Moscow tax office #28, when it approved the fraudulent tax return. Her whereabouts are now unknown

 What stands out in this dizzying movement of money is this:
Arivust is controlled by Vladlen Stepanov, the ex-husband of Olga Stepanova, who was the head of Moscow tax office #28, when it approved the fraudulent tax return.

 A bank statement for her ex-husband’s firm indicates that money that came into the account was spent on luxury property in Dubai.  Stepanov has long maintained that he earned the money in his accounts and that he had nothing to do with the tax refund theft. He even sued political activist Alexey Navalny for reposting a Hermitage video that alleged he benefited from the Magnitsky money.  Stepanov won that case. However, the wire transfers show that money did come directly from the Magnitsky money. Meanwhile, Olga Stepanov’s whereabouts and what happened to her after the refunds are unknown.

 A Credit Suisse banking statement pinpoints the same accounts as the source of payments made for property in Dubai for Elena Anisimova and Olga Tsareva, Stepanova’s deputies in the Moscow tax office.

 According to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Anisimova and Tsareva left Russia in 2011 in the same car and have not been located.

 “Stepanov had the possibility to explain it away because there was a gap in the money flow,” said a Hermitage representative who asked that their name not be used.  “Nobody could prove the origin of the money he had received on his accounts. Today, after banking records from Russia and Moldova became public, the chain has become direct. Now it is obvious that money which Stepanov received on his accounts had been stolen from the budget.”

Stepanov refused to comment on the OCCRP findings.

 Denis Katsyv

  Denis Katsyv the owner of Prevezon Holding is the son of Petr Katsyv, the wealthy and powerful former minister of transportation in the Moscow region

Another company which received Russian money from Moldova is Prevezon Holdings Ltd owned by Denis Katsyv, the son of Petr Katsyv, the wealthy and powerful former minister of transportation in the Moscow region.  Petr Katsyv is considered one of the wealthiest civil servants in Russia. According to Forbes Magazine he is worth more than $4 million in 2012, and real estate records OCCRP obtained show the son is worth far more.  In 2012 the father left his ministerial post to head the General Department of Moscow Region for Cooperation with Federal Authorities.

 On Feb. 5, 2008, Bunicon received rubles equivalent to $9.4 million USD in 2008 exchange rates in two transactions from the correspondent account of the Krainiy Sever bank. The next day Bunicon sent $410,000 to Prevezon’s account at the Swiss bank UBS AG.

 On Feb. 13, 2008, Elenast received the equivalent of $800,000 USD from the same correspondent account, and transferred more than half of that amount to Prevezon.

 Records from the Cyprus commercial registry show Prevezon Holdings Ltd was registered in 2005 and is owned by Denis Katsyv (1000 shares) and a company called Martash Investment Holdings Ltd from the British Virgin Islands (1 share). Martash Investments is also owned by Denis Katsyv.

 Denis Katsyv told OCCRP that his company never dealt with any companies from Moldova.

 “I am really surprised to hear that,” he said. “I give you 200 percent that it is impossible. I am ready to help you in your investigation and show the banking statement of Prevezon to prove that it never received such money.”

Katsyv never showed the statement.  Instead he called reporters and said he became shareholder in Prevezon only in April 2009 and had nothing to do with any Moldovan money.  Records from the Cyprus commercial registry show Katsyv actually became a shareholder in June 2008, a few months after the transfers.  Prevezon’s sole shareholder at the time of the transfers, Timofey Krit, is Katysv’s current business partner and the director of Prevezon.

 Other Problems

 This is not the first time the Katsyv family has run afoul of the law. In 2010, the Katsyv family was mentioned in a money-laundering case of Israeli bank Hapoalim which was investigated by Israeli authorities.

 According to court records OCCRP obtained, millions of dollars were transferred through Katsyv-controlled accounts at the bank.  Israeli prosecutors insisted that bank managers concealed the real beneficiaries of this accounts in violation of anti-money-laundering rules. But their lawyers blamed Katsyv’s business for the bank’s problems. The court eventually agreed and found the bank managers not guilty.

 According to the judgment, Katsyv’s company Martash Investment had to sign a secret agreement with the Israeli government to avoid indictment.

“If the clients of the bank [Katsyv family] had denied signing the agreement, they would have faced charges and an indictment. The situation described by the lawyer [for Hapoalim managers] leads to the conclusion that the clients of the bank, who are the main culprits, apparently bought their freedom for money,” the final ruling in the case says.

 New York Properties

 The Katsyv family owns more than $17 million in New York real estate alone despite a new US law that says those who benefited from the Magnitsky case cannot enter the country.

 On Nov. 12, 2009, the Katsyv-owned Prevezon Holdings Ltd registered itself as a foreign business corporation in Brooklyn and on Nov. 30 that year Katsyv’s company set up a US business. Two weeks later it signed a deed on a condominium at Pine Street in Manhattan, for $829,000. The same day Prevezon Holding Ltd signed another deed and bought a second condo in the building for $1.2 million. Alexander Litvak, director of Prevezon Holdings Ltd, signed both deeds. 

Leviev's group of companies, Africa Israel-AFI, opened shopping malls all over the world. AFI Palace is the biggest shopping mall in Romania.

The New York State Division of Corporations lists seven companies with names similar to Prevezon Holding Ltd that together own more than $17 million in New York real estate. Property records show that all the similarly named companies are affiliated with the same directors and managers, including Litvak and Krit, current director of Cyprus-based Prevezon. Some also own other New York City properties including five units in a luxury condominium complex at 20 Pine Street in the heart of Wall Street. A number of these are currently for sale for between $1 and $2 million each.

 Katsyv’s businesses are closely tied to another controversial figure: Russian oligarch Lev Leviev.  Leviev and Katsyv’s businesses often trade assets. (see Leviev story)

While the money trail leads to Stepanov and Katsyv, they are not the only persons involved with the Magnitsky money.  The whereabouts of hundreds of millions of dollars still missing lie unlocked in other banking records that are still to be checked.

The story was a cooperative effort of OCCRP, Novaya Gazeta and Barron's.  It was reported by Mihai Munteanu (OCCRP), Roman Anin (OCCRP/Novaya Gazeta) and Bill Alpert (Barron's). It was coordinated by Paul Radu (OCCRP). OCCRP can be reached at info@occrp.org .

Financial advisor denies charges of money laundering some of the proceeds of Northern Bank raid

Prosecution says it will show Ted Cunningham knew or believed £600,000 he dispersed was proceeds of a criminal offence

Ted Cunningham at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday for his trial on money laundering charges. Photograph: Daragh Mac Sweeney/Provision

Barry Roche

The trial opened yesterday of a financial adviser charged with money laundering over £600,000 allegedly part of proceeds of a Northern Bank raid when £26.5 million was stolen in Belfast 10 years ago. Timothy Cunningham(65), Woodbine Lodge, Farran, Co Cork, has denied nine counts of money laundering at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

The state alleges in six of the charges that Mr Cunningham laundered sums of cash in January and February 2005, knowing or believing the cash to be the proceeds of the robbery at the Northern Bank Cash Centre, Donegall Square West in Belfast.

The State alleges in a further three charges that Mr Cunningham laundered sums of cash by using these monies to purchase three cars or vehicles, again knowing or believing the cash to be proceeds of the Northern Bank raid on December 20th, 2004.

Tom O’Connell SC , prosecuting, said the State would produce evidence that Mr Cunningham had “dispersed money in an unconventional or unorthodox way”.

The Northern Bank robbery was a large robbery of cash from the Donegall Square West headquarters ofNorthern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Carried out on 20 December 2004, the gang seized the equivalent of £26.5 million in pounds sterling and small amounts of other currencies, largely euros and US$s. This makes it one of the largest bank robberies in UK history. Although the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and theBritish and Irish governments claimed the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was responsible (or had permitted others to undertake the raid), this is denied by the Provisional IRA and the political party Sinn Féin. Although one person has been convicted of money laundering, the investigation is still ongoing, and the case remains unsolved.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Bank_robbery

On the night of Sunday 19 December 2004, groups of armed men arrived at the homes of two officials of the Northern Bank, one in Downpatrick in County Down, the other in Poleglass, near Belfast. Masquerading as PSNI officers, they entered the homes and held the officials and their families at gunpoint. Bank official Christopher "Chris" Ward was taken from Poleglass to Downpatrick, the home of his supervisor, Kevin McMullan, while gunmen remained at his home with his family. Subsequently, McMullan's wife was taken from their home and held, also at gunpoint, at an unknown location. The following day both officials were instructed to report for work at the bank's headquarters at Belfast's Donegall Square West as normal.

At lunch time on Monday, 20 December 2004, Ward removed a sum of money thought to be around £1 million and placed it in a sports holdall. He walked out of the bank's Wellington Street staff entrance with the holdall and made his way to a bus stop in Queen Street, Belfast where he met up with one of the robbers. This action was later released as a closed circuit video presentation. After handing over the sports holdall with the stolen money, Ward returned to his work location. This was regarded as a test run for the main robbery later in the evening.

McMullan and Ward remained at work after the close of business, and later in the evening they gave entry to other members of the gang. The robbers entered the bank via the Wellington Street staff entrance and made their way to the bank's cash handling and storage facility. This held an unusually large amount of cash in preparation for distribution to automated teller machines for the busy Christmas shopping season. Cash was transferred to one or several vehicles parked outside in Wellington Street. The gang then fled. Shortly before midnight the gang holding the Ward family left, and those holding Mrs McMullan released her in a forest near Ballynahinch. The haul included £10m of uncirculated Northern Bank sterling banknotes, £5.5m of used Northern Bank sterling notes, £4.5m of circulated sterling notes issued by other banks, and small amounts of other currencies, largely eurosand US$s.

Following the raid, Northern Bank announced that it would recall all £300 million worth of its banknotes in denominations of £10 or more, and reissue them in different colours with a new logo and new serial numbers. The first of these new notes entered circulation on 11 March 2005.

Initial responses

Although the police initially refused to be drawn as to who might be involved, a number of commentators, including journalist Kevin Myers writing in the Daily Telegraph, quickly blamed the Provisional IRA, saying that only it had the wherewithal to conduct such a professional operation in the province. One senior police officer quoted in The Guardian newspaper said: "This operation required great expertise and coordination, probably more than the loyalist gangs possess".

Investigations were conducted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. On 7 January 2005 Hugh Orde, the service's Chief Constable, issued an interim report in which he blamed the Provisional IRA for the robbery. The British and Irish governments concurred with Orde's assessment, as did the Independent Monitoring Commission (the body appointed by the Irish and British governments to oversee the Northern Ireland ceasefires). Sinn Féin, however, denied the Chief Constable's claim, saying the IRA had not conducted the raid and that Sinn Féin officials had not known of or sanctioned the robbery.Martin McGuinness said that Orde's accusation represented "nothing more than politically-biased allegations. This is more to do with halting the process of change which Sinn Féin has been driving forward than with anything that happened at the Northern Bank". Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, on the other hand, said that "an operation of this magnitude had obviously been planned at a stage when I was in negotiations with those that would know the leadership of the Provisional movement."

On 18 January 2005 the Provisional IRA issued a two-line statement denying any involvement in the robbery: "The IRA has been accused of involvement in the recent Northern Bank robbery. We were not involved".

Despite this denial of involvement from the Provisional IRA, and others by its supporters, it has been widely believed in Northern Ireland, especially in unionist and loyalist circles, that the raid was the work of the IRA, and intended by them as a means of securing a pension fund for its active service members, who have been largely unemployed since the promulgation of the Good Friday Agreement.

Insurance

At the time of the raid, Northern Bank was owned by National Australia Bank although a deal had been signed to sell the bank to Danske Bank in the following year, 2005. This meant that all the costs of the raid were taken by National Australia Bank and not Northern Bank.

Arrests and investigation developments

10 February

On 10 February the houses of Liam and Michael Donnelly were searched in connection with the robbery but nothing was found on the business premises either.^[11]

17 February

On 17 February the Gardaí announced it had arrested seven people and recovered over £2 million, including £60,000 in Northern Bank notes, during raids in the Cork and Dublin areas, as part of ongoing investigations intomoney laundering. The Gardaí did not officially confirm that the raids were related to the Northern Bank robbery, but made the arrests under the Offences against the State Act, the republic's chief anti-terrorism law. Those arrested are reported to include several men from Derry and a former Sinn Féin councillor. A suspected IRA member was arrested at Heuston Station, along with two others. Money to the sum of €94,000 was found in their vehicle, in a washing powder box.^[13] One of the men, Don Bullman from Co. Cork, was charged on 18 February at the Special Criminal Court with IRA membership. He was jailed for IRA membership but never charged in connection with the Northern Bank robbery.

18 February

On 18 February, Gardaí in Passage West arrested a man found to be attempting to burn sterling banknotes.^[15]Two men in Dublin were released from questioning, as was the Sinn Féin member in Cork.

A top Irish businessman and associate of the Taoiseach, Phil Flynn, stepped down from a number of positions pending the outcome of a Gardaí investigation into Chesterton Finance, of which he is a non-executive director. He stepped down as chairman of a government body overseeing decentralisation, as well as giving up a position on the board of VHI and as chairman of the Bank of Scotland.^[17]

The PSNI recovered £50,000 in unused Northern banknotes at Newforge Country Club, a sports and social club inBelfast for off-duty and retired police officers, owned by the PSNI's Athletic Association. The PSNI stated it was a diversion, but it is being investigated.

19 February

Police confirm the money found at the Newforge Country Club was part of the £26 million from the bank robbery.

October 2005

On 12 October, Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy told a law enforcement conference in Dublin that he was satisfied that the money recovered in Cork in February came from the Northern Bank robbery.

November 2005

On 2 November the PSNI arrested two men in Kilcoo, County Down, as part of a pre-planned operation in connection with the robbery. Sinn Féin's Willie Clarke says that the two arrested are not members of his party.

On 3 November three more people were arrested in Belfast, Dungannon and Coalisland, bringing the total number of people arrested during the operation to five. All five were questioned in the PSNI's Serious Crime Suite in Antrimpolice station. It was reported that in the early hours of the morning, crowds blocked the road betweenCastlewellan and Newry near Kilcoo with burnt-out vehicles. Hugh Orde defended the police action as "proportionate" and gave his full backing to the detectives handling the operation. Sinn Féin MP Michelle Gildernew claimed the raids were a "political stunt".

One of the five arrested during Tuesday and Wednesday has been released. The individual arrested in Dungannon was named as Brian Arthurs, a member of Sinn Féin and brother of Declan Arthurs, an IRA volunteer killed in 1987.

On 7 November, Martin McAliskey, a 42-year-old man from Coalisland, County Tyrone, was charged with making false statements to police in relation to a white Ford Transit van allegedly used in the robbery.

On 29 November police investigating the raid arrested Chris Ward and searched his home. They confirmed that another bank employee, a 23-year-old woman who was not named, was also arrested on the same day.

December 2005

On 2 December PSNI raided Casement Park, the Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in Belfast, and the related Social Club. The GAA reported the matter to the Irish government.

On 7 December, Chris Ward was charged with the robbery. Belfast Magistrates' Court was told the prosecution case was based on Ward's actions in the days preceding and during the raid, and a suspicious work rota, as well as discrepancies in Ward's original statements to police. Ward denied the charge and claimed police had harassed him and his family in an attempt to frame him. He also complained that he had been held in police custody for an unprecedented eight days under the Criminal Justice Act before being charged.

3 January 2007

All charges against Dominic McEvoy and Martin McAliskey are dropped by the Public Prosecution Service. Hugh Orde describes the developments as a setback. Chris Ward is remanded on bail until 31 January, when he will appear before the court again.

October 2007

A date of September 2008 was set for the trial of Chris Ward, in connection with the robbery. He is charged with robbery and two further charges of false imprisonment.

October 2008

On 9 October 2008, Ward was acquitted of the charges of false imprisonment and robbery. The judge discharged him after the prosecution said it would be offering no more evidence.

March 2009

On 27 March, financial adviser Ted Cunningham from Cork was found guilty of laundering over three million pounds sterling which came from the robbery.

May 2012

On 11 May 2012, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the conviction of Ted Cunningham on all ten charges, citing an invalidity of the warrant used to search his house. The invalidity referred to the fact that the warrant was issued by the senior Garda in charge of the investigation, as allowed for by section 29 (1) of the Offences against the State Act, a state of affairs which the Court found to be repugnant to the Constitution of Ireland. The Court ordered a retrial on nine of the ten original counts of money laundering. It directed that the tenth, relating to a sum of money allegedly found in Cunningham's home was not to be retried.

February 2014

Ted Cunningham was given a 5 year suspended sentence having pleaded guilty last week to two counts of money laundering following four days of trial.

International
Monday Newspaper Review - Irish Business News and International Stories
By Finfacts Team
Jul 11, 2005, 06:55

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/printer_10002530.shtml

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It organises business accounts and collaborations with merit.

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We see our future beside you as ideal advisors-associates in the wider sector of the mass media and communication with advanced ideas and technology that surpass customary expectations, offering steady and inalienable services of outstanding quality.

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press clipping agency

InNews SA is actively involved in the press clipping business since 2000. Out core press clipping services includenewspapers monitoring, website monitoring (portals, blogs, forums) and television & radio monitoring.

Newspapers monitoring

Website monitoring (portals, blogs)

Television monitoring

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Local network edition

Exposed ->
Obama’s Brother Malik Obama: Investor For Muslim Brotherhood’s Money!

Report says Malik directs radical Islamic movement’s investments

• Obama’s Kinky Brother Linked To Pedophilia Sex Crime.
• Obama Regime Demands Egypt Release Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi From Prison.
• Rand Paul Supports Obama’s Illegal Aggression In Kiev: The One That Cost Over 100 Lives.
• Obama’s 2014 Iraq Footprint: January 1,840 Dead February 1,700 Dead ~ Hellfire Missile Supplied Drones!

pResident Barack Obama’s polygamist half brother in Kenya Malik Obama has married a woman who is more than 30 years younger than him. The 19-year-old’s mother told The Associated Press on Friday Oct. 15, 2010 she is furious that her daughter quit high school and married the 52-year-old. Malik Obama, who is Muslim, has two other wives. Polygamy is legal in Kenya if it falls under sharia. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

• Hungary Orders Rothschild’s IMF To Vacate The Country: Now Issuing Debt-Free Money!
• Obama Responsible For Over 100 Deaths In Kiev, Ukraine: Invested $5 Billion To Overthrow Government After E.U. Was Rejected By Ukraine.
• CIA, Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr., & Barack Obama Have Been Indicted By The Congressional “Constitutional Task Force” For Crimes Against Humanity!

• BACKFIRE: Ousted Obama Backed Muslim Brotherhood Of Egypt Was To Attack Syria: What The Media Isn’t Telling You About The U.S. Cabal’s Syrian Fomented War!
• U.S. Corporate CIA Is The Biggest Threat To U.S. Citizens Safety: Fomenting Nation State Takeover Through Misinformation Campaigns, Murders, Assassinations, & Greed In Syria August 2013

• ROLLING STONE : ROTHSCHILD CORRUPTION GOES MAINSTREAM
• President Putin To Rothschild Czar David Cameron Of England: Do You Want to Arm People Who Eat The Organs Of Their Enemies?

• New! “Impeachable Offenses” lays out the blueprint for impeaching Barack Obama for crimes against the United States.
• How Did Your Senator Vote To Send 20 F-16′s Fighter Jets & 200 Abram Tanks To The Christian Crucifying Muslim Brotherhood Of Egypt?

• Knives Come Out for U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson …
• 800 Man Mercenary Force Heads To The Middle East: Former CIA Blackwater CEO Billionaire Erik Prince Hires Colombian Military Troops!

• Obama’s 2014 Iraq Footprint: January 1,840 Dead February 1,700 Dead ~ Hellfire Missile Supplied Drones!
• Obama Plans to Annex One-Third Of Iraq Using U.S. CIA al-Qaeda: To Launch Further Attacks Against Syria From Iraq Syrian Border.
• Putting The Middle East Muslims Back To Work: Obama Clears The way For Iraq & Jordan To Sign $18 Billion 1,056 Mile Oil Pipeline Deal ~ Putting Thousands To Work In Middle East.

1. Hungary Orders Rothschild’s IMF To Vacate The Country: Now Issuing Debt-Free Money!
2. Dodd Frank & Basel III Enacted Treason Against The United States: Wealth Funneled Into Rothschild’s [BOE] Bank Of England.
3. The Reckoning: Released Tapes On Rothschild Rockefeller

When Malik Obama and Sarah Obama raised money in the United States as the respective heads of foundations claiming to be charities, not only did the Internal Revenue Service illegally grant one of them tax-deductible status retroactively, but these foundations have supported – to varying degrees – illegal operations that acquire funding for personal gain, philandering, polygamy and the promotion of Wahhabism, the brand of Islam practiced by Al-Qaeda.

Since its founding in 2008, the Barack H. Obama Foundation, operating out of a commercial mail drop in Arlington, Va., has solicited tax-deductible contributions on the Internet, listing addresses and telephone numbers both in the U.S. and Kenya, without disclosing the group lacked an IRS determination letter.

• Breaking => Concerted Effort By Democrats To Eliminate Article 2 Section 1 Clause 5 Of The U.S. Constitution Just Prior To Obama’s Election: Presidents To Be Natural Born Citizens!

• Obama Deceit Sends $1 Billion In Tax Payer’s Cash For CAIR’s Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt: What Obama Does Not Want You To Know!
• Congressman Calls For Purging Military Of Muslims: Taqiyya Part Of Islam’s Doctrine.

• Hillary Clinton Offers $106 Million In U.S. Taxpayer’s Money To Help Boost Muslim Brotherhood Ties!

Related articles

• Obama’s brother linked to Muslim Brotherhood (revivehope.wordpress.com)
• TREASON REPORT: U.S. Met With Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood ~ Granted ‘Direct Access’ To U.S. Taxpayer’s ‘Paper Derivative’ Stimulus Debt. (politicalvelcraft.org)
• Egyptian Official Tahani al-Gebali is Second Source to Claim to Have “Documents & Proof” that Could Send Obama To Prison (freedomoutpost.com)
• Obama Brother’s Leadership Connection in Muslim Brotherhood Exposed(pumabydesign001.com)
• I’m Just Going to Throw These Egypt-Related Links Out There (pjmedia.com)
• Obama’s brother: Muslim Brotherhood leader? (mb50.wordpress.com)
• Banking Cabalist Spokeswoman Janet Napolitano ~ Tags Middle Class Americans As Terrorists: While Her Own President Supplies Mexican Border Terrorists With American Made Firearms! (politicalvelcraft.org)
• Malik Obama half-brother in Kenya linked to Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt(fireandreamitchell.com)