Money Laundering? Samantha from DUNES......

[Jeff]

Great Article!

Bank of Nevis

etc.etc.etc.

http://www.bettorsworld.com/bstuff/dunes.html

[Underdog7]

The very first day I spoke with Samantha, I knew she was not just smart but sounded like a "genius". I'm not trying to put anyone down who is connected with offshores but you sounded like you are more intelligent person compared to what you do. That was a great article. Keep it coming.

[sportsbank]

Nice article Samantha. Fascinating topic.

Sportsbank.

[intheknow]

great article,
One question
If the Bank of Nevis is under the microscope because of the amount of off-shore books that bank there, why isn't Antiqua on this list? The number of books and amounts of money in and out of their banks dwarfs St. Kitts, Nevis.

[Dunes Sports]

I apologize for not addressing Antigua in my article. Actually, they had been added to the list in April of 1999. I will do some research on this because there were a few articles written last fall concerning Antigua's renewed interest in being removed from the list. I will keep everyone posted and am working on an article that more closely focuses on the effect the FATF is having on the gaming industry.

Thanks for the comments on my article, I appreciate them and hope to provide useful information in the future as well!

Samantha
Dunes Sports

[Tom0Co]

Antigua and Barbuda recently (6/22) passed the FATF test, however they remain on the “Tax Haven” listing which is not that significant an issue as the non-cooperative list.

[jakester]

As for the Antigua bank dwarfing Nevis.....thats a pretty bold statement. First, the Antigua banks only accept accounts from sportsbooks in Antigua....last time I checked there are no books in Nevis and 3 or 4 in St Kitts. The Bank of Nevis takes accounts from sportsbooks all over the Caribbean and Latin America. Thus, the reason they are under the microscopic knife....

[Chillin-the-Most]

They must rest assured that the knife they are under is so small.

[intheknow]

The bold statement is true only because of the online casinos. Nevis doesn't have that many on-line casinos operating there. While they do allow anybody to use their banks, they don't allow just anyone to operate an on-line casino from there. Antigua has a staggering amount of on-line casinos banking and during business on the island.

[jakester]

ITK,

You have to remember, Antigua vs. the rest of the world.....not even in the same ballpark, let alone the same league.

[intheknow]

Jakester,
Your right, but I was alluding to the fact that in attracting attention to itself because of off-shore transactions to and from sportsbooks, Antigua conducts far more business than Nevis. And that being the case, why would Nevis attract the US govt's attention and not Antigua?

[Tom0Co]

Intheknow, it’s because Antigua has passed the FATF’s 40 Recommendation Test

Part of the FATF 24 page report, 6/22/00 http://www.oecd.org/fatf/pdf/NCCT2000-en.pdf

St. Kitts and Nevis
57. St. Kitts and Nevis meets criteria 1-13, 15-19, 23 and 25. Money laundering is a
crime only as it relates to narcotics trafficking. There is no requirement to report suspicious transactions. Most of the other failings relate to Nevis, which constitutes the only significant financial centre of the federation. The Nevis offshore sector is effectively unsupervised, and there are no requirements in place to ensure financial institutions to follow procedures or practices to prevent or detect money laundering. Non-residents of Nevis are allowed under law to own and operate an offshore bank without any requirement of identification. Strong bank secrecy laws prevent access to information about offshore bank account holder, apparently even in some criminal proceedings. Company law provisions outline additional obstacles to customer identification and international co-operation: limited liability companies may be formed without registration of their owners and there can be no mutual legal assistance or international judicial co-operation (notwithstanding a treaty or convention) with respect to legal action against an international trust, or a settlor, trustee, protector, or beneficiary of such trust.

The criteria numbers above refer to the FATF Forty Recommendations http://www.oecd.org/fatf/recommendations.htm

The Recommendations failed by St. Kitts-Nevis:

14. Financial institutions should pay special attention to all complex, unusual large transactions, and all unusual patterns of transactions, which have no apparent economic or visible lawful purpose. The background and purpose of such transactions should, as far as possible, be examined, the findings established in writing, and be available to help supervisors, auditors and law enforcement agencies.

20. Financial institutions should ensure that the principles mentioned above are also applied to branches and majority owned subsidiaries located abroad, especially in countries which do not or insufficiently apply these Recommendations, to the extent that local applicable laws and regulations permit. When local applicable laws and regulations prohibit this implementation, competent authorities in the country of the mother institution should be informed by the financial institutions that they cannot apply these Recommendations.

21. Financial institutions should give special attention to business relations and transactions with persons, including companies and financial institutions, from countries which do not or insufficiently apply these Recommendations. Whenever these transactions have no apparent economic or visible lawful purpose, their background and purpose should, as far as possible, be examined, the findings established in writing, and be available to help supervisors, auditors and law enforcement agencies.

22. Countries should consider implementing feasible measures to detect or monitor the physical cross-border transportation of cash and bearer negotiable instruments, subject to strict safeguards to ensure proper use of information and without impeding in any way the freedom of capital movements.

24. Countries should further encourage in general the development of modern and secure techniques of money management, including increased use of checks, payment cards, direct deposit of salary checks, and book entry recording of securities, as a means to encourage the replacement of cash transfers.
26. The competent authorities supervising banks or other financial institutions or intermediaries, or other competent authorities, should ensure that the supervised institutions have adequate programs to guard against money laundering. These authorities should co-operate and lend expertise spontaneously or on request with other domestic judicial or law enforcement authorities in money laundering investigations and prosecutions.

27. Competent authorities should be designated to ensure an effective implementation of all these Recommendations, through administrative supervision and regulation, in other professions dealing with cash as defined by each country.

28. The competent authorities should establish guidelines which will assist financial institutions in detecting suspicious patterns of behaviour by their customers. It is understood that such guidelines must develop over time, and will never be exhaustive. It is further understood that such guidelines will primarily serve as an educational tool for financial institutions' personnel.

29. The competent authorities regulating or supervising financial institutions should take the necessary legal or regulatory measures to guard against control or acquisition of a significant participation in financial institutions by criminals or their confederates.

30. National administrations should consider recording, at least in the aggregate, international flows of cash in whatever currency, so that estimates can be made of cash flows and reflows from various sources abroad, when this is combined with central bank information. Such information should be made available to the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements to facilitate international studies.

31. International competent authorities, perhaps Interpol and the World Customs Organisation, should be given responsibility for gathering and disseminating information to competent authorities about the latest developments in money laundering and money laundering techniques. Central banks and bank regulators could do the same on their network. National authorities in various spheres, in consultation with trade associations, could then disseminate this to financial institutions in individual countries.

32. Each country should make efforts to improve a spontaneous or "upon request" international information exchange relating to suspicious transactions, persons and corporations involved in those transactions between competent authorities. Strict safeguards should be established to ensure that this exchange of information is consistent with national and international provisions on privacy and data protection.

33. Countries should try to ensure, on a bilateral or multilateral basis, that different knowledge standards in national definitions - i.e. different standards concerning the intentional element of the infraction - do not affect the ability or willingness of countries to provide each other with mutual legal assistance.

34. International co-operation should be supported by a network of bilateral and multilateral agreements and arrangements based on generally shared legal concepts with the aim of providing practical measures to affect the widest possible range of mutual assistance.

35. Countries should be encouraged to ratify and implement relevant international conventions on money laundering such as the 1990 Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime.

36. Co-operative investigations among countries' appropriate competent authorities should be encouraged. One valid and effective investigative technique in this respect is controlled delivery related to assets known or suspected to be the proceeds of crime. Countries are encouraged to support this technique, where possible.

37. There should be procedures for mutual assistance in criminal matters regarding the use of compulsory measures including the production of records by financial institutions and other persons, the search of persons and premises, seizure and obtaining of evidence for use in money laundering investigations and prosecutions and in related actions in foreign jurisdictions.

38. There should be authority to take expeditious action in response to requests by foreign countries to identify, freeze, seize and confiscate proceeds or other property of corresponding value to such proceeds, based on money laundering or the crimes underlying the laundering activity. There should also be arrangements for coordinating seizure and confiscation proceedings which may include the sharing of confiscated assets.

39. To avoid conflicts of jurisdiction, consideration should be given to devising and applying mechanisms for determining the best venue for prosecution of defendants in the interests of justice in cases that are subject to prosecution in more than one country. Similarly, there should be arrangements for coordinating seizure and confiscation proceedings which may include the sharing of confiscated assets.

40. Countries should have procedures in place to extradite, where possible, individuals charged with a money laundering offence or related offences. With respect to its national legal system, each country should recognise money laundering as an extraditable offence. Subject to their legal frameworks, countries may consider simplifying extradition by allowing direct transmission of extradition requests between appropriate ministries, extraditing persons based only on warrants of arrests or judgements, extraditing their nationals, and/or introducing a simplified extradition of consenting persons who waive formal extradition proceedings.

[intheknow]

I understand that, and have since that report. None of that applies to the business we as books do in Nevis. We would not have any problem with Nevis complying with the FATF. In fact we hope they do, so we can continue our relationship. The point I was addressing was the one stating that Nevis has garnered attention because of the amount of transactions performed by off-shore books.
I don't believe that to be the case. If so, then my rationale is that Antigua would attract the attention not Nevis.
I'm not looking for an agrument, maybe just an amen from the congregation.

[Tom0Co]

Not sure what point you're trying to make.

Think the FATF gave equal attention to Antigua and Nevis as well as other countries. Difference is Antigua passed and Nevis didn't. Due to Nevis not passing they've come to the forefront with the other non-cooperatives. Bank of Nevis went from a small-time startup in '85 to a sizeable offshore and to be sure they've had to have growing problems as a result, which in part may account for some of their non-compliance. However glancing at their web-site, http://www.nevisweb.kn/nevbank.html they state the following, "We also offer US $ interest bearing accounts for those interested in Offshore Deposit. Naturally our banking is highly confidential." Perhaps they really don't want to comply.

[Segundo]

I agree with you intheknow, and I also want to add that drug cartels all over the world are the ones responsible for these laws and the G-7 coming down hard on these banks. These laws were being drafted before anyone even heard of offshore gaming. When was the last time that a drug cartel from Colombia or Russia was allowed to apply for a business license in Antigua, get phone lines and/or set up an effective pay and collect center with it's clients?

I think these big offshores should go the extra step and start making their financial information public. Start investing any extra money in a safe money market fund or something on those lines. What about Sportingbet in England? They are on the British exchange, no? Why can't say a WWTS change ownership to some limey, offer shares on the exchange and get away from the mobsters in the Carribbean?

From what I hear, Costa Rica is fast becoming a sleeping ground for some really shady characters, mobsters from all over the USA, and this does not look good for the WWTS's and Olympic's of the world when your name comes accross Janet Reno's desk every morning right next to Louie Sanchetti (fictitious name, I made it up) the drug, murder and prostitute king of Jersey City or wherever. Just some minor rants here.