Money Laundering in Costa Rica.

A gentleman from Miami, USA sent an email to me stating that “According to the CIA World Fact book, Costa Rica is the center of money laundering operations for the South American drug cartels”.

But how on earth can this be accurate?

The US dollar is the currency for illegal drugs in our part of the world and the single largest marketplace for illegal drugs continues to be the United States. I’m sure like most countries, money is ‘laundered’ in Costa Rica, nobody knows the exact details but in comparison with how much ‘money laundering’ must be done in the US it’s got to be pretty trivial…

The point of this article is not to condone money laundering but merely to point out that on occasions, the people that complain the most about things are often the ones that need to look at the problems in their own system before they start pushing around other countries to change their evil ways.

1. 1. You may recall, a few years ago it was the Bank of New York that was found to be involved in ‘laundering’ hundreds of millions of dollars for various Russian groups.
   2. It was the Broadway National Bank in New York, that “pleaded guilty to a three-count information charging the bank with failure to file required reports on the $123 million in suspicious cash deposits, failure to implement an anti-money laundering program, and helping to structure $76 million in bulk cash deposits.”
   3. There had been a huge uproar in the international financial press because many of the big Swiss Banks had accepted more than US$700 million from the sons of Nigeria’s dictator Sani Abacha and it may surprise you to see which banks were held responsible for helping the Nigerians to move their money outside the country.
   4. In the ensuing ‘Swiss Federal Banking Commission’ investigation, the following banks were listed as banks that behaved “irreproachably” – Banco del Gottardo, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and Co Bank, Merrill Lynch Bank (Suisse) and UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland).
   5. Investigators found evidence of possible criminal activites by some former employees of Riggs Bank in Washington DC who helped hide accounts for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet with balances of between US$4-US$8 million.

1. In May 2004, Riggs bank was also fined US$25 million by bank regulators for failing to comply with anti-money-laundering laws in it’s dealing with the Saudi Arabian Embassy and the tiny oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea.
2. On 19th December 2005 “U.S. regulators slapped Dutch banking giant ABN Amro with an $80 million fine for violating U.S. money-laundering laws.” The charges involved the North American clearing center at the bank’s New York branch. Where violations were “serious, longstanding and systemic,” the Treasury Department’s financial-crimes-enforcement unit said.
3. On August 6th 2007 American Express Bank International paid $65 million to the department of the Treasury after being charged with a “with a single count of failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program.”
4. In New Jersey in late 2009, even Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, Rabbi Edmund Nahum, Rabbi Saul Kassin, Rabbi Mordchai Fish and Rabbi Lavel Schwartz were caught laundering money for a 10-15% cut.
5. On the 25th August 2010: “The drug traffickers and their Colombian suppliers smuggle $20 billion to $25 billion in U.S. bank notes across the southwest border annually as they seek to circumvent banking regulations and the suspicions aroused by large cash deposits, studies by federal officials, regulators and academics show.”
6. In March 2010 Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. “Wachovia paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine. More shocking, and more important, the bank was sanctioned for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering strictures to the transfer of $378.4bn — a sum equivalent to one-third of Mexico’s gross national product — into dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business.” Journalist Daniel Hopsicker investigated and says that: “An incredible $378 billion dollars had been laundered through Wachovia Bank whose money origins, according to U.S. prosecutors, were murky.”

Martin Woods of Hermes Forensic Solutions used to be a senior anti-money laundering officer at the London office of Wachovia Bank and prior to that he served with the Metropolitan police. “New York and London,” says Woods, “have become the world’s two biggest laundries of criminal and drug money, and offshore tax havens. Not the Cayman Islands, not the Isle of Man or Jersey. The big laundering is right through the City of London and Wall Street.

So as you can clearly see, some of these names are well known financial institutions and some experts suggest that more money is laundered through New York and London than any of the so called offshore financial centers and certainly way more than in Costa Rica.

Since more legal and illegal drugs are sold and consumed in the US than any other country in the world, perhaps we should be asking what other US and British financial institutions are helping these drug dealers with their finances?

Catherine Austin Fitts, a past Managing Director of Dillon Read, a Wall Street investment bank and former Assistant Secretary, HUD said on video that: “The Department of Justice estimates that the United States is the leader in laundering organized crime profits of about $500 billion to a trillion dollars per year.”

• Which US banks in US cities are helping the Russians, Colombians, Mexicans and other drug dealing scumbags to invest their ill gotten gains and to transfer their US dollar drug money out of the USA?
• Which US immigration officials at the US borders inadvertently allow cars and trucks loaded with “$20 billion to $25 billion in U.S. bank notes” to drive across the border into Mexico?

After delving into the facts and figures for no more than fifteen minutes, with US$700 million ‘here’ and US$378 billion ‘there’ before you know it, you’re talking about ‘serious’ money.

All of this can lead to one inescapable conclusion, that Costa Rica does have it’s problems but, the USA is undoubtedly the money laundering centre for the South American drug cartels and every other major illegal drug producing nation because that’s where the largest number of illegal drug users are located!

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.