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-----
Money Laundering
Israel Caves In to Big Brother FATF
There goes the diamond trade.
Legislators are putting the final touches to a draft law that could stop
Israel from providing a safe haven for money laundering in drugs, diamonds,
prostitution and intellectual property rights.
The bill, which will be presented to the Knesset (parliament) for its final
reading next week, coincides with a report by the Financial Action Task
Force. The taskforce last week named Israel among several countries that were
not co-operating with international efforts to combat money laundering.
Stuart Eizenstat, US deputy treasury secretary, who was in Israel this week,
said cracking down on money laundering required more transparency in the
financial system and would help provide "a more inviting environment" for
foreign investment. Once the law was passed, Mr Eizenstat said, the US would
lobby the taskforce to remove Israel from its list of non-compliant
countries. "I hope we can get the bill on the statute books by the end of
this legislative period," said Tzippi Livni, head of the justice sub-committe
which drew up the bill.
The law will for the first time make money laundering a criminal offence,
giving powers to the justice ministry to impose heavy fines and prison
sentences of up to 10 years for anyone charged with using property as a cover
for money laundering.
It will also oblige banks to report to the justice ministry any cash deposits
of more than Shk200,000 ($49,000) or unusual currency transactions.
The police authorities said the law was long overdue. "At the moment, we have
a wonderful country for money laundering," said Yossi Sedbon, head of the
criminal investigation department in the police ministry.
He estimated Israel's money laundering industry, which also involved
gambling, fraud and stolen property, was worth "billions of dollars". Theft
of intellectual property - which independently has been a bone of contention
between Israel and the US - amounted to an annual $100m.
Besides the absence of legislation, Mr Sedbon said Israel was an attractive
place for money launderers because of the ease for Jews in acquiring an
Israeli passport. Under the Law of Return, any Jew can claim Israeli
nationality and a passport. "In many cases, with such a passport you don't
need visas to travel abroad." In addition, Israel makes it very difficult for
other countries to extradite Israeli citizens.
Support for the legislation has not been unanimous. Some of the banks fear
they could lose clients, while others are cautious about more transparency.
"As a concept, we welcome the legislation," said Freddy Wieder, head of
Israel's Association of Banks. "What concerned me was striking a balance
between the legitimate needs of society, such as protecting the privacy of
the citizen, and fighting black money."
However, the Bank of Israel, the central bank, has been acutely sensitive to
black money entering the banking sector.
It blocked attempts by several Russian businessmen to establish banks in
Israel during the 1990s, suspecting they might be conduits for money
laundering.
The Financial Times, June 30, 2000
Money Laundering
Russian Orthodox Church Supports Underground Economy
God helps them who help themselves.
RUSSIA'S Orthodox Church is a "gigantic corporation" tainted with the vices
of the country's shadow economy, from bribery and corruption to
money-laundering and tax evasion, says the first serious study of its
finances.
Exploiting its privileged status in the new Russia, the Church has developed
huge business interests with an annual turnover of millions and possibly
billions of pounds, but priests in rural parishes are languishing in poverty,
the report claims. Researchers from a Moscow university say that the Church
is "a grandiose offshore zone with its own independent financial and
manufacturing activity and huge potential for money-laundering by the
economy's shadow and criminal sectors".
The world's largest Orthodox Church publishes no accounts but, directly or
through opaque investments, has been and may still be involved in oil
exports, importing cigarettes and diamond mining, their study says. Its
impenetrable finances and exemptions from many taxes and duties encourage
corruption inside the church and attract criminals from outside, the report
by Moscow's Centre for Research on Extralegal Economic Systems concludes.
Criminal money can be laundered simply by being donated to a monastery which
then hands it back after taking a cut itself, one priest interviewed for the
report discloses. Criminals also use the Church's freedom from paying excise
on the sale of gold ornaments to avoid the state's scrutiny of the precious
metal business, another says.
Within the Church, bribes are paid to secure livings in wealthy parishes and
humanitarian aid is regularly misappropriated by senior clerics, says the
report. The Moscow Patriarchate refused to comment on the study's findings
yesterday. In the past, its head, Patriarch Aleksiy II, has sent conflicting
signals on the issue of the Church's financial activity.
In the mid-Nineties, at the height of the Church's involvement in importing
cigarettes to Russia duty-free he is known to have given a dinner for
executives from the tobacco giant, Philip Morris, at his residence. Commerce
and the Church are "incompatible", he has said. But in a recent interview to
mark the tenth anniversary of his enthronement he defended its commercial
dealings, saying they guaranteed its independence from big business.
The Church's business interests were "demonised" by "convinced atheists and
haters of Orthodoxy", he added.
The London Telegraph, June 30, 2000
-----
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