1,000 Britons were arrested for drug-related offences abroad last year, figures show.
The 944 arrests accounted for a seventh of all arrests of British nationals abroad in the period of April 2009 to March 2010, the Foreign Office said.
Drugs contributed to more than a third of total arrests of Britons in France and more than a quarter in Ireland, Italy and Thailand.
Hassan Nemazee Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to 12 Years in Prison for Orchestrating $292 Million Fraud Scheme.
PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and GEORGE VENIZELOS, the Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), announced today that former political fundraiser HASSAN NEMAZEE was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to 144 months in prison for defrauding Bank of America, N.A. ("BofA"), Citibank, N.A. ("Citibank"), and HSBC Bank USA, N.A. ("HSBC"), out of $292 million in loan proceeds. In addition to the prison term, United States District Judge SIDNEY H. STEIN, who imposed the sentence, ordered NEMAZEE to pay restitution of more than $292 million to the defrauded banks and to serve three years of supervised release.
According to the superseding Information to which NEMAZEE pled guilty, documents filed in court, and statements made during the guilty plea and sentencing proceedings:
From 1998 to 2009, NEMAZEE obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from BofA, Citibank, and HSBC. To obtain the loans, NEMAZEE misrepresented to the banks that he owned hundreds of millions of dollars in collateral, in the form of securities and other assets, which he did not own. In fact, NEMAZEE used fake documents, including bogus account statements, to show his supposed ownership of the collateral. The documents also contained forged signatures of persons associated with Westminster Securities Corporation ("Westminster"), the brokerage firm at which NEMAZEE claimed to hold these assets, as well as Westminster's clearing firm, Pershing LLC ("Pershing").
The fake account statements and other documents that NEMAZEE provided also contained telephone numbers, supposedly for Westminster and Pershing, which were in fact assigned to "virtual offices" that NEMAZEE himself had established or to a cellphone that NEMAZEE himself had obtained. NEMAZEE created at least two "virtual offices" in Manhattan that held themselves out, at his direction, as being associated with Westminster and Pershing.
One of the loans from BofA, a $100 million line of credit, was guaranteed by NEMAZEE's longtime friend and business associate, who pledged a multimillion-dollar home in Colorado as collateral on the loan, not knowing that the collateral that NEMAZEE was pledging did not exist. As of August 2009, NEMAZEE owed approximately $142 million to BofA and $74.9 million to Citibank.
In August 2009—when Citibank began to ask questions in order to verify the existence of the purported collateral that NEMAZEE had pledged for the Citibank loan, and after special agents of the FBI had interviewed NEMAZEE about the Citibank loan—NEMAZEE drew down on a line of credit that he had fraudulently obtained from HSBC earlier in 2009 and used those funds to pay Citibank the $74.9 million that he owed.
NEMAZEE was able to continue the fraud for longer than a decade by, among other things, making partial repayments on his borrowings from BofA with proceeds of his fraud on Citibank and making partial repayments on his borrowings from Citibank with proceeds of his fraud on BofA.
NEMAZEE used the proceeds of his fraudulent schemes to, among other things: purchase an apartment and land in Italy; make monthly maintenance payments on a Park Avenue apartment; pay for the upkeep of a 12-acre property in Katonah, New York; purchase partial interests in a private plane and a luxury yacht; make personal donations to the election campaigns of federal, state, and local candidates, political action committees, and charities; and make various other investments.
NEMAZEE also used his political donations to enhance his reputation and standing in political circles. In 2009, NEMAZEE unsuccessfully attempted to capitalize on that standing by seeking nomination to a Cabinet-level position, all the while engaged in the fraud for which he was sentenced. NEMAZEE had previously been nominated as United States Ambassador to Argentina in 1999, but his nomination was withdrawn.
As part of the sentence, Judge STEIN also ordered NEMAZEE to forfeit various real properties, corporate entities, hedge funds, securities accounts, and bank accounts, including his interests in: an apartment in Rome, Italy; property in Puglia, Italy; the luxury yacht and private plane; various Manhattan apartments, including the one located on Park Avenue; the Katonah, New York estate; and various privately- and publicly-held companies.
In sentencing NEMAZEE, Judge STEIN described his fraud as "breathtaking in its brazenness and its scope."
NEMAZEE, 60, of Manhattan, was ordered to surrender on August 27, 2010.
NEMAZEE's brother-in-law, SHAHIN KASHANCHI, 47, of Telluride, Colorado, is separately charged in an Indictment with aiding and abetting NEMAZEE's bank fraud by manufacturing the fake account statements and other documents that NEMAZEE used to defraud BofA, Citibank, and HSBC. KASHANCHI’s case is pending in Manhattan federal court. The charge and allegations contained in the Indictment charging KASHANCHI are merely accusations, and KASHANCHI is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Mr. BHARARA praised the investigative work of the FBI. Mr. BHARARA also thanked BofA, Citibank, HSBC, and Pershing for their assistance in the investigation.
U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA stated: "For over a decade, HASSAN NEMAZEE authored a fantastic fiction, stealing $292 million by acting the part of wealthy and influential power broker. In the end, Justice is blind to political affiliations and powerful connections, and today, like any other defendant, NEMAZEE faces the stark consequences of his decision to violate the law."
GEORGE VENIZELOS, the Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the FBI, stated: "NEMAZEE lived like a prince, with palatial properties on two continents. But he financed this lavish lifestyle with hundreds of millions in fraudulently obtained loans, so his empire was really a house of cards. The FBI remains determined to stop those who steal from banks through deceit and trickery."
This case was brought in coordination with President BARACK OBAMA's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, on which Mr. BHARARA serves as a Co-Chair of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Working Group. President OBAMA established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.
The case is being handled by the Office's Complex Frauds and Asset Forfeiture Units. Assistant United States Attorneys DANIEL W. LEVY and MICHAEL D. LOCKARD are in charge of the prosecution.
AFP: L'Oreal billionaire fraud trial to begin: "celebrity photographer goes on trial Thursday accused of cheating the ageing heiress of the L'Oreal cosmetics empire Liliane Bettencourt out of a billion euros.
The bitter battle over the family's fortune has been complicated by a separate tax evasion scandal that hit Bettencourt this month, implicating Labour Minister Eric Woerth and embarrassing Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
The trial was due to start at 9:30 am (0730 GMT) at a court in Nanterre, west of Paris, and run to July 6, but was likely to be immediately postponed after lawyers agreed to seek an adjournment to study evidence in the tax case.
Thursday's trial pits the photographer and socialite Francois-Marie Banier, against Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, the daughter of 87-year-old Liliane, France's richest woman.
Banier, dubbed 'photographer to the stars' after shooting the likes of US actor Johnny Depp and Princess Caroline of Monaco, became close friends with Bettencourt after meeting her at a dinner party in 1969."
AFP: US grand jury indicts van der Sloot on wire fraud, extortion: "US grand jury in the southern state of Alabama on Wednesday indicted Dutch murder suspect Joran van der Sloot on charges of wire fraud and extortion, the Department of Justice said.
Van der Sloot, 22, is being held in Peru on charges of murder in the death last month of a Peruvian woman, but he is also the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance in Aruba of 18-year-old American Natalee Holloway, who was from Alabama.
The grand jury indictment, filed in US District Court, charges van der Sloot with soliciting 250,000 from Holloway's mother on the promise that he would reveal to her the location of her daughter's missing remains on the Caribbean island, as well as the circumstances of her death.
According to the Justice Department, the indictment said van der Sloot caused Beth Holloway to wire 15,000 dollars from her bank to his account in the Netherlands, and another 10,000 to a lawyer in New York who would personally take the money to Van der Sloot in Aruba.
'Once identification of the remains was confirmed, Beth Holloway was to pay the remaining 225,000 dollars to van der Sloot,' the Justice Department said in a statement."
BBC News - South Korea professor charged over 'holy water' fraud: "Prof Kim, claimed he could digitally capture the elements of holy water from Lourdes, France, that believers say has healing powers.
He had sold devices to more than 5,000 people, making almost 1.7bn won ($1.3m, £870,000).
Eight people, including Prof Kim's wife and brother-in-law, will also be charged.
The famous shrine to the Virgin Mary at Lourdes offers water which some believe has healing powers.
Mr Kim had claimed his ceramic and paper filters, and plastic cards used in water purifiers, had captured those powers for onward transmission.
He and his associates allegedly told customers that different devices cured different illnesses, including diabetes and tumours."
Cyprus Arrests Man in Connection With U.S. Spy Case - BusinessWeek: "Cyprus police arrested a Canadian man on an international arrest warrant in connection with U.S. espionage and money-laundering charges involving a Russian spy ring.
A man identified by police as Robert Christopher Metsos was arrested at the Larnaca International Airport, a spokesman for the Larnaca police department, who declined to be identified, said today. Metsos surrendered his travel documents and was released on bail of 20,000 euros ($24,000).
U.S. authorities yesterday arrested 10 people for allegedly spying for the Russian Federation in the U.S., the Justice Department said in an e-mailed statement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation yesterday said Christopher R. Metsos, a purported Canadian citizen, was an agent of the Russian espionage agency and traveled to the U.S. to pay others in the alleged spy ring."
Were spy arrests the result of an FBI bungle? | Washington Examiner: "What explains the timing of the bust of the Russian spy ring just four days after Barack Obama’s “cheeseburger summit” with Dmitry Medvedev?
“Many Russian officials and analysts,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “said they presumed that hawkish elements within the U.S. government had engineered and timed the arrests to embarrass President Obama and undermine the ‘reset’” that the American president had set in motion.
Are the Russians right? American officials have thus far explained the timing by pointing to the possibility that one of the alleged spies, Anna Chapman, was planning to flee the country"
Accused Canadian in US-Russia Spy Case Goes Missing in Cyprus | USA | English: "One of 11 suspects accused by the United States of spying for Russia has gone missing in Cyprus after being released on bail.
Cypriot police say Canadian suspect Christopher Robert Metsos failed to show up Wednesday at a police station in the city of Larnaca, where he was expected to sign in.
Police said they were preparing to issue an arrest warrant.
Metsos was the 11th suspect named after U.S. authorities announced the arrests of 10 people accused of carrying out long-term, deep-cover assignments in the United States for the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday it does not expect the arrests to damage relations with Washington."
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