Zarine Kharazian, Author at IELR Blog

Thai Authorities Detain Bahraini Refugee Soccer Player After INTERPOL Red Notice Request

February 6, 2019 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

Hakeem al-Araibi, a 25-year-old refugee soccer player from Bahrain, will remain in a Thai jail for at least two months as he prepares to fight an extradition request from his native country.

Al-Araibi claims the Bahraini government arrested and tortured him in 2012 because of his outspoken criticism of the country’s human rights record. Two years later, al-Araibi was sentenced to ten years in absentia for allegedly vandalizing a police station. He fled to Australia as a refugee in 2017.

In November, al-Araibi boarded a flight to Bangkok, and Australian authorities alerted Thai officials that the soccer player was the subject of an INTERPOL Red Notice issued by Bahrain. Thai police arrested al-Araibi upon his arrival in Bangkok.

Article 3 of INTERPOL’s Constitution expressly prohibits the international police organization from “undertak[ing] any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.” Several authoritarian governments, such as Russia and Turkey, however, have recently come under fire for their abuse of the red notice system as a tool to punish political opponents.

Numerous human rights organizations have criticized the Thai government’s handling of the al-Araibi case. Human Rights Watch has launched a digital campaign called “#SaveHakeem” to encourage athletes and the public to write Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to demand al-Araibi’s release.

For the IELR Blog’s previous coverage on INTERPOL red notice abuse, see here.

OFAC Sanctions Additional Russian Operatives For Cyber Influence Campaign

December 21, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced on Wednesday that it would be imposing a fresh crop of sanctions on Russian operatives for recent cyber-enabled interference. Specifically, OFAC sanctioned the following individuals and entities:

Victor Alekseyevich Boyarkin, a former GRU officer who led negotiations on behalf of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has business ties to Paul Manafort and was designated earlier in the year;
Project Lakhta, a Russian covert influence campaign designed to interfere in electoral systems worldwide (encompasses the Internet Research Agency);
Viktor Borisovich Netyksho (Netyksho), Boris Alekseyevich Antonov (Antonov), Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov (Yermakov), Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev (Lukashev), Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek (Kozachek), Artem Andreyevich Malyshev (Malyshev), Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk (Osadchuk), Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin (Potemkin), and Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev (Kovalev), all GRU officers implicated computer hacking operations related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election; designated purusant to CAATSA Section 224;
Aleksei Morenets (Morenets),Evgenii Serebriakov (Serebriakov), Oleg Sotnikov (Sotnikov), and Alexey Minin (Minin), Russian intelligence officers who targeted the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and other international organizations; and
Alexander Petrov (Petrov) and Ruslan Boshirov (Boshirov), the GRU officers deemed responsible for carrying out the Novichok nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

In a concurrent action, the State Department added a dozen of the designated entities to the List of Specified Persons. Any person deemed to “knowingly engage in a significant transaction” with the any of the dozen individuals will risk CAATSA Section 231 sanctions.

See OFAC’s press release here.

Treasury Imposes Magnitsky Sanctions on 17 People for Alleged Role in Killing of Jamal Khashoggi

November 15, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On Thursday, November 15, 2018,the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against seventeen Saudi officials for their alleged role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The sanctioned individuals are:

ABAHUSSAIN, Mansour Othman M;
ALARIFI, Naif Hassan S.;
ALBALAWI, Fahad Shabib A;
ALBOSTANI, Meshal Saad M;
ALHARBI, Thaar Ghaleb T;
ALHAWSAWI, Abdulaziz Mohammed M;
ALMADANI, Mustafa Mohammed M.;
ALOTAIBI, Badr Lafi M.;
ALOTAIBI, Khalid Aedh G.;
AL-OTAIBI, Mohammad;
ALQAHTANI, Saif Saad Q.;
AL-QAHTANI, Saud;
ALSEHRI, Turki Muserref M.;
ALSEHRI, Waleed Abdullah M.;
ALZAHRANI, Mohammed Saad H.;
MUTREB, Maher Abdulaziz M.; and
TUBAIGY, Salah Muhammed A.

Further identifying information on the designated individuals is available here.

“The Saudi officials we are sanctioning were involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi,” Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a press conference. “These individuals who targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States must face consequences for their actions. The United States continues to diligently work to ascertain all of the facts and will hold accountable each of those we find responsible in order to achieve justice for Khashoggi’s fiancée,children, and the family he leaves behind.”

The sanctions place significant burden on the designated individuals – all seventeen will be included on the SDN list. Any property or interests in property of theirs that passes through U.S. jurisdiction will be blocked. In addition, U.S. entities are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with the designated individuals, or with entities in which they possess more than a 50 percent ownership share.

Human Rights First (HRW), a global coalition of human rights and anti-corruption NGOs, expressed support for the sanctions, but underlined that the Treasury sanctions represent only a minimal first step justice and accountability for the murder of Khashoggi. “The Trump Administration made the right decision to impose sanctions on the 17 named individuals, particularly with respect to Saud Al-Qahtani, a key advisor to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” HRW SeniorVice President for Policy, Rob Berschinski, said. “That said, in failing to sanction the crown prince or members of his inner circle, or taking other actions with respect to Saudi repression at home or its activities in Yemen,the administration isn’t taking a particularly strong stand in terms of accountability.”

U.S. Sits Out Paris Cyber Accord, Along with China, Russia, and North Korea

November 15, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

The United States, along with China, Russia, and Iran, has refused to sign a new cybersecurity pact supported by over 50 countries and a host of technology industry leaders this week.

French President Emmanuel Macron introduced the initiative, called The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, at UNESCO’s annual Internet Governance Forum in Paris on November 12, 2018.

The Terms

The accord’s signatories agree to collaborate in order to:

Prevent and recover from cyber attacks that threaten individuals, institutions, or critical infrastructure;
Prevent activity that attempts to damage the free and fair flow of information on the Internet;
Strengthen capacity to prevent election interference by foreign adversaries through malicious cyber attacks;
Prevent theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets;
Prevent the proliferation of malicious ICT tools;
Fortify the security of digital products and services;
Encourage the adoption of “advanced cyber hygiene”for all actors;
Stop non-State actors from “hacking-back,” and
Promote international norms and confidence-building measures in cyberspace.

While the Paris Call is not legally binding, it nonetheless serves as a symbol of adherence to diplomatic norms and principles in cyberspace. In a post on Microsoft’s blog, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith praised the accord for furthering both state and non-state actors’ commitment to digital peace. “The Paris Call is an important step on the path toward digital peace, creating a stronger foundation for progress ahead,” Smith wrote. “It calls for strong commitments in support of clear principles and strong norms to protect citizens and civilian infrastructure from systemic or indiscriminate cyber attacks. Similarly, it calls for governments, tech companies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to work together to protect our democracies and electoral processes from nation-state cyber threats.”

In Bad Company

The United States’ absence from the agreement is notable – most U.S. allies, including all European member states, signed on to the Paris Call. Most members of the Five Eyes signals intelligence network – the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada – also signed on (Australia and the United States are the exceptions). In addition, more than 200 companies, many of them large multinationals based in the United States as well as NGOs, have also supported it. Among these non-state signatories are Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Accenture, Salesforce, MasterCard, Visa, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and Nestle.

By refusing to sign the Paris Call, the United States finds itself in the company of several repressive regimes, as well as states with active cyberwar programs. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Israel have yet to sign the agreement. The United States has not revealed its reason to abstain from the Call thus far, but also has not ruled out supporting it.

Over a Year after Capture, Trump Administration Frees American ISIS Suspect at the Center of Doe v. Mattis Case

November 2, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

The Trump administration has released the anonymous U.S.-Saudi dual national and alleged ISIS fighter at the heart of the Doe v. Mattis case to a third country, reported to be Bahrain, U.S. officials announced on Monday, October 29. The man’s release comes thirteen months after he was captured by Kurdish military forces in Syria, and turned over to the American military. It also brings an end to a bitter and lengthy court battle that has raised novel substantive and procedural questions about the scope of the executive’s powers in wartime.

The suspect, a “John Doe,” resided in the custody of the U.S. military in Iraq for over a year. U.S. forces initially detained him as an enemy combatant, based on his own declaration that he was an ISIL member, coupled with corroborating evidence. While Doe’s real name and identity have been kept confidential throughout the case, the New York Times identified him on October 29 as Abdulrahman Ahmad Alsheikh, after reviewing an unredacted version of an Islamic State intake form and other public records.

Initially, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on Alsheikh’s behalf in district court. The petition asked that the district court order the government to either charge Doe with a federal crime in a federal court, or to release him, sparking a lengthy court battle and appeals process that seemed headed to the Supreme Court.

At the heart of Doe v. Mattis was a key merits-based question as well as a procedural one. The merits-based question, litigated at the district level, concerned whether the president’s Article II authority and/or the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs) apply to the Islamic State. The procedural question, which made its way to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, concerned the U.S. government’s authority to forcibly transfer Doe to another country (presumed to be Saudi Arabia) while hos habeas petition remains pending.

The release of Alsheikh is the result of a confidential settlement agreement between Alheikh’s counsel from the ACLU and the Trump administration. In a blog post published on the ACLU Blog, Senior Staff Attorney Jonathan Hafetz outlined the agreement as a win for due process rights. “This case demonstrates that the president cannot take away an American’s liberty without due process, showing the continuing importance of judicial review,” Hafetz wrote. “[T]he government cannot render citizens to another country against their will — especially to places where they face further detention or risk to personal safety.”

According to the New York Times, the State Department has canceled Alsheikh’s American passport, but has not revoked his American citizenship.

See the IELR’s prior coverage on the Doe v. Mattis case here.

Head of INTERPOL Resigns, As Bribery Charges Loom in China

October 9, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

Interpol president Meng Hongwei has resigned, according to reports by various news outlets on Sunday, October 7.

The surprise announcement comes just over a week after Meng’s wife reported him missing, after he left France to travel home to China. His wife later reported that the last communication she received with him was a text message containing the knife emoji.

On Monday, October 8, China’s Ministry of Public Security released a statement confirming that Meng had been detained by party authorities upon his arrival in China as part of an anti-corruption probe. According to a translation of the press release by the Associated Press, the Minister of Public Security, Zhao Lezhi, stated that “[w]e should deeply recognize the serious damage that Meng Hongwei’s bribe-taking and suspected violations of the law have caused the party and the cause of public security and deeply learn from this lesson.” The statement also said that Meng’s alleged corruption had “definitely dealt a blow to China’s image.”

China has not released further details on the charges against Meng, and observers suspect they are politically motivated. The Economist noted that the language in the Ministry of Public Security’s statement stressed the need for “absolute loyalty” and “resolute support” to Xi Jinping. It is also worth nothing that, as of April, Meng was apparently no longer a member of the Ministry of Public Security’s party committee.

China has faced ongoing criticism from human rights bodies for its abuse of Interpol’s “red notice” system. In September of last year, Human Rights Watch penned a letter to the international police agency expressing concerns about China’s misuse of the red notice. “In recent years, the Chinese government, against Interpol’s regulations, has tried to control and persecute dissidents and activists abroad by issuing politically motivated red notices through Interpol,” the letter stated.

Mueller Files Superseding Criminal Information Against Paul Manafort

September 14, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On Friday, September 14, 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller filed a superseding criminal information against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The document states that Manafort, along with Richard W. Gates, Konstantin Kilmnik, and others, conspired to act and acted as foreign agents of the Ukrainian government, as well as Victor Yanukovych’s political party, the Party of Regions, and its successor. As a result of his work on behalf of the Ukrainian government, Manafort allegedly generated over 60 million dollars, which he then funneled through various foreign entities in an attempt to obfuscate the source of the funds. Manafort did not register his activities or fees under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), as was required. Instead, when federal investigators inquired about his activities in 2016, he “responded with a series of of false and misleading statements.”

The criminal information demonstrates a greater willingness on the part of the U.S. government to actively prosecute violations of FARA. While FARA has existed since 1938, it has been enforced loosely, and for some periods, not at all, since its enactment.

See the full criminal information below.

388600673-Manafort-Superseding-Doc

Policing Across Continents: How the NYPD Uses a Counterterrorism Initiative to Catch Criminal Fugitives Overseas

September 14, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

James Currie thought he had evaded a citywide manhunt. The New York Police Department had identified Currie, 37, as a prime suspect in a murder investigation after a tourist discovered the dead body of Currie’s seven-month-old infant floating along the East River. Shortly after the discovery of the body, authorities allege, Currie boarded a flight to Abu Dhabi, and eventually to Bangkok.

Less than a week after the baby’s body was discovered, Currie sat under questioning in the interrogation room of the Bangkok airport. His surprise was evident; he reportedly asked Sgt. Edward Lee, the officer in the room with him, how the NYPD got to him so quickly. “That’s just what we do,” Lee replied.[1]

The Growth of the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Apparatus

Currie did not know that the NYPD’s resources and operations extended far beyond New York City’s – and even beyond the United States’ – borders. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the City of New York pledged to develop a dedicated counterterrorism infrastructure. Prior to the attacks, the NYPD’s main involvement in counterterrorism operations consisted of a select few officers collaborating with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) on investigations in the city. At the time, the NYPD’s intelligence division concentrated on diplomatic security.[2]

After 9/11, the NYPD’s counterterrorism operations ramped up dramatically, as increased funding from the state and federal government, as well as private organizations such as the New York City Police Foundation, poured in. With the extra funding, the NYPD formed an in-house Counterterrorism Bureau, and overhauled the existing intelligence division to concentrate on counterterrorism intelligence.

The expanded Intelligence Bureau commanded the cornerstone of the NYPD’s sophisticated counterterrorism apparatus: the newly-established International Liaison Program (ILP). Through the ILP, the Intelligence Bureau embeds police officers and analysts in major cities overseas. Currently, the NYPD is known to have officers in over a dozen major cities, including London, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Paris, and Abu Dhabi.[3] While the ILP was established primarily for counterterrorism purposes, the NYPD has also been using the program to apprehend criminal suspects who had fled New York City in an attempt to escape the NYPD. In Currie’s case, coordination from within the International Liaison program, coupled with cooperation from the Royal Thai Police, with whom the NYPD has a working relationship, ultimately allowed the NYPD to apprehend and detain the suspect upon his arrival in Bangkok.[4]

Stationing City Cops Abroad: The Advantages and Disadvantages

For a global city like New York, there are certainly advantages to having police officers stationed abroad. Lt. John Miedreich, the coordinator of the International Liaison Program, notes that liaising directly with foreign law enforcement, rather than communicating through a federal law enforcement or intelligence agency, streamlines the process. “The intelligence needs of a municipal police department are vastly different than that of a federal agency,” Miedreich told NBC 4. “Actionable intelligence or let’s say a lesson learned in the way of tactics, techniques or procedures of a terrorist … Analyzing these things allows us to implement policies and procedures that can better help protect the city.”[5]

On the night of the deadly terrorist attacks on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris, an NYPD liaison officer working alongside French law enforcement and intelligence officers quickly relayed information to NYPD officials to gauge the threat of another attack in New York City.[6] Meanwhile, over the next several months in Lyon, another NYPD liaison officer working at the INTERPOL headquarters updated colleagues in New York on the risk posed by international fugitives who may travel through New York.[7]

But despite its benefits, the NYPD’s International Liaison Program is not without its detractors. Officials at the FBI and CIA have complained that NYPD detectives posted overseas often confuse and frustrate their foreign law enforcement counterparts when they show up to crime scenes alongside U.S. federal counterterrorism officials. Thomas V. Fuentes, a former head of the FBI’s Office of International Operations, told the Washington Post in 2010 that ILP was a “complete waste of money.”[8] Fuentes argued that NYPD officers lack the proper security clearances and resources to participate in participate in foreign counterterrorism investigations. He recalls a particularly exasperating scene, when, minutes of the 2005 subway bombings, New York detectives raced into the tunnel to meet local investigators at the scene. Upon realizing that the foreign detectives belonged to a municipal police force, rather than a federal agency, the local detectives responded with irritation. “They were going to kick everybody out, including the FBI,” Fuentes recounted. “The American ambassador is calling the FBI — ‘What’s the story? Who are these guys? Are they with you?’ ‘No, they’re independent.’”

The CIA has its own frustrations with the NYPD. Cooperation between the two agencies deepened significantly following the attacks on the World Trade Center. In a later-declassified 2011 internal memo, the CIA officials referenced the agency’s uniquely “close and direct collaboration” with the NYPD, and stated that “[the Office of the Inspector General] is unaware of any similar relationships between the Agency and other local law enforcement entities in the United States.”[9] On more than one occasion, however, the agency has lambasted the NYPD’s involvement in intelligence operations. In 2015, Techdirt cited the following question from a CIA test, obtained as part of a FOIA lawsuit filed by the ACLU:

Information about a U.S. person may be disseminated to elements of the Intelligence Community so that the receiving element may determine if it may retain the information pursuant to its own authorities. Which of the following is not (at least partially) an IC element?

a. National Security Agency (NSA). b. The New York Police Department. The Coast Guard. d. The Department of Energy.

CIA officials have been quoted has making similarly disparaging statements about the NYPD’s foray into counterterrorism and intelligence. In a 2010 interview, an anonymous former CIA officer complained about the coordination problems plaguing the NYPD’s counterterrorism apparatus:

The NYPD officers working for the [Joint Terrorism Task Force] are not talking to the NYPD officers working for the Counter Terrorism Bureau or the Intelligence Unit. If they did, they would lose their jobs. They are all enemies. There is zero sharing of information. They have no contact with each other in terms of collaboration; it does not work well at all.[10]

These sources reveal a stark disparity between the NYPD’s perception of itself and the federal intelligence community’s perception of the police force. The NYPD, for its part, sees itself as the steward of a global financial, cultural, and political capital. As such, it is the force’s prerogative and duty to operate globally. The perception of the NYPD held by FBI and CIA officials, however, is less forbearing. To FBI and CIA officials, the NYPD may possess the largest police force (approximately 40,000 officers) and have the largest budget (4.89 billion)[11] among municipal law enforcement departments in the United States; but in extending its reach so far beyond New York City limits, the force unduly encroaches on and undermines federal authority.

Zarine Kharazian is the Assistant Editor of the International Enforcement Law reporter.

[1] Aaron Katersky, Inside the global manhunt for father accused of dumping his infant in New York’s East River, Abc News, August 13, 2018, https://www.abc15.com/news/national/inside-the-global-manhunt-for-father-accused-of-dumping-his-infant-in-new-yorks-east-river.

[2] Lydia Khalil, Is New York a Counterterrorism Model?, Council on foreign Relations, September 10, 2018, https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/new-york-counterterrorism-model.

[3] “Intelligence,” NYPD Website, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/investigative/intelligence.page, accessed Sept. 14, 2018.

[4] Supra note 1.

[5] Jonathan Dienst, Rich McHugh, Nancy Ing and Michelle Neubert, I-Team: NYPD Embeds Intelligence Officers in 13 Cities Overseas Since 9/11, NBC 4 New York, Nov. 14, 2016, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Stationed-Overseas-Increasing-Global-Terror-Threat-401186455.html.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Jeff Stein, NYPD intelligence detectives go their own way, Washington Post, Nov. 10, 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/11/nypds_foreign_cops_play_outsid.html.

[9] Office of the Inspector General to the CIA, Review of the CIA-NYPD Relationship, Dec. 27, 2011, https://archive.org/details/CIA-NYPD-2011.

[10] As quoted in Ljungkvist, Kristen, The Global City 2.0: From Strategic Site to Global Actor (2015).

[11] Niall McCarthy, How Much Do U.S. Cities Spend Every Year On Policing?, Forbes, Aug. 7, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/08/07/how-much-do-u-s-cities-spend-every-year-on-policing-infographic/#3031bc19e7b7.

UN Investigators Call for Prosecution of Top Myanmar Officials for Genocide

August 30, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On August 27, 2018, the United Nation’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar released its report detailing the human rights abuses and war crimes of Myanmar government and military officials against the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority ethnic group who resided for centuries in the Buddhist-majority country of Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Drawing from over nearly 900 interviews with victims, eyewitnesses, and experts, obtained satellite imagery and photographs, as well as open source material, the Mission highlights a pattern of systemic persecution of the Rohingya over decades, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated principally by the Tamadaw (military) forces. The report makes clear that the violence and persecution against the Rohingya did not begin with the 2012 “clearance operations” orchestrated by the Tamadaw. Rather, the lack of legal status afforded to the Rohingya, coupled with increasingly exclusionary citizenship and political rights have rendered members of the ethnic group “defacto stateless.”

Against the backdrop of the gradual systematic disenfranchisement of the Rohingya, the Mission also alleges that the Myanmar military perpetrated widespread and organized crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Rohingya people. In particular, the report notes:

Myanmar security forces were at least complicit. They often failed to intervene to stop the violence, or actively participated. They injured, killed and tortured Rohingya and destroyed their properties. Witnesses from Sittwe and Kyaukpyu described security forces preventing Rohingya or Kaman from extinguishing houses set on fire by Rakhine, including by gunfire. Witnesses from Maungdaw described security forces shooting indiscriminately at Rohingya and conducting mass arbitrary arrests, including of Rohingya NGO workers. Large groups were transferred to Buthidaung prison, where they faced inhuman conditions and torture. Prisoners were beaten by prison guards and fellow Rakhine detainees, some fatally.

The Mission culminates its report by calling for the “investigation and prosecution” of senior Tatmadaw officials to “determine their liability for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State.” The report also notes that sufficient basis exists to find that the Tatmandaw committed war crimes and crime against humanity against the Royingya. Six senior officials are named as bearing principal responsibility for directing the operations:

Tatmadaw Commander-in-Chief, Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing;
Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Vice Senior-General Soe Win;
Commander, Bureau of Special Operations-3, Lieutenant-General Aung Kyaw Zaw;
Commander, Western Regional Military Command, Major-General Maung Maung Soe;
Commander, 33rd Light Infantry Division, Brigadier-General Aung Aung; and
Commander, 99th Light Infantry Division, Brigadier-General Than Oo.

In Myanmar state media, a spokesperson for the government, U Zaw Htay, denounced the U.N. mission for making “false allegations” of genocidal intent in its report.

You may access the full U.N. report below.

A_HRC_39_64

INCREASING CRIMINAL RISKS OF INTERMEDIARIES FOR CROSS-BORDER FINANCIAL CRIMES: Sept. 10 Webinar, by Bruce Zagaris, 12 PM EST GRC Educators

August 27, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

For more information on this webinar, please visit see: https://www.grceducators.com/Increasing-Criminal-Risks-of-Intermediaries-for-Cross-Border-Financial-Crimes.

In the last couple of decades, the world has experienced growing prosecutions of intermediaries for cross-border financial crimes. A U.S. bank was convicted by a Spanish court for moving money in the Pinochet criminal investigation instead of freezing it. The U.S. and State of New York have brought criminal cases against banks for a variety of financial crimes, especially economic sanctions. The U.S. DOJ has had an Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program for Swiss Banks. The UK Criminal Finance Act of 2017 makes foreign enablers liable for failing to prevent UK tax evasion. The OECD requires tax authorities enforcing the Common Reporting Standard to make intermediaries liable for circumventing the rules. An EU directive requires reporting of aggressive offshore cross-border tax schemes. Increasingly, law enforcement agencies, whether anti-trust, tax, and/or securities enforcement, are entering into new formal and informal enforcement cooperation agreements. Governments and courts increasingly make the liability of entities and executives dependent on prevention and post-conviction monitorships. International organizations and informal groups, such as FATF, the G20, the G7, and the FSF continue to promulgate new due diligence and enforcement requirements for governments.

Please join Bruce Zagaris, Esq., Berliner Corcoran & Rowe LLP, adjunct professor, Texas A&M Law Faculty, author of INTERNATIONAL WHITE COLLAR CRIME: CASES AND MATERIALS (Cambridge U. Press, 2d ed., 2015 ), and editor of the International Enforcement Law Reporter (www.ielr.com) for a discussion of the increasing criminal and enforcement risks of intermediaries, including financial institutions and lawyers, for cross-border crimes.

The program will discuss:

New tax transparency, entity transparency, reporting, and gatekeeper initiatives
Prioritization of corporate/entity liability
Increased prosecution of intermediaries for tax, anti-corruption, and money laundering violations
Increased use of asset forfeiture
Growing criminalization and convergence of tax, money laundering, anti-corruption, and other financial crimes
Increased importance of NGOs, whistleblowers, and the media
Due diligence against enhanced threats of liability

Learning Objective

Learn the international trends to hold intermediaries liable criminally and civilly
Learn what is the extraterritorial nature of many of the national laws
How are international organizations and informal transnational government networks making laws and requiring governments and the private sector to respond
Responses (e.g., improved due diligence by professional associations and firms) required by intermediaries

Topic Background

See the course summary above. In addition, examples of topic developments are: FinCEN Advisories on human rights abuses by corrupt senior political figures; joint settlements by the U.S. and other governments on convictions of Siemens, Odebrecht; joint enforcement cooperation agreements between Brazil and other countries on Odebrecht; the formation by the U.S. and 4 Tax Authorities of the Joint Chiefs of Tax Enforcement (J5); the issuance by the OECD of a document to prevent abuse of Residence and Citizenship by Investment Schemes to Circumvent the CRS; the indictment by the Special Counsel of Agents (Manafort and Gates) for misleading statements on Foreign Agent Registration Act; several Swiss banks and professionals have been convicted for conspiring to help U.S. taxpayers commit tax and related crimes; over 80 Swiss banks participated in the DOJ’s Offshore Voluntary Program for Swiss banks.

Who Should Attend

Compliance officials for financial institutions and related entities
Professionals involved in wealth planning and management
Regulatory and enforcement officials
Academicians involved in international white collar crime law; international law; criminal law; international relations; and criminal justice
Civil servants in international organizations
Lawyers, accountants and other professionals involved in cross-border business