{"id":33791,"date":"2020-09-22T13:05:54","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T11:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/?p=33791"},"modified":"2026-06-10T07:13:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T05:13:26","slug":"global-banks-defy-u-s-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/stories\/fincen-files\/global-banks-defy-u-s-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists\/","title":{"rendered":"Global banks defy U.S. crackdowns by serving oligarchs, criminals and terrorists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Secret U.S. government documents reveal that JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and other big banks have defied money laundering crackdowns by moving staggering sums of illicit cash for shadowy characters and criminal networks that have spread chaos and undermined democracy around the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The records show that five global banks \u2014 JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon \u2014 kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">U.S. agencies responsible for enforcing money laundering laws rarely prosecute megabanks that break the law, and the actions authorities do take barely ripple the flood of plundered money that washes through the international financial system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In some cases the banks kept moving illicit funds even after U.S. officials warned them they\u2019d face criminal prosecutions if they didn\u2019t stop doing business with mobsters, fraudsters or corrupt regimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">JPMorgan, the largest bank based in the United States, moved money for people and companies tied to the massive looting of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=Jho-Low\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">public funds in Malaysia<\/a>, Venezuela and Ukraine, the leaked documents reveal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The bank moved more than $1 billion for the fugitive financier behind Malaysia\u2019s 1MDB scandal, the records show, and more than $2 million for a young energy mogul\u2019s company that has been accused of cheating Venezuela\u2019s government and helping cause electrical blackouts that crippled large parts of the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">JPMorgan also processed more than $50 million in payments over a decade, the records show, for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=Paul-Manafort\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paul Manafort<\/a>, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump. The bank shuttled at least $6.9 million in Manafort transactions in the 14 months after he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/08\/paul-manafort-resigns-from-trump-campaign-227197\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">resigned<\/a> from the campaign amid a swirl of money laundering and corruption allegations spawning from his work with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<button onclick=\"window.open('https:\/\/www.ostro.si\/si\/zgodbe\/fincenfiles-milijarde-dolarjev-neovirano-skozi-svehttps:\/\/www.ostro.si\/tovne-banke', '_blank')\">\nFinCEN FIles: stories in slovene\n<\/button>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Tainted transactions continued to surge through accounts at JPMorgan despite the bank\u2019s promises to improve its money laundering controls as part of settlements it reached with U.S. authorities in 2011, 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In response to questions for this story, JPMorgan said it was legally prohibited from discussing clients or transactions. It said it has taken a \u201cleadership role\u201d in pursuing \u201cproactive intelligence-led investigations\u201d and developing \u201cinnovative techniques to help combat financial crime.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon also continued to wave through suspect payments despite similar promises to government authorities, the secret documents show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The leaked documents, known as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FinCEN Files<\/a>, include more than 2,100 suspicious activity reports filed by banks and other financial firms with the U.S. Department of Treasury\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fincen.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Financial Crimes Enforcement Network<\/a>. The agency, known in shorthand as FinCEN, is an intelligence unit at the heart of the global system to fight money laundering. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/fincen-files\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BuzzFeed News<\/a> obtained the records and shared them with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">International Consortium of Investigative Journalists<\/a>. ICIJ organized a team of more than 400 journalists from 110 news organizations in 88 countries to investigate the world of banks and money laundering. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In all, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/mining-sars-data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ICIJ analysis<\/a> found, the documents identify more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions\u2019 internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity \u2014 including $514 billion at JPMorgan and $1.3 trillion at Deutsche Bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/suspicious-activity-reports-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Suspicious activity reports<\/a> reflect the concerns of watchdogs within banks and are not necessarily evidence of criminal conduct or other wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<br\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image odmik-right\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-11-1024x683.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8028\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.499277171770272;width:614px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-11-1024x683.webp 1024w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-11-600x400.webp 600w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-11-300x200.webp 300w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-11-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-11-1536x1024.webp 1536w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-11-2048x1366.webp 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">FinCEN headquarters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Though a vast amount, the $2 trillion in suspicious transactions identified within this set of documents is just a drop in a far larger flood of dirty money gushing through banks around the world. The<a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> FinCEN Files<\/a> represent less than 0.02% of the more than 12 million suspicious activity reports that financial institutions filed with FinCEN between 2011 and 2017. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">FinCEN and its parent, the Treasury Department, did not answer a series of questions sent last month by ICIJ and its partners. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">FinCEN told BuzzFeed News that it does not comment on the \u201cexistence or non-existence\u201d of specific suspicious activity reports, sometimes known as SARs. Days before the release of the investigation by ICIJ and its partners, FinCEN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fincen.gov\/news\/news-releases\/fincen-seeks-comments-enhancing-effectiveness-anti-money-laundering-programs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced <\/a>that it was seeking public comments on ways to improve the U.S.\u2019s anti-money laundering system. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The cache of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/suspicious-activity-reports-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suspicious activity reports<\/a> \u2014 along with hundreds of spreadsheets filled with names, dates and figures \u2014 flag bank clients in more than 170 countries who were identified as being involved in potentially illicit transactions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Along with sifting through the FinCEN Files, ICIJ and its media partners obtained more than 17,600 other records from insiders and whistleblowers, court files, freedom-of-information requests and other sources. The team interviewed hundreds of people, including financial crime experts, law enforcement officials and crime victims. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BuzzFeed News<\/a>, some of the secret records were requested as part of U.S. congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Others were gathered by FinCEN following requests from law enforcement agencies, BuzzFeed said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The FinCEN Files offer unprecedented insight into a secret world of international banking, anonymous clients and, in many cases, financial crime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">They show banks blindly moving cash through their accounts for people they can\u2019t identify, failing to report transactions with all the hallmarks of money laundering until years after the fact, even doing business with clients enmeshed in financial frauds and public corruption scandals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Authorities in the U.S., who play a leading role in the global battle against money laundering, have ordered big banks to reform their practices, fined them hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars, and held threats of criminal charges over them as part of so-called deferred prosecution agreements.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/about-the-fincen-files-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">16-month investigation<\/a> by ICIJ and its reporting partners shows that these headline-making tactics haven\u2019t worked. Big banks continue to play a central role in moving money tied to corruption, fraud, organized crime and terrorism. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cBy utterly failing to prevent large-scale corrupt transactions, financial institutions have abandoned their roles as front-line defenses against money laundering,\u201d Paul Pelletier, a former senior U.S. Justice Department official and financial crimes prosecutor, told ICIJ.He said banks know that \u201cthey operate in a system that is largely toothless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Five of the banks that appear most often in the FinCEN Files \u2014 Deutsche Bank, Bank of New York Mellon, Standard Chartered, JPMorgan and HSBC \u2014 repeatedly violated their official promises of good behavior, the secret records show.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<br\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image odmik-left\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-asset.png\" alt=\" Registration of Novirex Sales LLP. \" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.2887847035896856;width:615px;height:auto\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Registration of Novirex Sales LLP.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In 2012, London-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-ditry-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HSBC<\/a>, the largest bank in Europe, signed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/hsbc-holdings-plc-and-hsbc-bank-usa-na-admit-anti-money-laundering-and-sanctions-violations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deferred prosecution deal<\/a> and admitted it had laundered at least $881 million for Latin American drug cartels. Narcotraffickers used specially shaped boxes that fit HSBC\u2019s teller windows to drop off the huge amounts of drug money they were pushing through the financial system. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Under the deal with prosecutors, HSBC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-hsbc-probe\/hsbc-to-pay-1-9-billion-u-s-fine-in-money-laundering-case-idUSBRE8BA05M20121211\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">paid $1.9 billion<\/a> and the government agreed to put criminal charges against the bank on hold and dismiss them after five years if HSBC kept its pledge to aggressively fight the flow of dirty money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">During that five-year probationary period, the FinCEN Files show, HSBC continued to move money for questionable characters, including suspected Russian money launderers and a Ponzi scheme under investigation in multiple countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Yet the government allowed HSBC to announce in December 2017 that it had \u201clived up to all of its commitments\u201d under its deferred prosecution pact \u2014 and that prosecutors were dismissing the criminal charges for good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In a statement to ICIJ, HSBC declined to answer questions about specific customers or transactions. HSBC said ICIJ\u2019s information is \u201chistoric and predates\u201d the end of its five-year deferred prosecution deal. During that time, the bank said, it \u201cembarked on a multi-year journey to overhaul its ability to combat financial crime. . . . HSBC is a much safer institution than it was in 2012.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">HSBC noted that in deciding to release the bank from the threat of criminal charges, the government had access to reports from a monitor who reviewed the bank\u2019s reforms and practices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The Department of Justice declined to answer specific questions. In a statement, a spokesperson for the department\u2019s criminal division said: <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cThe Department of Justice stands by its work, and remains committed to aggressively investigating and prosecuting financial crime \u2014 including money laundering \u2014 wherever we find it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-6-1024x450.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7988\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-6-1024x450.webp 1024w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-6-600x264.webp 600w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-6-300x132.webp 300w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-6-768x338.webp 768w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-6-1536x675.webp 1536w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-6.webp 1638w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>\u2018Everyone is doing badly\u2019: Dirty money swamps bureaucrats<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Money laundering isn\u2019t a victimless crime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The free flow of dirty cash helps sustain criminal gangs and destabilize nations. And it is a driver of global economic inequality. Laundered funds are often shunted between accounts owned by obscure shell companies registered in secretive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/panama-papers\/what-is-a-tax-haven-offshore-finance-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">offshore tax havens<\/a>, allowing elites to hide massive sums from law enforcement and tax authorities.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/mining-sars-data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ICIJ analysis<\/a> found that banks in the FinCEN files regularly processed transactions to companies registered in so-called secrecy jurisdictions and did so without knowing the ultimate owner of the account. At least 20% of the reports contained a client with an address in one of the world\u2019s top offshore financial havens, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/tags\/british-virgin-islands\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">British Virgin Islands<\/a>, while many others provided addresses in the U.K., the U.S., Cyprus, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Switzerland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">ICIJ\u2019s analysis found that in half of the reports banks didn\u2019t have information about one or more entities behind the transactions. In 160 reports, banks sought more information about corporate vehicles, only to be met with no response. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<button onclick=\"window.open('https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/', '_blank')\">\nICIJ.org: Fincen files\n<\/button>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Estimates by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unodc.org\/documents\/data-and-analysis\/Studies\/Illicit_financial_flows_2011_web.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime<\/a> indicate that $2.4 trillion in illicit funds are laundered each year \u2014 the equivalent of nearly 2.7% of all goods and services produced annually in the world. But the agency estimates that authorities detect less than 1% of the world\u2019s dirty money. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/panama-papers\/everyone-is-doing-badly-anti-money-laundering-czar-warns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Everyone is doing badly,<\/a>\u201d David Lewis, executive secretary of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, a partnership of governments around the world that sets anti-money laundering standards, acknowledged in an interview with ICIJ.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">His organization\u2019s country-evaluation reports \u2014 which dig into how well banks and government agencies meet anti-money-laundering laws and regulations \u2014 show lots of box-checking but little practical progress. Many countries seem more concerned with looking good on paper than actually cracking down on money laundering, he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Even an association of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wolfsberg-principles.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">world\u2019s biggest banks<\/a> complained last year that regulators focus on \u201ctechnical compliance\u201d rather than whether systems \u201care really making a difference in the fight against financial crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>A Bombing in Jerusalem<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">For some financial institutions, the problem client is another bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">One early morning in 2003 Steven Averbach was on the No. 6 bus in Jerusalem, when a man rushed to board as the bus pulled away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cThere were too many things out of place\u201d with the man, recalled Averbach, who grew up in New Jersey but immigrated to Israel as a teenager. The man wore long black pants, a white shirt and a black jacket, the typical garb of an Orthodox Jew. But he wore \u201ctipped shoes\u201d that didn\u2019t fit with the Orthodox sect dress, and his jacket was bulging.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In his right hand was a device that looked like a doorbell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Averbach, who had previously served as chief weapons instructor for the Jerusalem police force, drew his sidearm. But as the ex-cop turned to face the man, \u201che detonated himself,\u201d Averbach later testified in a video deposition. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The blast killed seven and wounded 20 others, leaving Averbach paralyzed from the neck down. He died in 2010 of complications from the long-term effects of his injuries. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"615\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-7-1024x615.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7989\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-7-1024x615.webp 1024w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-7-600x361.webp 600w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-7-300x180.webp 300w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-7-768x462.webp 768w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-7.webp 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Israeli emergency personnel responds to the suicide bomb in 2003. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">By then, he and his family had become plaintiffs in a lawsuit in the U.S. accusing a Jordanian financial institution, Arab Bank, of moving funds that helped bankroll terrorists involved in the bus bombing and other attacks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The FinCEN Files show that as the litigation was casting a shadow over Arab Bank, it was benefiting from a working relationship with a much bigger, more influential bank: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Standard Chartered<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The U.K.-headquartered bank helped Arab Bank clients access the U.S. financial system after regulators found deficiencies in Arab Bank\u2019s money laundering controls in 2005 and forced it to curtail its money-transfer activities in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Standard Chartered continued its relationship with Arab Bank as the lawsuit against the Jordanian bank worked its way through U.S. courts \u2014 and even after American authorities put Standard Chartered on notice that it must stop processing transactions for suspect clients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">New York regulators concluded in 2012 that Standard Chartered had \u201cschemed with the Government of Iran\u201d for nearly a decade to push through $250 billion in secret transactions, reaping \u201chundreds of millions of dollars in fees\u201d and leaving \u201cthe U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes.\u201d This pattern of conduct cost Standard Chartered nearly $670 million in penalties in the second half of 2012 as part of two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/standard-chartered-bank-agrees-forfeit-227-million-illegal-transactions-iran-sudan-libya-and\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deferred prosecution agreements<\/a> and other deals with New York and U.S. authorities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Despite its official pledges to stay away from suspect customers, Standard Chartered processed 2,055 transactions totaling more than $24 million for Arab Bank customers between September 2013 and September 2014, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FinCEN Files<\/a> show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Then, in late September 2014, Standard Chartered got another reason to back away from Arab Bank. In the lawsuit stemming from the 2003 Jerusalem bus bombing and other attacks, a jury in Brooklyn found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/09\/23\/nyregion\/arab-bank-found-guilty-of-supporting-terrorist.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Arab Bank liable<\/a> for knowingly supporting terrorism by transmitting money disguised as charitable donations for the benefit of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">More than a year later, compliance staffers at Standard Chartered sent FinCEN a suspicious activity report acknowledging the bank\u2019s dealings with Arab Bank up to a few days after the verdict in Brooklyn and expressing concerns about \u201cpotential terrorist financing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">But that wasn\u2019t the end of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Standard Chartered shifted nearly $12 million more in transactions for Arab Bank customers from just after the verdict until February 2016, according to a follow-up suspicious activity report included in the FinCEN Files. Many wires referred to \u201ccharities,\u201d \u201cdonations,\u201d \u201csupport\u201d or \u201cgifts,\u201d the bank said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The follow-up report noted that the payment records raised concerns \u2014 as in the Brooklyn trial \u2014 that \u201cillicit activities\u201d were being potentially funded \u201cunder the guise of charity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The civil verdict against Arab Bank was overturned when an appeals court found flaws in the trial judge\u2019s jury instructions. Arab Bank <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-arab-bank-decision\/arab-bank-terrorism-case-ends-as-u-s-court-voids-jury-verdict-idUSKBN1FT26Z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">then settled<\/a> with nearly 600 victims and victims\u2019 relatives for an undisclosed amount. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In a statement, Arab Bank told ICIJ it \u201cabhors terrorism and does not support or encourage terrorist activities.\u201d The bank said that allegations against it date back nearly 20 years to a time when anti-money-laundering laws, tools and technologies were different than they are now. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cIn every country where it operates, Arab Bank is in good standing with government regulators and complies with anti-terrorism and money laundering laws,\u201d the bank said. The 2005 U.S. regulatory limits against the bank were formally lifted in 2018. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Standard Chartered told the BBC, a partner of ICIJ, that it \u201cinitiated account closure\u201d in connection to Arab Bank shortly after the jury verdict. \u201cThis process can take time in some cases,\u201d the bank said, \u201cbut in all cases the bank continues to fulfil its regulatory obligations\u201d while exiting accounts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Arab Bank noted it \u201cenjoys a longstanding relationship with Standard Chartered\u201d that \u201ccontinues today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Standard Chartered no longer processes U.S. dollar transactions for Arab Bank, but it still provides other banking services for the Jordanian financial institution, Arab Bank told ICIJ.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-8-1024x549.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7994\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-8-1024x549.webp 1024w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-8-600x321.webp 600w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-8-300x161.webp 300w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-8-768x412.webp 768w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-8.webp 1424w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A snapshot from one suspicious activity report in the FinCEN Files that features Arab Bank.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Rewards and risks<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Why do banks move suspect money? Because it\u2019s profitable. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Banks can pad their bottom lines with the fees they collect as money spins through the webs of accounts often maintained by corrupt users of the financial system. JPMorgan, for example, scored an estimated half a billion dollars in revenues by serving as the chief banker to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.madoff.com\/document\/dockets\/001145-jpmorganbrief11-5044docket80.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bernie Madoff<\/a>, according to filings in the bankruptcy case spawned by the collapse of his multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Dealing with shady customers does carry risks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">JPMorgan paid $88.3 million in 2011 to settle regulators\u2019 claims that it had violated economic sanctions against Iran and other countries under U.S. embargoes. Treasury officials hit the bank with a \u201ccease and desist\u201d order in 2013 that described \u201csystemic deficiencies\u201d in its anti-money-laundering efforts, noting the bank had \u201cfailed to identify significant volumes of suspicious activity.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Then, in January 2014, the bank paid $2.6 billion to U.S. agencies to settle investigations over its role in Madoff\u2019s scheme. JPMorgan posted profits of more than double that amount in just that quarter on its way to nearly $22 billion in profits for the year. Madoff pleaded guilty and is serving a 150-year sentence in federal prison.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">JPMorgan continued, after those enforcement actions, to move money for people involved in alleged financial crimes, the FinCEN Files show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Among them: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=Jho-Low\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jho Low<\/a>, a financier accused by authorities in multiple countries of being the mastermind behind the embezzlement of more than $4.5 billion from a Malaysian economic development fund, called 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB. He moved just over $1.2 billion through JPMorgan from 2013 to 2016, the records show. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Low first gained notoriety for partying with Paris Hilton, Leonardo DiCaprio and other celebrities. One night at a club on the French Riviera, he got into a bidding war over a cache of Cristal champagne \u2014 winning the contest with a final bid of 2 million euros, according to \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/quartzy\/1392005\/malaysias-1mdb-scandal-the-hollywood-celebrities-connected-to-jho-low\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Billion Dollar Whale<\/a>,\u201d a bestselling book about the 1MDB swindle. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">He was first outed by media reports in early 2015 as a key figure in the 1MDB scandal, the so-called \u201cheist of the century.\u201d Singapore issued a warrant for his arrest in April 2016. Authorities in the U.S., Malaysia and Singapore are seeking his capture.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">JPMorgan also moved money for companies and people tied to corruption <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/How-banks-helped-Venezuelas-boligarchs-extract-billions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">scandals in Venezuela<\/a> that have helped create one of the world\u2019s worst humanitarian crises. One in three Venezuelans is not getting enough to eat, the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2020\/02\/1058051\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UN reported<\/a> this year, and millions have fled the country. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">One of the Venezuelans who got help from JPMorgan was Alejandro \u201cPiojo\u201d Isturiz, a former government official who has been charged by U.S. authorities as a player in an international money laundering scheme. Prosecutors allege that between 2011 and 2013 Isturiz and others solicited bribes to rig government energy contracts. The bank moved more than $63 million for companies linked to Isturiz and the money laundering scheme between 2012 and 2016, the FinCEN Files show.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Isturiz could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The secret records show that JPMorgan also provided banking services to Derwick Associates, an energy firm that won billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to repair Venezuela\u2019s failing electricity grid. A 2018 analysis by the Venezuelan chapter of the nonprofit group <a href=\"https:\/\/transparencia.org.ve\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/EPE-II-Sector-Ele%CC%81ctrico.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Transparency International<\/a> concluded that Derwick Associates failed to deliver the power capacity expected \u2014 and overbilled the Venezuelan government by at least $2.9 billion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Alejandro Betancourt was in his 20s when he co-founded Derwick with a younger cousin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">News articles and Internet postings from 2011 raised allegations about Derwick. The company later filed a lawsuit that claimed it was the victim of a smear campaign that falsely accused it of being part of a \u201ccriminal group.\u201d The suit was settled on undisclosed terms.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The FinCEN Files show that Derwick used accounts at JPMorgan to move at least $2.1 million in 2011 and 2012 and that the bank processed other transactions of undisclosed amounts for Derwick and its managers at least into 2013.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In 2018, the U.S. Justice Department charged a senior Derwick executive, Francisco Convit Guruceaga, in an alleged $1.2 billion bribery and money-laundering scheme. Betancourt was cited in the criminal complaint as an unnamed co-conspirator, the Miami Herald, an ICIJ partner, later reported. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A lawyer for Betancourt said: \u201cMy client denies any wrongdoing.\u201d Convit\u2019s attorney declined to comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In a general statement, JPMorgan noted that it had acknowledged in 2014 that it needed to improve its anti-money-laundering controls and that since then it has invested heavily toward this effort.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cToday, thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars are devoted to helping support law enforcement and national security efforts,\u201d the bank said.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>\u2018Boss of bosses\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Often, the secret files show, banks handling cross-border transactions have little idea who they\u2019re dealing with \u2014 even when they\u2019re shifting hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Take the case of a mysterious shell company called ABSI Enterprises. ABSI sent and received more than $1 billion in transactions through JPMorgan between January 2010 and July 2015, the FinCEN Files show. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">This amount included transactions through a direct bank account with JPMorgan, which ABSI closed in 2013, and through so-called correspondent banking arrangements, in which a bank with significant U.S. operations, such as JPMorgan, allows foreign banks to process U.S. dollar transactions through its own accounts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Compliance watchdogs based at the bank\u2019s Columbus, Ohio, operations hub decided to try to figure out ABSI\u2019s actual owner in 2015 after a Russian news site reported that a similarly-named shell company \u2014 which JPMorgan\u2019s records indicated was the parent of ABSI \u2014 was linked to an underworld figure named Semion Mogilevich.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Mogilevich has been described as the \u201cBoss of Bosses\u201d of Russia mafia groups. When the FBI put him on its Top Ten Most Wanted list in 2009, it said his criminal network was involved in weapons and drug trafficking, extortion and contract murders. The chain-smoking, beefy Ukrainian\u2019s signature method of neutralizing an enemy, The Guardian once reported, is the car bomb.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The records show the compliance officers searched in vain through their files on the shell company, unable to determine who was behind the firm or what its true purpose was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">While those details still remain unclear, JPMorgan had plenty of reasons to examine ABSI years earlier: it operated as a shell company in Cyprus, considered a major money laundering center at the time, and it was directing hundreds of millions of dollars through JPMorgan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Mogilevich is featured in \u201cWorld\u2019s Most Wanted,\u201d a Netflix documentary series released in August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Through a spokesperson, Mogilevich said he had no knowledge of ABSI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">He has previously said: \u201cI am not a leader or an active participant of any criminal group.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>The mighty dollar<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">BuzzFeed News used the cache of suspicious activity reports in 2018 to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/collection\/themoneytrail\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">publish stories revealing secret payments<\/a> to shell companies controlled by Manafort, who is now serving a federal prison sentence in home confinement in a case based largely on these transactions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A former U.S. Treasury Department official, Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to unlawfully disclose FinCEN documents to BuzzFeed News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">BuzzFeed News has not commented on its source.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">FinCEN and other U.S. agencies play an outsized role in anti-money-laundering efforts around the world, largely because money launderers and other criminals share the same goal as many bank customers who operate across borders: moving U.S. dollars, the de facto global currency, between account holders in different countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">An elite group of mostly U.S. and European banks with large operations in New York pocket fees for performing this trick, drawing on their privileged access to the U.S. Federal Reserve. These banks\u2019 U.S. operations can also help turn local money into U.S. dollars, another key money laundering goal. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">American law entrusts banks with frontline responsibility to prevent money laundering, even though their financial incentives run entirely in the direction of keeping money \u2014 dirty or clean \u2014 moving. While banks are empowered to stop a transaction if it appears to be shady, they\u2019re not necessarily required to do so. They simply have to file a suspicious activity report with FinCEN.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">FinCEN, which has roughly 270 employees, collects and sifts through more than two million new suspicious activity reports each year from banks and other financial firms. It shares information with U.S. law enforcement agencies and with financial intelligence units in other countries. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image odmik-left\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ostro.si\/si\/fincenfiles\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/FF_logo-K.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"width:345px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Long gone<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Inside big banks, systems for sniffing out illicit cash flows rely on overworked, under-resourced staffers, who typically work in back offices far from headquarters and have little clout within their organizations. Documents in the FinCEN Files show compliance workers at major banks often resort to basic Google searches to try to learn who\u2019s behind transfers involving hundreds of millions of dollars. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">As a result, the secret documents show, banks frequently file suspicious activity reports only after a transaction or customer becomes the subject of a negative news article or a government inquiry \u2014 usually after the money is long gone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In interviews with ICIJ and BuzzFeed, more than a dozen former compliance officers at HSBC called into question the effectiveness of the bank\u2019s anti-money-laundering programs. Some said the bank didn\u2019t give them enough time to do much beyond cursory looks at large flows of cash \u2014 and that when they requested information about who was behind big transactions, HSBC branches outside the U.S. often ignored them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cThey would say: \u2018Sure, we\u2019ll get back to you.\u2019 But they\u2019d never get back,\u201d recalls Alexis Grullon, who monitored international suspicious activity for HSBC in New York from 2012 to 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">At Standard Chartered Bank, a lawsuit filed in December 2019 in federal court in New York claims, employees who objected to illegal transactions weren\u2019t ignored \u2014 they were threatened, harassed and fired.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Julian Knight and Anshuman Chandra claim in the suit that they were forced out of management jobs at the bank after it learned they had cooperated with an FBI probe into transfers of money that Standard Chartered had pushed through for U.S.-sanctioned entities from Iran, Libya, Sudan and Myanmar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Standard Chartered, the suit claims, engaged in a \u201chighly sophisticated money laundering scheme,\u201d altering the names of parties subject to U.S. sanctions on transaction documents and creating a technological workaround that allowed illegal transactions to slip through the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank undetected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Chandra, who worked in the bank\u2019s Dubai branch from 2011 to 2016, concluded that the sanctions busting helped bankroll terror attacks \u201cthat killed and wounded soldiers serving in the U.S.-led coalition, as well as many innocent civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The suit says the scheme allowed the bank to profit from the \u201chigh premium\u201d that Iran and its operatives were willing to pay to convert Iranian rials \u2014 the country\u2019s sanctions-depressed currency \u2014 into dollars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cYou can run a show like this probably for a few months without being caught if it\u2019s a small group running it within the bank,\u201d Chandra said in an interview with ICIJ partner BuzzFeed News. \u201cBut something like this happening over a period of years and coming into billions of dollars \u2014 someone at the top should have asked the question: How are we making this money?\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Chandra and Knight claim that the bank acknowledged only a fraction of its violations and lied about when illegal transactions had stopped when it came forward and admitted sanctions violations as part of its 2012 deferred prosecution deal with U.S. authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The agency extended the bank\u2019s probationary period again and again over several years. Then, in 2019, the bank paid $1.1 billion more for continuing violations of sanctions against Iran and other countries and agreed to extend its deferred prosecution pact for two more years. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In court papers, Standard Chartered says the ex-employees\u2019 allegations are implausible and meritless. In a statement to ICIJ, the bank said: \u201cThese false allegations have been thoroughly discredited by the U.S. authorities who undertook a comprehensive investigation into the claims.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The bank noted that a U.S. judge had dismissed a related lawsuit in July. In that case, U.S. prosecutors said in a legal filing that federal agencies couldn\u2019t find evidence to support Knight\u2019s claim that Standard Chartered had continued violating sanctions on behalf Iranian clients after 2007.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"block-animation-none\">\n<blockquote data-animation-role=\"quote\"><p> If I was at JPMorgan and I saw this, I\u2019d be thinking: \u2018This is horrendous,\u2019 \u201d one of the experts, former U.K. police detective Martin Woods, said. \u201cWhat normal company buys computers, lingerie and buckets? <br\/><\/p><\/blockquote><figcaption class=\"source\">\u2014 Martin Woods, U.K. police detective <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>\u2018I am dying\u2019: Ukraine, JPMorgan and the kleptocrats<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Twenty-one-year-old Olesia Zhukovska took a bullet in the fight against corruption in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">She\u2019d been working as a nurse in western Ukraine in late 2013 when protests broke out in the heart of Kyiv, the capital. During the regime of President Viktor Yanukovych, billions of dollars were being smuggled out of the country \u2014 channeled through far-off accounts at some of the world\u2019s biggest banks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Demonstrators protested their leaders\u2019 tilt toward Russia and the high-level corruption that was wrecking the country\u2019s economy, its schools, its health system. Ukrainians were dying, patient advocates said, because money intended for life-saving medicines and equipment was being stolen by insiders. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Zhukovska says she couldn\u2019t afford the $3,000 bribe it would take to get a job in an urban hospital. She worked instead at a rural health center with no heat, no medicines. \u201cNothing,\u201d she says. The structure \u201clooked like an old ruin.\u201d   <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In December 2013, she joined growing anti-government rallies in Kyiv, volunteering to treat demonstrators beaten by baton-swinging government forces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">She was sorting bandages on Feb. 20, 2014, when a sniper\u2019s bullet tore into her neck. It hit less than an inch, she says, from her carotid artery. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">As an ambulance rushed her to the hospital, she <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OlesyaZhukovska\/status\/436436294483591168\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tweeted<\/a>: \u201cI am dying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">It was the day of what became known as the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/266855828_The_Snipers&#039;_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_in_Ukraine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Snipers\u2019 Massacre<\/a>.\u201d When the day ended, Zhukovska had survived, but dozens of others had been killed by rooftop police snipers who rained fire on protesters. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Zhukovska\u2019s tale of struggle and pain is similar to the stories of average people around the world who suffer as corrupt politicians and their cronies \u2014 in Ukraine and beyond \u2014 enrich themselves with the help of name-brand banks with global footprints.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<br\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image odmik-right\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"719\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/KlyevAP-719x1024.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7947\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7021603988428633;width:554px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/KlyevAP-719x1024.webp 719w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/KlyevAP-600x854.webp 600w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/KlyevAP-211x300.webp 211w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/KlyevAP-768x1093.webp 768w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/KlyevAP.webp 992w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 719px) 100vw, 719px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Andriy Klyuyev. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">As the young nurse was still healing in a hospital in early 2014, Yanukovych fled the country. So did his closest adviser, Chief of Staff <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=Andriy-Klyuyev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Andriy Klyuyev<\/a>, who had emerged as a despised face of the crackdown. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Both ended up in exile in Russia. Both are wanted by Ukrainian authorities and under U.S. sanctions that accuse them of embezzling public funds and subverting Ukrainian democracy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">An investigation later found that a solar energy group run by Klyuyev\u2019s family, Activ Solar, made off with hundreds of millions of dollars in what were purportedly loans from government-owned banks. Its assets were funneled into a network of offshore companies controlled by Klyuyev family members, according to a report by Ukraine\u2019s Financial Intelligence Unit as part of a multinational investigation into the Yanukovych regime. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The Activ Solar affair was part of an orgy of corruption under Yanukovych that included a network of companies linked to Klyuyev\u2019s brother, Serhiy, buying Ukraine\u2019s presidential palace, the Mezhyhirya estate, where Yanukovych lived, for a rock-bottom price. The palace \u2014 with a zoo complete with ostriches and a replica of a Spanish galleon for cruises on the Dnieper River \u2014 became a symbol of the regime\u2019s decadence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">As always, corrupt proceeds need a place to hide. On the way, most pass through Lower Manhattan. <\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Lingerie and knee Boots<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In January 2010, the same time Yanukovych was winning the first round of Ukraine\u2019s presidential election, someone incorporated a new company at the U.K.\u2019s corporate registry, Companies House, a government office long criticized for granting legitimacy to companies with secret owners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The new company, NoviRex Sales LLP, claimed to be in the \u201cdomestic appliances\u201d business, but its paperwork suggested something else was going on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">It listed its official address as a small shop in Cardiff, Wales. Recently occupied by a nail salon, the same address was used by hundreds of other companies registered at Companies House. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">NoviRex\u2019s listed owners were two other companies, both <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com\/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk\/docs\/R3psDGkhCBfHCSfVOXkx0DIuGkVcZ_5wv_MqHgVckdc\/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&#038;X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&#038;X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3CY766G4M%2F20200918%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&#038;X-Amz-Date=20200918T201930Z&#038;X-Amz-Expires=60&#038;X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEBsaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJIMEYCIQDjS5izK4gW3nLLJd39sScpDu5gNRKHNDW2HSvO1cJejwIhAO%2FbO4QLXze4oHORLgr5S%2BLLmKakkWKP1Omee8cXV2J4KrQDCDQQAxoMNDQ5MjI5MDMyODIyIgwPaFukLMSoqVIQABwqkQO049IukQJB5SW2NSwLdOEtjOzfXM0vMKCKAkQPEdx6iZRjZnzyukTEUrMNDWwUEfttv%2FSEWP7UVNXXHD63IfmkaXerycfvAK7mXDZJfwktYrW6zv1bUwtoGbMJGxSWR7EsY8UYtb6vEG5%2FDbVMFrOTgkl%2FowByZGjGKkXwz2ios5KYUAjYNUP3f4fwz1WfdaBapN4Xckz9RBADHLh%2FZ2wNNC%2F4VNgkxK4l8GHg%2BtGLEb33sWtUuV1Sq5LLyLS3Hf3fLxGBcE4%2FHwAow7zGL39Dr%2F5mulmhYa0wGrd6%2Ft6lUdWEaOTQatAyTWrvMV8CMjmoQSvkuvLQpBGBOCkyuVR8aKOVjuNwMG1gRgbksVwPoI%2BQNVuuJiou1zxxM7E%2BiBA45oDaQgPAJgcq1GlZOGiAVlM%2Farazr%2FzD5obmfqZJ1rCPttxGavOVH6%2BgzrT3nCdhR5igMhO6AgFiZXOgehUu9V7DNta%2BLqgKfw12QU5ct2FCDvZ4GMeRHBBKts8erOjRJbrYK8wuhj1YNFZaF%2FJfpzDjgJT7BTrqAWxtI8Z%2F0x6svZVi5osd3scxkJTF%2B6WefJzBF%2F60ENsEA0XWkLmN%2B58mn2F6mJplWFIM9H2wTuIKieqPO4wUJ5vwvkqXvyE5RdX%2BZUehIdXHl4vRJytGT9Kkiwq64G0J5LnZXJTBfirQTm1jgwgMBl2ocw9v%2FopBCd2cN6DRFoekiNwqu6zkInZPdgD1iNKhY%2B8ffanVj74tHfj34OIcHbsEnJn47I9DJoOKBRRP40r0l%2F7V5bWyZU5LNS7Ieu388pNsokOZ15O6ZTTc2muMXEffV6X1hBg22kYVcw%2FvzpEub1gi86MZ0%2BDVLA%3D%3D&#038;X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&#038;X-Amz-Signature=d44ecae4fca1006559f7bdfb5b567062bd1c1baf0c68e2386514e32a44bd71ac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">incorporated in the British Virgin Islands<\/a> and also without visible owners. The same two BVI companies were listed as \u201cowners\u201d of thousands more companies at Companies House \u2014 many registered to the same shop in Cardiff. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Records show that the two companies that owned NoviRex also owned companies linked in news reports to suspected bid-rigging and other corrupt acts, much of it centering on Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FinCEN Files<\/a> show NoviRex soon began firing off payments of astonishing size and frequency. For a domestic appliances business, some of the reasons NoviRex gave for the payments were strange: $200,000 for \u201clingerie\u201d from a British Virgin Islands company \u2026 $34,000 for \u201ckeyboard stickers\u201d from a Hong Kong firm \u2026 almost $400,000 on \u201cknee-boots\u201d from another Hong Kong company. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Yet as NoviRex moved millions of dollars through the global banking system, its financial statements \u2014 available online from Companies House \u2014 indicated it was basically moribund, spending less than $2,500 a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">NoviRex sent all its payments from banks in notorious money-laundering centers, including Latvia\u2019s ABLV Bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">But to move dollars internationally, NoviRex needed more than dodgy Latvian banks. It needed a global institution with access to accounts with the New York branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">NoviRex needed JPMorgan Chase.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>The Middleman<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">With roots dating to American Revolutionary era figures Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, the global banking behemoth provided ABLV with a U.S. dollar account in New York, allowing the Latvian bank to, in turn, offer dollar accounts to its own customers, including NoviRex.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In the early 2000s, even as banks faced new obligations under the 2001 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/107th-congress\/house-bill\/3162\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">USA Patriot Act<\/a> to carefully check out their foreign banking partners, JPMorgan ramped up business supplying U.S. dollar accounts to foreign banks. By 2003, it had become the global leader in \u201ccorrespondent banking,\u201d processing payments for the clients of 3,500 other banks around the world, helping bring JPMorgan\u2019s overall daily dollar transaction volume to more than $2 trillion for clients in 46 countries. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In 2004, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fincen.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/shared\/sar_tti_07.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FinCEN issued a warning<\/a> to global banks about Eastern European banks and their shell company customers, reporting that $4 billion in suspicious transactions had been reported since 1996.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In 2005, the year Jamie Dimon was named JPMorgan\u2019s chief executive, FinCEN warned that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/explore-the-data\/?country=LVA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Latvian banks<\/a> and their \u201csizable\u201d non-Latvian customer base \u201ccontinue to pose significant money laundering risks.\u201d FinCEN said: \u201cMany of Latvia\u2019s institutions do not appear to serve the Latvian community, but instead serve suspect foreign private shell companies.\u201d FinCEN said Latvia\u2019s 23 banks then held about $5 billion in \u201cnonresident\u201d deposits, mainly from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">This was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/explore-the-data\/?client=jp-morgan-chase-co\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">JPMorgan\u2019s market<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In allowing a transfer, a correspondent bank (in a simple case) deducts the amount from the account of the sending bank and credits the account of the receiving bank, taking a fee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">By granting foreign banks access to U.S. dollars, JPMorgan was opening the system\u2019s doors to their customers, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/panama-papers\/what-is-a-tax-haven-offshore-finance-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">anonymous shell companies<\/a> like NoviRex.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In return for this gatekeeping power, and the fees it brings, U.S. law requires JPMorgan and other banks like it to monitor each transaction cleared on foreign banks\u2019 instructions \u2014 and to vet the foreign banks it does business with.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fincen.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/federal_register_notices\/2018-02-16\/2018-03214.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">later probe<\/a> would find that 90% of ABLV customers were deemed \u201chigh risk\u201d by ABLV itself, primarily because they were shell companies registered in secrecy jurisdictions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Some of these shells were moving billions of dollars later traced to corruption in Ukraine. U.S. regulators concluded ABLV had institutionalized money laundering as \u201ca pillar of the bank\u2019s business practices,\u201d aggressively peddled money laundering schemes to clients, and produced fraudulent documentation of \u201cthe highest quality\u201d to support these schemes \u2014 all the while bribing Latvian officials to protect the bank from any threats to its business model. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Two financial crime experts who reviewed NoviRex\u2019s transactions at ICIJ\u2019s request said the signs of money laundering were clear. NoviRex had behaved like no legitimate business ever would. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cIf I was at JPMorgan and I saw this, I\u2019d be thinking: \u2018This is horrendous,\u2019 \u201d one of the experts, former U.K. police detective Martin Woods, said. \u201cWhat normal company buys computers, lingerie and buckets?\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">By early 2014, as citizens were filling the streets to protest Yanukovych, Klyuyev and other government leaders, NoviRex had moved more than $188 million in transactions via JPMorgan.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Pulling out<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">JPMorgan, meanwhile, was moving on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">By the end of 2014 it had terminated correspondent accounts of about 500 foreign banks, including, according to a Latvian banking trade group official, banks in Latvia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In a December 2014 report to shareholders, the bank acknowledged \u201cmistakes made and lessons learned from our experiences in foreign correspondent banking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cEvery company makes mistakes (and we\u2019ve made a number of them), but the hallmark of a great company is what it does in response,\u201d Dimon, the CEO, wrote in a cover letter. He didn\u2019t mention Ukraine or Latvia, or ABLV or NoviRex. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Nor did he mention that, shortly before the pullout, U.S. regulators had issued a scathing appraisal of JPMorgan\u2019s money laundering safeguards and ordered the bank to review its correspondent banking practices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">By then, Ukraine\u2019s treasury had been looted, JPMorgan\u2019s fees pocketed. JPMorgan\u2019s treasury-services group, the parent of its correspondent-banking business, reported $4.13 billion in revenue in 2013. Dimon\u2019s total compensation in 2014 was $20 million.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The NoviRex story might have ended there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">But then, in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected America\u2019s 45th president. Soon after, the U.S. Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia\u2019s election interference and other issues relating to Trump and his associates. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">One of those associates was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=Paul-Manafort\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paul Manafort<\/a>, onetime chairman of Trump\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"704\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-9-1024x704.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7999\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-9-1024x704.webp 1024w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-9-600x413.webp 600w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-9-300x206.webp 300w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-9-768x528.webp 768w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-9-1536x1056.webp 1536w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-9.webp 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Death Penalty<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Manafort had also served as a consultant and lobbyist for Ukraine\u2019s former president, Yanukovych. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FinCEN Files<\/a> show staff at JPMorgan\u2019s Columbus, Ohio, compliance office became concerned about press reports from Ukraine of secret payments to Manafort-controlled shell companies disguised as payments for computer equipment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The bank noted that NoviRex had made such payments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">As scrutiny of Manafort\u2019s foreign dealings intensified, the FinCEN Files show, JPMorgan filed more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/suspicious-activity-reports-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suspicious activity reports<\/a> detailing \u2014 years after the fact \u2014 millions of dollars in payments to the consultant, his associates and their businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">At Manafort\u2019s 2018 trial, NoviRex\u2019s name surfaced as one of a handful of shell companies used by Ukrainian oligarchs to channel payments for political lobbying work to Manafort\u2019s own shell companies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In all, NoviRex secretly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pressreader.com\/ukraine\/kyiv-post\/20180810\/281565176589037\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">paid $4,190,111<\/a> to Manafort\u2019s consulting operation on behalf of Yanukovych\u2019s Party of the Regions, according to government exhibits in his trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Manafort was ultimately convicted of bank fraud, failure to report a foreign bank account and other crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">At one of Manafort\u2019s trials, his former business partner, Rick Gates, finally revealed the person behind NoviRex: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=Andriy-Klyuyev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Klyuyev<\/a>, Yanukovych\u2019s right-hand man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The help that JPMorgan provided Klyuyev\u2019s company never came up during the trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In all, the FinCEN Files show, JPMorgan transmitted 706 transactions totaling at least $230 million for NoviRex from 2010 to 2015. Much of that amount went to companies incorporated in secretive tax havens. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In 2018, FinCEN declared JPMorgan\u2019s former customer, ABLV, a \u201cprimary money laundering concern\u201d that had moved \u201cbillions of dollars\u201d for Ukrainian tycoons accused of looting state assets. FinCEN barred U.S. banks from providing ABLV access to U.S. correspondent accounts \u2014 a step known in financial circles as the \u201cdeath penalty.\u201d It is now in liquidation, and some of its bankers have been arrested by Latvian authorities.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In response to questions from ICIJ, an ABLV spokesperson said that during the liquidation, an auditor is carrying out a review of the bank\u2019s ex-clients and their transactions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">She added: \u201cWe cannot publicly comment regarding any specific legal or natural persons.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>\u2018Tricks and cunning\u2019: Big penalties don\u2019t stop banks from moving dirty cash<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Money streamed in from California, Peru, Bolivia, China and other places where low-income families were willing to sink their modest savings \u2014 $2,000, $5,000, $10,000 \u2014 into an investment they hoped would change their lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">With the click of a keyboard, investors\u2019 money funneled through the New York operations of global banking giant HSBC. Then it zipped across the world into accounts at HSBC\u2019s sprawling Hong Kong offices. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Like others taken in by what became known as the World Capital Market Ponzi scheme, Reynaldo Pacheco, a 44-year-old father in Santa Rosa, California, promoted the deal to family and acquaintances. When the WCM scheme began to unravel, one of the unlucky investors he\u2019d encouraged to put money into the deal decided to have him killed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Three men kidnapped him and beat his head with rocks, leaving him dead in a creekbed, his hands tied behind his back with tape and one of his shoelaces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Thousands of victims lost an estimated $80 million in the scheme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The FinCEN Files show that HSBC continued shifting money for the WCM investment fund at a time when authorities in three countries were investigating the company and the bank\u2019s internal watchdogs knew it was an alleged Ponzi scheme. More than $30 million tied to WCM flowed through the bank in 2013 and 2014 \u2014 at a time when HSBC was under probation as part of its deferred prosecution deal with American authorities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Even after U.S. securities regulators won a restraining order freezing the company\u2019s assets, WCM\u2019s account at HSBC Hong Kong stayed active. According to court documents later filed by attorneys seeking money for the scheme\u2019s victims, WCM drained more than $7 million from the account during the following week, drawing its balance to zero. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">WCM wasn\u2019t the only company tied to criminal activities that moved money through HSBC during the five-year probation that came with the bank\u2019s $1.9 billion deferred prosecution deal. The bank\u2019s Hong Kong office, for example, processed more than $900 million in transactions involving shell companies linked in court records and media reports to alleged criminal networks, an ICIJ analysis found. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">American prosecutors and other officials have praised deferred prosecution deals and other types of money laundering settlements as effective tools for making sure big banks follow the law and stop serving criminals. When authorities announced Standard Chartered\u2019s deferred-prosecution deal in 2012, an FBI official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/standard-chartered-bank-agrees-forfeit-227-million-illegal-transactions-iran-sudan-libya-and\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declared<\/a>: \u201cNew York is a world financial capital and an international banking hub, and you have to play by the rules to conduct business here.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">ICIJ\u2019s investigation shows that five of the banks that appear most often in the FinCEN Files \u2014 HSBC, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and Bank of New York Mellon \u2014 continued moving cash for suspect people and companies in the wake of deferred prosecution agreements and other big money laundering enforcement actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Four of those banks signed non-prosecution or deferred prosecution deals in the past 15 years relating to money laundering. The only bank of the five that hasn\u2019t been the subject of a non- or deferred prosecution agreement is Deutsche Bank. Instead, it reached a $258 million civil settlement in 2015 in response to a probe by U.S. and New York banking regulators that found that the bank had moved billions of dollars on behalf of Iranian, Libyan, Syrian, Burmese and Sudanese financial institutions and other entities sanctioned by the U.S.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Bank of New York Mellon was among the first big banks to pay a large penalty to U.S. authorities for anti-money-laundering failures. In 2005, two years before its merger with Mellon Financial, Bank of New York paid $38 million dollars and signed a non-prosecution agreement after a federal probe concluded that it had allowed $7 billion in illicit Russian money to flow through its accounts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Media reports said investigators believed that Mogilevich, the alleged Russian mafia \u201cBoss of Bosses,\u201d was behind some of the transactions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Even as it\u2019s avoided big money laundering enforcement actions in recent years, Bank of New York Mellon has continued doing business with suspect figures, the FinCEN Files show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The leaked records show, for example, that Bank of New York Mellon moved more than $1.3 billion in transactions between 1997 and 2016 tied to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=oleg-Deripaska\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oleg Deripaska<\/a>, a Russia billionaire and a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Since 2008, Deripaska has been the subject of allegations in media reports tying him to organized crime. When U.S. authorities announced sanctions against him in 2018, they said he had been previously been accused of threatening the lives of corporate rivals, bribing a Russian government official and ordering the murder of a businessman. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Deripaska denies laundering funds or committing financial crimes. In 2019 the Trump administration lifted sanctions on three companies linked to him. U.S. sanctions on Deripaska himself remain and he\u2019s suing in an effort to upend them.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cBNY Mellon takes its role in protecting the integrity of the global financial system seriously, including filing Suspicious Activity Reports,\u201d the bank said in a statement. \u201cAs a trusted member of the international banking community, we fully comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and assist authorities in the important work they do.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"615\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-10-1024x615.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8001\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-10-1024x615.webp 1024w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-10-600x360.webp 600w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-10-300x180.webp 300w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-10-768x461.webp 768w, https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/image-10.webp 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dmytro Firtash, Paul Manafort and Semion Mogilevich were all accused of laundering illicit funds from Ukraine through banks and investment deals in the U.S. in a 2011 lawsuit that was later dismissed. Banks continued to do business for Firtash amid these allegations. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Red flags<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">One striking pattern revealed by ICIJ\u2019s analysis of the leaked records is the willingness of multiple banks to process transactions for the same risky clients.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Deripaska, the Russian oligarch, didn\u2019t just have Bank of New York Mellon helping him out. The secret records reveal Deutsche Bank shuffled more than $11 billion in transactions between 2003 and 2017 for companies he controlled. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The records also indicate that Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered helped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/bribery-division\/bribery-division-what-is-odebrecht-who-is-involved\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Odebrecht SA<\/a> \u2014 a Latin American construction firm behind what U.S. prosecutors called the largest foreign bribery case in history \u2014 move $677 million from 2010 from 2016. Deutsche Bank played a role in transactions involving more than $560 million of that amount, the records show. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Then there\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=Dmytro-Firtash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dmytro Firtash<\/a>, a Ukrainian oligarch who is wanted on criminal charges in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In 2014, American prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing him of bribing officials in India in an effort to secure a mining deal. Since late 2019, U.S. news outlets have reported on claims that Firtash played a role in President Trump\u2019s effort to dig up dirt in Ukraine on his 2020 reelection opponent, Joe Biden. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"block-animation-none\">\n<blockquote data-animation-role=\"quote\"><p> Financial institutions have abandoned their roles as front-line defenses against money laundering.<\/p><p><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figcaption class=\"source\">\u2014 Paul Pelletier, a former senior U.S. Justice Department official and financial crimes prosecutor<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Firtash, who says he began his climb in business trading Ukrainian powdered milk for Uzbek cotton after the fall of the Soviet Union, lives in exile in a mansion in Vienna, protected so far from efforts to extradite him. His Art Nouveau villa has a home cinema and an infinity pool \u2014 a 2017 profile by Bloomberg Businessweek dubbed him \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/features\/2017-02-16\/will-trump-rescue-the-oligarch-in-the-gilded-cage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Oligarch in the Gilded Cage.<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">When it comes to banking, he and companies tied to him found open doors among many of the industry\u2019s big institutions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">All five big banks in ICIJ\u2019s analysis \u2014 JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, HSBC and Bank of New York Mellon \u2014 handled transactions for companies controlled by Firtash, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FinCEN Files<\/a> show. And the records indicate that all five approved transactions tied to Firtash in the time periods after U.S. authorities had forced the banks to pay fines and pledge to work harder to vet suspect clients. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The files show that among these banks, JPMorgan moved the most money for companies controlled by Firtash by far \u2014 shuffling hundreds of transactions totaling nearly $2 billion between 2003 and 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">JPMorgan and the other banks should have been aware of Firtash\u2019s questionable history as far back as 2010, when a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable linked Firtash to Mogilevich.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Then in 2011, a lawsuit filed in Manhattan by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko provided the banks even more of a heads up, even naming specific accounts at four of the banks that the suit alleged were being used by Firtash for money laundering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The suit accused Firtash, Mogilevich and future Trump campaign manager Manafort of laundering illicit funds from Ukraine through banks and investment deals in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The suit claimed accounts at the New York offices of JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and Bank of New York Mellon were being used in money laundering operations shifting money stolen in Ukraine to the U.S. and then \u2014 after it had been cleaned \u2014 round-tripping it back to Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Despite the allegations, these five banks continued to handle transactions involving companies controlled by Firtash, the FinCEN Files show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The lawsuit was dismissed in 2013, in part because Tymoshenko and her lawyers weren\u2019t able to provide enough specifics of the transactions involved in the alleged scheme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Firtash has denied wrongdoing, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/features\/2017-02-16\/will-trump-rescue-the-oligarch-in-the-gilded-cage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">telling Bloomberg Businessweek<\/a> that he\u2019s the victim of \u201ca special machine of propaganda organized against me.\u201d He told the magazine that Tymoshenko was \u201cwrong in everything. She lies all the time. In order to money launder, you need to have dirty money to start with. I always had clean money.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In a statement, an attorney for Firtash told ICIJ that Firtash \u201chas never had any partnership or other commercial association with Semion Mogilevich.\u201d The attorney said Firtash would not answer questions from ICIJ because its queries are \u201creliant on the unlawful and criminal disclosure\u201d of suspicious activity reports. <\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Holding bankers accountable<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Why haven\u2019t seemingly big financial penalties done more to change banks\u2019 behavior?<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">John Cassara, a financial crime expert who worked as a special agent assigned to FinCEN from 1996 to 2002, said that the size of the penalties paid by HSBC and other big banks may sound large but that they\u2019re a tiny fraction of the banks\u2019 profits. And the money isn\u2019t paid by the bankers who should be held accountable, he said \u2014 it\u2019s paid by shareholders. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">BNP Paribas, France\u2019s largest bank, received the biggest fine of all in 2014, when it was forced to pay $8.9 billion in the face of evidence that it helped shift billions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban entities subject to American sanctions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Unlike settlements with HSBC and others, this wasn\u2019t a deferred prosecution. The bank agreed to accept a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/bnp-paribas-agrees-plead-guilty-and-pay-89-billion-illegally-processing-financial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">criminal conviction<\/a>, and to force out 13 staffers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">But for the French bank, the priority in settlement negotiations was ensuring that its license to process dollar transactions in the U.S. wasn\u2019t permanently taken away. Instead, U.S. regulators barred BNP Paribas from such activities for one year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">After the deal was announced, the bank\u2019s share price rose 4%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">James S. Henry, a New York-based economist, attorney and author who has been investigating the world of dirty money since the 1970s, says American enforcement actions over the past two decades have had some impact on large banks\u2019 behavior \u2014 at least compared to an earlier era when they operated with almost no restraints.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">But he said it\u2019s going to take \u201cmore prosecutorial will and international collaboration\u201d to truly change the relationship between banks and illicit cash flows. That includes holding banks as institutions \u2014 as well as top bankers themselves \u2014 accountable. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cWe have to put some senior executives who are in charge of this stuff at risk,\u201d Henry said. \u201cAnd that means fines and\/or jail.\u201d <\/p>\n<h3 style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><strong>Shark tank<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">It sounded like something out of a spy novel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Deutsche Bank employees instructed clients from Iran and other hot spots to lace their payment messages with code words that would trigger special handling. One executive urged workers to employ \u201ctricks and cunning\u201d to avoid detection by American authorities. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">These tricks of the trade were exposed in a November 2015 announcement by New York banking regulators. Deutsche Bank, state officials said, had been caught shifting nearly $11 billion between 1999 and 2006 on behalf of Iran, Syria and other countries under U.S. sanctions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Under the $258 million settlement with the state and the Federal Reserve, Deutsche Bank agreed to reform its practices and fire employees involved in the sanctions-evasion operation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In a statement, Deutsche Bank framed the deal as old news: \u201cThe conduct ceased several years ago, and since then we have terminated all business with parties from the countries involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A month after the settlement was announced, the FinCEN Files show, Deutsche Bank was working behind the scenes to move money for a company linked to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=ihor-Kolomoisky\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ihor Kolomoisky<\/a> \u2014 a Ukrainian billionaire who, U.S. prosecutors later alleged, was engaged in a massive laundering scheme that funnelled cash into the American heartland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Kolomoisky has his own spy thriller mystique. U.S. prosecutors say he\u2019s long been known for \u201cruthlessness and even violence\u201d in business dealings, once hiring \u201carmed goons\u201d to take over the offices of a government-owned oil company. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, one associate recalled meeting with Kolomoisky and watching as the oligarch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/ukraines-secret-weapon-feisty-oligarch-ihor-kolomoisky-1403886665\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pressed a remote-control switch<\/a> that dropped crayfish meat to the hungry sharks occupying his office aquarium.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The leaked records show Deutsche Bank moved $240 million from December 2015 to May 2016 for a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands that, U.S. court filings claim, was controlled by Kolomoisky and a business partner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A lawsuit filed last year in state court in Delaware alleges Kolomoisky used the shell company, Claresholm Marketing Ltd., to help pull off a \u201cseries of brazen fraudulent schemes\u201d via PrivatBank, a Ukrainian institution that Kolomoisky and a partner controlled until the end of 2016. The new owners of the bank claim in the suit that Kolomoisky and his associates siphoned away billions of dollars from the bank through sham loans and then laundered the money through investments in the U.S. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">This past July, New York regulators reached another money laundering settlement with Deutsche Bank. This time, the bank agreed to pay $150 million in penalties related to its dealings with convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein as well as with two non-U.S. banks involved in money laundering scandals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A month later, U.S. prosecutors filed civil forfeiture complaints in federal court in Florida that included allegations of thievery and money laundering against Kolomoisky similar to the claims in the Delaware lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Prosecutors say much of the money allegedly stolen from PrivatBank between 2008 to 2016 ended up in investments in the U.S. \u2014 including commercial real estate in Texas and Ohio, steel plants in Kentucky, West Virginia and Michigan and a cellphone factory in Illinois.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Kolomoisky did not respond to questions from ICIJ. A lawyer for him <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/justice-department-accuses-ukrainian-oligarch-of-stealing-billions-from-bank-he-once-owned-and-laundering-it-in-the-us\/2020\/08\/06\/b88924b8-d7f4-11ea-aff6-220dd3a14741_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> in August: \u201cMr. Kolomoisky emphatically denies the allegations in the complaints filed by the Department of Justice.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In the state court case in Delaware, lawyers for Kolomoisky\u2019s businesses said the suit fails to show violations of racketeering statutes or other laws. Kolomoisky has also filed a defamation action against PrivatBank in Ukraine, claiming the bank has falsely accused him of fraud and other wrongdoing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Deutsche Bank declined to answer questions about its dealings with Kolomoisky, saying it was legally restricted from commenting on clients or transactions. The bank told ICIJ that it has acknowledged \u201cpast weaknesses\u201d and \u201clearnt from our mistakes.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">It said it has \u201csystematically tackled\u201d these issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cWe are a different bank now,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/zvizgac_banner.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2.225473484848485;width:363px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\" data-sqsp-text-block-content=\"\">\n<blockquote class=\"custom-quote\"><p style=\"text-align:center;white-space:pre-wrap;\" class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/zvizgac.si\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Do you have information or documents relevant to the understanding of the reported subject? <\/a><\/p><p style=\"text-align:center;white-space:pre-wrap;\" class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/zvizgac.si\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">You can safely send them through our whistleblowing platform zvizgac.si.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FinCEN Files show trillions in tainted dollars flow freely through major banks, swamping a broken enforcement system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","page_custom_class":"","post_show_featured_image":"1","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3356,3360],"tags":[3449,3448,3396,3534,3532,3533],"class_list":["post-33791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fincen-files","category-stories","tag-deutsche-bank","tag-fincen","tag-icij","tag-jpmorgan","tag-paul-manafort","tag-viktor-janukovic"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3356,"label":"FinCEN Files"},{"value":3360,"label":"Stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":3449,"label":"Deutsche bank"},{"value":3448,"label":"Fincen"},{"value":3396,"label":"ICIJ"},{"value":3534,"label":"JPMorgan"},{"value":3532,"label":"Paul Manafort"},{"value":3533,"label":"Viktor Janukovi\u010d"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/ostro.si\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Banks-3-1024x700.webp",1024,700,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"wpm","author_link":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/author\/wpm\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3356,"name":"FinCEN Files","slug":"fincen-files","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3356,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":3360,"count":6,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3356,"category_count":6,"category_description":"","cat_name":"FinCEN Files","category_nicename":"fincen-files","category_parent":3360},{"term_id":3360,"name":"Stories","slug":"stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3360,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":64,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3360,"category_count":64,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Stories","category_nicename":"stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":3449,"name":"Deutsche bank","slug":"deutsche-bank","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3449,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3448,"name":"Fincen","slug":"fincen","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3448,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3396,"name":"ICIJ","slug":"icij","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3396,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":12,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3534,"name":"JPMorgan","slug":"jpmorgan","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3534,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3532,"name":"Paul Manafort","slug":"paul-manafort","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3532,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3533,"name":"Viktor Janukovi\u010d","slug":"viktor-janukovic","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3533,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35869,"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33791\/revisions\/35869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}