Pride Of The Web –

The a previous article we outlined the history of Offshore finance that all Belize attorneys need to understand to better serve their clients in these financially hard times.  This article is Part 2 and covers some of the recently financial scams that have been perpetrated in developed nations.

A US citizen was recently accused of swindling rich, sophisticated and professionally advised developed world investors around over fifty billion dollars US. His operations were located not “offshore”, but right in London and the United States. He was supposed to be regulated by the US financial agencies and even the famous and various departments did not investigate. These include the Internal Revenue Service, the domestic investigation department and the international policing agency that were at the time to be tracing “suspicious” banking movements and money laundering activity based on the earlier pushed through Patriot Act. Some would say about $65 B of dishonestly obtained cash, were thus “laundered” under their noses.
 
Allen Stanford has been the poster child for “offshore” scams. However, only his bank was based in Antigua and his main Stanford Financial Group was actually based in Houston. Further, being a US citizen, the US authorities had extra territorial jurisdiction over him anywhere in the world he went. He still worked with impunity right under, from and with, the US, American citizens and foreign investors. His bank associates were even in Belize soliciting customers at one point in time, but fortunately, the few Belizeans were a bit more financially savvy due to their offshore exposure.
 
Also Houston-based, was the giant Enron that was the model of how to fix accounting records. Some other examples of imaginative accounting include now reputable companies like Xerox, AOL, Bristol Myers Squibb, Duke Energy (once an investor in BECOL/BEL), Freddie Mac, Halliburton (of Iraq/Afghan war fame), Kmart, Merck, Merril Lynch, Qwest, Tyco International, Worldcom, Chiquita and AIG. These were all perpetrated to a large extent by one of the following accounting firms: KPMG, Arthur Andersen.  Though some no longer exist in their former states due to the scams they participated or rather, structurally advised.
 
Then there was the European trader Jerome Kerviel that caused loss to Societe Generale laundering billions through the (then) respected Bank of New York. Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros. BCCI and Northern Rock WAMU and Bear Sterns are just a few of the more well known fiascoes. Their products included swaps and options and the list goes on.

This history would help all attorneys in Belize or Belize lawyers better explain why the Offshore industry in companies like Belize should not suffer undue regulation since financial scams can be and have been implemented in all countries of the world.

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