thirdworldtraveler/Banks/Explosive_Revelations.html Clearstream gives secret accounts to multinational corporations so they can move stocks and money free from outside scrutiny. Clearstream carried an account for a notoriously criminal Russian bank for several years after the bank had officially collapsed, and clearinghouse accounts camouflaged the destinations of transfers to Colombian banks. Clearstream was used to try to hide a dubious arms deal between French authorities and the Taiwanese military. Banco Ambrosiano was once the second most important private bank in Italy, with the Vatican as a principal shareholder and loan recipient. The bank laundered drug-and arms-traffficking money for the Italian and American mafias and, in the 80s, channeled Vatican money to the Contras in Nicaragua and Solidarity in Poland. The corrupt managers also siphoned off funds via fictitious banks to personal shell company accounts in Switzerland, the Bahamas, Panama and other offshore havens. Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in 1982 with a deficit of more than $1 billion. Its also an excellent mechanism for laundering drug money or hiding income from the tax collector. Banks are supposed to be subject to local government oversight. But many of Clearstreams members have real or virtual subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, where records are secret and investigators cant trace transactions. And Clearstream which keeps the central records of financial trades, doesnt get even the cursory regulation that applies to offshore banks. On top of that, it deliberately has put in place a system to hide many of its clients transactions from any authorities who might come looking.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 08:18:27 +0000
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