Mossack Fonseca actively marketed Canada as a tax haven and established shell companies here to evade taxes, according to the documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with the Star and the CBC.
The joint investigation has revealed that Canada’s tax legislation provides favorable conditions for evading taxes, creating anonymous business entities, and cleaning illegally-gained cash.
Former BSI banker Yeo Jiawei was found guilty for his role in the most complex, sophisticated and largest money-laundering case involving billions of dollars alleged to have been misappropriated from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Singapore sentenced former Yeo Jiawei to 30 months in jail after a 12-day trial. He is the third BSI banker convicted in the city state this year.
The prosecutors had charged that Yeo had amassed $16.55 million by taking secret profits from 1MDB-linked transactions during his work for the Singapore unit of BSI.
The hidden treasure by Italian citizens in Swiss banks has yet to be discovered, according to the chief prosecutor of Milan, Francesco Greco, and liquidity would amount to 150 billion euro, deposited in safes, in denominations of 500 euro. This note is in fact banned because it is considered instrument of money laundering by the Bank of Italy.
A large part of the amount, which estimate is the result of cross-checks between MEF, FIU, Bank of Italy and the Guardia di Finanza, would be, according to Mr Greco, mostly in Ticino.
Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s biggest retail bank, will pay $235 million to New York’s financial regulator for anti-money laundering failures and violations of bank secrecy laws.
The big Italian bank failed to flag questionable transactions and deviated from policies designed to root out wrongdoing, which "seriously (compromised) the security of the international financial system," said Maria Vullo, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services.
Switzerland’s Xavier Justo, jailed in Thailand for blackmailing his former employer in a case linked to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, will be among the thousands of prisoners pardoned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
"He met the condition for his release from prison after receiving the latest royal pardon, as he has less than one year of his jail term," Justo’s lawyer, Worasit Piriyawiboon told Malaysia’s Bernama news agency today. The Swiss national is expected to be released from prison in three to seven days after the announcement of the pardon.
Switzerland has boosted anti-money laundering measures over the last decade but could still do more to prevent financial crime, the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said on Wednesday, in his report.
Once a haven for untaxed and illicit assets, the small but influential finance hub has been stung into action by a global push to combat money laundering and financial crime. That has led to considerable improvement in its efforts since 2005, the global task force said.
“Since its previous FATF assessment in 2005, Switzerland has strengthened its AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing) regime,” the Paris-based intergovernmental body said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho could have been involved in a multi million-euro system of "tax evasion", according to leaked documents obtained by a number of media outlets.
A group of 12 European newspapers said it intends to disclose over the next three weeks the results of investigations, based on 18 million documents of leaked data, into widespread alleged corruption at the heart of football under the banner "Football Leaks".
Based on leaked documents obtained by German weekly Der Spiegel, the outlets claim that Real Madrid and Portuguese star Ronaldo could have "hidden 150 million euros in tax havens in Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands".
"On this amount, the striker paid only 5.6 million euros in taxes, or barely four percent," added the report.
The Swiss government plans to dramatically increase international cooperation on fiscal transparency, sharing private information about clients of the country’s banks.
The automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on bank accounts will be spread to 22 more countries, including Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Uruguay as well as India and South Africa, according to the Federal Department of Finance.
The move aims to put an end to Switzerland’s long-protected banking secrecy practices as well as stopping wealthy foreigners from hiding their undeclared income in the country.
