- há 2 dias
The international criminal network thrives in large part due to the lack of a global force capable of countering its gravity of influence, particularly when cooperation between criminal organizations further darkens their cloak of secrecy.
Categoria
🗞
NotíciasTranscrição
00:00:01Transcrição e Legendas por Quintena Coelho
00:00:35At some point I was asking myself, what's going on here?
00:00:38We're investigating the same thing over and over again.
00:00:40It was the same.
00:00:42It was always the bank, the offshore, the money laundering, the crimes.
00:00:50When I realized we have to do something a little bit different,
00:00:54rather than going case by case to investigate organized crime,
00:00:57we need to understand why is it so similar?
00:01:02Why are crimes so similar?
00:01:04And why the system that enables the crime is always the same?
00:01:11Paul Radu is one of the founders of the OCCRP,
00:01:15a group of investigative journalists dedicated to fighting the corruption
00:01:18and white-collar crime of mafia organizations.
00:01:24Born in Romania under Ceausescu,
00:01:26he witnessed the collapse of the Eastern Bloc
00:01:28and the subsequent transformation of state socialism
00:01:30into a mafia-style capitalism firsthand.
00:01:34With the collapse of political boundaries,
00:01:36the world was transformed into a crime-ridden supercontinent.
00:01:41It was a new era of covert violence,
00:01:44an era in which banks would play a major role.
00:01:52And to understand what was going on,
00:01:54you have to go back a little bit in time,
00:01:56to the 80s, to the 70s,
00:01:59and to look at the price of money laundering,
00:02:02how costly money laundering was for criminal groups.
00:02:12This story examines a bygone world
00:02:15in the heart of a country that no longer exists,
00:02:17the Soviet Union.
00:02:22The homeland of socialism
00:02:24and a haven for workers from all over the world,
00:02:27the USSR aspired to represent a new form of historical progress.
00:02:35Its vast territory and unrivaled natural resources
00:02:38seemed to promise an eternal and glorious future.
00:02:46But the realities of the Soviet state's power were more complex.
00:02:50Behind the state apparatus was the Communist Party,
00:02:53and behind the Communist Party
00:02:55lay the real masters of the USSR,
00:02:58the sword and shield of the Soviet world,
00:03:00the secret services and the political police,
00:03:03the KGB.
00:03:08By the early 1980s,
00:03:10the more astute members of the KGB
00:03:12realized that the Soviet bloc
00:03:14could no longer compete with the West.
00:03:18The system's collapse was not out of the question.
00:03:22To guarantee their own survival,
00:03:24the KGB set up a vast operation
00:03:26to extract Soviet resources through shell companies,
00:03:29originally used as cover for destabilization operations
00:03:33and industrial espionage.
00:03:37The idea was to recycle this accumulation of shell companies
00:03:44with no real economic activity
00:03:46to enable the assets of the Communist Party
00:03:50and the KGB to be transferred abroad.
00:03:54The plundering began.
00:03:59Aluminum, copper, steel, and titanium,
00:04:01bought in the USSR at Soviet prices,
00:04:04were sold in the West at the much higher world market price.
00:04:09The surplus was recovered by a chain of shell companies
00:04:12that then invested the money outside the USSR.
00:04:16A small, sunny country, far from the icy Soviet Union,
00:04:21had been rolling out its red carpet for a long time.
00:04:24The island of Cyprus.
00:04:28Cyprus, to the former Soviet Union,
00:04:32Cyprus was one of the main investment vehicles.
00:04:36They literally saw the island
00:04:38as a huge shopping mall for offshores.
00:04:45Split in two since the 1974 Greek-Turkish war,
00:04:48the Greek part of Cyprus is an outpost of the West,
00:04:52which joined the European Union
00:04:53and later the Eurozone in 2004.
00:04:59It came down to a few law firms
00:05:01that were again very happy to receive Russian,
00:05:04Kazakhs and Tajikistanis
00:05:06and Ukrainian corrupt business.
00:05:08Everybody from the former Soviet Union
00:05:09who had a bit of dirty money,
00:05:11there would not be any question asked in Cyprus
00:05:14if you wanted to open up on offshores,
00:05:16if you wanted to do business,
00:05:18to open up bank accounts and so on and so on.
00:05:20So Cyprus was literally that enabling place,
00:05:24a whole island that was put in the service
00:05:28of criminals and corrupt politicians
00:05:30for a very, very long time.
00:05:33To conceal its operations,
00:05:35the KGB employed businessmen born in the USSR
00:05:38who had emigrated to the West.
00:05:41In Soviet intelligence terminology,
00:05:43these men were managing partners
00:05:45and their companies friendly firms.
00:05:49Among these traders was Boris Birstein,
00:05:52trained at the foreign ministry in Moscow
00:05:54and dispatched to the other side of the Iron Curtain.
00:05:57Boris Birstein.
00:06:00Boris Birstein, who was he?
00:06:03He was a Lithuanian born in the 40s
00:06:06who began his international career in the 70s.
00:06:12He first set up a company called Cibico,
00:06:15which had a base in Hong Kong,
00:06:17but which was backed by a head office in Switzerland.
00:06:21These were small companies
00:06:22all over Canada and Western Europe.
00:06:26And with this company,
00:06:27he was able to invest funds in banks
00:06:30and in the equity of companies,
00:06:33this sort of thing.
00:06:38What is interesting about Boris Birstein
00:06:41is that he wasn't just a businessman
00:06:45who was involved in trading
00:06:47and then all of a sudden
00:06:50looked after the interests of the KGB.
00:06:53He was also caught up
00:06:55in the criminal underworld.
00:07:06Russian organized crime
00:07:07was officially non-existent
00:07:09in the socialist paradise.
00:07:11The Vorvizakoni, thieves-in-law,
00:07:14those tattooed men
00:07:15with their sanguinary stories,
00:07:16were sent to the Gulag
00:07:18or broken down in penal colonies.
00:07:20Yet the underworld survived.
00:07:22Maintaining a long history with the KGB.
00:07:26Organized crime was never eliminated
00:07:29totally during the Stalin era.
00:07:32Many of the criminals went to labor camps
00:07:34and there they dominated
00:07:36the political prisoners.
00:07:39So they were a force in the labor camps
00:07:41and they stayed a force in Russian society.
00:07:46There were songs about them.
00:07:47They were called Vorvizakoni, thieves-in-law,
00:07:54because they had their own legal code.
00:07:57So they were from the Caucasus,
00:07:59they were from Central Asia,
00:08:01and they were very, very involved
00:08:05in different types of organized crime.
00:08:15In a country where a command economy meant collective farms,
00:08:19state companies, and constant scarcity,
00:08:22factories and businesses operated
00:08:24thanks to a parallel economy,
00:08:26the black market,
00:08:27which led to widespread corruption.
00:08:32The Vori chiefs, recruited by the KGB,
00:08:36enforced control of society through violence
00:08:38and took control of the huge underground market
00:08:41that kept the USSR from collapsing for a while.
00:08:48In the last five years of the Soviet period,
00:08:52the economy, or the state budget,
00:08:54was dependent on the sale of alcohol.
00:08:57And that money, instead of going to the state,
00:09:00went to organized crime.
00:09:02And at the same time that organized crime
00:09:06was just making massive amounts of money
00:09:09by producing illegal alcohol,
00:09:11Russia, or the Soviet Union,
00:09:13began to privatize the economy.
00:09:16And so they were sitting on huge amounts of cash.
00:09:24At the end of the 1980s,
00:09:26the perestroika initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev
00:09:29unleashed production and attempted to reestablish
00:09:32some semblance of economic efficiency.
00:09:38Gorbachev wanted to reopen the country,
00:09:40but despite his best efforts,
00:09:42he opened Pandora's box.
00:09:47On November 9, 1989,
00:09:50the Berlin Wall fell.
00:09:52The Soviet bloc crumbled.
00:09:57In Moscow, less than two years later,
00:10:00in August 1991,
00:10:02an attempted coup by the regime's hardliners failed,
00:10:05marking the end of the USSR.
00:10:08Inheriting a shrinking Russia on the brink of ruin,
00:10:11Boris Yeltsin ordered investigations
00:10:13into the country's greatest secret,
00:10:15its finances.
00:10:17The investigations would be difficult.
00:10:19A lot of archives had disappeared,
00:10:21and three of the Communist Party's main financial managers
00:10:24had the misfortune of falling from windows.
00:10:30The Yeltsin era marked the end of 70 years
00:10:33of political repression and collectivism.
00:10:36In Moscow's Lbyanka Square,
00:10:38the statue of Felix Terzhinsky,
00:10:41the founder of the Sheka,
00:10:42the forerunner of the KGB,
00:10:44was taken down.
00:10:46The KGB was dissolved and replaced by the FSB,
00:10:50an organization with a diminished role.
00:10:56When the USSR collapsed in 1991,
00:11:00it was a vital moment because everyone in the game,
00:11:04small businessmen and big businessmen alike,
00:11:08understood that since the traditional law enforcement agencies
00:11:12no longer existed,
00:11:15they would be replaced by someone else.
00:11:17This is exactly where organized crime
00:11:20would play a very special role,
00:11:22namely by saying,
00:11:23we are order,
00:11:24we are the true protectors against economic tyranny.
00:11:28Do you own anything?
00:11:29Okay, you pay us,
00:11:30we protect you,
00:11:31and we guarantee that you remain
00:11:33the owner of your company.
00:11:37A new economic era began,
00:11:39marked by the meteoric rise
00:11:41of a new class of entrepreneurs,
00:11:43the oligarchs,
00:11:44led by Mikhail Khodorkovsky
00:11:46and Boris Berezovsky.
00:11:52Masters of economic predation,
00:11:54the oligarchs made a pact
00:11:56with the only remaining power in the country.
00:12:00From the inception
00:12:02of the post-Soviet economy,
00:12:04you had the new financial leaders
00:12:09of the economy working hand-in-glove
00:12:11with organized crime.
00:12:16All it took was for a group
00:12:17to come in with guns blazing,
00:12:20take over the accounts department,
00:12:22rip up the share register,
00:12:24and you no longer owned anything.
00:12:26Most of the world's steel
00:12:27changed hands in one morning.
00:12:30In the Russian aluminum industry,
00:12:3247 people were murdered.
00:12:38They took Kalashnikovs
00:12:40and seized control
00:12:41of the big coal mines.
00:12:42They seized control
00:12:44of the copper mines,
00:12:45but they did so in such a way
00:12:46that they owned percentages,
00:12:48sometimes even tens of percentages,
00:12:51of the world's resources
00:12:52in some of these sectors.
00:12:55And they created their own bank
00:12:57and their own network of influence.
00:12:59and less than a decade later,
00:13:01they found themselves listed
00:13:02on the London Stock Exchange.
00:13:12It is from a former Soviet republic
00:13:14that the world of crime
00:13:15would be reorganized.
00:13:18In 1993, in Yerevan,
00:13:20the capital of Armenia,
00:13:21a huge crowd
00:13:22accompanied Rafik Svoh,
00:13:24the great godfather
00:13:25of the Armenian mafia,
00:13:27on his last journey.
00:13:29The funeral was attended
00:13:30by Soviet wise men
00:13:32from various countries
00:13:33of the former USSR,
00:13:35the United States,
00:13:36Germany, and Turkey,
00:13:38as well as Italian mafiosi
00:13:39and Colombian drug traffickers
00:13:41who were also invited
00:13:42for the occasion.
00:13:43During the ceremony,
00:13:45the mafia held
00:13:46a historic meeting.
00:13:47The time had come
00:13:48to create a new
00:13:49international criminal organization
00:13:51to keep up with
00:13:52the changing globalized world
00:13:53where the circulation,
00:13:55investment,
00:13:55and laundering of money
00:13:56needed to be rethought.
00:13:58At the same time,
00:13:59criminal summits were held
00:14:00in Tel Aviv and Puerto Rico
00:14:02to discuss international investments
00:14:04by mafiosi
00:14:05from the former Soviet Union.
00:14:08When the USSR collapsed,
00:14:12there were two movements abroad.
00:14:14First of all,
00:14:15as we've talked about,
00:14:17there was an organized movement
00:14:18designed by the KGB
00:14:20and based on these companies abroad.
00:14:22But there were also other movements,
00:14:24which,
00:14:25either in isolation
00:14:26or because they were supported
00:14:28by criminal groups,
00:14:29felt that it was necessary
00:14:30to leave the former USSR
00:14:32and expand.
00:14:35I remember going in,
00:14:37I think it was in 1993,
00:14:40to a closed government conference
00:14:42in the Washington area,
00:14:44and there was somebody
00:14:45from Scotland Yard
00:14:47who got up and said,
00:14:49you know,
00:14:50we have all these professors
00:14:52and mathematicians
00:14:54staying at our top hotels in London.
00:14:57These are Russian mathematicians,
00:14:59Russian statisticians.
00:15:01We don't understand
00:15:02what they're doing here.
00:15:04But we think that they're
00:15:06doing something
00:15:08with money from Russia.
00:15:10They moved their money
00:15:11out of Russia
00:15:13into England,
00:15:15into the south of France,
00:15:17into Spain,
00:15:18into the United States,
00:15:20where there is rule of law.
00:15:22It's not that they built rule of law
00:15:24within their own country.
00:15:25They went out to find rule of law
00:15:27elsewhere.
00:15:53In Brooklyn,
00:15:54in the south of New York,
00:15:56the Russian mafia,
00:15:57made up of Vori bosses
00:15:58and former KGB members
00:15:59were getting into business
00:16:01with the big Italian-American families
00:16:03and bringing their expertise
00:16:04in financial crime with them,
00:16:06namely money laundering
00:16:08and the infiltration
00:16:08of banking systems.
00:16:10The United States,
00:16:11the great victor
00:16:11of the Cold War,
00:16:13failed to see
00:16:13the emergence of this threat,
00:16:15the culmination
00:16:15of these new alliances.
00:16:18Convinced of its omnipotence,
00:16:20America accelerated
00:16:20the globalization
00:16:21and globalization of its economy.
00:16:23In 1993,
00:16:25U.S. President Bill Clinton
00:16:27set up NAFTA,
00:16:30a vast free trade area
00:16:32between Mexico,
00:16:33the United States,
00:16:34and Canada.
00:16:46NAFTA was a gift
00:16:48to organized crime
00:16:49in Mexico.
00:16:50The opening of border crossings
00:16:52is accompanied
00:16:53by another major change.
00:16:55Since the death
00:16:56of Pablo Escobar
00:16:57in Colombia,
00:16:58the Mexican cartels
00:16:59had taken control
00:17:00of the huge cocaine market.
00:17:05Mexican organized crime
00:17:08wasn't born
00:17:09with a cocaine trade.
00:17:13They already had
00:17:14these smuggling networks
00:17:15in place
00:17:16to move people,
00:17:18to move heroin,
00:17:19to move marijuana.
00:17:23The cocaine trade
00:17:25is so lucrative
00:17:27and moves
00:17:29such scale
00:17:32that they very quickly
00:17:34developed
00:17:34their own infrastructure.
00:17:39and then the Mexicans
00:17:41become the senior partners
00:17:42for the U.S. market,
00:17:43which is the case today.
00:17:46The free trade agreement
00:17:48expedited border crossings
00:17:49with an endless stream
00:17:50of trucks
00:17:51dumping clothes,
00:17:52toys,
00:17:53and television sets
00:17:53into the United States,
00:17:55along with cannabis,
00:17:56heroin,
00:17:57and cocaine.
00:18:00Drug money traveled
00:18:02in the opposite direction.
00:18:04In Mexico,
00:18:06one bank in particular
00:18:07stood out
00:18:07for its ability
00:18:08to launder this money,
00:18:10the Hong Kong
00:18:10and Shanghai Banking Corporation,
00:18:13HSBC.
00:18:14The couriers
00:18:15were carrying in
00:18:16Samsonites
00:18:17and duffel bags
00:18:18full of $100 bills,
00:18:20you know,
00:18:20fresh off the streets
00:18:22of Los Angeles
00:18:22and Seattle and Chicago.
00:18:24The drug couriers
00:18:25frequently wearing
00:18:27leather jackets
00:18:28with the symbol
00:18:29of the Sinaloa drug cartel
00:18:31or the Los Zetas drug cartel
00:18:32on their back,
00:18:33okay,
00:18:34so they're like
00:18:34pretty obvious.
00:18:35They have like,
00:18:35they have like a little badge.
00:18:37Like,
00:18:37I'm a Sinaloa member,
00:18:38don't fuck with me,
00:18:39okay?
00:18:39So,
00:18:39they'd show up
00:18:40at the bank.
00:18:41The bank built
00:18:42special windows
00:18:43so they could
00:18:45raise the window
00:18:46and you could just
00:18:46shove the
00:18:49duffel bags
00:18:49of cash
00:18:50under it.
00:18:51And how did we know that?
00:18:52Because we had
00:18:53surveillance cameras
00:18:54inside HSBC
00:18:55Mexico City's
00:18:56headquarters,
00:18:57okay,
00:18:58all over.
00:18:58We had them all over
00:18:59the place in there.
00:19:02after years
00:19:02of investigations,
00:19:04the U.S.
00:19:04justice system
00:19:05succeeded in
00:19:05convicting HSBC,
00:19:07which paid a fine
00:19:08of almost $2 billion,
00:19:10a slap on the wrist
00:19:11for a banking group
00:19:12of this size.
00:19:13HSBC is a notorious
00:19:14serial violator
00:19:15on kind of a scale
00:19:17of Credit Suisse
00:19:19when it comes
00:19:19to financial crimes.
00:19:21And here's another
00:19:22example where they
00:19:23didn't lose their license,
00:19:25nobody went to jail,
00:19:26it was basically a,
00:19:27you know,
00:19:28a non-penalty penalty
00:19:29and, you know,
00:19:31a technical foul.
00:19:33I don't think until
00:19:34we take these big banks
00:19:35to the cleaners
00:19:36and basically make
00:19:37an exhibit of one
00:19:38of them at least
00:19:39that we will be able
00:19:40to get rid of this
00:19:41behavior.
00:19:44Unsurprisingly,
00:19:45HSBC kept
00:19:46its banking license.
00:19:48However,
00:19:49the Mexican cartels
00:19:50were obliged to rethink
00:19:51their money laundering
00:19:52system.
00:19:55We've seen
00:19:55Mexican cartels
00:19:57in the US
00:19:58that came out
00:19:59from an FBI
00:20:00leaked document
00:20:01set up private
00:20:02investment accounts
00:20:04essentially into
00:20:05the investment markets
00:20:07and then take that
00:20:08money out to buy gold.
00:20:11At the same time,
00:20:12to the north of the
00:20:13American continent
00:20:14in Canada,
00:20:15another mafia system
00:20:16was setting up
00:20:17its own money laundering
00:20:18mechanisms,
00:20:19the Chinese Triads.
00:20:22Since the 1980s,
00:20:23cocaine and heroin
00:20:24have flooded the country
00:20:25from Vancouver,
00:20:26the fourth largest port
00:20:27in the Americas.
00:20:30In the evenings,
00:20:31Vancouver's city center
00:20:32was the stage
00:20:33for gruesome scenes.
00:20:37Just the volume of open-air drug market
00:20:41activity,
00:20:42the violence in the area,
00:20:45the disproportionate number
00:20:46of First Nations
00:20:48and indigenous people
00:20:49that gravitated towards
00:20:51this open-air drug market
00:20:53in downtown Vancouver.
00:20:54It was hard to look at
00:20:57and watch.
00:21:00In Canada's major cities,
00:21:02Toronto, Ottawa,
00:21:03and Vancouver,
00:21:04the Triads divided up
00:21:05the drug market.
00:21:09These mafia groups
00:21:10were all the more invisible
00:21:12because they formed
00:21:12part of a diaspora
00:21:14that had been present
00:21:14in Canada
00:21:15for over a century.
00:21:19In Vancouver,
00:21:20the Triads were laundering
00:21:21and reinvesting crime money
00:21:23using the same
00:21:24tried and tested model
00:21:25as two colonial enclaves,
00:21:27Macau and Hong Kong.
00:21:35Over the decades,
00:21:36the Triads had built
00:21:37a vast empire
00:21:38of prostitution,
00:21:39drug trafficking,
00:21:40gambling,
00:21:41and illegal betting.
00:21:46In Macau,
00:21:47a huge casino park
00:21:48was used by
00:21:49Chinese Communist Party
00:21:50apparatchiks
00:21:51to squander
00:21:52and hide their fortunes,
00:21:53and by the Triads
00:21:54to launder
00:21:55their dirty money.
00:21:59This is the model
00:22:00that Macau organized crime
00:22:01was exporting to Canada.
00:22:05The Triads succeeded
00:22:07infiltrating
00:22:07the vast world
00:22:08of casinos
00:22:09in the province
00:22:10of Vancouver,
00:22:10British Columbia.
00:22:15Government casino workers
00:22:16saw figures
00:22:18such as
00:22:18Betty Big Sister Yan,
00:22:21Kwok Chun Tam,
00:22:22Lai Cheng Singh,
00:22:23China's most-wanted fugitive.
00:22:26These were the high rollers,
00:22:28the loan sharks
00:22:29that employees
00:22:31in the casino
00:22:31saw had such influence,
00:22:34carried such amounts
00:22:36of cash,
00:22:37generated such profits
00:22:39that they became
00:22:40the de facto bosses
00:22:43of the casino.
00:22:47The casino,
00:22:48through the use of tokens,
00:22:50creates a parallel economy.
00:22:53When you have
00:22:54multiple casinos
00:22:54spread across
00:22:55an entire territory,
00:22:56you could have tokens
00:22:58worth 100,000,
00:22:591 million,
00:23:002 million,
00:23:015 million,
00:23:01100 million.
00:23:02It's worth
00:23:03that kind of money.
00:23:05But they're tiny
00:23:06and made of plastic.
00:23:09It's great for money laundering
00:23:11or for transferring money
00:23:12because you can take
00:23:14a token from Moscow,
00:23:15for example,
00:23:16and then change it in Vienna.
00:23:17You can take a token
00:23:19from Shanghai
00:23:19and change it in Hong Kong
00:23:21and vice versa.
00:23:25And then,
00:23:26it became international
00:23:28because you could pay
00:23:29with these things
00:23:29which are completely
00:23:31outside any kind
00:23:33of financial regulation.
00:23:39On the American continent,
00:23:40drugs,
00:23:42money laundering circuits
00:23:43and a host
00:23:43of criminal players
00:23:44combined to create
00:23:45a new criminal superhighway
00:23:47from Tijuana to Vancouver
00:23:49at a time when Macau
00:23:51and then Hong Kong
00:23:52were falling back
00:23:54into the hands of China.
00:24:02In Europe,
00:24:04another mafia group
00:24:05was about to throw their hat
00:24:06into the global crime arena,
00:24:08the Indrangheta.
00:24:10Based in Calabria,
00:24:11in southern Italy,
00:24:13the criminal organization
00:24:14of rural origin
00:24:15is one of the country's
00:24:16four historic mafias.
00:24:18Unlike the Sicilians
00:24:19of Cosa Nostra
00:24:20or the Neapolitans
00:24:21of the Camorra
00:24:22or the fourth mafia
00:24:23of Apulia,
00:24:24the Indrangheta
00:24:25was the only mafia
00:24:27present on every continent
00:24:28and this expansion
00:24:29enabled it to understand
00:24:30what the fall
00:24:31of the Berlin Wall
00:24:32meant before anyone else.
00:24:36The Indrangheta understood
00:24:38that there were no longer
00:24:40any barriers
00:24:40between west and east.
00:24:43There was no longer
00:24:44a Cold War,
00:24:45no longer two opposing blocs,
00:24:47but the world to conquer.
00:24:52So we're talking
00:24:53about the colonization
00:24:54of markets
00:24:55in South Africa,
00:24:57in the Congo,
00:24:58in Kenya,
00:24:59in Eastern Europe,
00:25:00in South America.
00:25:05Based in the United States
00:25:07for over a century,
00:25:08the Indrangheta
00:25:09then deployed its men
00:25:10in Colombia,
00:25:11Peru,
00:25:11and Brazil.
00:25:14By the early 1990s,
00:25:16they had become
00:25:16the world's leading
00:25:17exporter of cocaine,
00:25:19managing entry points
00:25:20in Europe,
00:25:21Africa,
00:25:21and Oceania.
00:25:24and the Indrangheta,
00:25:27which has considerable
00:25:28financial resources
00:25:29at its disposal,
00:25:32found an extraordinary ally
00:25:33in the unregulated capitalism,
00:25:37because drug money
00:25:38entered the legal economy
00:25:40with impressive ease.
00:25:44today there isn't a country
00:25:47in Europe
00:25:47where the Indrangheta
00:25:48hasn't managed
00:25:49to invest money.
00:25:54The Indrangheta
00:25:55invested in various sectors,
00:25:57services,
00:25:58restaurants,
00:25:59real estate,
00:26:00construction,
00:26:01supermarkets,
00:26:02and transport.
00:26:03They diversified
00:26:04their investments
00:26:05wherever they set up shop,
00:26:06consolidating their links
00:26:08with criminal organizations
00:26:09in Russia,
00:26:10China,
00:26:11Turkey,
00:26:12Morocco,
00:26:13Nigeria,
00:26:15and Albania.
00:26:17Over the years,
00:26:18this rural mafia
00:26:19has become a criminal
00:26:20multinational,
00:26:21investing all over the world,
00:26:24except in Calabria.
00:26:28Luigi Bonaventura
00:26:30is a repentant member
00:26:31of the Indrangheta,
00:26:32who left the organization
00:26:33at the risk of his life.
00:26:36The real problem
00:26:39lay not just
00:26:39in how to obtain
00:26:40and distribute cocaine,
00:26:42but also how to launder
00:26:43the money.
00:26:46Today the price of cocaine
00:26:48may seem very high,
00:26:51but we mustn't forget
00:26:52that if I buy coke here
00:26:54in Italy
00:26:55at $10,000 a kilo
00:26:58and sell it for $35,000
00:27:00or $40,000,
00:27:03in all this
00:27:05you have to factor in
00:27:06the losses
00:27:07associated with
00:27:08tax
00:27:09to recycle
00:27:10and launder the money.
00:27:16Money laundering
00:27:17even works
00:27:18in such a way
00:27:19that the drug trafficker
00:27:21becomes the one
00:27:22who pays
00:27:22the most tax
00:27:23because you automatically
00:27:25have restaurants,
00:27:27hotels.
00:27:29The Indrangheta
00:27:30swarmed entire states
00:27:32and bought up everything
00:27:34and anything.
00:27:35There have been towns
00:27:36where people have said to us,
00:27:37stop buying,
00:27:38you've bought everything.
00:27:40So the Indrangheta
00:27:41is a phenomena
00:27:42that goes beyond
00:27:43Italy's borders.
00:27:44To identify it solely
00:27:45as an Italian problem
00:27:46would be really restrictive
00:27:48and dangerous,
00:27:49very dangerous.
00:27:53In a telephone conversation
00:27:54intercepted by the Italian police,
00:27:57one Indrangheta declared
00:27:58that the world
00:27:59is divided in two,
00:28:00Calabria
00:28:01and what will one day
00:28:02become Calabria.
00:28:14In Russia,
00:28:15the young federation
00:28:16had barely emerged
00:28:17from a state of limbo
00:28:19and already appeared
00:28:20to be on the verge
00:28:21of collapse.
00:28:22Most of its resources
00:28:23were in the hands
00:28:24of predators.
00:28:25The banking system
00:28:26was on the verge
00:28:26of becoming overrun
00:28:27by the mafia.
00:28:32where Calcetant bankers
00:28:34were being murdered.
00:28:36In 1995,
00:28:37the Central Bank of Russia
00:28:38estimated that between
00:28:4050 and 80 percent
00:28:41of the country's banks
00:28:42were in the hands
00:28:42of organized crime.
00:28:44The money flights
00:28:45were enormous
00:28:47and the economic situation
00:28:50of the ordinary citizen
00:28:51was extremely precarious.
00:28:54But because if you owned a bank
00:28:56and you raided the bank
00:28:58and sent the money overseas,
00:29:00the bank depositors
00:29:02lost their assets.
00:29:04And so this impoverished
00:29:07the Russian population
00:29:09over and over again
00:29:10with these banking scandals,
00:29:12which is part of the reason
00:29:14that people wanted stability
00:29:17because they'd lost stability
00:29:19and the support
00:29:21of the social welfare benefits
00:29:23that existed
00:29:24in the Soviet period.
00:29:25then they lost
00:29:27their life savings
00:29:28in the banks.
00:29:30And so everything seemed
00:29:33to be collapsing
00:29:33around them.
00:29:35And you could see
00:29:37the rise of oligarchs,
00:29:40you could see gangsters
00:29:41in the restaurants
00:29:42and expensive cars
00:29:44in the streets.
00:29:46And this was just traumatic.
00:29:58One man symbolized
00:30:00the immense power
00:30:01enjoyed by Russian criminal groups
00:30:02at the time,
00:30:03Sergei Mikhailov,
00:30:05the leader of the Moscow
00:30:06Solzsavskaya,
00:30:07then the most powerful
00:30:09mafia organization in Russia.
00:30:13Mikhailov recycled the income
00:30:15from Solzsavskaya's
00:30:16criminal and banking activities
00:30:17through a myriad of shell companies
00:30:19with offshore accounts.
00:30:25In 1996,
00:30:27Mikhailov was arrested
00:30:28in Geneva,
00:30:29where he lived,
00:30:30for money laundering.
00:30:33Swiss investigators discovered
00:30:35this on Swiss territory.
00:30:37They started issuing
00:30:38letters of request abroad.
00:30:39They went to Western Europe
00:30:41and what did they find?
00:30:43They found links
00:30:44to Boris Berstein
00:30:45in companies linked
00:30:46to the Solzsavskaya
00:30:47organized crime group,
00:30:48so pure organized crime.
00:30:51This is where we were
00:30:52left puzzled,
00:30:53saying to ourselves,
00:30:55but what are we talking about
00:30:57in this web
00:30:57of Russian organized crime
00:30:59where they had such
00:31:00close ties with mafia bosses,
00:31:02businessmen,
00:31:03and KGB intermediaries?
00:31:16This was the secret
00:31:18of the Russian mafia's power.
00:31:20The underground networks
00:31:21of the former KGB
00:31:22and the positions
00:31:23acquired in the West
00:31:24thanks to the network
00:31:25of front companies.
00:31:29Ousted from the Kremlin
00:31:30by the Yeltsin clan,
00:31:31the former KGB
00:31:32disappeared from Moscow.
00:31:34Their vengeance
00:31:35would come in the country's
00:31:36second city,
00:31:37St. Petersburg.
00:31:41In the mid-1990s,
00:31:43in an atmosphere
00:31:43of extreme violence,
00:31:45the Tambov mafia group
00:31:46took control
00:31:47of the port facilities
00:31:48and turned them
00:31:49into a hub
00:31:49for cocaine trafficking.
00:31:51To launder their money,
00:31:53the mafia acquired
00:31:54a stake in Rossiya,
00:31:55a small regional bank
00:31:57set up by former KGB officers.
00:32:00Bank Rossiya
00:32:01is a very good example.
00:32:03This was one of those banks,
00:32:05and there were a few in Russia
00:32:06that were acting
00:32:07kind of in the same vein
00:32:09to enable politicians
00:32:11to launder money
00:32:12and to amass
00:32:13a large part of the loot.
00:32:17So this is the bank
00:32:18that kind of sits
00:32:19at the center
00:32:19of crime and politics,
00:32:21the pivot
00:32:22that allowed people
00:32:23to shuffle money around
00:32:25and to gain control,
00:32:27financial control,
00:32:28which is crucial,
00:32:29to political control.
00:32:31Major shareholders
00:32:32in Bank Rossiya,
00:32:33the St. Petersburg mafia
00:32:35also benefited
00:32:36from the diligent help
00:32:37of the city's deputy mayor.
00:32:39The man who kept
00:32:40such a low profile
00:32:41that he was invisible
00:32:42in official photos
00:32:43was none other than
00:32:45former KGB officer
00:32:46Vladimir Putin.
00:32:49Stationed in Dresden
00:32:50in the 1980s,
00:32:51Putin took part
00:32:52in destabilization operations
00:32:53on behalf of the KGB
00:32:55and the Stasi,
00:32:56the East German Secret Service,
00:32:58as well as smuggling technology
00:32:59from the West.
00:33:01At the end of 1999,
00:33:03Putin succeeded Yeltsin
00:33:04in a Russia
00:33:05on the verge of bankruptcy
00:33:06after defaulting
00:33:07on its debt
00:33:08the previous year.
00:33:10At the head of the country,
00:33:11Vladimir Putin set about
00:33:13bringing the oligarchs
00:33:14and mafia bosses
00:33:15to heel
00:33:15under the authority
00:33:16of one man,
00:33:18himself.
00:33:19President Putin gets up
00:33:21and says,
00:33:21well, this corporate rating
00:33:23is very bad
00:33:24for the Russian economy.
00:33:26We've got to do
00:33:26something about it.
00:33:29The former KGB agents
00:33:31around the president
00:33:31put security services
00:33:33back into the heart
00:33:34of the Russian system
00:33:35via the FSB.
00:33:37The first target
00:33:38was the Yukos oil tanker.
00:33:39It was retrieved
00:33:40and its owner
00:33:41Mikhail Khodorkovsky
00:33:42was sent to Siberia.
00:33:45Yukos Sitchin,
00:33:45a native of St. Petersburg
00:33:47and one of Vladimir Putin's
00:33:48closest friends,
00:33:49acquired Yukos
00:33:50for his own oil company,
00:33:52Rosneft.
00:33:54To finance the investments
00:33:55needed to exploit
00:33:56Siberian oil,
00:33:58Sitchin needed access
00:33:59to international capital.
00:34:01The city of London,
00:34:03the world's leading
00:34:04financial center,
00:34:05opened its doors to him.
00:34:07Here, there was no need
00:34:08to certify the accuracy
00:34:09of financial accounts
00:34:10and therefore,
00:34:11no risk of criminal offense.
00:34:14In the city of London,
00:34:15it's like,
00:34:15that's sort of
00:34:16their raison d'etre.
00:34:17They're basically,
00:34:19you know,
00:34:19that's,
00:34:20what do you think
00:34:20bankers do
00:34:21in the city of London?
00:34:22I mean,
00:34:23it's all about
00:34:24setting up
00:34:25and structuring
00:34:26entities
00:34:27entities that are
00:34:28basically opaque
00:34:30and the most obvious
00:34:33and most frequent
00:34:34use of these entities
00:34:35is just for tax evasion.
00:34:37In 2006,
00:34:39Rosneft was listed
00:34:40on the city stock exchange.
00:34:42It was the third biggest
00:34:43share sale in the world
00:34:44that year,
00:34:45a triumph.
00:34:47As oil prices soared,
00:34:49Russia became an Eldorado
00:34:50for oil companies,
00:34:51an Eldorado in the middle
00:34:53of the wilderness.
00:34:55In 2006,
00:34:57Andrei Kozlov,
00:34:58vice president
00:34:59of Russia's central bank,
00:35:00who had dismantled
00:35:01several money laundering networks
00:35:02and closed 44 banks,
00:35:04was murdered in Moscow,
00:35:06along with his driver.
00:35:08For the financial markets
00:35:10and investors,
00:35:10the mafia-like methods
00:35:12of the KGB oligarchy
00:35:13were of little importance.
00:35:15Oil money,
00:35:16even if it's Russian,
00:35:17has no smell.
00:35:20London,
00:35:21acting as Russia's
00:35:22money handler,
00:35:23was nicknamed
00:35:24London grad.
00:35:29You've got
00:35:30a huge amount
00:35:32of property
00:35:33owned by Russians.
00:35:34You have
00:35:35law firms
00:35:37with so many
00:35:39lawyers
00:35:40helping facilitate
00:35:42Russian money laundering,
00:35:44Russian business.
00:35:45You've got PR firms
00:35:47that are working.
00:35:48You have a whole
00:35:48profession
00:35:50of facilitators.
00:35:51But some of these people
00:35:53serving this Russian elite
00:35:55are getting recognition
00:35:58from the British apparatus.
00:36:02You know,
00:36:02they're honored lawyers
00:36:04of the realm.
00:36:08In the 2010s,
00:36:1020 years after
00:36:10the historic meeting
00:36:11of the main
00:36:12criminal organizations
00:36:13in Yerevan,
00:36:14the transformation
00:36:15of Russia
00:36:16into a mafia state
00:36:17had facilitated
00:36:18commercial relations
00:36:19between various
00:36:20criminal actors
00:36:20established in all
00:36:22the strongholds
00:36:23of the global economy.
00:36:25This is when
00:36:26Paul Radu
00:36:26appeared on the scene
00:36:27and,
00:36:28with his OCCRP team,
00:36:30delved into
00:36:30the financial archives
00:36:32of the Soviet bloc
00:36:33over the last three decades.
00:36:34By scrutinizing
00:36:35the money movements
00:36:36of a Baltic bank,
00:36:37Paul Radu
00:36:38discovered
00:36:39a suspicious account
00:36:40used by various
00:36:41criminal organizations.
00:36:43I was surprised.
00:36:45I said,
00:36:45what is this?
00:36:46This seems like
00:36:46a crazy conspiracy.
00:36:48One bank account
00:36:49and you have
00:36:49all these criminal groups
00:36:50coming together
00:36:51to launder the money
00:36:52through this one
00:36:53Tormex Limited company.
00:36:54This is insane.
00:36:57And then I looked
00:36:58a little bit more
00:36:59at those companies
00:37:01mentioned in the banking record
00:37:02and there were always
00:37:03these offshore companies
00:37:05with bank accounts
00:37:06sometimes in Latvia,
00:37:07sometimes in Estonia,
00:37:08sometimes in Germany,
00:37:10sometimes in the US,
00:37:10all over the world,
00:37:11China, everywhere.
00:37:13And they were transferring
00:37:14these huge,
00:37:15huge amounts of money.
00:37:17And that's when
00:37:18for the first time
00:37:19we saw
00:37:19we had access
00:37:20to direct banking records
00:37:22that showed
00:37:23that the conspiracy
00:37:24was on the side
00:37:26of the bankers
00:37:27who put the system together
00:37:29and that's when
00:37:30we slowly started
00:37:31to understand
00:37:32what was going on.
00:37:34With his colleagues
00:37:35at the OCCRP,
00:37:37Paul Radu
00:37:38then made a second discovery
00:37:39by tracking variations
00:37:40in the costs
00:37:41of money laundering
00:37:42in Europe
00:37:42and the former Soviet Union.
00:37:46You look at
00:37:47the Italian mafias,
00:37:48you look at other groups
00:37:49and they would have
00:37:50to give away
00:37:51quite a bit
00:37:52of their criminal profit
00:37:54to people
00:37:55who were professional
00:37:56money launderers.
00:37:56It was sometimes
00:37:5810%, 15%,
00:38:00quite big chunks
00:38:02from the hard-earned
00:38:05criminal work
00:38:06from the crime.
00:38:08But bankers
00:38:10in the Baltics
00:38:12thought that
00:38:13there's opportunity
00:38:14in lowering
00:38:15the cost
00:38:17of money laundering.
00:38:18There's great opportunity
00:38:19in there.
00:38:20From the 10%,
00:38:21from the cut
00:38:22that was taken
00:38:23from money laundering,
00:38:24they went down
00:38:24to even 0.1%.
00:38:27But for the banker
00:38:28to make a profit,
00:38:30like a sizable profit,
00:38:32the banker needed
00:38:33volumes of money.
00:38:35There was a banker
00:38:35who set up the system
00:38:37and said,
00:38:38look,
00:38:38I have a bank
00:38:39and I have this pipeline
00:38:41for laundering
00:38:42billions.
00:38:43Now I only need
00:38:44the clients.
00:38:45Who wants to launder money?
00:38:46This is why you see
00:38:48multiple criminal groups
00:38:50laundering their money
00:38:51through the same pipelines.
00:38:52It's not that they know
00:38:53each other,
00:38:54but they make use
00:38:55of the same infrastructure
00:38:57that was put together
00:38:59in their service
00:39:00by the bankers.
00:39:04Paul Radu
00:39:05conceptualized the pipeline,
00:39:07a hidden financial network
00:39:08set up by bankers,
00:39:10businessmen,
00:39:10and mafiosi.
00:39:12One after the other,
00:39:14the OCCRP
00:39:15would bring three cases
00:39:16of money laundering
00:39:16to light,
00:39:17revealing obscene amounts
00:39:18of misappropriated funds.
00:39:21The Troika laundromat,
00:39:22the NGO
00:39:23uncovered more than
00:39:2447,000 financial transactions,
00:39:27involving $26 billion
00:39:28of money laundered
00:39:30by 2,900 companies.
00:39:32The Azerbaijani laundromat,
00:39:34an operation involving
00:39:35four UK-registered
00:39:37shell companies
00:39:37for people close
00:39:38to the government
00:39:39in Azerbaijan.
00:39:40And the Moldovan laundromat,
00:39:42$20 billion,
00:39:43implicating 732 banks
00:39:45in 96 countries,
00:39:47among them Deutsche Bank,
00:39:48UBS,
00:39:49Bank of China,
00:39:51HSBC,
00:39:52the Royal Bank of Scotland,
00:39:54and Kutz & Co.,
00:39:56the Bank of the British Crown.
00:40:00Through OCCRP,
00:40:01we're able to connect those
00:40:02to what was going on
00:40:03in Western Europe,
00:40:04what was going on
00:40:05in the US,
00:40:07the United States,
00:40:08and elsewhere.
00:40:09So the whole thing
00:40:10is to understand
00:40:12these patterns
00:40:12because at the end of the day,
00:40:15crime is a commodity.
00:40:16You have an import-export
00:40:18of crime.
00:40:20You have all this
00:40:22lot of money laundering,
00:40:23but you also have
00:40:25this mindset
00:40:26where criminals,
00:40:28when they find
00:40:28a criminal model
00:40:29that works,
00:40:30like the laundromats,
00:40:31be sure that they will apply
00:40:34that same model
00:40:35over and over
00:40:36and over again
00:40:37until someone stops them.
00:40:38If anyone is there
00:40:39to stop them,
00:40:40and usually there's nobody
00:40:42because these are
00:40:43global structures,
00:40:44and at the global level,
00:40:45there's no natural enemy
00:40:47of organized crime
00:40:49and corruption.
00:40:50And this is the power
00:40:52of the criminals.
00:40:55The work of the OCCRP
00:40:58marks a turning point
00:40:59in our understanding
00:41:00of contemporary
00:41:00financial crime.
00:41:02At the same time,
00:41:03other NGOs
00:41:04were tackling
00:41:05the world's criminal lung,
00:41:06tax havens.
00:41:08From 2013 onwards,
00:41:10a series of revelations
00:41:11known as the leaks
00:41:12revealed criminal
00:41:13financial practices
00:41:14directly involving states.
00:41:16Offshore leaks,
00:41:182013,
00:41:19Lux leaks,
00:41:202014,
00:41:21Swiss leaks,
00:41:222015,
00:41:23Bahamas leaks,
00:41:242016,
00:41:26Paradise Papers,
00:41:272017,
00:41:28Pandora Papers,
00:41:292021.
00:41:33John Christensen
00:41:34co-founded
00:41:34the Tax Justice Network,
00:41:36an NGO that documents
00:41:38the abuses
00:41:38of tax havens.
00:41:40Christensen was an insider
00:41:41in offshore finance
00:41:43on the island of Jersey
00:41:44for 14 years.
00:41:46This veteran of the fight
00:41:47against dirty money
00:41:48and tax havens
00:41:49sees the release
00:41:50of the first leaks
00:41:51as the reward
00:41:52for 20 years' work.
00:41:53What the leaks have done
00:41:54is to show the banality
00:41:56of global corruption,
00:41:58show that really boring people,
00:42:01bankers and accountants,
00:42:04are all involved
00:42:06in supporting corruption.
00:42:08They're all involved
00:42:10in a criminogenic environment.
00:42:12They pretend
00:42:13that they are
00:42:14ultra-respectable,
00:42:16professional people,
00:42:18whereas in reality
00:42:19they are engaged
00:42:21in a long-term
00:42:22process
00:42:24of enabling
00:42:26and facilitating
00:42:27criminal activity
00:42:28and undermining democracy.
00:42:36In 2013,
00:42:38a new leader
00:42:38came to power
00:42:39in China,
00:42:40Xi Jinping.
00:42:42At the same time,
00:42:43the offshore leaks
00:42:44came out,
00:42:45exposing the secret accounts
00:42:47of senior Chinese politicians
00:42:48and directors
00:42:49of major state-owned companies.
00:42:51Between 1,000 billion
00:42:52and 4,000 billion
00:42:54in untraceable assets
00:42:55have left China
00:42:56since the 2000s
00:42:57to invest in Caribbean
00:42:58tax havens,
00:42:59particularly
00:43:00the British Virgin Islands.
00:43:22Xi Jinping
00:43:23launched a vast
00:43:24anti-corruption campaign,
00:43:25but it only affected
00:43:27his rivals.
00:43:27The Chinese triants
00:43:29escaped the purges
00:43:30and were not dismantled.
00:43:34It was against
00:43:35this backdrop
00:43:36that a synthetic opiate
00:43:37appeared in Chinese laboratories,
00:43:39fentanyl.
00:43:41There is nothing illegal
00:43:42about its manufacture,
00:43:44but when added
00:43:45to heroin and cocaine,
00:43:46fentanyl multiplies
00:43:47the narcotic power
00:43:48by 100,
00:43:49making it
00:43:50a deadly poison.
00:43:52In 2013,
00:43:54the United States
00:43:54and Canada
00:43:55were already reporting
00:43:56thousands of deaths
00:43:57caused by the drug,
00:43:58which then had poorly understood
00:44:00supply networks.
00:44:01By 2021,
00:44:03the figure had risen
00:44:03to 100,000 deaths
00:44:05in the United States.
00:44:08Vancouver,
00:44:08the gateway to fentanyl
00:44:09on the North American continent,
00:44:11was setting new records,
00:44:13an exponential rise
00:44:14in the number of deaths,
00:44:15out-of-control,
00:44:16property speculation,
00:44:17and a proliferation
00:44:18of gambling venues.
00:44:21The only difference
00:44:22was that the patrons
00:44:23of the system
00:44:24were no longer
00:44:25the triads.
00:44:27Fentanyl is,
00:44:28first and foremost,
00:44:29a generator
00:44:30of proceeds
00:44:31for the state of China.
00:44:34They could shut
00:44:34those factories down
00:44:36if they wanted to.
00:44:37They could eradicate
00:44:38the precursors
00:44:39if they wanted to,
00:44:41if they were listening
00:44:41to the United States government,
00:44:43but they're not doing that.
00:44:44This is essentially
00:44:45what we can call
00:44:46the company,
00:44:48a network of triad bosses
00:44:50with interrelationships
00:44:52with Chinese security
00:44:53and intelligence
00:44:54and Chinese Communist Party handlers.
00:44:58The international mafia
00:44:59facilitated
00:45:00a global division of labor.
00:45:02The chemicals needed
00:45:03to manufacture fentanyl
00:45:04were exported to Mexico
00:45:06by legal Chinese companies.
00:45:08The Sinaloa cartels,
00:45:10with links to the triads,
00:45:11are responsible
00:45:12for synthesizing them
00:45:13into narcotics.
00:45:14In this nebulous mafia network,
00:45:16a criminal group
00:45:17which didn't usually operate
00:45:18in these parts
00:45:19was spotted
00:45:20by the Canadian authorities.
00:45:22Key people
00:45:23from the Sinaloa cartel
00:45:24arriving in Vancouver
00:45:26and we can see
00:45:28that they would be meeting
00:45:29with agents of Hezbollah
00:45:31or Persian, Iranian,
00:45:33Middle Eastern,
00:45:34high-level organized crime actors.
00:45:37Why would they be meeting together?
00:45:39This is a question
00:45:40that confounded
00:45:42Canadian investigators
00:45:44until they recognized
00:45:45that the Persian
00:45:47or Hezbollah actors
00:45:49were also very tightly connected
00:45:51with the Chinese triad networks.
00:45:54So why was that happening?
00:45:58The appearance of Hezbollah,
00:46:00the Lebanese religious militia
00:46:01in Vancouver,
00:46:02reflects the need
00:46:03for its leaders
00:46:04to develop sophisticated
00:46:05financial engineering
00:46:06in order to conceal
00:46:08its criminal activities.
00:46:10Hezbollah's presence
00:46:11in Canada
00:46:12came as no surprise
00:46:13to U.S. intelligence,
00:46:14which keeps a close eye
00:46:15on its clandestine activities
00:46:17on the international stage.
00:46:20It all began
00:46:21a few years earlier.
00:46:25In 2006,
00:46:26the DEA,
00:46:27the U.S. anti-drug agency,
00:46:29was monitoring Colombia.
00:46:30A telephone tap
00:46:32was intercepted
00:46:32between members
00:46:33of the Medellin cartel
00:46:34and partners
00:46:35talking in Arabic.
00:46:36We started hearing
00:46:37a lot of calls
00:46:38in Arabic all of a sudden
00:46:39and a lot of mentions
00:46:40of Hezbollah
00:46:41and money movements
00:46:44all around the world,
00:46:45including the Middle East
00:46:46and Africa.
00:46:48Washington had become
00:46:49very involved
00:46:50in the Middle East
00:46:51since the invasion of Iraq
00:46:52and set up a task force.
00:46:54Jack Kelly,
00:46:56then a DEA agent,
00:46:57was called in.
00:46:59And Operation Cassandra began.
00:47:01We knew that this was
00:47:02the beginning
00:47:03of a burgeoning relationship
00:47:05between this Medellin cartel
00:47:08and Hezbollah.
00:47:10Hezbollah,
00:47:11weakened by Israel's war
00:47:12in Lebanon in 2006,
00:47:14began trafficking cocaine
00:47:16to the Middle East,
00:47:17Africa and Europe
00:47:18using its networks
00:47:19within the Lebanese diaspora
00:47:20in Latin America.
00:47:24It did look
00:47:25as though
00:47:26you had a Medellin drug lord
00:47:28sitting in a Hezbollah-controlled area
00:47:30of Lebanon
00:47:30coordinating
00:47:32international cocaine trafficking.
00:47:34You could tell by the way
00:47:36the numbers contacted,
00:47:37who they were contacting
00:47:39and who held the phones
00:47:40of those being contacted.
00:47:44phone taps and field investigations
00:47:46revealed another state actor,
00:47:48Venezuela.
00:47:50The president at the time,
00:47:52Hugo Chavez,
00:47:52developed close links
00:47:54with Hezbollah,
00:47:55Syria and Iran
00:47:56through cocaine trafficking,
00:47:58money laundering
00:47:58and arms trafficking,
00:48:00aimed at undermining
00:48:01American interests
00:48:02in the U.S.,
00:48:03Latin America
00:48:04and Iraq.
00:48:06They began moving
00:48:07massive amounts
00:48:08of cash,
00:48:10mostly cocaine proceeds,
00:48:12on Kamiasa Airlines,
00:48:14the Venezuelan airlines,
00:48:15out of Caracas.
00:48:17And that airline
00:48:18then would go
00:48:19to Damascus
00:48:21and Tehran.
00:48:22And in Damascus,
00:48:23a lot of the money
00:48:24would be dropped off
00:48:25and some of that money
00:48:26would make its way
00:48:27into Lebanon
00:48:28as part of this whole
00:48:29money laundering scheme.
00:48:33America focused
00:48:34on Lebanon,
00:48:35where in just a few years,
00:48:37dollar reserves
00:48:37had doubled
00:48:38to $16 billion.
00:48:40David Asher
00:48:41supervised Operation Cassandra
00:48:43along with the DEA
00:48:44in his capacity
00:48:45as a senior advisor
00:48:46to the Special Operations Command
00:48:48within the Pentagon.
00:48:49When we did
00:48:50Project Cassandra
00:48:51against Hezbollah,
00:48:51we systematically attacked
00:48:53their narcotics trafficking,
00:48:55money laundering enterprise.
00:48:59Operation Cassandra
00:49:00traced the movements
00:49:01of large sums of money
00:49:03from the Lebanese-Canadian bank
00:49:05through exchange offices
00:49:06in Beirut.
00:49:09They helped penetrate
00:49:10Lebanese-Canadian bank.
00:49:12We learned things
00:49:13that we had just
00:49:14no idea about.
00:49:15We learned that
00:49:16the Iranians
00:49:17had this massive amount
00:49:18of money inside that bank
00:49:19they were using
00:49:20to move money
00:49:20through Lebanon
00:49:21all over the world
00:49:22for their intelligence service
00:49:24and for the Quds Force
00:49:26or terrorist organization.
00:49:28In the space
00:49:29of a few months,
00:49:31Hezbollah transferred
00:49:32$5 billion
00:49:32to 249 accounts
00:49:34at Lebanese-Canadian bank.
00:49:37In 2011,
00:49:38the U.S. Treasury
00:49:39activated
00:49:40the 311 designation,
00:49:42a legal device
00:49:43that can prevent
00:49:43foreign banks
00:49:44from accessing
00:49:45U.S.-based banks.
00:49:47Overnight,
00:49:48the Lebanese-Canadian bank
00:49:49ceased to exist,
00:49:50but no criminal proceedings
00:49:52were initiated
00:49:52in the U.S.
00:49:54The Lebanese gave us
00:49:55a spreadsheet
00:49:56where they showed us
00:49:58where all the money
00:49:58had gone
00:49:59for all these
00:49:59suspicious accounts
00:50:00tied to Hezbollah.
00:50:02They went to
00:50:02all the other banks.
00:50:03They gave us
00:50:03the names of the banks.
00:50:04They gave us
00:50:05the account numbers.
00:50:06They gave us all that.
00:50:07We did nothing
00:50:08with it as a government.
00:50:09So just merely
00:50:10to get to the point
00:50:11where we went after
00:50:12Lebanese-Canadian bank,
00:50:13it was so exhausting
00:50:15that, frankly,
00:50:16the Treasury Department,
00:50:17the Department of Justice,
00:50:18just called it a day.
00:50:22For David Asher
00:50:23and Jack Kelly,
00:50:24the decision to drop
00:50:25criminal proceedings
00:50:26against Hezbollah
00:50:27after all their effort
00:50:28left a bitter taste.
00:50:30The reason may have
00:50:31been political.
00:50:32At the time,
00:50:33America was keen
00:50:34to avoid anything
00:50:35that might undermine
00:50:36the Iran nuclear deal,
00:50:37which was under negotiation.
00:50:40Between the risk
00:50:41of nuclear proliferation
00:50:42and the threat posed
00:50:44by one of the world's
00:50:44largest transnational
00:50:45criminal networks,
00:50:47Washington made a choice.
00:50:49A choice that left
00:50:50the Lebanese banks
00:50:51in the hands of mafia groups,
00:50:52leading to the country's
00:50:54present-day bankruptcy.
00:50:56A choice that also meant
00:50:58Canada was alone
00:50:59on the front lines
00:51:00against the growing number
00:51:01of criminal groups
00:51:02on its soil.
00:51:14In Vancouver in 2016,
00:51:17the amounts laundered
00:51:18from drug trafficking
00:51:19reached record levels.
00:51:21Nevertheless,
00:51:22Canadian authorities
00:51:23agreed to raise
00:51:24the betting threshold
00:51:25from $5,000 to $100,000
00:51:27for a throw of the dice.
00:51:29You know,
00:51:30when we account
00:51:31how much money
00:51:32has been laundered
00:51:33in Vancouver,
00:51:34we have to take the scale
00:51:35and multiply it
00:51:37from the billions
00:51:38in B.C. government casinos
00:51:40into the tens
00:51:41or even hundred billion
00:51:42in Vancouver
00:51:44real estate development,
00:51:45which is being driven
00:51:47largely,
00:51:48especially in latter years,
00:51:49by the very same
00:51:50whale gamblers.
00:51:56In this video
00:51:57shot in Vancouver
00:51:58and posted
00:51:59by a Canadian journalist,
00:52:01Beijing officials,
00:52:02intelligence service,
00:52:03and Triad members
00:52:04parade together
00:52:05for Chinese New Year.
00:52:11So there's willful blindness
00:52:13from politicians.
00:52:15There's willful blindness
00:52:17from the bankers.
00:52:19At some level,
00:52:21many lawyers
00:52:21are willfully blind.
00:52:24Willful blindness.
00:52:29In 2018,
00:52:31a resounding trial
00:52:32was held in Madrid
00:52:33against the Tambov Group,
00:52:35the St. Petersburg Mafia Group
00:52:36whose illicit activities
00:52:37in Spain
00:52:38included money laundering,
00:52:40drug trafficking,
00:52:41and arms dealing
00:52:42with complicity
00:52:43at the highest levels
00:52:44of the Russian state.
00:52:47Among the 17 accused,
00:52:49one man was on the run
00:52:50at the time of the trial,
00:52:51Jannady Petrov,
00:52:53one of the leaders
00:52:54of the Tambov Group
00:52:55and a former shareholder
00:52:57in Russia Bank.
00:52:59The Russia Bank,
00:53:00which was exposed
00:53:01by the Panama Papers,
00:53:02appeared to be
00:53:03the crown jewel
00:53:04of the Putin Empire.
00:53:06Bank Russia
00:53:07is sometimes called
00:53:08Putin's bank.
00:53:11There's also
00:53:12all this inner circle
00:53:14of Putin's
00:53:16close friends
00:53:18that used
00:53:19the same bank
00:53:20for their money laundering,
00:53:22for looting
00:53:23state-owned companies
00:53:26in Russia.
00:53:28If you look
00:53:29at the universe
00:53:29of Russian banking,
00:53:31you see Bank Russia
00:53:32as being like
00:53:33a pillar of the system,
00:53:34but there were
00:53:35many other banks
00:53:35trying to do
00:53:36the same kind of business
00:53:37that Bank Russia did.
00:53:38and they were
00:53:40gradually shut down.
00:53:41Shut down
00:53:41for money laundering,
00:53:43shut down
00:53:44for various fraud,
00:53:46for the corruption
00:53:47that these banks allowed.
00:53:48But Bank Russia
00:53:49was never touched.
00:53:51We're taught
00:53:52that one plus one
00:53:53equals two.
00:53:55Simple.
00:53:56The Panama Papers
00:53:57also reveal
00:53:58one of the favorite
00:53:59destinations
00:53:59for the Russia Bank,
00:54:01the island of Cyprus.
00:54:03In Cyprus,
00:54:05a respectable
00:54:05financial center,
00:54:06it's not just
00:54:07banking institutions
00:54:08that host dirty money,
00:54:10but another key actor
00:54:11in the financial industry,
00:54:12major auditing
00:54:14and consulting firms.
00:54:18Who's the Bank Russia's
00:54:20auditor?
00:54:22PwC.
00:54:23Who sets up
00:54:25all the companies
00:54:26in Cyprus
00:54:27for Bank Russia?
00:54:28PwC Consulting.
00:54:30Where are all
00:54:31the companies located
00:54:33for Bank Russia
00:54:34in Cyprus?
00:54:35In Nicosia?
00:54:37and in Limassol
00:54:38inside PwC's
00:54:40buildings.
00:54:42Okay?
00:54:42Like,
00:54:42that's not a secret.
00:54:44The people who really
00:54:45get protected
00:54:46are the accounting firms
00:54:47and the law firms.
00:54:48When's the last time
00:54:49a lawyer went to jail
00:54:50for providing services
00:54:51to a criminal?
00:54:56A decade of leaks
00:54:58documented the major role
00:54:59Russia had played
00:55:00in laundering dirty money.
00:55:03And when the scandal
00:55:04at Donska Bank,
00:55:05Denmark's largest bank,
00:55:07broke in 2018,
00:55:09journalists could hardly
00:55:10believe the figures.
00:55:12Donska Bank
00:55:13had laundered
00:55:14$200 billion
00:55:15of Russian money
00:55:16from companies
00:55:17controlled by
00:55:18Vladimir Putin's
00:55:19family entourage
00:55:20and former KGB officers.
00:55:23According to the
00:55:25financial analysts
00:55:25and Bloomberg,
00:55:27Russian capital flight
00:55:28amounted to
00:55:29$330 billion
00:55:30between 2007
00:55:32and 2014
00:55:33and $390 billion
00:55:35between 2014
00:55:37and 2020.
00:55:40But there was
00:55:41one troubling
00:55:41characteristic
00:55:42of this succession
00:55:43of leaks.
00:55:50The United States
00:55:52was never caught up
00:55:53in the whirlwind
00:55:54of revelations.
00:55:56Despite spearheading
00:55:57the fight against
00:55:58the world's dirty money,
00:55:59America allowed
00:56:00tax-free and opaque
00:56:01zones to flourish
00:56:02on its territory.
00:56:04The transparency
00:56:05imposed by Washington
00:56:06on the small tax havens
00:56:08of the Caribbean
00:56:08encouraged tax evaders
00:56:10to transfer their assets
00:56:11to places like Delaware,
00:56:13Nevada,
00:56:14South Dakota,
00:56:15Wyoming,
00:56:16and Florida.
00:56:18The world's
00:56:19financial enforcer
00:56:20had turned into
00:56:21the ultimate safe haven
00:56:23for dirty money.
00:56:25There are a number
00:56:26of reasons
00:56:26why people
00:56:27from across the world
00:56:29might want to use
00:56:30the U.S.
00:56:31They are competent
00:56:32holding dollars.
00:56:33They can hide
00:56:34their identity.
00:56:35The U.S.
00:56:36is particularly weak
00:56:38at sharing information.
00:56:39They can capture
00:56:40information about
00:56:41U.S. citizens
00:56:42using offshore accounts
00:56:43through foreign banks.
00:56:44They will not share
00:56:46that information
00:56:47with countries elsewhere.
00:56:49And for that reason,
00:56:50foreign wealth holders
00:56:52who are wanting
00:56:53to use the U.S.
00:56:54for all sorts of purposes,
00:56:56which might include
00:56:56tax evasion
00:56:57or hiding stolen assets
00:56:59or whatever,
00:56:59they are quite confident
00:57:01that they can hold
00:57:02their assets in the U.S.
00:57:04and not have
00:57:05that information shared
00:57:06with the national tax
00:57:08authorities of the country
00:57:09where they're resident.
00:57:14The United States
00:57:16had another problem
00:57:16in its hunt
00:57:17for dirty money.
00:57:19After 25 years
00:57:21of budget cuts,
00:57:22the power of the
00:57:23once mighty IRS
00:57:24had been severely reduced.
00:57:27The IRS had fewer agents
00:57:29than in 1945.
00:57:31The result of the agency's
00:57:33controlled demolition
00:57:34was the loss of
00:57:36$600 billion a year
00:57:38in revenue,
00:57:38the equivalent
00:57:39of the U.S. military budget.
00:57:41A third of the total tax loss
00:57:43was attributable
00:57:44to the richest 1%.
00:57:47And this might be
00:57:49a moment of truth
00:57:50where Europe
00:57:50and the United States
00:57:51finally have to confront
00:57:52their demons,
00:57:55which is this
00:57:56horrible convergence
00:57:58of interests
00:57:59between kleptocrats,
00:58:02organized crime,
00:58:05and the interests,
00:58:07the economic interests
00:58:08of domestic political
00:58:09and economic elites.
00:58:11And this alignment
00:58:12of interests
00:58:13has completely undermined
00:58:15the fundamentals
00:58:15of a market economy,
00:58:16undermined the rule of law,
00:58:18undermined democracy itself.
00:58:24The war in Ukraine
00:58:26closes a chapter
00:58:27opened in 1989
00:58:28with the fall
00:58:29of the Berlin Wall.
00:58:32Economic and financial
00:58:33sanctions imposed
00:58:34on Russia,
00:58:35the most drastic
00:58:36ever imposed
00:58:37on a country,
00:58:38lay down a clear path
00:58:39in the global fight
00:58:40against dirty money pipelines.
00:58:43More and more
00:58:44activists,
00:58:46investigative journalists,
00:58:47academics,
00:58:48judges,
00:58:49and whistleblowers
00:58:50are rallying to this cause
00:58:52and speaking out.
00:58:55They help show
00:58:57that while organized crime
00:58:58is the most violent form
00:59:00of capitalism,
00:59:01it is the tools
00:59:02put in place
00:59:02by the facilitators,
00:59:04investment bankers,
00:59:06tax lawyers,
00:59:07consultants,
00:59:08legislators,
00:59:09that amplify
00:59:10its brutality
00:59:11many-fold
00:59:12and ultimately
00:59:13lead to war.
00:59:14Mafias
00:59:15and banks,
00:59:17the story of two worlds
00:59:18seemingly pitted
00:59:20against each other
00:59:20and of two worlds
00:59:22that could not help
00:59:24but meet.
00:59:25on the world
00:59:26as a town
00:59:45of Coyote,
00:59:45The tradition of
00:59:46Coyote,
00:59:46the fifth
00:59:46and a third
00:59:48and the fourth
00:59:49of Coyote.
00:59:58Legenda Adriana Zanotto
Comentários