Ponzi Scheme Used Offshore Hideaways To Shuffle Investors’ Money
https://www.icij.org/investigations/offshore/ponzi-scheme-used-offshore-hideaways-shuffle-investors-money/
Bribes for Venezuelan officials were funneled through tax havens, court filings claim.
Francisco Illarramendi often called on Moris Beracha when he needed an infusion of cash.
The Venezuelan-born Illarramendi was a manager of a Connecticut-based investment advisory firm. Beracha was a Venezuelan financier close to the Hugo Chavez government who, a lawsuit against him claims, could produce multi-million-dollar advances of cash with relative ease — for the right price.
On Nov. 2, 2007, Beracha emailed Illarramendi instructions to deposit more than $10 million — Beracha’s share of profits from a transaction — into three HSBC bank accounts in Switzerland, via an HSBC account in New York. ''
“Dude, I am your biggest producer hahahahaha,” Beracha wrote in Spanish before he sent the message off to Illarramendi.
A pair of lawsuits in U.S. federal court claim the two men were at the center of a half-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme that shuffled investor money among a maze of offshore companies, hedge funds and bank accounts stretching from the Cayman Islands to Switzerland and Panama, smoothing the way by funneling bribes to officials in Venezuela.
Venezuela is one of those places with offshore islands where luxury yachts hang out, very wealthy people like Gustavo Cisneros, one of the 25 wealthiest people in South Florida. Having an unstable society where people are suffering is great for the human trafficking business, keeping a steady supply of latino sex slaves being exported. How many of them are crossing the Rio Grande today?