Panama Papers Trial Starts January 2020 - Enter The World Of The Corporate Shape Shifter

These are the children's trust funds, stolen from the children, by stealin' the children, the land and the votes.

This is the world of the Corporate Shape Shifters.

Trial Date Set for US Panama Papers Case

The first people charged with crimes in the United States arising from the Panama Papers investigation will face trial in January 2020, according to new court filings.

The trial, in New York’s Southern District, will begin almost four years after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 media outlets began publishing the global exposé of the shadowy world of offshore finance.

U.S. prosecutors filed charges against four men in late 2018 – two former Mossack Fonseca employees, a Boston-based accountant, and a former U.S. taxpayer.

Ramses Owens and Dirk Brauer: Former senior employees of Mossack Fonseca. They were charged with a string of offenses “in connection with their alleged roles in a decades-long criminal scheme,” the DOJ said in a statement.

Richard Gaffey: A Boston-based accountant charged with conspiracy to commit tax evasion, wire fraud and money laundering. Gaffey appeared before a U.S. court in January to plead not guilty to the charges.

Harald Joachim Von der Goltz: A former U.S. taxpayer charged with tax evasion, wire fraud and money laundering.

Here’s how the criminal case began, and here are more details we were able to uncover from sifting through the original trove of leaked Panama Papers documents.

Below is a quick wrap of everything that’s happened so far – we plan to bring you the updates as the case moves through the courts. Sign-up to our weekly newsletter to know when more comes out, or bookmark this page for the rolling updates.

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Which Public Private Partnership Did Mueller Subpoena On Russia Election Interference?

Ok. I am toggling between TEVA and Clinton Foundation.

Oh, wait, the Clinton Foundation never incorporated, and neither did the Detroit Land Bank Authority, and they are both in different District jurisdictions.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops?

National Children's Trust Fund?

Priests For Life?

Well, I know it is not the Trump Foundation because it is in the process of being dissolved, as I type.

Any other viable suggestions?

There are just so many state owned foreign corporations because they are called Public Private Partnerships.

I bet it has something to do with children's trust funds.

Mystery company must comply with subpoena linked to Mueller probe, appellate court rules

An unidentified, state-owned corporation must respond to a subpoena apparently connected to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's wide-ranging Russia probe -- or face the prospect of rapidly increasing monetary penalties, a federal appellate court ruled Tuesday.

Proceedings in the case have been shrouded in secrecy for weeks. During oral arguments in the case on Friday, court officials shuttered an entire floor of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., from the public and the press.

The unanimous judgment and opinion by the three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which indicated that a more comprehensive opinion will follow, upheld an earlier lower-court ruling and rejected the corporation's arguments that complying with the subpoena would violate the laws of its country and thus constitute an undue hardship.

The judges ruled "that text of the foreign law provision the Corporation relies on does not support its position" and found that the country's counsel -- and a regulator from the country -- offered only an "atextual" contrary interpretation that lacked "critical indicia of reliability."

The appellate panel also rejected the corporation's argument that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act rendered it immune from prosecutors' request.

An interpretation of federal law that "would completely insulate corporations majority owned by foreign governments from all criminal liability," the judges wrote, "seems in far greater tension with Congress’s choice to codify a theory of foreign sovereign immunity designed to allow regulation of foreign nations acting as ordinary market participants."

Judge Beryl Howell, the chief judge on the U.S. District Court for D.C., had ruled that the corporation could not legally resist the subpoena, and fined the entity a "fixed monetary penalty" that increased "each day the Corporation fail[ed] to comply."

"We also agree, contrary to the Corporation’s argument, that the Act allows for the monetary judgment ordered by the district court," the appellate panel wrote. "Whether and how that sanction can be executed on remand is a separate question for a later day."

It was not clear which country owns the corporation involved in the case, or what information prosecutors are requesting from the corporation.

The proceedings are believed to be linked to attempts by Mueller's team to secure information to present to an empaneled grand jury in the Russia investigation. Mueller is looking not only into whether members of President Trump's inner circle improperly colluded with Russia, but also a range of other matters pertaining to foreign activities by high-ranking Americans.

In addition to the the prosecutions of ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for bank and tax fraud, and former National Security Adviser for lying to FBI agents, Mueller   reportedly referred Clinton-linked Washington insider Tony Podesta and former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig to New York prosecutors looking into possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Mueller's team has said Flynn would have faced FARA-related charges if he had not pleaded guilty and cooperated in the false statements case.

On Sunday, California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming House Intelligence Committee chairman, charged that Trump's financial records with Deutsche Bank and Russia might reveal a "form of compromise" that "needs to be exposed."

TOP HOUSE DEM PREVIEWS NEW LINE OF ATTACK ON TRUMP RELATED TO POSSIBLE MONEY LAUNDERING

Days after he told The New Yorker that Deutsche Bank was an "obvious place to start" when he begins making records demands next month, Schiff suggested that there had to be some reason that the German banking giant was willing to work with the Trump Organization.

"The concern about Deutsche Bank is they have a history of laundering Russian money," Schiff said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

He continued: "They paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to the state of New York, because they were laundering Russian money. And this apparently is the one bank that was willing to do business with the Trump Organization. Now is that a coincidence?"

Last month, the Frankfurt-based lender was raided as part of a lengthy money laundering probe related to the Panama Papers disclosures, the reveal of millions of documents that exposed how the world's wealthiest politicians and business leaders hide their money.

CADC Grand Jury Appeal by on Scribd

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DOJ: Four Defendants Charged in Panama Papers Investigation for Their Roles in Panamanian-Based Global Law Firm’s Decades-Long Scheme to Defraud the United States

Oh, I am so going to enjoy this when we get to Detroit.

I wonder if Janet Olszewski is related to the family.

What the Panama Papers tell us about the
 clients in the latest bombshell charges

Four individuals have been charged in an indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York with wire fraud, tax fraud, money laundering and other offenses in connection with their alleged roles in a decades-long criminal scheme perpetrated by Mossack Fonseca & Co. (“Mossack Fonseca”), a Panamanian-based global law firm, and related entities.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman for the Southern District of New York, Chief Don Fort of IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), and Special Agent in Charge Angel M. Melendez of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York made the announcement today.

Ramses Owens, 50, a Panamanian citizen; Dirk Brauer, 54, a German citizen; Richard Gaffey, 74, a U.S. citizen, of Medfield, Massachusetts; and Harald Joachim Von Der Goltz, 81, a German citizen, have been charged in an 11-count indictment.  Owens, Gaffey and Von Der Goltz are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit tax evasion, one count of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.  Owens and Brauer have been charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.  Gaffey and Von Der Goltz are additionally charged with four counts of willful failure to file an FBAR.  Von Der Goltz has been additionally charged with two counts of making false statements.

Three of the four defendants named in the indictment have been arrested.  Brauer, who worked as an investment manager for Mossfon Asset Management, S.A. (“Mossfon Asset Management”), an asset management company closely affiliated with Mossack Fonseca, was arrested in Paris, France, on Nov. 15.  Von Der Goltz, a former U.S. resident and taxpayer, was arrested in London, United Kingdom, on Dec. 3.  Gaffey, a U.S.-based accountant, was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts earlier today.  Owens, a Panamanian attorney who worked for Mossack Fonseca, remains at large.   

“Law firms, asset managers, and accountants play key roles enabling entry into the global financial system,” said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski.  “The charges announced today demonstrate our commitment to prosecute professionals who facilitate financial crime across international borders and the tax cheats who utilize their services.” 

"As alleged, these defendants went to extraordinary lengths to circumvent U.S. tax laws in order to maintain their wealth and the wealth of their clients,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Berman.  “For decades, the defendants, employees and a client of global law firm Mossack Fonseca allegedly shuffled millions of dollars through offshore accounts and created shell companies to hide fortunes.  In fact, as alleged, they had a playbook to repatriate un-taxed money into the U.S. banking system.  Now, their international tax scheme is over, and these defendants face years in prison for their crimes.”

“The unsealing of this indictment sends a clear message that IRS-CI is actively engaged in international tax enforcement, and more investigations are on the way,” said IRS-CI Chief Don Fort.  “IRS-CI specializes in unraveling these intricate offshore tax schemes and following the money around the globe wherever it may lead.  Cases like this help maintain the public’s confidence in our tax system by letting them know that we investigate and prosecute those who evade their tax obligation.”

“Today we announce the indictment of four individuals who allegedly defrauded the U.S. government through a large scale, intercontinental money laundering and wire fraud scheme, associated with Mossack Fonseca and its affiliates,” said HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Angel M. Melendez.  “HSI’s El Dorado Task Force, together with the IRS, built a case that uncovered an alleged complex trail of offshore shell corporations and bogus foundations used to disguise the beneficial ownership of huge amounts of money.  These efforts reflect the commitment of U.S. law enforcement to follow that trail and apprehend these criminals regardless of where they are in the world.”

According to the indictment, from at least in or about 2000 through in or about 2017, Owens and Brauer conspired with others to help U.S. taxpayer clients of Mossack Fonseca conceal assets and investments, and the income generated by those assets and investments, from the IRS through fraudulent, deceitful, and dishonest means.  To conceal their clients’ assets and income from the IRS, Owens and Brauer allegedly worked to establish and manage opaque offshore trusts and undeclared bank accounts on behalf of U.S. taxpayers who were clients of Mossack Fonseca.  Owens and Brauer allegedly marketed, created, and serviced sham foundations and shell companies formed under the laws of countries such as Panama, Hong Kong, and the British Virgin Islands, to conceal from the IRS and others the ownership by U.S. taxpayers of accounts established at overseas banks, as well as the income generated in those accounts.  As structured by Mossack Fonseca, the sham foundations typically “owned” the shell companies that nominally held the undeclared assets on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer clients of Mossack Fonseca.  The names of Mossack Fonseca’s clients generally did not appear anywhere on the incorporation paperwork for the sham foundations or related shell companies, although the clients in fact beneficially owned, and had complete access to, the assets of those sham entities and accounts.

In furtherance of the scheme, and in exchange for additional fees, Owens and Brauer allegedly provided support to clients who had purchased the sham foundations and related shell companies by providing corporate meeting minutes, resolutions, mail forwarding, and signature services.  Moreover, Owens and Brauer are alleged to have purposefully established the bank accounts in locations with strict bank secrecy laws, which impeded the ability of the United States to obtain bank records for the accounts.  Owens and Brauer also allegedly instructed U.S. taxpayer clients of Mossack Fonseca about how to repatriate funds to the United States from their offshore bank accounts in a manner designed to keep the undeclared bank accounts concealed.  Among other things, Owens and Brauer instructed clients to use debit cards and fictitious sales to repatriate their funds covertly, the indictment alleges.

Von Der Goltz was allegedly one of Mossack Fonseca’s U.S. taxpayer clients.  At all relevant times, Von Der Goltz was a U.S. resident and was subject to U.S. tax laws, which required him to report and pay income tax on worldwide income, including income and capital gains generated in domestic and foreign bank accounts.  U.S. citizens, resident aliens, and permanent legal residents with a foreign financial interest in or signatory authority over a foreign financial account worth more than $10,000 are required to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, commonly known as an FBAR, disclosing the account.  Von Der Goltz is alleged to have evaded his tax reporting obligations by setting up a series of shell companies and bank accounts, and hiding his beneficial ownership of the shell companies and bank accounts from the IRS.  These shell companies and bank accounts allegedly made investments totaling tens of millions of dollars.  According to the indictment, Von Der Goltz was assisted in this scheme by Owens and by Gaffey, a partner at a U.S.-based accounting firm.  In furtherance of Von Der Goltz’s fraudulent scheme, Von Der Goltz, Gaffey, and Owens are alleged to have falsely claimed that Von Der Goltz’s elderly mother was the sole beneficial owner of the shell companies and bank accounts at issue because, at all relevant times, she was a Guatemalan citizen and resident, and — unlike Von Der Goltz — was not a U.S. taxpayer. 

As alleged in the indictment, Gaffey, in addition to assisting Von Der Goltz evade U.S. income taxes and reporting requirements, also worked closely with Owens to help another U.S. taxpayer client (“Client-1”) of Mossack Fonseca defraud the IRS.  Client-1 allegedly maintained a series of offshore bank accounts, which Mossack Fonseca helped Client-1 conceal from the IRS for years.    The indictment further alleges that, upon the advice of Owens and Gaffey, Client-1 covertly repatriated approximately $3 million of Client-1’s offshore money to the United States by falsely stating on Client-1’s federal tax return that the money represented proceeds from the sale of a company.  After Client-1 repatriated approximately $3 million in this manner, approximately $1 million still remained in Client-1’s offshore account, the existence of which remained hidden from the IRS.  

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. 

The investigation was conducted by IRS-CI and HSI with significant assistance by the Justice Department’s Tax Division and the FBI.  The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and law enforcement partners in France and the United Kingdom secured the arrests of the defendants located overseas.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Michael Parker and Parker Tobin of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section of the Justice Department and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sarah E. Paul, Nathan Rehn, Kristy Greenberg and Andrew Adams of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit and Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit, with substantial support from previous co-counsel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie Blaylock of the Western District of Kentucky.

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Deutsche Bank Raided For Stealin' From The Poors - Panama Papers & Tax Evasion

Aaaaaaand we are off and running....

Next stop, The United States.

This is an international money laundering operation grounded in mortgage fraud by Corporate Shape Shifters through fake ass LLCs that was stealin' from "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth).

Sound familiar?

It should.

Deutsche Bank offices raided this morning by 170 officers and investigators in money laundering probe over Panama Papers

More than six police vehicles, their blue lights flashing, pulled up to Deutsche Bank's main offices shortly before 9 a.m.

German authorities descended on Deutsche Bank AG, including its downtown Frankfurt headquarters, in a coordinated raid related to a money-laundering investigation.

More than six police vehicles, their blue lights flashing, pulled up to Deutsche Bank’s main offices shortly before 9 a.m., in an operation involving about 170 officers. The main suspects were two bank employees who were not identified beyond their ages — 50 and 46. Authorities were also looking at whether others might have been involved. The bank said it was cooperating in what prosecutors described as a continuing investigation.

For the beleaguered German lender, the raid adds to a panoply of headaches — commercial, regulatory and legal — facing chief executive Christian Sewing and chairman Paul Achleitner. The stock has lost almost half its value this year, after sliding about 3 per cent on Thursday. The cost of insuring its junior debt against losses jumped 11 basis points to 383 basis points, the highest in two years, according to data compiled by CMA.

“This must be associated with criminal behavior and not just a trivial offence,” said Stefan Mueller chief executive officer of DGWA, an investment advisory boutique based in Frankfurt. He believes the bank will now be paralyzed for months until it becomes clear how it will be effected by new potential fines. “Maybe this time, Achleitner will fall. The bank needs fresh blood to make a radical cut at its management.”

PANAMA PAPERS

The investigation stems from revelations in the Panama Papers, a collection of documents leaked in 2016 from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm that created shell companies to facilitate tax avoidance. At the time, Deutsche Bank severed ties with a Cypriot lender partly owned by VTB Group that was identified in the reporting.

The subsequent investigations from the Panama Papers exposed evidence Deutsche Bank helped clients set up off-shore accounts, prosecutors said. The officials said the Thursday raid wasn’t related to its role as a correspondent bank for money laundering at Denmark’s Danske Bank.

The German lender may have helped clients in setting up offshore companies in tax havens. Money obtained illegally may have been transferred to accounts at Deutsche Bank, which failed to report the suspicions that the accounts may have been used to launder money, Frankfurt prosecutors said.

In an emailed statement, Deutsche Bank confirmed that police are investigating at several German locations in relation to Panama Papers, and said it is fully cooperating with authorities.

The timing of the raid inflicts more pain on Deutsche Bank after a series of setbacks and repeated failures in keeping misconduct in check have pushed the shares to all-time lows. Investor worries have mounted over its role as a correspondent bank in the multi-billion-dollar money-laundering scandal at Danske, and Germany’s markets regulator has taken the unprecedented step of appointing a monitor to oversee the firm’s efforts to improve money-laundering and terrorism-financing controls.

Deutsche Bank has spent more than US$18 billion paying fines and settling legal disputes since the start of 2008, according to company disclosures compiled by Bloomberg News. In Europe, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc is the only lender to have faced a bigger tab, at US$18.1 billion, the Bloomberg calculations show.

“Just when you thought Deutsche Bank had left it’s legal troubles behind it, there’s more,” said Markus Riesselmann, an analyst at Independent Research who recommends investors sell Deutsche Bank shares. “Investors really want to be able to focus on the bank’s operating business, so this noise around them is quite unhelpful for the mood.”

Sewing, who took the top job in April, is replacing key executives as part of a management shakeup as he struggles to get Germany’s biggest lender back on track. Sylvie Matherat, a management board member who serves as the bank’s chief regulatory officer, and Tom Patrick, who runs operations in the Americas, are among executives who might ultimately leave, people familiar with the matter said this week.

In a June 2017 interview, Matherat described the monumental task of modernizing the company’s compliance methods. After years of acquisitions and overseas expansion, the lender was left with a patchwork of computer programs to monitor transactions. The bank didn’t have a complete picture of the compliance controls in the organization’s businesses and regions, she said.

“I hate surprises, but you don’t know what you don’t know,” said Matherat, a lawyer and former deputy director general at the French central bank.

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DOJ: Attorney General Jeff Sessions Addresses Another Conjugal Collaborative

Attorney General Jeff Sessions Delivers Remarks to the Joint Interagency Task Force South

Washington, DC

Remarks as prepared for delivery

First of all, on behalf of President Trump—and on behalf of the 115,000 men and women of the Department of Justice—I want to welcome you to the Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building.

I understand that you have just come from the White House and that you spent yesterday in Quantico with the FBI.

I want to welcome all of you: our partners who are here with the State Department, the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Marines, the Air Force, and of course JIATF leadership, Rear Admiral Keck, Colonel Groves, and Unit Chief Chianella.

And welcome to our allies from more than a dozen countries in the Western Hemisphere and Europe.

This Department of Justice values your partnership in the fight to keep deadly drugs out of our communities.

Under President Donald Trump, this Department has placed a special emphasis on building law enforcement relationships and partnerships in America and around the world.

We know all too well that drugs are killing record numbers of Americans—and almost all of them come from overseas.

The day I was sworn in as Attorney General, President Trump ordered me to focus on dismantling transnational criminal organizations.  And every single day this Department has been faithful to that order.

Under President Trump, the Department of Justice has achieved historic results in the fight against international drug trafficking.  These results benefit not only the American people—but the people of your countries, too.

Last summer, with the help of eight of our allies, we dismantled the largest darknet market in the world, AlphaBay.  It operated for more than two years and was used to sell a host of illicit items, including deadly illegal drugs and firearms.  At one time, more than 40,000 vendors offered contraband for sale, and drugs sold on the site have been linked to overdose deaths around the country.  Now this site has been taken down.

In 2017 we tripled the number of fentanyl prosecutions at the federal level.

In 2017, the Coast Guard seized record numbers of drugs: about half a million pounds total, worth about $6.1 billion.  The Coast Guard also helped us arrest more than 600 alleged drug traffickers.

Last October, for the first time we indicted Chinese nationals for trafficking synthetic drugs in the United States.  Last week I announced our third case—a 43-count indictment against a drug trafficking organization based in Shanghai.

I also announced charges against a married couple who we believe were once the most prolific synthetic opioid, fentanyl traffickers on the darknet in North America.  I also announced that we had worked with our partners in Canada to help them indict a man we believe was the third most prolific darknet synthetic opioid dealer in North America.

In 2017, Customs and Border Protection seized nearly twice as much cocaine at our borders as they seized just three years before.

Many of your governments and militaries have played a key role in these successes.  There is no doubt in my mind that you have saved lives.

Last year you seized or interdicted a total of 316 metric tons of illegal drugs headed toward the United States, including more than 44,000 pounds in Panama, more than 37,000 pounds in Costa Rica, 31,000 in Guatemala, and more than 23,000 in Mexico.

You also reduced the estimated amount of cocaine trafficked successfully South of our border by 357 metric tons.

I want to commend you for these accomplishments and thank you.

But all of us in this room must recognize that there is a lot more work left to do.

And more than 2,300 metric tons of cocaine were delivered successfully last year South of our border.

And so we need to continue to strengthen our military and law enforcement cooperation with your countries and with allies around the world.

Let me make one thing clear: The only time criminals care about borders is when they hide behind them.  We cannot allow safe zones for criminals any more than for terrorists.  It cannot be that a criminal can carry out any number of crimes, and then walk across a border and return home safe.

That is why we must all do more to speed up mutual legal assistance requests.  These are requests from your countries for records in the U.S. Our Office of International Assistance has reduced its backlog by the thousands. I have increased staffing significantly. In 2017 we provided assistance in about twice as many cases as we did in 2015.  And the number of requests has only been rising.

I promised when I was appointed Attorney General that we were going to speed up our support for you -- and we have.

Our goal is to set a good example by being more prompt.  I urge your countries to do the same.  We need faster, more complete responses to inquiries from all countries.  I challenge each of your countries to devote more resources to quickly and effectively reduce your backlog too.

We are dramatically stepping up our actions against the cartels, the traffickers, and the transnational criminal organizations—just like President Trump has ordered us to do.  These violent outlaws, traffickers in death, corruptors of government, are enemies of peace, security, public health and prosperity. They are our enemies. We will fight them with the determination we apply to terrorists.

We will attack, dismantle, and defeat them in every area of their wicked enterprises.

While they run loose, the rule of law is diminished while they corruptly influence governments. They undermine the progress we all want for our countries.

As long as they pour out huge volumes of illegal drugs, there will be more addiction and death. And that is why I hope that our meetings today—and your meetings in Washington this week—will strengthen our relationships and help us perform at a higher level than ever before.

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DOJ: Judiciaries Of The Western World Unite To Stop Trafficking Tiny Humans & Unseal Paradise Papers

Jeffy has been busy.

This is setting up prosecutions and asset forfeiture in trafficking tiny humans.

Puerto Rico Supreme Court Justice Addresses Latin American Judges at Department of Justice’s Judicial Studies Institute

Today, at the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, Justice Edgardo Rivera García gave the keynote address to 29 judges from Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru in San Juan, Puerto Rico as part of the Judicial Studies Institute (JSI) training program, a collaborative effort between the Department of Justice and Department of State to build the capacity of the judiciaries of the Western Hemisphere.

As a frequent contributor to the JSI program, Justice Rivera García stressed the importance of the judges’ contribution to rule of law in the hemisphere and lauded them for their role in the transformation of Latin American justice. 

With the support of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and in partnership with the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, the Department of Justice’s Office of Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training (OPDAT) launched JSI in 2012 as a response to the wave of justice sector reforms in Latin America that saw many countries transition to an adversarial system.

Through instruction conducted in Spanish, practical exercises, and observations of courtroom proceedings, the JSI program provides judges with an opportunity to enhance their understanding of the fundamental principles, benefits, and challenges of the adversarial system.  This capacity building is critical to the region as the judge’s role in the adversarial system is different from that in the inquisitorial system.  In the inquisitorial system, the judge is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, whereas in the adversarial system, the role of the judge is primarily that of an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense.

Throughout 2018, judges from 10 Latin American countries will participate in JSI courses covering topics such as the development of rules of evidence, proportionality in sentencing, and opinion writing.  While each country’s transition to the adversarial system has been unique, the judges who have participated in the JSI program have displayed the same dedication to improving and strengthening the transparency and efficiency of their respective criminal justice systems.

 “The Judicial Studies Institute’s work with Latin American judges as their justice systems transition to adversarial systems is pivotal to ensure the fair and effective administration of justice throughout the hemisphere, which in turn promotes security throughout the region,” said Faye S. Ehrenstamm, Director of OPDAT.  “This would not be possible without both the deep commitment of the judiciaries from participating countries and the tremendous contributions by the U.S. federal and state judiciaries.  OPDAT is proud to be associated with JSI and its many contributions to the region.”

Since 2012, JSI, with its partners at the University of Puerto Rico and Inter-American University law schools, has hosted over 700 Latin American judges from 12 countries.  The program continues to expand with the introduction of a mentoring component for JSI alumni in 2017, and new course offerings on special topics including digital and electronic evidence, opinion writing, and asset forfeiture added to the curriculum each year.


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The Paradise Papers Are Out!

THE 1 PERCENT

Offshore Trove Exposes Trump-Russia Links And Piggy Banks Of The Wealthiest 1 Percent

A new leak of confidential records reveals the financial hideaways of iconic brands and power brokers across the political spectrum.

A trove of 13.4 million records exposes ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of the chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the offshore interests of the queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world.

The leaked documents, dubbed the Paradise Papers, show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers.

One offshore web leads to Trump’s commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.

The new files come from two offshore services firms as well as from 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in jurisdictions that serve as waystations in the global shadow economy.

 The leaks were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a network of more than 380 journalists in 67 countries.

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Hillary's Henchmen, Awan Brothers Investigation

Tweet the @CapitolPolice to find out details

Was Awan Brothers External Server Feeding Huma Server?

Did the Awan Brothers Leaks Kills Chief Owens?
When Did the Awan Burglaries Occur? After the Yemen Mission to Cover Tracks?

Amjad Awan Set Pakistan Opium Rat Line, Then Iran-Contra

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