Free Republic

The used car dealership known as CIA never seemed like an ordinary car dealership, with inventory, staff and expenses. On its Facebook page, CIA’s “staff” were fake personalities such as “James Falls O’Brien,” whose photo was taken from a hairstyle model catalog, and “Jade Julia,” whose image came from a web page called “Beautiful Girls Wallpaper.” If a customer showed up looking to buy a car from Cars International A, often referred to as CIA, Abid Awan — who was managing partner of the dealership while also earning $160,000 handling IT for House Democrats — would frequently simply go across...

Did the current administration “collude” with Russia? So far no evidence at all has emerged to support that hypothesis, but Politico’s Josh Meyer digs deep into another curious set of circumstances in the Obama White House and its own operations with a foreign power. Perhaps the media will start asking whether the previous administration colluded with Iran to let terrorists and drug dealers go free in order to score one of the worst deals ever in international relations. Before Barack Obama decided to pursue the nuclear deal with Iran, the DEA had a major operation called Project Cassandra. This operation...

Kirsten Gillibrand received over 20,000 thousand dollars from Palo Alto High School. Why is a California high school giving $20,400 to a Junior New York Senator? This really makes no sense. Why is a public school giving taxpayer money to ANY campaign? Is the high school name BS and meant to hide the real donor? Is this a money laundering scheme? Palo Alto High School is in one of the richest neighborhoods in the U.S. It is a pipeline to the University of California system, Stanford, and Ivy League schools. What’s more even the teachers are extraordinarily well-connected. For instance,...

Just one day after Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. in the Russia investigation, reports have surfaced accusing a veteran investigator in the special probe of sending disparaging text messages regarding President Donald Trump. The investigator was removed from the probe a few months ago because of the potential of a political bias. The New York Times and The Washington Post both reported December 2 that Peter Strzok, a senior counterintelligence investigator at the F.B.I., was removed from the probe because several disparaging text messages indicated he wasn’t a fan of Trump and was possibly a Hillary...

Now the media are just taunting us with their tall tales about Stephen Paddock, the alleged Las Vegas shooter. Reputedly serious news organizations are claiming that he made a living playing video poker. That’s like claiming someone made a living smoking crack. The media are either doing PR for the gambling industry or they don’t want anyone considering the possibility that Paddock was using gambling to launder money. NBC News reports, with a straight face: “Las Vegas gunman earned millions as a gambler.” A Los Angeles Times article is headlined, “In the solitary world of video poker, Stephen Paddock knew...

Bitcoin has soared more than 600 percent this year. On Thursday, the cryptocurrency traded down 3.9 percent at $7,172.80, but remained near a record high. The digital currency has already been embraced by some of Wall Street's most well-known figures, including investing legend Bill Miller. It has been criticized, however, by Blankfein's peers on Wall Street in JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. In September, Dimon referred to bitcoin as a "fraud," adding "it's worse than tulip bulbs. It won't end well." Last month, Fink said bitcoin was an "index of money laundering."

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabian banks have frozen more than 1,200 accounts belonging to individuals and companies in the kingdom as part of the government’s anti-corruption purge, bankers and lawyers said on Tuesday. They added that the number is continuing to rise. Dozens of royal family members, officials and business executives have been detained in the crackdown and are facing allegations of money laundering, bribery, extorting officials and taking advantage of public office for personal gain. Since Sunday, the central bank has been expanding the list of accounts it is requiring lenders to freeze on an almost hourly basis, one...

Cheryl Moss Herman, an official with the United States Department of Energy, produced a detailed report in 2010 for a Russian nuclear company when she was a private energy and environmental consultant.The document Moss Herman wrote as a consultant in 2010 was for TENAM/Tenex, according to the consulting memorandum she provided to the Russian subsidiary and obtained by Circa. TENAM is a fully-owned U.S. subsidiary of Tenex, which is 100 percent owned by the Russian state controlled nuclear company Rosatom, according to public documentation.Titled “Policy/Legislative Issues Affecting the Business Climate in the U.S. for TENAM/Tenex,” the memorandum discussed the Department...

The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is pursuing an investigation into possible money laundering by Paul Manafort, said three people familiar with the matter, adding to the federal and state probes concerning the former Trump campaign chairman. The investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York is being conducted in collaboration with a probe by special counsel Robert Mueller into Mr. Manafort and possible money laundering, according to two of these people. A spokesman for Mr. Manafort declined to comment. Mr. Manafort has previously said he did nothing wrong.

How to explian a solid Russian connection prosecutor Robert Mueller "missed"? Course he is busy staging useless midnight raids into people's homes. Maybe it's b/c it involves Democrats, and a House intel security breach? Mueller seems to be studiously avoiding the shocking details as Awan IT security breach details pour into The DC Swamp. The case implicates dozens of Democrat members of Congress in abuse of office, conspicy to defraud the United States, govt fraud, graft, wire-fraud, espionage, treason, bank fraud, money laundering, tax evasion......and a theft ring run out of the House Democrat Caucus. AND..... (drum roll, please)...... it...

A K-9 unit intercepted $237,576 in cash during a traffic stop on U.S. 59 on Thursday, the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office reports. A mother from Mission, Texas, and four children were in the SUV at the time of the stop. All five people were released at the scene, but an investigation is pending. The mother could be charged with money laundering, the sheriff's office said in a statement. The vehicle, heading south through Rosenberg, was stopped for a traffic violation by a member of the Fort Bend County Narcotics Task Force's interdiction team. The money was discovered during a...

A former US secret service agent has pleaded guilty to stealing over $800,000 worth of bitcoin during an investigation into online drug marketplace Silk Road. Shaun Bridges, 33, appeared in federal court in San Francisco and admitted to money laundering and obstruction of justice. Silk Road operated for more than two years until it was shut down in October 2013 having generated more than $214m in sales of drugs and other illicit goods using bitcoin, prosecutors said. Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road’s creator, who authorities say used the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, was sentenced to life in prison after a federal...

At a hearing today, witnesses will testify that Fusion GPS, an organization behind an infamous dossier pumping the Russia-Trump collusion story, is a highly paid smear-for-hire operation in violation of international laws. At a hearing this morning, Senate Judiciary members will receive testimony that Fusion GPS helped advocate the interests of corrupt Russian and Venezuelan officials while hiding its foreign work from federal authorities. Many in the media have focused on whether Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort would testify publicly at the hearing. Less well covered has been anything to do with Fusion GPS, the...

A London-based businessman who was investigated last year by the opposition research firm behind the so-called Trump dossier will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, The Daily Caller has learned.Bill Browder says that he will “definitely” be testifying about a complaint he filed with the Justice Department last year in which he accused Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier, and a former Soviet intelligence officer named Rinat Akhmetshin of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law requiring agents of foreign governments to disclose their lobbying and consulting work.Founded by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn...

A new bill seeks to track your money and assets incessantly, will enjoin any business with government ties to act as a de facto arm of DHS, and would steal all of your assets — including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies — should you fail to report funds when traveling with over $10,000. Under the guise of combating money laundering, Senate Bill 1241, “Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017,” ramps up regulation of digital currency and other autocratic financial controls in an attempt to ensure none of your assets can escape one of the State’s most nefarious, despised...

'El Chapo' and El Banco: What You Haven’t Been Told CRIME POLITICS-US media are celebrating the arrest of alleged Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, whose Sinaloa Cartel is thought to be the most powerful trafficker in the world and "a main combatant in a spasm of violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Mexico" (New York Times, 2/22/14). US Attorney General Eric Holder called the arrest a "landmark achievement": "The criminal activity Guzman allegedly directed contributed to the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence and corruption." But...

The Federal Reserve has fined Germany’s largest bank $41 million for failure to maintain controls against money laundering in its U.S. operations. The U.S. regulators announced the penalty against Deutsche Bank on Tuesday, citing “unsafe and unsound practices.” The global bank also agreed to an order requiring it to improve oversight by senior management in complying with anti-money-laundering laws in the U.S. operations. The action follows $629 million in penalties levied against Deutsche Bank in January by New York state and British regulators for lapses in controls that allowed wealthy Russians to allegedly launder about $10 billion in illicit funds...

CARICOM leaders are in a state of shock, dismay and disbelief after the United States accused 14 of the 15-member states of money laundering. News reports indicate that this accusation was included in the March report from the International Narcotics Control Strategy of the U.S. Department of State. According to a report in Caribbean Life, the countries that were included are Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago. Other Caribbean territories and countries also labeled as money launderers in the U.S....

The Senate panel has requested information about President Donald Trump and his top aides from a financial intelligence unit in the Treasury Department that imposed a $10 million civil penalty on Trump Taj Mahal in 2015 for multiple violations of money-laundering laws. The Senate Intelligence Committee wants to see any information relevant to its Russia investigation the Treasury agency has gathered, including evidence that might include possible money laundering, according to a committee aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. Also at issue: to what extent, if at all, people close to Vladimir Putin have invested in Trump's real estate...

When President Donald Trump angrily tweeted earlier this month that there was wiretapping going on in Trump Tower, he was not mistaken, as it turns out. Between 2011 and 2013, the FBI had a court-approved warrant to monitor a Russian money-laundering ring that was operating out of unit 63A in Trump Tower, just three floors below the real estate mogul's gilded penthouse, reported ABC News. The federal investigation led to an indictment of 30 suspects, many who whom were captured during a raid on their swanky Manhattan hideout, but the alleged mastermind of the criminal organization, notorious Russian mafia boss...