On the Threshold of Oversight: Hidden Treuhands and the Financial Action Task Force

The term Treuhand is often translated over to “Trust” for English speakers.  Author, Shelley Stark, (Hidden Treuhand:  How  Corporations and Individuals Hide Assets and Money),  says this is not entirely accurate.   If you use your search engine and type in “treuhand,” you will get a great number of pages of links to companies, many in the German language who offer Treuhands, (the open and visible kind). 

Hidden Treuhands are a horse of a different color and may only be accessed in certain countries that have laws which allow them, or do not have laws prohibiting them, and all the invisibility and secrecy that goes with them.  Ms. Stark discusses this very succinctly in her book.  Her book is user friendly for average citizens and will make it possible to understand how the Hidden Treuhand, is used as a financial manipulation tool to accomplish many things, legal and illegal.

Due to growing problems with tax evasion and money laundering, and financing of drug cartels and terrorism, governments are beginning to try to investigate this arena.  How would a financial instrument that has created problems with tax evasion, money laundering and with connections to drug, cartels, organized crime, and terrorists have anything to do with our banking crisis, bailouts and economic meltdown? 

Hidden Treuhands are not only being used for notorious crime in arenas of violence and intrigue, but are also being accessed quietly by seemingly normal upper income citizens and corporations with seemingly bland missions.  Some European countries have suffered great tax losses due to Hidden Treuhands, which that country’s citizens have set up in neighboring countries who offer them. 

This concern has now become publicly acknowledged in the United States as well.  If individuals, families, or corporations can access Hidden Treuhands, they can not only evade paying taxes here in the U.S., but can also hide a great variety of things, such as money, property, and other assets, as well as hide people or beneficiaries, specific stock holders or consultants who are paid or are benefitting financially.  Ms. Stark explains how this is done in her book.  Recently vast numbers of Americans were discovered to have these accounts in certain European countries and were using them as illegal tax shelters.  The use of a Hidden Treuhand is illegal in America.

Link to About the Financial Action Task Force (FATF):

 http://www.fatf-gafi.org/pages/0,3417,en_32250379_32236836_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

The 35 Members of the FATF

The FATF currently comprises 33 member jurisdictions and 2 regional organizations, representing most major financial centers in all parts of the globe.

ArgentinaAustralia Austria Belgium Brazil Canada China Denmark European Commission

FinlandFrance Germany Greece Gulf Co-operation Council Hong Kong, China Iceland Ireland Italy

JapanKingdom of the Netherlands* Luxembourg Mexico New Zealand Norway Portugal Republic of Korea Russian Federation

SingaporeSouth Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom United States

* the Kingdom of the Netherlands: the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.

The Mission of the FATF is stated as follows:

 

FATF Mandate (58Kb, PDF, English) 

The FATF is an inter-governmental policy-making body whose purpose is to establish international standards, and develop and promote policies, both at national and international levels, to combat money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF). 

It was established in July 1989 by a Group of Seven (G-7) Summit in Paris, initially to examine and develop measures to combat money laundering.  Click here to see the Economic Declaration from that G-7 Summit.

In October 2001, the FATF expanded its mandate to incorporate efforts to combat terrorist financing, in addition to money laundering. 

Since its inception, the FATF has operated under a finite life-span, requiring a specific decision of the Task Force to continue.  The current mandate of the FATF (for 2004-2012) was subject to a mid-term review in 2007-2008 and was reaffirmed and revised at a Ministerial meeting in April 2008.

The priority of the FATF is to ensure global action to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and concrete implementation of its 40+9 Recommendations throughout the world.  Starting with its own members, the FATF monitors countries’ progress in implementing AML/CFT measures; reviews money laundering and terrorist financing techniques and counter-measures; and, promotes the adoption and implementation of the 40+9 Recommendations globally.

Information on Cover Page:

Financial Action Task Force

Mutual Evaluation Report

Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism

Austria

26 June 2009

Link to full report:  http://www.fatf-gafi.org/dataoecd/22/50/44146250.pdf

This report is 358 pages long.  Hidden Treuhand information may be found throughout, but there are some key issues discussed pages 218-225.  For those of you with knowledge in this area, you will want to read this report.  If this appears to be daunting to you, please read Ms. Stark’s book which has been written to make it an easier read for the average non-career-financial-professional person to absorb. 

Link to full Report on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Securities Sector:

 http://www.fatf-gafi.org/dataoecd/32/31/43948586.pdf  (October 2009)

Timothy McQuiggan and NISPPAC

Timothy McQuiggan’s bio was not immediately findable.  (because I originally misspelled his name – en, instead of an)  I did find him listed as representing the Boeing company on this combined government and industry policy advisory committee.  Considering all of the problems with revolving doors and improper relationships between some members of industry, particularly defense contractors, and those serving in oversight roles in the federal government I am thinking that giving industry such access to lobby and try to influence the policies and actions of oversight authorities  is not such a good idea.  It provides more opportunity for undue influence. 

I recall a couple of years ago posting some information about a former DSS employee who left his position in policy or oversite, having authority over Boeing’s  and other defense contracts  who suddenly left DSS and moved immediately to a very lucrative job at Boeing.  That individual created quite a bit of controversy, a number of problems, and as I understand it from someone in the company, was asked to leave or retire in order to avoid having the company prosecuted for some wrongdoing involving that individual.  This is an example of the huge problem revolving doors are between government, particularly oversight agencies and at least some defense contractors.  GFS

Update 10-13-10:   Tim McQuiggan, is apparently the director of Government Security for Boeing Defense, Space &. Security.   Interesting. 

Link to page: 

http://www.archives.gov/isoo/oversight-groups/nisppac/membership.html

 

 

National Industrial Security Program

 Policy Advisory Committee (NISPPAC)

 Membership

The members of the NISPPAC are representatives of those departments and agencies most affected by the National Industrial Security Program and non-government representatives of contractors, licensees, or grantees involved with classified contracts, licenses, or grants, as determined by the Chair. The Chair appoints the members of NISPPAC. The ISOO Director chairs the NISPPAC. The members include 16 representatives from Executive branch agencies and eight representatives from industry.

To contact the NISPPAC, please e-mail: nisp@nara.gov. If you would like your e-mail referred to a specific member of the NISPPAC, please include the member’s name in the e-mail.

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Government Members:

• Charles S. Phalen
  Central Intelligence Agency
• Drew Winneberger
  Defense Security Service
• William A. Davidson
  Department of the Air Force
• Lisa Gearhart
  Department of the Army
• David Bell
  Department of Commerce
• Stephen Lewis
  Department of Defense
• Richard Donovan
  Department of Energy
• John J. Young
  Department of Homeland Security
• James L. Dunlap
  Department of Justice
• Sean L. Carney
  Department of the Navy
• Kimberly Baugher
  Department of State
• Charles E. Lombard
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Dennis Hanratty
  National Security Agency
• Darlene Fenton
  Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Richard L. Hohman
  Office of the Director of National Intelligence
• William J. Bosanko, Chair
  Information Security Oversight Office

Top of Page

Industry Members:

• Chris R. Beals
  Fluor Corporation
• Richard Lee Engel
  Booz-Allen-Hamilton
• Sheri Escobar
  Sierra Nevada Corporation
• Marshall C. Sanders
  SRA International
• Douglas B. Hudson
  Johns Hopkins University – Applied Physics Laboratory
• Vincent Jarvie
  yL-3 Communications Corporation
• Timothy J. McQuiggen
  The Boeing Company
• Scott D. Conway
  Northrop Grumman Corporation

Please write and demand an open public Senate healthcare bill conference committee

Someone sent this to me this morning.  I share the concerns about the process and wish to see a truly helpful healthcare bill pass this time.  GFS

* * * * * * *

Subject: Action Page: There Must Be A PUBLIC Health Care Bill Conference Committee
 
Open The Health Care Conference Committee To Public Scrutiny
(H.Res.847).
 
Last night we got an email from a Republican member of Congress
calling for public access to any health care bill conference
committee (H.Res.847). As you should well know by now, we are NOT
Republicans, we’ve only been advocating for every possible
progressive action for the last five years. But what progressive
could possibly be opposed to public scrutiny for the legislative
process? And sure enough, our most reliable hero Dennis Kucinich is a
sponsor as well.
 
The fact is, it’s not just the Republicans who have been shut out of
the debate to set national health care policy. The American people
have been completely shut out as well. This goes all the way back to
the beginning of the process, when activists were arrested and hauled
out of the Senate Finance committee for protesting the preemptive
exclusion of any discussion of Single Payer (Medicare for all) as a
basis for reform.
 
Now we hear that they don’t even plan on having a conference
committee to reconcile the weak bill passed by the House with the
total insurance industry sell out passed by the Senate. No, they are
just going to make another back room deal and install the worst case
Senate version by fiat. Even our House of Representatives is to be
shut out unless they entirely capitulate as well.
 
Action Page For Public Conference Committee:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1026.php
 
We all know the Republicans just want to obstruct the process,
whether the bill is good or bad. And we say bring it on, let the
American people SEE their obstructionism on our TVs. But shame on the
Democrats, shame, shame, shame, for giving the Republicans good cause
for doing so. And shame on us, if we for our own partisan reasons do
not protest this outrage. The public’s business must be conducted in
the full light of day.
 
You would be wrong if you were to think you are doing the President
and the Democratic Congress a favor, by not calling them out for
betraying the hope of the American people for a robust public plan.
Such a plan is broadly supported and would be wildly popular. It
would cement the Democrats in power for a generation. Instead, the
current administration seems bent on forcing through a medical
insurance industry sell out that will discredit the leadership of the
Democratic party beyond redemption.
 
You see it happening already. Joe Lieberman, the guy who demanded any
public option be taken out of the bill, including a possible expanded
Medicare buy in proposal, is seeing his approval ratings tank down to
George Bush numbers. And that same fate awaits ANY Democrat who does
not stand up now and demand better. Because when the American people
wake up to what a sick suck up to the insurance industry this bill
is, there will be hell to pay at the polls.
 
And the dirtiest shame is that the Republicans are getting a free
pass in all this. Nobody will remember that they actually opposed a
strong public plan too. All anybody will remember is that they
opposed the bill that everybody hates the guts out of, the bill the
Democrats forced through without even a fair conference committee,
that passed without a single Republican vote.
 
Action Page For Public Conference Committee:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1026.php
 
How can the Democrats be so utterly tone deaf, so politically stupid?
Who can save them from themselves? How could they be so perversely
determined to thrown away every scrap of good will and optimism that
the American people had riding on the outcome of this last election.
We’d better all speak up, and the Democrats had better listen, or the
current majority will be very short-lived indeed. And that’s not what
any of us want.
 
For Facebook Participants ONLY:
 
Once again, the regular action page links above are for anyone. But
we told you two years ago, when we developed Voices, our action page
application for Facebook, that we could change the world with
Facebook alone. At that time they had about 50 million participants.
That number is now up to 350 million, and they are now the biggest
social media network there is, 3 times bigger than MySpace. There are
totally frivolous GAME applications on Facebook now with 75 million
users. That’s more people than it takes to elect a president of the
United States.
 
We have gigantic mobilization plans for Facebook, but the first thing
we need all of you to do, if you are on Facebook already, is to get
your OWN Voices application tab on your own profile page, a new
capability they just made possible. This is what will enable you to
watch and submit action pages over there and to mobilize and alert
all your friends to do the same. You can even create your own action
pages on any issue you care about. You can put the Voices application
tab right on your own personal profile page, just as Democrats.com
has already done.
 
http://www.facebook.com/democratscom?v=app_2370152746
 
So if you are already on Facebook, go to the link above, check out
what the application does, and most importantly, click on “Get
Application Tab” in the menu at the top for quick and easy
instructions on getting your own Voices tab for your profile page.
Three simple steps. Do it now. When you submit an action you can
automatically alert all your friends. Why aren’t we taking more
advantage of this built in mobilization engine?? Now we are.
 
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.
 
If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.millionfaxmarch.com/in.htm
 
 
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