24 arrested in massive money-laundering probe at Hapoalim

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=dbe1f5e992c0b02a&cat=c08dd24cec417021



24 arrested in massive money-laundering probe at Hapoalim

By Jonathan Lis and Shlomy Golovinski, Haaretz Correspondents



Twenty-four employees, past and present, of Bank Hapoalim's Hayarkon Street branch in Tel Aviv were arrested Sunday in what officials called the biggest money-laundering case in the history of the state, thought to involve hundreds of millions of dollars in the past year.




The Petah Tikva Magistrate's Court Sunday remanded for five days the branch's former manager, Motti Cohen, on suspicion of involvement in massive illegal money-laundering schemes, which included leading "oligarchs" from Russia who also had business interests in Israel.

The head of customer relations in the branch, Yaakov Sverdelik, and the head of the Commonwealth of Independent States desk, Alik Leder, were also remanded for five days.

more...
Interesting!!!!

[lonestarnot]

1. Wow, wonder if any of the 8 Billion that is missing is wrapped up in here

somewhere....

[skids]

2. How long until this is the pretense for Nigerian cam mail? n/t

[NYC]

3. Excerpt:

In some cases, large sums of money would flow into an account and immediately flow out, in smaller amounts, to shell companies around the world, in an effort to hide the original source of the funds.

A second way was to break up large sums of money into smaller amounts deposited in separate accounts in the bank, thus enabling businessmen to avoid the rule requiring the bank to report cash transfers of more than NIS 1 million if it involves money from overseas or NIS 50,000 if it is money from inside Israel.

A third method was for the businessman to deposit a large sum, take a loan of the same amount from the bank and then send the borrowed money overseas, with the loan covered by the sum that remained in the account.

[burrowowl]

4. We are not

surprised. Small change re all the crap that is going on.
BCCI when will the Bu$hies get caught and prosecuted.

[emad]

5. Israeli bank in money laundering probe

March 07, 2005
By Times Online

Twenty-two employees of Hapoalim, one of Israel’s biggest banks, have been arrested following a year-long investigation into alleged money laundering worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

The Isaeli authorities announced the arrests after an undercover operation into a Tel Aviv branch of Hapoalim bank, one of the wealthiest financial institutions in the Jewish state, and the Bank Hapoalim Trust Co.

"Twenty-two employees are incriminated at the Hayarkon street branch on the Tel Aviv sea front and have been arrested for questioning," a police spokesman said.

He added that employees had failed to report suspicions about large sums of money being transferred abroad.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9063-1515018,00.html