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Post by Eric Holder on May 15, 2010 11:50:02 GMT -8
UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld deserves statue on Wall Street, not prison sentence Wednesday, January 6th 2010, 4:00 AM Instead of rewarding Birkenfeld, Obama's Justice Department is sending him to prison. He begins serving a 40-month federal sentence Friday for conspiracy and bank fraud. What about his former bosses and fellow bankers at UBS and thousands of rich American clients who for decades stashed billions of dollars in secret UBS accounts to evade paying federal taxes? www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/01/06/2010-01-06_unveils_bank_fraud_gets_jail.html#ixzz0o1snUQGq
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Post by Eric Holder on May 15, 2010 11:56:20 GMT -8
Bradley Birkenfeld Fact Sheet [excerpt] 2. How did Mr. Birkenfeld blow the whistle? Mr. Birkenfeld did what whistleblowers do first; as documented in e-mails and correspondence sent within the bank starting in June of 2005 he went to his supervisors at work as soon as he discovered UBS was violating the law. He did this in good faith - not to gain a reward or to turn UBS in to the authorities - but to fix the problems he discovered. He followed all UBS internal compliance procedures and reported his concerns up the chain of command. On May 24, 2006, UBS general counsel closed the investigation, and UBS did nothing to address Mr. Birkenfeld’s complaint. Because UBS’ failed to address his concerns, Mr. Birkenfeld voluntarily resigned in order to end his participation in the illegal conduct. Although UBS demanded that he continue to keep bank secrets regarding his complaints, he retained outside counsel and began making disclosures to all appropriate government entities. In 2007, Mr. Birkenfeld provided extensive testimony to the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Internal Revenue Service. In September 2007, frustrated by the inactivity of the Justice Department, Mr. Birkenfeld, through counsel, reached out to the Senate for help, writing, "We have a limited opportunity to change an entire industry designed to evade US taxes. Lets not fiddle while Rome burns." www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1036
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Post by holdme on May 17, 2010 22:35:25 GMT -8
Swiss banker turned whistleblower ended up with a prison sentence By David S. Hilzenrath Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 16, 2010 Three years ago, communicating with his Washington lawyers from Swiss hotels and pay phones to avoid discovery, Birkenfeld began a delicate and dangerous dance with the U.S. government. He wanted to stake a claim under a new federal whistleblower law that offers informants up to 30 percent of the tax revenue they help the IRS recoup. Before spilling his secrets to federal investigators, he also wanted immunity from prosecution for his participation in the cross-border scheme. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/15/AR2010051500089.html
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Post by moabiter on Jun 9, 2010 9:42:46 GMT -8
Senator Chuck Grassley publicly supported UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld and sent a letter to the U.S. government demanding that they provide him with a "detailed listing of all steps IRS has taken with the information Mr. Birkenfeld provided." Senator Grassley expressed his concern that the government is "doing next to nothing to identify tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers" despite the ample information provided to the U.S. government by Mr. Birkenfeld. Senator Grassley's letter comes in the wake of a vote by the Swiss parliament* that denied the U.S. government access to the names of 4,450 U.S. citizens who had illegal secret accounts at UBS. Three years ago Mr. Birkenfeld voluntarily walked into the Department of Justice and exposed the $20 billion illegal UBS tax evasion program. He provided detailed information that would have permitted the DOJ to conduct a thorough investigation and identify an overwhelming majority of the 19,000 UBS clients who were illegally hiding their wealth in Switzerland. The DOJ refused to open this investigation ... Press release: Grassley said the information provided by Birkenfeld includes the names of UBS AG employees and their e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers, which could be used to identify their clients in the United States. Swiss legislators today took a step to unravel a U.S.-Swiss treaty that would allow for the disclosure of more client information to allow U.S. officials to review cases for potential enforcement of U.S. tax laws. www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1108&Itemid=141*UBS settlement deal blocked in parliament June 8, 2010. Parliamentarians on Tuesday voted 104 to 76 against the controversial settlement deal on sharing banking data that was signed last August between the US and Switzerland. There were 16 abstentions. www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1106&Itemid=141
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Post by moabiter on Sept 9, 2010 11:02:49 GMT -8
The Architecture of Modern Political PowerExcerpted from the book Murder by Injection by Eustace Mullins, chapter 10: The world financial structure, far from being an unknown or hidden organization, is actually well known and well defined. It consists of the major Swiss Banks; the survivors of the old Venetian-Genoese banking axis; the Big Five of the world grain trade; the British combine, centered in the Bank of England and its chartered merchant banks, functioning trough the Rothschilds and the Oppenheimers and having absolute control over their Canadian colony through the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal, their Canadian lieutenants being the Bronfmans, Belzbergs, and other financial operators; and the colonial banking structure in the United States, controlled by the Bank of England through the Federal Reserve System; the Boston Brahmin families who made their fortunes in the opium trade, including the Delanos and others and the Rockefeller Syndicate, consisting of the Kissinger network headquartered in the Rockefeller Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank, American Express, the present form of the old Rothschild representatives in the United States, which includes Kuhn, Loeb Company and Lehman Brothers. www.mega.nu/ampp/rockroth.html
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Post by clone on Dec 15, 2010 11:39:27 GMT -8
The Bradley Birkenfeld Dossier: Amos Wako: Guess what? President Obama could solve Anglo Leasing for Kenya and he has a suspect in custody! Mar 24th, 2009 by Mars Group Kenya The key to resolving one of the biggest mysteries of the Anglo Leasing Scandal (the identity of Midlands Finance and Infotalent Ltd) appears to have inadvertently fallen into the hands of President Obama’s investigation into massive tax evasion schemes by US citizens and the venerated Swiss bank, Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS). blog.marsgroupkenya.org/?p=668
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Post by libor on Dec 19, 2012 10:19:27 GMT -8
AG Eric Holder's Chief of Staff Announces Departure - December 03, 2012 A DOJ internal investigation about Fast and Furious said Grindler and other top DOJ officials "were not told about [U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] ATF’s use of flawed tactics in Operation Wide Receiver until several months after" the shooting death of agent Brian Terry. legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2012/12/ag-eric-holders-chief-of-staff-announces-departure.htmlUBS fined $1.5-billion after traders bribed brokers to fix Libor rate | Dec 19, 2012 7:44 AM ET | Last Updated: Dec 19, 2012 8:05 AM ET UBS AG’s US$1.5 billion fine for rigging global interest rates expands the scandal to include bribery and highlights the influence of a trader in Tokyo who colluded with other banks to align their submissions. The employee led efforts to influence Japanese Yen Libor submissions by paying brokers as much as 15,000 pounds (US$24,400) a quarter and offering a payment to another for helping him keep that day’s rate low. The banker, identified by regulators as Trader A, worked at UBS in Tokyo from 2006 to 2009 and directly contacted employees at other banks to influence their submissions at least 80 times. business.financialpost.com/2012/12/19/ubs-fined-1-5-billion-after-traders-bribed-brokers-to-fix-libor-rate/_______________________________________ Published on 12 Sep 2012 DemocracyNow.org - The IRS has announced a record $104 million reward to a whistleblower who exposed the largest tax evasion scheme in U.S. history. Former UBS AG banker Brad Birkenfeld first reported in 2007 that he and his colleagues had encouraged rich Americans to store more than $20 billion in offshore Swiss bank accounts and cheat the IRS. But after coming forward, Birkenfeld was prosecuted and convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to prison. Following Birkenfeld's release last month, on Tuesday the IRS vindicated his actions with the largest amount ever awarded under its whistleblower program. We're joined by Stephen Kohn, an attorney for Birkenfeld and executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXFh8r12mGI
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Post by clone on Jul 31, 2015 6:44:43 GMT -8
UBS Deal Shows Clinton’s "Complicated" Ties Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, left, at the State Department on July 31, 2009, announcing a deal in principle to settle a legal case involving UBS.Updated July 30, 2015 8:27 a.m. ET Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, - a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS, an outcome that drew criticism from some lawmakers who wanted a more extensive crackdown.
From that point on, UBS’s engagement with the Clinton family’s charitable organization increased. Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014, according to the foundation and the bank. The bank also joined the Clinton Foundation to launch entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs, through which it lent $32 million. And - it paid former president Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann,
- making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.
www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-deal-shows-clintons-complicated-ties-1438223492
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