Letter from Italy: Slippery Business

Dear son

My friend Vikram Doctor shared this with me. As you know we cook with olive oil assuming that its nice and healthy. As it turns out, the world of olive oil is full of dodgy characters. And extra virgin is not so virginal at all

So why am I sending this to you? For you to see how government subsidies and rules distort the marketplace. And why a dis functional government can really screw up basic operating principles of a good society and economy. 

Fraud and crime is not stoppable. But incentives like subsidies etc will always encourage crime. And think of one statement. You can make more money and be punished less by stuff like this than by pushing drugs!

Fascinating. 

Love 

Baba

Letter from Italy: Slippery Business : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mueller

---

On August 10, 1991, a rusty tanker called the Mazal II docked at the industrial port of Ordu, in Turkey, and pumped twenty-two hundred tons of hazelnut oil into its hold. The ship then embarked on a meandering voyage through the Mediterranean and the North Sea. By September 21st, when the Mazal II reached Barletta, a port in Puglia, in southern Italy, its cargo had become, on the ship’s official documents, Greek olive oil. It slipped through customs, possibly with the connivance of an official, was piped into tanker trucks, and was delivered to the refinery of Riolio, an Italian olive-oil producer based in Barletta. There it was sold—in some instances blended with real olive oil—to Riolio customers.

Between August and November of 1991, the Mazal II and another tanker, the Katerina T., delivered nearly ten thousand tons of Turkish hazelnut oil and Argentinean sunflower-seed oil to Riolio, all identified as Greek olive oil. Riolio’s owner, Domenico Ribatti, grew rich from the bogus oil, assembling substantial real-estate holdings, including a former department store in Bari. He bribed two officials, one with cash, the other with cartons of olive oil, and made trips to Rome, where he stayed at the Grand Hotel, and met with other unscrupulous olive-oil producers from Italy and abroad. As one of Italy’s leading importers of olive oil, Ribatti’s company was a member of ASSITOL, the country’s powerful olive-oil trade association, and Ribatti had enough clout in Rome to ask a favor—preferential treatment of an associate’s nephew, who was seeking admission to a military officers’ school—of a high-ranking official at the Finance Ministry, a fellow-pugliese.

However, by early 1992 Ribatti and his associates were under investigation by the Guardia di Finanza, the Finance Ministry’s military-police force. One officer, wearing a miniature video camera on his tie, posed as a waiter at a lunch hosted by Ribatti at the Grand Hotel. Others, eavesdropping on telephone calls among Riolio executives, heard the rustle of bribe money being counted out. During the next two years, the Guardia di Finanza team, working closely with agents of the European Union’s anti-fraud office, pieced together the details of Ribatti’s crime, identifying Swiss bank accounts and Caribbean shell companies that Ribatti had used to buy the ersatz olive oil. The investigators discovered that seed and hazelnut oil had reached Riolio’s refinery by tanker truck and by train, as well as by ship, and they found stocks of hazelnut oil waiting in Rotterdam for delivery to Riolio and other olive-oil companies.

The investigators also discovered where Ribatti’s adulterated oil had gone: to some of the largest producers of Italian olive oil, among them Nestlé, Unilever, Bertolli, and Oleifici Fasanesi, who sold it to consumers as olive oil, and collected about twelve million dollars in E.U. subsidies intended to support the olive-oil industry. (These companies claimed that they had been swindled by Ribatti, and prosecutors were unable to prove complicity on their part.)

In 1997 and 1998, olive oil was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union, prompting the E.U.’s anti-fraud office to establish an olive-oil task force. (“Profits were comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,” one investigator told me.) The E.U. also began phasing out subsidies for olive-oil producers and bottlers, in an effort to reduce crime, and after a few years it disbanded the task force. Yet fraud remains a major international problem: olive oil is far more valuable than most other vegetable oils, but it is costly and time-consuming to produce—and surprisingly easy to doctor. Adulteration is especially common in Italy, the world’s leading importer, consumer, and exporter of olive oil. (For the past ten years, Spain has produced more oil than Italy, but much of it is shipped to Italy for packaging and is sold, legally, as Italian oil.) “The vast majority of frauds uncovered in the food-and-beverage sector involve this product,” Colonel Leopoldo Maria De Filippi, the commander for the northern half of Italy of the N.A.S. Carabinieri, an anti-adulteration group run under the auspices of the Ministry of Health, told me.

You got a opportunity for a job - Bhaskar Dasgupta -

heh, this is a new one for me, I got this email yesterday…fascinating, i am so going to apply for this…£1500 for 2-3 hours per day? It has to be kosher, no? lol

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Hill [mailto:it.multimedia.uk@gmail.com]
Sent: 21 January 2013 11:23
To: Bhaskar Dasgupta
Subject: You got a opportunity for a job - Bhaskar Dasgupta - Mon. Jan.21, 2013, 1:31 PM

Welcome Bhaskar Dasgupta,

We are delighted to offer you employment as Financial Services Officer We have selected your resume from jobsite.co.uk.

The salary for position offered is 1,500 pounds per month. The standard group benefit plans and fringe benefits will be covered. The job details will be provided to you with return e-mail.

Your working timetable will be Monday through Friday for 2-3 hours a day. Trial period - 30 working days from the day you apply.

Please contact with HR Department at it.multimedia.uk@gmail.com if you agree to the specified terms and conditions.

Regards,

Jason Hill

HR Manager

A new Fraud: DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE

So I got this email

Curious to note how they have worded it.

By accepting this offer, you agree not to hold DN liable for any part. Note that THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a solicitation. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts stated unless you accept this offer. The information in this letter contains confidential and/or legally privileged information from the notification processing department of the DN. This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named above. There is no pre-existing relationship between DN and the domain mentioned above. This notice is not in any part associated with a continuation of services for domain registration. Search engine submission is an optional service that you can use as a part of your website optimization and alone may not increase the traffic to your site...

lol, nice one, they will not do anything, but if you send in the money, they will quite legally accept it and use it. Reminds me of the scam when I read long time back. Apparently some chap just put in a small advertisement in the newspaper saying. Please send £100 urgently to XXX. And then at least 1000 people did that. When they complained (about what?), then the chap said, look I just asked for money..they gave it to me.

Amusing.

You call this a budget, you muppets?

So lets see, you have agreed to an increase of 2.02% in the budget of the European Union where pretty much most of the countries will be seeing growth of less than 2% in 2012. So basically that’s government spending more than what they will generate. Nice one.

Then you cannot prove that your spending is good and proper with your auditors unable to sign off on your accounts for 14 years.

Then you have a shortfall of $200 which you cannot account for and need more money. What the hell is this?

STOP SPENDING MY MONEY! See this.

And then to add insult to injury, the bureaucrats want to strike. Why?

Some 40,000 officials are embroiled in a dispute over plans to increase their working week from 37.5 hours to 40 hours, raise their retirement age from 58, and award a pay rise of 1.8 cent.

I would be lucky if I have a bloody 40 hour week, get to retire at 58 and have a frikking pay rise of 1.8%. Useless gits. Fire them all, appoint the hordes of unemployed. Ok ok, I know this isnt going to work, but stiff. Sheesh. And the threat is that if they go on strike, the machinery of the EU is going to grind to a halt. Oh! really? how will we know? They spend their time worrying about if water can stop dehydration or not. Or actually, perhaps they should stop their work looking at the sheer mess they have made of the Euro.

/facepalm

Cheating

Now here’s a fascinating example of how the Chinese Civil Service Examinations were conducted. I quote:

The Chinese examination system, stretching though two thousand years of Chinese history, theoretically created a system of meritocracy, in which any man of whatever background could join the governing class by means of his learning. By late Imperial times, successful candidates were appointed only to districts other than their own, to avoid conflicts of interest and other seeds of local corruption. But the examination system itself became increasingly bureaucratic and exacting, leading to a condition, according to Benjamin Elman, in which "cheating became a cottage industry." Since candidates and their possessions were physically searched before they could enter the examination hall, in which they were locked for the three days of the examination, it is hard to imagine how successful any of the attempts at cheating actually were. This handkerchief is covered with hand-brushed tiny characters representing some of the texts a candidate was required to know.

Here’s another extraordinary garment. A silk jacket from China covered with tiny writing.

The entire silk jacket is covered with tiny script, essays. It is thought to be used for cheating, but its just extraordinary. Here are more details on this and more photographs.

Cheating is an honourable profession. I was further reminded of this when I read this story from a Pakistani Newspaper. I quote:

In 1978, a certain friend of mine in the Education Department asked me, “Would you like to become an invigilator for the LL.B. exams?” In my naivety to exercise ‘total control’ over the would-be custodians of law, I said, “Yes.” I was assured of a ‘hefty’ daily allowance of Rs20.

Laced with an appointment letter, I reached the examination centre with a thudding heart. The very thought of the authority vested in me made me feel both elated and elevated. However, after the tintinnabulation of the bell, as I entered the hall, puffed up with pride, I received an instant shock. Most of the students were old timers, be-spectacled and awe-inspiring. On the other hand, they were visibly relaxed to have a youngster as their invigilator.

Barely ten minutes after the distribution of the question paper, I saw them brazenly taking out carefully written out scraps of paper from their bulging pockets. I must admit, not all of them were involved in this nefarious activity – others preferred to take out books from below the desks. Then they started patiently turning pages to find the answer to the question they were going to attempt first. I was flabbergasted and couldn’t believe my eyes.

I heard about this new way of cheating in India. You write your mobile number on your answer sheet. Then the examiner calls you up and you negotiate. The price you pay is dependent upon how many marks you want to achieve. And then you get it. Here’s another way, Micro Slips. I quote:

‘Micro slips’ are the photostat copy of pages from books or subject notes in a very reduced size, sometimes even smaller than 25 per cent of the actual size of the text.

“Many of the UMC cases caught by invigilators and flying squads members using ‘micro slips’ are an eye-opener. For instance, in one such case this year, the student had more than two dozen ‘micro slips’. With too small a font size, the student must be carrying almost half of the book,” revealed a senior UMC branch official.

The trend witnessed among students with these ‘micro slips’ is not restricted only to a particular course or subject but used in Science, Commerce and even Arts. “There is an option in the photostat machines where we can reduce the size of the font to the desirable extent. Generally, students get these made from their books only. Excluding the margins of the book, sometimes the slips (photostat copy of both the pages of the book) could be smaller than the size of a palm. The photostat shops do not charge extra for making these micro slips and some also do not make this blatantly,” revealed the owner of one of the photostat shops on the campus.

How about this one?

The Class 10 and 12 board exams have been marred by rampant cheating in centres across states even as the authorities chose to look the other way. Exams in Hajipur near Patna witnessed mass copying. At the Surya Dev Memorial School, one of the 1,400 centres in Bihar, the students had access to 'helpers', who were delivering guidebooks and answers without being stopped by the school authorities or the police.

The helpers were seen climbing the school's walls to reach their candidates. Some were passing on chits inside classrooms using bamboo poles. In one instance, a helper outside the school gate was seen passing a paper to a policeman inside the premises. Despite the evidence on camera, the examination controller at the centre claimed that the tests were being conducted in a fair manner.

At the Madangiri Inter College in Paliganj near Patna, the candidates had a guide sitting with them for the maths paper. The invigilators in the room even tried to shield him from the media. They formed a ring around him to prevent him from being caught by the magistrate's flying squad. When the magistrate eventually caught the guide, the teachers tried to help him flee. "I caught a boy handing chits to the students. I handed him over to the authorities," said Magistrate Chandramohan Prasad.

But the school administration denied any wrongdoing. "We have made adequate arrangements so that the exams are conducted fairly. No unfair means were used," claimed Krishnachandra Singh, principal of Madangiri Inter School. Instances of copying were reported from Yavatmal near Nagpur. Relatives of students were seen flinging chits inside classrooms during the exams at the Vasantrao Vimukt Ashramshala.

The cheating continued even as policemen stood and watched. The students also had books hidden in their desks. When Headlines Today spoke to school authorities, they claimed that stopping cheating was the responsibility of the state education board. In Jammu, police arrested 21 students. Taking a leaf out of the film Munnabhai MBBS, the students were using earphones plugged to their mobile phones to cheat.

The incident occurred at an exam centre 15 km from Jammu during the information technology paper. The police seized the mobile phones and registered a case against the students. Worse still, students in Bihar's Araria region went on the rampage after the college management did not issue admit cards on time. They set furniture and office equipment on fire. The fire soon engulfed the entire college building. The mob consisted of around 300 students who had not been given exam hall tickets for their Class 12 boards. Their tickets did not come as the principal had not submitted their exam forms.

I specially liked the irony of them using mobile phones to cheat in the Information Technology Exam.

More rip off merchants masquerading as charities

So now Sir Stephen Bubb says that bank bonuses should be taxed and proceeds given to charities. Oh! very nice of you, mate. Next idea presumably would be to force people to grow green hair? Or how about forcing people to pay £1 every time they have a McDonald burger? How about forcing people to pay £1 every time they switch on their tv’s? Or every time they fill up their tanks with petrol?

Taxes are compulsory, mate, you pay them so that there is a state which looks after basic needs. Charity, on the other hand, is voluntary. This basic idea seems to have passed you by, you fascist ignoramus. Why call yourself as a charity if your funding is based upon government levied taxes? Shame, this is so highly illiberal. The story also says, and I quote:

Last month, a survey by the Charity Finance Directors Group, consultants PWC and the Institute of Fundraising, found that a third of charities nationally that receive state cash say they will have to reduce the level of services they provide. More than a quarter expect to make staff redundant and the charity thinktank New Philanthropy Capital estimated that the voluntary sector's income from state sources could shrink by between £3bn and £5bn as a result of the cuts.

Assuming that the reduction is about 25% (same scale of normal government cuts), this tells me that this forcible contribution via taxes to the charity sector is to the range of £15bn and £20bn. That is about 10-13% of the annual income tax take by the government. What the hell? We pay £43bn in yearly interest costs, there’s a place where you can spend this £20 billion in charity funding. What on earth is this stupid thing? Go see the fakecharities.org site. Here’s a great example:

An independent employment charity which works nationally with the long-term unemployed, helping people overcome personal barriers so that they can move into long-term, sustainable jobs. Our objective is to help those who are furthest from the labour market to get and keep a job, by preparing them for work and supporting them through their individual return-to-work programmes.

Very good stuff, its good to hear that private citizens are putting their money to help their fellow citizens get back to work. No? no!

The Charity’s accounts for the financial year ending 31 March 2009 show an income of £7,981,260 and expenditure of £7,620,171. The charity’s income includes £6,717,834 funding from regional Government Offices, local authorities and the London Development Agency.

You are welcome. The mind boggles. Here is an example of what local council’s fund out of your council tax and general taxation.

Why are we funding Irish in Greenwich or a Somali Lunch Club? Or a swimming club? Good lord.

Smuggled Swede sweets eat away Danish tax take

Economics always wins out. Denmark has a high sugar tax rate so what’s going to happen? People are going to smuggle in Swedish candy.

An estimated 300 million kronor ($44.18 million) worth of illegally smuggled sweets and chocolate from Sweden are sold in Denmark every year, the Danish tax authority announced on Tuesday.

Skat, the Danish tax authority, revealed that every other kiosk that it has inspected sells smuggled candy from Sweden.
The reason behind the appetite for illegal Swedish candy stems from a high sugar duty amounting to 17.75 Danish kroner ($3.15) per kilogramme, resulting in brisk illegal cross-border trade.
"Candy is our biggest challenge right now," Skat's Lars Klamer told Danmarks Radio (DR) on Monday.
According to the report, illegal candy sales cost the Danish industry millions of kroner because it cannot compete on price. At the same time, they also cheat the state out of millions in taxes and duties.
Klamer added that the number of individuals and businesses simply crossing the Öresund between Copenhagen and Malmö to shop without paying taxes and surcharges has soared.
He acknowledged that the tax agency has made progress in stamping out smuggled beer and soft drink sales, but the Danish Chamber of Commerce singled out the job and business losses as a result of the illegal trade.
The chamber estimated that 15 percent of all candy trade in Denmark is illegal, the report said.

My ancestral fraud

Heh, found this exceedingly funny, got an email on facebook. Check this out.

 

facebook

Mohamed sent you a message.

Mohamed Fahab

September 10, 2010 at 9:50pm

Subject: Dear Bhaskar Dasgupta,

Dear Bhaskar Dasgupta,
I am Barrister Mohamed Fahab, personal attorney to Late Mr J.C.Dasgupta,a national of your country, Who died and left some huge amount of money with a bank here in Lome West Africa, valued at US$8.5 million dollars. I have contacted you to assist. Please Reply To My Private Email Ad...(mr_mohamedfahab00@hotmail.com) Or call me +228 9177735
Your Full nam.....................................
Your private number...........................
Your private email..............................
Regard
Mohamed Fahab,

Accounting Standards are driven by the Governments and their own accounts are not signed off

Accounting Standards are being driven by the governments across the world for corporates. If Governments had to follow corporate accounting standards, then people would have been in jail. So how many people have you heard who have been fired for bad accounting for years and decades? Think EU and other govts. And these people are responsible for setting standards for corporates. And they spend more than corporates. Good Heavens. Some examples:

1. Defense Ministry’s Accounting ‘Unacceptable,’ U.K. Panel Says

The U.K. Defense Ministry is guilty of administrative failures that have led to officials losing track of sensitive equipment and wasting hundreds of millions of pounds, a panel of lawmakers said.

The cross-party Defense Committee criticized the failure of the ministry to gain full approval for its accounts from the National Audit Office for the third successive year.

For THREE YEARS!!!!

2. The Department for Work and Pensions’ numbers have been qualified for 17 years in a row.

And its not just that, here’s some more detail.

Accounts from the department of work and pensions, defence and the Equalities Commission were also qualified in reports slipped out amid a deluge of paperwork from Whitehall.

Morse said he declined to sign off the Treasury's resource accounts for 2008/09 because the department incurred £24bn more expenditure than Parliament authorised, arising from losses from the operation of the Asset Protection Scheme.

Morse also reported the Treasury's balance sheet showed the net of total assets, less liabilities, now stand at £44bn – up £2bn on 2007/08.

The NAO qualified the accounts of the DWP for the 20th consecutive year because they showed a net £2.7bn loss in fraud and error across all benefits except the state pension.

And Revenue and Customs' were subject to error and fraud in the tax credit system

totaling between £1.58bn and £1.84bn (up on the £1.31bn to £1.54bn in 2006/07).

Morse said he qualified the MoD's accounts because of a ‘net error’ of £140m in the amount a new computer system that allows servicemen and women to enter expense claims without further checks. There was missing radio and computer equipment worth £155m and a ‘significant risk of error’ over £14.1bn in raw materials and spares.

The Equality Commission’s accounts were qualified because £629,000 was spent paying consultancy fees to former staff whose departure terms excluded being rehired.

But the EU goes one better

3. EU’s spending of agricultural money and the structural fund, have been beset with so many difficulties that the court of auditors has not signed off the numbers for 12 years in a row. 

That was 3 years back. In 2009, they were still not signed off making it a grand total of 15 years.

A new spam method

Got this in my inbox today:

So I replied back:

 

hmmmm, interesting, so why would you send this message from a hotmail account?

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From: janetholmes64@hotmail.com [mailto:janetholmes64@hotmail.com] On Behalf Of Google Account
Sent: 06 February 2010 16:58
Subject: Important Update

Due to numerous registration of new emails by our users, Gmail is experiencing congestion and a very slow network.
Gmail needs to rectify this problem by eliminating some unused emails and also shut down some Gmail accounts that are not updated regularly. Google mail require your Gmail account information  below for verification and for Gmail to know how often you use your account so that your account will not to be shut down unexpectedly.

Account:
Password:
Birth date:
Country:

Thanks Gmail!

G MAI L BETA

Programmers arrested in Madoff case

This is quite interesting. Usually the IT folks stay away from fraud and issues like this which are usually created and driven by the front office pukes. If the business gives a programmer a set of business requirements or it provides them with instructions to make changes to programmes, data or workflow, they never question the content, they might question the impact on performance, capacity, capability or usability, but never the content.

Now, obviously, this is coming from the perspective that these two men knowingly participated in the fraud. I quote:

Two computer programmers from Bernard Madoff’s fraudulent investment operation were arrested on Friday on charges of falsifying Mr Madoff’s trading records to make them appear regular and above board.

According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the two men, Jerome O’Hara, 46, and George Perez, 43, are accused of having created and updated software programs for one of Mr Madoff’s primary computers – known internally as “house 17”. These programs generated documents that allegedly helped Mr Madoff avoid detection by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a European auditing firm.

In an affidavit submitted by an FBI agent, the two men are alleged to have helped Mr Madoff hide the nature of his activities from his own clients.

They allegedly altered trading records, changed the names of Mr Madoff’s customers, created fictitious order entry and execution reports, generated different sets of account statements for various clients, and produced bogus reports that made it appear as though Mr Madoff was buying and selling stocks on the London Stock Exchange.

The criminal complaint also alleges that the two men threatened to stop participating in Mr Madoff’s scam in 2006, referring to a handwritten note found in Mr O’Hara’s desk that said, “I won’t lie any longer”.

I think we might see this as another nail in the coffin of trust between the front office and IT/Operations. What’s next? All business requirement documents and data changes to be signed off by compliance? Good Lord.

Religion: the mug’s game

Religion very frequently makes chumps out of people. And there is nothing like people using religion to make financial chumps out of people. We saw that with Madoff, whose Jewish background was definitely connected to his fraud victims. See this recent example: I quote:

Henry Jones delivered the good news in a conference call with Tri Energy Inc.’s investors: The gold deal the company had been working on for years was about to pay off.

Jones, 55, a record producer in Marina del Rey, California, and his two partners had raised more than $50 million from 735 investors, which they said they were using to broker the sale to Arab buyers of 20,000 tons of gold owned by a group of Israelis. They promised to triple investors’ money -- if only Tri Energy could overcome some last-minute glitches.

All the company needed to close the deal, Jones said on the Dec. 20, 2004, conference call, taped by one of the participants, was a “safe-passage letter” that would cost $450,000. A few days later, on another call, he said Tri Energy had to come up with $100,000 to open a “commission account.” Then, on Jan. 15, 2005, a new request: The bank handling the deal wanted $125,000 to conduct an audit.

Like those caught up in other get-rich scams -- from Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, which initially snared wealthy Jews, to an alleged $4.4 million fraud aimed at deaf people -- Tri Energy’s investors had something in common. Many were Mormons and born-again Christians who shared dreams and prayers on nightly conference calls. They vowed to use the profits for charitable works and kept raising funds, at times taking out second mortgages, draining retirement accounts and recruiting relatives.

While the delays and pleas for more money never stopped, the charade did.

Unbelievable, how people get caught up on this kind of fraud. Be warned, if something is too good to be true, it most probably IS too good to be true.

Another example of a fraudulent letter

I have spoken before about how the fraudsters are now targeting people via their desire for good jobs. Another Indian friend of mine got contacted out of the blue and thankfully he contacted me. Here is the email. Let this be a warning guys, read and worry, this is not good. Just read the letter, its full of dorky stuff.

=================

Dear Bhaskar,
Trust this finds you in best of health and high spirit.
I received one offer letter from M/s. KORA OIL AND GAS CO. UK, for the post of PROJECT ANALYST and document is attached herewith.
Could you please do me a favor by getting the information about the Recruiting Agency and the Company as I have seen couple of complaints on http://www.consumercomplains.in about the Company's Recruitment Policies through various Recruiting Agencies.
Please guide me if you can as I would plan accordingly.
Regards
?????

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Chommy Recruitment <chommyrecruitment@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 5:36 AM
Subject: Appointment_letter_kora_oil_and_gas_company
To: ??????

CHOMMY RECRUITMENT AGENCY
LONDON , UNITED KINGDOM
Tel/Fax: (+44) 7024027877
ATTN: Mihir Ranjan Sengupta,      
It is of utmost importance to inform you that after the screening and scrutiny of your Curriculum Vitae with other verification procedures carried out, KORA OIL& GAS COMPANY (KOG) were able to resolve the status of your application.
On this note, we hereby congratulate you on the success of your application and as such we have attached to you the Offer Letter/Terms of Agreement that transcends any written document. You are therefore required to follow these procedures IMMEDIATELY so as to complete your employment formalities:
(1)You are to contact the UK traveling visa for a valid Work-Permit/Employment Authorization Document IMMEDIATELY so as to enable your work in London legally.
Note that the procurement of your work-permit MUST not exceed the deadline as stipulated in the offer letter as it would take four (5) working days for the uk traveling visa to procure your work-permit before the United kingdom high commission.
Below are the contact details of the UK traveling visa:
UK TRAVEL VISA  (UTV)
UTV Corporate Building
12 Milton Hills, Water Crescent
BP 78965 London - UK
E-mail: uk-workpermit@live.com or uktravelagency@ymail.com
Tel: (+44) 702 4070903
Contact Person: CONTROLLER (MR. TONY MARK)
Designation:  VISA, WORK/RESIDENT DEPARTMENT
(2)Do get back to us with developments and updates regarding the procurement of your valid work-permit.You are required to contact the Human Resources Manger in case of any clarifications .Below with his contact information.
KORA OIL & GAS COMPANY (KOG)
HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT
CONTACT PERSON: MR. JOHN HARRY
CONTACT EMAIL:  koraoilcompany@yahoo.com
CONTACT PHONE:  Tel: (+44) 7024010751
(3) Once we confirm your works and residence permit from the UK traveling visa, which stipulates that you are ready Congratulations!!!to join the team, we will take care of your traveling documents together with your flight ticket and any money which you spend in the procurement of your UK Valid papers will be reimbursed to you during your first month upfront salary.
We hereby once more congratulate you on the success of you application amongst many that have applied and thereby instruct you to expedite all requirements as aforementioned so as to be able to meet the team before the deadline.
Regards
Dr James Code                                                   
Recruitment Co-coordinator
Chommy Recruitment International (Agent)
Telephone: (+44) 7024027877

Here is the copy of the letter

KORA OIL&GAS COMPANY UK

64-66 ROWSLEY STREET MANCHESTER M11 3FFSW1W 0NR, UNITED KINGDOM GREAT BRITAIN

PHONE NUMBER; (+44) 7024010751

MR JOHN HARRY

JOB REF: KOG 07/01446

AGREEMENT FOR CONTRACT FOR SERVICES/OFFER LETTER

FOR CARRYING OUT EXPATRIATE TECHNICAL SUPPORT SERVICES PROVISION IN THE KORA OIL & GAS COMPANY UK (KOG)

THIS AGREEMENT IS MADE THIS 11^th DAY OF DECEMBER 2008

BETWEEN

KORA OIL&GAS COMPANY

(The "Employer")

AND

MIHIR RANJAN SENGUPTA

(The "Employee")

1. For good consideration, the Company employs the Employee on the following terms and conditions.

2. TERM OF EMPLOYMENT: Subject to the provisions for termination set forth below this agreement will begin on 11th December 2008, unless sooner terminated.

3. SALARY: The Company shall pay Employee a salary of £21,920 {TWENTY ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED TWENTY POUNDS} every month after tax deduction, for the services of the Employee, payable at regular payroll periods.

3.1 Employer for each intercontinental trip shall pay £5,000.00 flat rate travel/entertainment allowance to employee. Travel shall be by business class/first class. However for the purpose of commencement, the cost of travel ticket shall be paid in addition to travel/entertainment allowance.

3.2 Employer shall also take care of employees' travel ticket including that of employees' family only on employees' early notification to employer and as shall be requested by employee.

3.2 Adequate private office space in a conducive and comfortable work environment shall be provided for employee.

3.3 Employee will obtain London Valid papers documents through the service of UK Travel Counsellors Agency on their expenses to show their readiness, preparedness, and willingness and later be reimbursed before embarking to London.

4. DUTIES AND POSITION: The Company hires the Employee in the capacity of

PROJECT ANALYSIS, is reasonably modified at the Company's discretion from time to time.

4.1 JOB LOCATION: 15-19 BLOOMSBURY WAY MANCHESTER LONDON.

4.2 RESUME WORK DAY: 5th JAUARY OF THE YEAR 2009

4.3 CONTRACT DURATION: TWO YEARS

5. JOB PROCEEDING/REQUIREMENT:

New employed and recruited for KORA OIL&GAS COMPANY (And not presently possessing a valid Residence, Work Permits, Visa) shall be expected to personally incur all expenses as shall be related to the processing, procurement and acquisition of their necessary permits clearance papers with the UK TRAVEL VISA (UTV) and shall be duly reimbursed and will be substantiated with receipts and the employer will reimburse the employee not later than Five (5) working days after submission of employee’s expense report and receipts.

You shall be required to furnish us with your valid residence, work permits and visa on or before the 23^th of DECEMBER, 2008 as a proof of readiness to join the KORA OIL&GAS COMPANY project team in the due time as stipulated above for your job resumption with the KORA OIL&GAS COMPANY in London and also to enable you receive your first monthly salary including your due entitlements/emoluments prior to your departure for services with the KORA OIL&GAS COMPANY in London.

However, for expatriate services employees who do not presently posses their valid Residence/Work Permits papers and Visa, they are to make contact with the address given below for directives and assistance on the acquisition and procurement of their United Kingdom valid residence and work permits papers

UK TRAVEL VISA (UTV)

UTV Corporatif Building

12 Milton Hills, Water Crescent

BP 78965 London - UK

E-mail: uk-workpermit@live.com / uktravelagency@ymail.com

Tel: (+44) 702 4070903

Contact Person: CONTROLLER (MR. TONY MARK)

Désignation: VISA, WORK/RESIDENT DEPARTMENT

6. EMPLOYEE TO DEVOTE FULL TIME TO COMPANY: The Employee will devote full time, attention, and energies to the business of the Company, and, during this employment, will not engage in any other business activity, regardless of whether such activity is pursued for profit, gain, or other pecuniary advantage. Employee is not prohibited from making personal investments in any other businesses provided those investments do not require active involvement in the operation of said companies.

7. CONFIDENTIALITY OF PROPRIETARY INFORMATION: Employee agrees, during or after the term of this employment, not to reveal confidential information, or trade secrets to any person, firm, corporation, or entity. Should Employee reveal or threaten to reveal this information, the Company shall be entitled to an injunction restraining the Employee from disclosing same, or from rendering any services to any entity to whom said information has been or is threatened to be disclosed, the right to secure an injunction is not exclusive, and the Company may pursue any other remedies it has against the Employee for a breach or threatened breach of this condition, including the recovery of damages from the Employee.

8. REIMBURSEMENT OF EXPENSES: The Employee will incur reasonable expenses to get his/her visa and work permit. The Company shall reimburse Employee for all business expenses after the Employee presents an itemized account of expenditures, pursuant to Company policy.

9. VACATION: The Employee shall be entitled to a yearly vacation of three month at full pay.

10. DISABILITY: In the event that the Employee cannot perform the duties because of illness or incapacity for a period of more than one month, the compensation during said illness or incapacity will be paid to the employee. The Employee's full compensation will be reinstated upon return to work. However, if the Employee is absent from work for any reason for a continuous period of over two months with any goods reason of been absent, the Company may terminate the Employee's contract employment, and the Company's obligations under this agreement will cease on that date.

11. EMPLOYMENT CLASSIFICATION: You shall be a contract Employee and shall be entitled to benefits as specifically outlined herein

12. BENEFITS: You will also receive standard employee benefits package (including health insurance for you and your family), and will be subject to(KOG) vacation policy as such package and policy are in effect from time to time.

12.1 OTHER BENEFITS:

v Quality single or family housing in company community.

v Personal effects shipment and excess baggage allowances.

v Access to some of the finest social and recreational facilities in United Kingdom.

v Free medical care in United Kingdom for you and your family for contract duration.

v Excellent educational assistance benefits with family status contracts.

v Complete meals also for you and your family as deemed Appropriate.

v Life insurance Policy.

v Maximum and efficient security both in work place and housing Community.

12.2 COMPUTER RESOURCES: Laptop Computer, 1.6 GHz Processor, 496 MB RAM, 24XCD-RW, 30GB Hard Drive, Floppy Drive, Integrated Network Adapter, Internal 56K Modem, Spare Battery and Necessary Software. Full time Internet access is also made available.

12.3 PHONES: The employer will provide each employee with one (1) landline and one (1) mobile telephone. This shall have a reasonable credit limit application per month.

12.4 LOCAL TRANSPORTATION: Standby new company car will parked in your apartment for movement.

12.5 OFFICE SPACE: Adequate private office space in a conducive and comfortable work environment shall be provided for each employee.

13. TERMINATION OF AGREEMENT: Employee may terminate employment upon 30 days' written notice to the Company. Employee may be required to perform his or her duties and will be paid the regular salary to date of termination but shall all his/her severance allowance.

14. DEATH BENEFIT: Should Employee die during the term of employment, the Company shall pay to Employee's estate any compensation due through the end of the month in which death occurred.

15. SETTLEMENT BY ARBITRATION: Any claim or controversy that arises out of or relates to this agreement, or the breach of it, shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the rules of the UK Arbitration Association. Judgment upon the award rendered may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.

16. LIMITED EFFECT OF WAIVER BY COMPANY: Should Company waive breach of any provision of this agreement by the Employee, that waiver will not operate or be construed as a waiver of further breach by the Employee.

17. SEVERABILITY: If, for any reason, any provision of this agreement is held invalid, all other provisions of this agreement shall remain in effect. If this agreement is held invalid or cannot be enforced, then to the full extent permitted by law any prior agreement between the Company (and any predecessor thereof) and the Employee shall be deemed reinstated as if this agreement had not been executed.

18. ASSUMPTION OF AGREEMENT BY COMPANY'S SUCCESSORS AND ASSIGNEES: The Company's rights and obligations under this agreement will inure to the benefit and be binding upon the Company's successors and assignees.

19. CONFIRMED EMPLOYEE: Confirmed employees are those employee’s that have obtained from the WORK/RESIDENT PERMIT PAPERS AND VISA.

20. ORAL MODIFICATIONS NOT BINDING. This instrument is the entire agreement of the Company and the Employee. Oral changes have no effect. It may be altered only by a written agreement signed by the party against whom enforcement of any waiver, change, modification, extension, or discharge is sought.

Signed by the Employee:

………………………… ……………………… Date…/……/……….

(?????)

Signed for and on behalf of

KORA OIL AND GAS COMPANY UK

HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT:

KORA OIL &GAS COMPANY

MR.JOHN HARRY

EMAIL; koraoilcompany@yahoo.com

TELEPHONE: (+44) 7024010751:

DR JAMES CODE

HEAD OF RECRUITMENT SERVICES.

CHOMMY RECRUITMENT INC,

LONDON

TELEPHONE: (+44) 7024027877

Technorati Tags: crime,fraud,employment,united kingdom

More Fraud in the EU

Remember this time last year? When the EU court of auditors refused to sign off on the EU accounts? How much you want to bet that they will refuse to sign off again this year? Not much, right?

So let me see if I understand this, for the 14th year running, there is fraud and incompetence running riot in the EU. Almost every area of its running is open to incompetence, fraud, stupidity and frankly corruption.

And then Anonymous had the teremity to argue with me to tell me that I am wrong? Listen, my dear chap, I am currently executing the world's largest financial transformation programme and am knee deep in auditors, accountants and the like. So dont tell me that its technical reasons, you pillock.

Here, read what another person says on this disgusting state of affairs. I quote:

 

Here we go again. Today, for the 14th year in a row, the European Court of Auditors will unveil their report, telling us that they refuse to clear the EU accounts. What's worse, no one will really seem to care. We are told that the accounts won't be cleared until 2020 - if then.

Having worked inside the Brussels nomenklatura and having being sacked for my insistence that financial controls have to be strengthened, I am not surprised to find that nothing has changed other than the arguments deployed to defend this state of affairs. What the auditors have been saying for years is that most of the payments made by the Commission from its £70 billion-a- year budget cannot be deemed legal or regular. That is, that they cannot confirm those payments have been made to the correct person for the correct purpose and for the correct amount. It stretches credulity to insist, as the Europhiles do, that this does not mean that there is fraud.

Because the payments are made to beneficiaries in the member countries it's easy enough for the institutions to put the blame on those recipients. Which is what they do, claiming that the problem is one of insufficient attention being paid to the paperwork. But who designed the paperwork that no one understands or completes? And who doesn't insist on it being completed? The institutions themselves, of course. Because this control is missing there is no way to protect against fraud or even to uncover it.

UK is still a banana republic

Here we go again, we still have postal fraud in this day and age. Now its the turn of the conservatives to show how to commit fraud in elections in the UK. I quote:

A Tory councillor was found guilty of using bogus postal votes to ensure he was voted into office in Slough. Eshaq Khan beat Lydia Simmons, a former mayor of Slough, by 119 votes to win the council's Central ward in last year's local elections.
Election commissioner Mr Richard Mawry QC said: "The only reasons they came to light at all were the incompetence of the fraudsters and the blatant nature of the frauds.
"It would have been pleasant to conclude this judgment by saying that this had now all changed. "But I cannot. Despite the 2006 Act, the opportunities for easy and effective electoral fraud remain substantially as they were on 4 April, 2005."

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

EU majority backs clampdown on tax havens

So the EU majority does not like tax havens, eh? and they are squealing about the fact that citizens are hiding their income from the tax collecters, eh?

btw, what do you think of corrupt thieves who hide their expenses and commit fraud in hiring and do not want their expenses and costs to be made clear so that we know if they are doing well? oh! sorry, its a case of do as I tell you, not do as I do.

Hypocrites, no wonder tax avoidance happens.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Baba's Big Bucks

Thanks to Tarek, this was one of the most amazing stories I have read after the story of the BCCI.


Baba's Big Bucks
African millionaire Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko opened his checkbook and stole Miami's heart. Not surprisingly, that wasn't the only thing he stole.
By Jim DeFede Miami New Timeshttp://www.miaminewtimes.com/1998-07-30/news/baba-s-big-bucks/1
On Saturday morning, March 14, Hussain Mohamed Salim was driving from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, when he received a call on his pager from Mohammed Ayyoub. In addition to being the branch manager of the Dubai Islamic Bank in Abu Dhabi, Salim also served on the bank's finance committee, which oversaw the institution's day-to-day operations.

Salim thought it odd that Ayyoub, who managed the bank's main branch in Dubai, was trying to contact him so early in the morning, and he called back using his cellular phone. "He immediately asked, 'Where are you, Hussain, at the moment? Are you far away or close to Dubai?' I told him I was [about eighteen miles outside Dubai], on my way to the office," Salim remembered. "Ayyoub said there was a very important matter to discuss. He said he wanted to inform me about it right away."

Ayyoub went on to say that he didn't wish to talk in his office and wanted to meet somewhere away from the bank. They agreed on a site -- a parking lot on the outskirts of the city. Salim arrived first and a few minutes later Ayyoub pulled up in his green Range Rover. Salim was still confused about the clandestine nature of this meeting when Ayyoub slipped into the passenger seat beside him.

Salim asked what was wrong. Ayyoub began by telling Salim that he had made a terrible mistake. He said he had fallen under the spell of an African man and had been transferring money to him abroad. "I was shocked," Salim recalled. "I asked, 'What is the amount? Is it ten million dirhams?'"

(The dirham is the currency of the United Arab Emirates. Ten million dirhams would be slightly more than $2.7 million.)

"More than that," Ayyoub replied. "It's a big amount."
"How much?" Salim asked again.
Ayyoub couldn't bring himself to say the number aloud and so took out a piece of paper, wrote on it, and passed it to Salim. There, on a four-inch-square scrap, Ayyoub had written the figure in ballpoint pen: 891 million dirhams.

Approximately $242 million.
Salim could not believe his eyes. Ayyoub anxiously explained that he was trying to figure out a way to get the money back but he had been unable to reach the African man. He told Salim that auditors from the United Arab Emirates' Central Bank -- the country's main banking authority -- were conducting their annual audit and were asking questions about some of the wire transfers. He had stalled them, but they were becoming insistent.

"I asked how he had transferred so much money without approval or authorization," Salim later recalled. "Ayyoub said he had been under the influence of, or pressured by, the rich man to transfer the money." The rich man had told Ayyoub that he could make the money magically reappear whenever he wanted so Ayyoub shouldn't worry about forwarding him the funds. Ayyoub told Salim he had been trying to call the rich man for several days, to no avail. (The bank's telephone records would later show that as soon as government auditors began their review, Ayyoub dialed the man's phone number in Africa more than 150 times over several days.)

Ayyoub was hoping Salim might have a suggestion about what to do, but Salim was dumbfounded. "I did not know what to tell him or what to think," Salim testified in a subsequent affidavit. "So much money transferred with no authority. I thought, maybe the bank is sinking." After the two men parted, Salim drove to the home of the bank's chairman, Saeed bin Ahmed Lootah. "I was not sure how to start. What to say?" Salim remembered. "I told him the story. He was incredulous. 'What? Ayyoub did that? What's the amount? When did it happen? Why did he do it?'"

Other officers of the privately owned bank were called to Lootah's home. "The general reaction of all the people at the chairman's house was shock," Salim added. Ayyoub was then summoned and he repeated his story. This time, however, Ayyoub divulged the name of the rich African.

He said the man's name was Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko.
He called him Baba.

Miami's mystery man may be a mystery no longer. For more than a year Baba Sissoko charmed South Floridians with his lavish spending and calculated acts of charity. He bought condos on Brickell Key, purchased dozens of luxury automobiles in South Dade, and spent millions in the shops and boutiques of Bal Harbour. He gave $300,000 to Miami Central High School so its marching band could attend the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, donated $1.2 million to Camillus House, and once tipped a masseuse $10,000.

He did all of this while fighting a nasty legal battle with the U.S. Attorney's Office over his arrest for attempting to bribe a Customs agent who was holding up the transfer of helicopters from Miami to the tiny African nation of Gambia. Eventually he pleaded guilty to paying an illegal gratuity, spent 43 days in jail, and several weeks under house arrest before being deported this past November. His exploits were chronicled by local and national media, including New Times, which published three stories about him between September and November 1997.

When Sissoko left Miami, he took with him the true answer to the question that had most intrigued admirers and detractors alike: Where did his money come from? He seemed to have as many answers to that question as he had wives. The New York Times reported that he began his entrepreneurial career as a textile trader in India. His Miami attorneys distributed a biography in which he had become wealthy when oil was discovered on land he owned. Sissoko, however, told an Associated Press reporter that he had never owned land that contained oil; rather, he asserted, he was an oil middleman.

In 1996, according to the Miami Herald, Sissoko told a French-language magazine that he made his fortune in Gabon, largely in the wood trade. And in 1997 the Herald reported what it described as "prevalent rumors" that Sissoko's fortune was the result of his having looted archaeological treasures from Mali. The most fanciful account, promoted by Sissoko himself, had him striking it rich while working as a laborer in the diamond mines of Liberia.

Authorities now believe they know the source of the man's wealth. Within days of Ayyoub's admission, investigators around the globe began snooping their way along a trail of money that has led directly to Sissoko.

Bank records show that between August 1995 and January 1998, nearly $81 million was wired from the Dubai Islamic Bank to bank accounts under Sissoko's control in New York and Miami. Approximately $72 million was sent to banks in Switzerland and the Isle of Man. Another $10 million was charged on a Visa card issued by the Dubai Islamic Bank in Sissoko's name, with most of the purchases made in Miami. And finally, auditors say, they discovered that nearly $80 million was carried out of the Dubai Islamic Bank in cash during that 30-month period. Witnesses told United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities that the money was picked up by Sissoko's minions and carted off in plastic shopping bags.

According to Rob Ellison, an English bank investigator who has been hired by the UAE government to track down Sissoko and his assets, warrants have been issued for Sissoko's arrest in both the UAE and Switzerland, where he is now suspected of money laundering. Sissoko, however, has not been charged with a crime in either country.

The UAE has also requested the help of both the U.S. Justice Department and the Treasury Department in investigating Sissoko's activities. New Times has confirmed the "request for judicial assistance" -- as it is formally known -- and has learned that twice in recent months U.S. Customs agents have been dispatched to Dubai to share information with UAE officials and to gather evidence for a newly initiated criminal investigation against Sissoko here in Miami.

William Richey, a Miami attorney and former state prosecutor who has been retained by the Dubai Islamic Bank to seize Sissoko's assets in the United States, claims he has presented "clear and compelling" evidence to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami that Sissoko engaged in money laundering in the United States. "The allegations outlined against Mr. Sissoko constitute a violation of federal criminal law, and I would assume the U.S. Attorney's Office would investigate that and take the appropriate steps," he says. The U.S. Attorney's Office had no comment on the allegations.

"This is a world-class con man, a world-class fraudster," adds Richey. "He essentially conned most of Dade County and South Florida. Most people here believed in him." Richey, along with co-counsel Alan Fine, filed a lawsuit last month in state court against Sissoko, hoping to recover as much money and property as possible. The entire lawsuit remained under seal until earlier this week.

Sissoko's principal attorney in Miami, Thomas Spencer, was dumbfounded by the allegations. "Wow," he said after learning of the lawsuit. "I am just stunned, absolutely stunned. This is unbelievable. What a shame." Spencer noted he has been unable to reach Sissoko for three weeks. "All of the phone lines we had for him were suddenly disconnected," he said. "Maybe this explains why."

As a result of the lawsuit, Sissoko's bank accounts in Miami and New York have been frozen for nearly a month. Accounts in Switzerland and the Isle of Man have also been frozen. "What we are trying to do now more than anything else is to find the money," Richey explains. "We are going from bank to bank looking for assets. And to the extent that we can find his assets -- either money or property -- we are going to take steps to recover those assets for the bank in Dubai."

To date, Richey and Rob Ellison have had only limited success. Just two million dollars was left in the Swiss accounts, and about a million in the United States. Most of the accounts had been cleaned out and the money transferred to Africa, Ellison says.

But Richey is not limiting his search to banks. He has a team of private investigators tracing items purchased by Sissoko so they too can be seized, including the condominiums Sissoko bought on Brickell Key near downtown Miami. "We have several million dollars' worth of property here in Dade County that we are going to be acting on," Richey says.
Another target for seizure: The $60,000 Mercedes-Benz automobiles Sissoko gave as gifts to his Miami attorneys -- H.T. Smith, Tom Spencer, and Ted Klein. "We will probably have some dialogue with those attorneys," Richey notes. "Those lawyers are reputable, good, decent people, and to the degree that those are gifts bought with stolen money, I feel comfortable that those attorneys will do the right thing and would not want to be holding the proceeds of a theft."

Ultimately, Richey adds, it will be up to the courts to decide if the cars, the property, and the money in the frozen accounts will be turned over to the Dubai Islamic Bank.

Spencer said he and the other attorneys had no way of knowing the cars were not legitimate gifts. "I don't see that the bank would have any legal right to seize them," he added.
Regarding Sissoko's philanthropy, both Richey and Ellison have recommended to bank officials in Dubai that the institution not try to recover the money Sissoko donated to Camillus House, the venerable Miami homeless shelter. "I've made the recommendation that the bank shouldn't do anything about the Camillus House donation," Ellison affirms. "Except if there is a plaque up anywhere that says this facility was provided by the generosity of Sissoko, then that should come down and one should go up that says this was provided by the generosity of Dubai Islamic Bank."

The same holds for the donation to Miami Central High School.

In Dubai, Ayyoub and the bank's chief accountant, Hussein El Refaie -- who has admitted assisting Ayyoub in making the transfers to Sissoko's accounts -- were arrested this past March and charged with embezzlement. Though the government did not want to precipitate a public scandal and tried to keep the bank's losses secret, word leaked out. An independent, Arabic-language newspaper published a story in late March indicating that a large sum of money was missing from the Dubai Islamic Bank. Panic ensued.

In a matter of hours, hundreds of people lined up to retrieve their savings from the bank. In only a few days, more than two billion dirhams ($545 million) was withdrawn by individuals who were afraid the bank was about to go under.

The run on the bank not only threatened to destroy the Dubai Islamic Bank, but it began to undermine the stability of other banks in the country. "The government was very concerned that the run on the bank would spread," confirms an American embassy source who asked not to be identified. "It was front-page news here and a lot of people were talking about it."
The government was forced to step in; it provided 1.7 billion dirhams ($463 million) in emergency loans to restore confidence in the bank. It also announced that it was appointing a special four-member executive committee to take over daily operations of the institution and to investigate what had occurred.

Publicly the UAE government downplayed the crisis. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Deputy Ruler of Dubai and the country's minister of finance and industry, issued a statement describing the bank's problems as "a little difficulty that did not lead to any financial losses either in the bank's investments or depositors' accounts."

That "little difficulty" has kept Ellison busy for nearly four months now. Hired by the bank's newly appointed executive committee to sort through the tangled finances and sordid tales of mismanagement, Ellison is a globe-trotting professional troubleshooter for wayward banks. Over the years he has dealt with all manner of thievery and incompetence among bank managers, he says, but among all those experiences he says he has never encountered a stranger tale than the one he found at the Dubai Islamic Bank. "I have never been in a situation like this one before," he says. "Never."

The earliest record Ellison could find of Sissoko having contact with the bank was in the summer of 1995, when he applied for and received an automobile loan. "That was his introduction to the bank," Ellison says. "The question everyone asks is, 'If Sissoko was such a rich man, why did he need a bank to purchase a car?'" Ellison suspects the loan was a pretext to meet bank officials like Mohammed Ayyoub.

In his statements to bank executives and police, Ayyoub said Sissoko invited him to have dinner. According to Ellison, Ayyoub visited a villa Sissoko was renting in Dubai and came to believe that Sissoko was wealthy. "Bankers love rich men," Ellison observes. "They're drawn to them." Sissoko apparently dazzled Ayyoub, at one point showing him a room Sissoko claimed was filled with cash and gold bullion. Ellison believes this was part of Sissoko's plan to gain Ayyoub's confidence. "When they went inside the room, there were flashing lights and it was hard to see," Ellison says. "Who knows what was really in there?"
Investigators are still attempting to determine Sissoko's wealth before he met Ayyoub. "He could be a clever con man who has been doing things like this for years and who came to Dubai because he heard there were rich pickings in the Gulf," Ellison speculates. "We just don't know. But so far we've come up with nothing to suggest that Sissoko had more than a relatively small sum of money with him when he arrived."

According to Ellison, Ayyoub believed Sissoko had special powers and could use black magic to control individuals around him. Ayyoub described one encounter in which Sissoko applied some sort of potion to Ayyoub's skin. "It was left on him until it dried and then he was told to take a shower," recalls Ellison. "His version of events is that ever since that happened he always did what Sissoko told him to do."

Ayyoub also claimed that Sissoko hung a black glass ball from the ceiling of Ayyoub's bedroom. According to Ayyoub, Sissoko said he could watch Ayyoub through that ball and would know everything the banker was doing.

Sissoko then explained that he was about to embark on certain business ventures and needed Ayyoub to provide him the necessary funds. He assured Ayyoub that he could make the money reappear any time he wanted and that he would add an appropriate profit for the bank. The spellbound Ayyoub agreed and followed Sissoko's instructions.

During the next two and a half years, Ellison explains, Sissoko would either meet with or call Ayyoub whenever he needed money: "Sissoko began each conversation with the words, 'Baba here,' or 'Baba speaking.'" Once Ayyoub heard Sissoko's voice and those words, he did whatever Sissoko wanted.

From August 1995 until January 1998, 183 separate wire transfers were made between Dubai and the United States. The smallest individual transaction was $42,000; the largest $966,000. Court and bank records show that during those two and a half years, money from the Dubai Islamic Bank was transferred to the following U.S. institutions:

Citibank in New York received $37.2 million, which was deposited into an account bearing Sissoko's name
Barnett Bank in Miami received $26.5 million, which was deposited into an account under the name Abdou Karim Pouye, who has been described by Sissoko's attorneys as his chief financial officer overseeing daily operations of Sissoko's businesses
City National Bank in Miami received $10.7 million for an account in Pouye's name
NationsBank in Miami received $2.4 million for an account in Pouye's nameFirst Union Bank in Miami received $1.4 million for an account in Pouye's name
Commercebank National Association in Miami received $400,000 for an account in Pouye's name
In Switzerland Sissoko's preferred bank was Banque Multi Commerciale, in Geneva. Ellison says it received nearly $68 million. He also used the Geneva branch of New York-based Citibank for about $2 million in transfers. On the Isle of Man, located off the coast of England, $150,000 was deposited into an account at Barclays Bank.

In addition, tens of millions in cash turned up missing from the Dubai Islamic Bank. "As I understand it," Ellison relates, "the sum of money that left the bank in cash was $80 million. It was carried out over time in bags. They were plastic bags and they had the name of a local supermarket on them. That's literally what was used."

Ayyoub apparently transferred the money to Sissoko without receiving any clearance from his superiors at the bank. "There are no loan documents, no loan agreements. He just gave him the money," Ellison says, adding that Ayyoub was able to hide the transactions by falsifying bank ledgers with the help of the institution's chief accountant, Hussein El Refaie.
Hussain Mohamed Salim, the Abu Dhabi bank manager Ayyoub had called for help, stated in a sworn affidavit that he interviewed Refaie, and the accountant admitted receiving money from Ayyoub in a series of payments totaling about $52,000. Refaie reportedly told Salim the money was given to him to help the poor, but Salim stated in his affidavit that he believed it was a bribe to buy Refaie's help and silence. (The affidavit is included in court papers filed by Richey to freeze Sissoko's various bank accounts in the United States.)

Ellison says he is also trying to determine why the bank's outside accountants, Ernst & Young, failed to discover any irregularities in the bank's bookkeeping during its annual audits. "In December they gave the bank a clean bill of health," Ellison notes. "That's one of the issues we are working on."

In the end, it was an inquisitive auditor from the UAE's Central Bank -- which plays a role similar to the Federal Reserve Board in the United States -- that ultimately exposed the fraud. During its own annual review, after the Ernst & Young audit, something just didn't seem right to the government bureaucrat reviewing the bank's books, Ellison reports: "He would ask a series of questions and Ayyoub and Refaie would answer, and the auditor was never satisfied with the answers he was given." When it appeared that the auditor was going to keep digging and was on the verge of discovering the truth, Ayyoub contacted Salim and the other bank officials.

If the tales of black magic aren't to be believed, then the question is why did Ayyoub do it? "It is something nobody quite understands," Ellison shrugs. "Ayyoub was effectively the chief executive of the bank, on a good salary. He had a family, a big tribe of kids, a new house -- he shouldn't have been under any financial pressure at all. And yet he throws it all away by organizing and orchestrating what must be one of the world's largest bank robberies." So far, Ellison adds, Ayyoub has admitted receiving one car from Sissoko, although seven additional automobiles were found at his house. But there is no evidence to suggest Ayyoub received any of the cash.

According to Ellison, it's true that Ayyoub attempted to recover money from Sissoko on his own, but those efforts not only cost the bank even more money, they have now led investigators down another bizarre and unexpected path.

Ayyoub has told authorities that in early December of last year, a man named Cherif Haidara came to see him at the bank. "He told Ayyoub he could assist him in recovering the money from Sissoko," Ellison says. Worried about the impending year-end audits, Ayyoub agreed to pay the man for his assistance. He advanced some cash to Haidara, who returned a few days later, reported on his progress, and asked for more money. This went on for several weeks, Ellison recounts, until finally Haidara disappeared completely. "By the time it was over, Ayyoub had paid Haidara nearly three million dollars in bank funds," Ellison sighs, "and he never actually provided any useful information. He was just a con man."

Ellison traced the payments made to Haidara and discovered that Ayyoub had transferred a total of $2.85 million from the Dubai Islamic Bank to a numbered account at Merrill Lynch in New York between December 7, 1997, and January 6, 1998. Just last week Merrill Lynch confirmed for Ellison that the account was controlled by Haidara.

When Ayyoub confessed to authorities in March, he also told them about Haidara. Ellison suspects Haidara probably has some connection to Sissoko as well -- how else would he have known that Ayyoub had secretly transferred money to him?

By the end of March, UAE police had issued a warrant for Haidara's arrest. A few weeks later authorities discovered that he had re-entered the country and they promptly raided his home. "When they arrested him, he had in his possession five million Bahraini dinars," Ellison says. (The Bahraini dinar is the currency of the small island nation of Bahrain, located in the Persian Gulf. Five million Bahraini dinars is worth about $13.2 million.)
"It was subsequently discovered that these five million Bahraini dinars were actually counterfeit currency notes," Ellison says with amazement. Authorities believe the bills were the work of a criminal ring that has reportedly printed more than 150 million Bahraini dinars ($400 million) to spread throughout the Middle East. The phony bills are believed to have been produced in Brazil.

Does Sissoko have anything to do with the counterfeit dinars? Ellison has asked himself that question but says there is no evidence to support a connection. Still, he says, one of the reasons police arrested Haidara and thereby found the money was their suspicion that he was somehow tied to Sissoko. "It's all quite amazing," Ellison laughs.

Just about everything associated with Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko can be described as amazing. He first came to the attention of law enforcement agencies here in Miami during the summer of 1996, when two of his employees purchased a pair of Vietnam-era helicopters and sought to have them shipped to the West African nation of Gambia, where Sissoko owned a hotel and a casino. Those particular helicopters needed a special export license. Rather than apply for the necessary permits, the pair tried to smuggle them out of the country and were caught by Customs agents at Miami International Airport.

The two Sissoko lackeys then attempted to bribe a Customs agent. The agent reported the bribe to his superiors, who then set up a sting operation that ensnared Sissoko. In secretly recorded telephone conversations, Sissoko promised additional payments to the Customs agent if he allowed the helicopters to be shipped without the permits. As a result, and unbeknown to Sissoko, an international warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of attempting to bribe a U.S. Customs agent.

In the meantime, Sissoko concentrated on his chief priority -- starting up his own airline, Air Dabia. For more than a year he had been buying passenger jets and other aircraft in the United States -- apparently with money provided by the Dubai Islamic Bank.
One of the individuals Sissoko did business with was John Catsimatidis, CEO of a New York supermarket chain, who sold Sissoko a pair of jetliners for three million dollars. Catsimatidis also happened to be a major Democratic Party fundraiser.

Last year he told the New York Times he had initially approached Sissoko in 1996 about donating to the Democratic Party. Indeed, two months before the 1996 presidential election, Sissoko was invited to attend a dinner party with President Clinton in Washington. He accepted.

Unfortunately Sissoko was unable to go. Just days before the September 6, 1996, White House gala, he was arrested by Interpol in Geneva, Switzerland, on warrants issued in Florida. In October he arrived in Miami in handcuffs and was subsequently released after posting a $20 million bond -- the largest bond ever issued in a criminal case in the federal Southern District of Florida.

A large entourage followed Sissoko to Miami and established residence on posh Brickell Key. According to his own attorneys, Sissoko leased ten apartments on the 26th floor of Courvoisier Courts for approximately $50,000 per month; he also purchased five condominiums at Tequesta Point for somewhere between two and three million dollars.
In early March 1997, while walking through the lobby of the Hotel Inter-Continental, he heard a high school marching band playing and inquired about them. He learned that they were at the hotel playing for a bar mitzvah as part of their effort to raise enough money to attend the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Sissoko was told the school needed $150,000. He immediately wrote them a check for $300,000.

That single act garnered him a priceless amount of favorable publicity from the Miami Herald and local television stations. The remarkable story of the generous African was picked up by national news media and spread across the nation. Soon tales of his generosity were cropping up all over town. A woman told reporters that Sissoko had just bought her a Range Rover. Other people talked about how he handed out hundred-dollar bills to homeless people.

Unreported by the Herald and local television stations, however, were the accounts of people who had worked for Sissoko's fledgling airline. Last year several of them told New Times horror stories about being abused and mistreated by Sissoko's airline managers. They complained that they had been held against their will, hadn't been paid for months, and that his planes were unsafe to fly.

In addition, the Herald never reported Sissoko's heavy-handed attempts to have the bribery charges against him dropped. In addition to a team of powerful local attorneys, he also employed former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh to pressure Justice Department officials. During the process, Bayh and others sought to destroy the reputations of the prosecutors in Miami who were handling the criminal case.

Sissoko even enlisted the support of several current members of Congress, most notably Jacksonville's Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), who personally spoke to Attorney General Janet Reno on Sissoko's behalf. Brown's actions have come under intense scrutiny in recent months, after the St. Petersburg Times reported that, following Brown's contact with Reno, her daughter received a $60,000 Lexus from Pouye, Sissoko's chief financial officer.
Ellison says it appears the money used to purchase that car came from the Dubai Islamic Bank. In Ellison's opinion, Representative Brown's conduct in the Sissoko case has been "highly immoral and a breach of her duty to her constituents." Brown has denied she did anything wrong.

Ellison had looked forward to going after the car given to Brown's daughter, but earlier this month, as a result of the controversy, the car was sold and the proceeds donated to a Washington charity.

Sissoko did not leave his fate completely in the hands of attorneys and bureaucrats. Perhaps conjuring up some of those same forces he may have used on Ayyoub, Sissoko attempted to use black magic to make the bribery case disappear. According to Ewa Adamek, a former member of Sissoko's Miami entourage, he arranged for evil spells to be cast over the prosecutors and presiding judge. Adamek says she was asked by one of Sissoko's aides to carefully spell their names over the telephone for a woman in Africa, who then delivered the names to a remote village in Mali, where a prayer service was conducted. "They prayed that the power of the judge and the prosecutor would be destroyed," she recounts.

That wasn't all. A special mixture of powders and a bottle of violet-color water were brought to Miami by courier from Africa. Some of the powders were surreptitiously spread around the downtown federal courthouse before the hearings, Adamek says. Sissoko poured the rest in the bay waters around Brickell Key, along with milk and salt. "He would watch the way the water carried the milk for a sign of what to do," she recalls.

As for the violet-color water, Sissoko was instructed to wash behind his ears with it twice a day to stave off any danger from those trying to imprison him. "In their minds, this was the most powerful thing they could do to the prosecutors and the judge," Adamek explains. "And they were shocked when it didn't work."

Sissoko spent 43 days in jail and had begun serving the remainder of his time under house arrest on Brickell Key when U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore abruptly decided he could go home. As New Times reported this past November, Moore had secretly orchestrated a $1.2 million donation from Sissoko to Camillus House earlier that month. Within 48 hours of Sissoko's writing the check to the homeless center, Moore signed an order permitting him to leave the country, even though three months remained on his sentence. At the time, Moore was criticized by legal experts for creating the perception that Sissoko bought his way out of confinement.

Now it seems Sissoko did it with someone else's money.

Since being hired four months ago, Rob Ellison has pored over Sissoko's canceled checks and credit card statements for purchases he made in the United States, and he confirms that the tales of his exorbitant spending were no myth.

In addition to approximately a dozen cars he bought in Miami for his attorneys and other supporters, Sissoko also purchased 74 automobiles he loaded into cargo containers and had shipped by freighter to Africa. Bank records, included in court papers filed in Miami, show that he charged millions on his Visa credit card at Miami shops, mostly in Bal Harbour. At Mayor's jewelers alone, for example, Sissoko spent $3.4 million between August 1996 and January 1998. He spent $471,000 at Escada Boutique, a women's clothing store; $575,000 at Cartier; $160,000 at Saks Fifth Avenue; $275,000 at Pratesi Linens; and $125,000 at Tiffany.

"He would go to the Bal Harbour mall and would spend tens of thousands of dollars in each of these stores at a time," Ellison says. "He was like a kid in a candy store -- grabbing stuff off the shelves and giving it to his friends. It's easy to be extravagant, it's easy to be generous, it's easy to be charismatic under these conditions. I could probably be quite charismatic as well with $242 million of other people's money."

As the hunt for Sissoko's money continues, the search for the man himself also proceeds. He is believed to be in Africa, probably Gambia, but his precise whereabouts are unknown. In addition to the arrest warrants in the Middle East and Switzerland, and the investigation into possible money-laundering offenses in the United States, Ellison reveals, U.S. immigration officials have been trying to find Sissoko in order to question him about allegations that he has re-entered the country using phony names and passports. Under the terms of his sentence in the bribery case, Sissoko was barred from returning to the United States without written permission from the attorney general.

"There are a lot of people trying very hard to find him," Ellison says. "We anticipate that he will eventually be found. There are too many people looking for him now for him to just disappear.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

How Phishing works? A great interview

Fully worth reading in full if you are interested in security and related aspects within financial institutions.

Some quotes:

Both Nitesh and Billy are well-known security researchers that have recently managed to infiltrate the phishing underground. What started as a simple examination of phishing sites, turned into an extraordinary view of the ecosystem that supports the phishing effort that plagues modern day financial institutions and their customers.
They saw an extraordinary amount of sensitive customer account information, obtained the latest phishing kits, located and examined the tools used by phishers, trolled sites buying and selling identities, and even social engineered a few scammers.In this interview, they expose the tactics and tools that phishers use, illustrate what happens when your confidential information gets stolen, discuss how phishers communicate and even how they phish each other.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Thieves stealing from Thieves

Sounds poetic to me and as we can see it, this is what is happening.

I quote:


The gang has launched a Web site offering kits for targets such as Bank of America, eBay, PayPal and HSBC. On offer to potential fraudsters are phishing site code, e-mail templates and other hacking tools. Mutton says the tools and code make it easy and quick for fraudsters to set up phishing sites with only a basic knowledge of PHP programming.


NetCraft says the gang's site claims the kits can be used to steal confidential data such as social security, credit card and PIN numbers. The gang claim the kits are undetectable by Mozilla, Opera and Internet Explorer browsers.


But, what the kits' users don't know is that hidden code sends the stolen details back to the Mr Brain group's e-mail accounts. Mr Brain disguises its e-mail address by exploiting the case-sensitivity in PHP variable names.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Nigerian 419 Fraud

Generally I junk the Nigerian 419 fraud emails (see the UK Metropolitian Police website above) straight away
but sometimes my eyes catch some very imaginative stories told by these scammers. Here's one which caught my eye today. Read this and see how imaginative and up to date these chaps are!, very amusing indeed! And dont think that people dont get caught up in these scams, they do. My aunt got caught up in this, and she had seriously booked flight tickets from India to Nigeria for herself and her husband!!!, it was lucky I heard about it and managed to convince her to stop, she was out of pocket for the airfares, but there you go, lucky escape indeed!

Some other good sites on this fraud type are here (this is the best one, the scammers get scammed in return, this is violently funny, strongly suggest you taking a look at it) and then there is the wiki site :)



-----Original Message-----
From: sgt dave godwin [mailto:davegodwin23@yahoo.it]
Sent: 30 July 2007 19:45
Subject: Sgt. Dave Godwin


From Sgt Dave Godwin

via email : sgtdave5550@yahoo.com.hk

Good Day,

I found your contact particulars in an E-mail address guide they provide us here, as I desperately needed an urgent help to do this deal. I am seeking your kind assistance to move the sum of $12m {Twelve Million
U.S Dollars only} to you in your country, as far as I can be assured that my share will be safe in your care until I complete my service here.

SOURCE OF FUND:

A lot of money in various currencies were discovered in barrels at a farmhouse near one of Saddams old palaces in Tikrit in Iraq during an operation Conquest in Fallujah north of Baghdad, and it was agreed by Staff Sgt. Kenneth Buff and I that some part of this money be shared among both of us before informing anybody about it since both of us saw the money first. This is quite an illegal thing to do, but well tell you what? no compensation can make up for the risk we have taken with our lives in this hell hole, of which my brother in-law was killed by a road side bomb last time.

The above figure was given to me as my share, and to conceal this kind of money became a problem for me, so with the help of a British Contact working here, at Southern Basra British fortified green zone, whose office enjoys some immunity, I was able to get the package out to a safe location entirely out of trouble spot. He does not know the real contents of the package, and believes that it belongs to a British/American medical doctor who died in a raid here in Baghdad, and before giving up, trusted me to hand over the package to his family in United States. I have now found a very secured way of getting the package out of Iraq to you, for you to pick it up, and I will discuss this with you when I am sure that you are willing to assist me, and I believe that my money will be well secured in your hand because you have fear of God.

I want you to tell me how much you will take from this money for the assistance you will give me. One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter with anybody, should you have reasons to reject this offer, please and please destroy this message as any leakage of this information will be too bad and catastrophic for soldiers here in Iraq. I do not know how long we will remain here, but I hope to have
a shift very soon for me to return back to the States. I have been shot and wounded twice and I have survived two terrible suicides bomb attacks just by special grace of God, this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to reach out for help, I will honestly want this matter be resolved immediately, Please contact me as soon as possible with my private email;address which is my only way of communication for now. sgtdave5550@yahoo.com.hk

I thank you so much for everything and anticipate that you will be trustworthy and handle this transaction to the best of your ability to benefit both of us.

God Bless you and your Family

Yours

Sgt. Dave Godwin