US Files First Criminal Charges Over "Panama Papers" Money Laundering Scheme

Image from ICIJ

The Panama Papers, published 18 months ago, exposed a system that enables crime, corruption and wrongdoing, hidden by secretive offshore companies and used by rich and famous from all over the world.
United States authorities have charged four men, including two former Mossack Fonseca employees, with money laundering and fraud, the Department of Justice announced today. There are interesting information emerging from this case, ICIJ reports.

From Department of Justice

Four individuals have been charged in an indictment unsealed today in the Southern District of New York with wire fraud, tax fraud, money laundering and other offenses in connection with their alleged roles in a decades-long criminal scheme perpetrated by Mossack Fonseca & Co. (“Mossack Fonseca”), a Panamanian-based global law firm, and related entities.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman for the Southern District of New York, Chief Don Fort of IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), and Special Agent in Charge Angel M. Melendez of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York made the announcement today.

Ramses Owens, 50, a Panamanian citizen; Dirk Brauer, 54, a German citizen; Richard Gaffey, 74, a U.S. citizen, of Medfield, Massachusetts; and Harald Joachim Von Der Goltz, 81, a German citizen, have been charged in an 11-count indictment.  Owens, Gaffey and Von Der Goltz are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit tax evasion, one count of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.  Owens and Brauer have been charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.  Gaffey and Von Der Goltz are additionally charged with four counts of willful failure to file an FBAR.  Von Der Goltz has been additionally charged with two counts of making false statements.

House Judiciary Committee, Seem To Have No Clue, When It Comes To The Search, Internet And Technology

At 1:05:00 Rep. Steve Chabot 

 I listened to the hearing for a while, specially wanted to know what Google has to say about the China syndrome it has recently acquired. After a while I had to give up, I was splaying coffee all over when I was not rolling on the floor.

House Judiciary Committee, showed not only the Americans but the whole world, that they have no idea how the Internet and associated technology worked. Here are two of them and the rest you can find on Mashable, link after the jump.

Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert. The Republican Congressman was upset with the fact that Google shows Wikipedia in its search results. No sooner one could calm self and wipe the coffee from the table,  Gohmert proceeded to throw himself under the bus in a bizarre moment where he blamed the free online encyclopedia for removing edits his staff makes to his own Wikipedia page. Remember that this is being said at a hearing on political bias on the internet!

Rep. Steve Chabot brought us one of the most unfortunate self-owns of the hearing while discussing Google search and anti-conservative bias. Bringing up his own personal experience, Chabot questioned Pichai on why Google returned so much negative criticism on Republicans’ bill to repeal and replace Obamacare last year. Unaware of the implication that so many outlets reported on the bill in this way simply because, maybe, it was just bad, Chabot went on to bring up a similar experience with the GOP tax plan.

 How to "   " by Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert

Mash