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Crypto-witwassen houdt handel in synthetische drugs in stand

Een industriële crypto-witwasketen die vuil geld via digitale netwerken naar Chinese chemische leveranciers vervoert houdt zo de Mexico-handel in synthetische drugs in stand. Dat schrijft Insight Crime.

Volgens het onderzoek is er sprake van een goed georganiseerde, grensoverschrijdende financiële infrastructuur waarin cryptovaluta een centrale rol spelen. Criminele netwerken gebruiken digitale munten om enorme sommen geld, afkomstig uit de verkoop van drugs zoals fentanyl en methamfetamine, snel en relatief anoniem te verplaatsen. Dit geld wordt vervolgens ingezet om chemische grondstoffen te kopen bij leveranciers in China, die essentieel zijn voor de productie van synthetische drugs.

De keten werkt volgens een gestructureerd model. Drugskartels in Mexico verkopen hun producten voornamelijk in de Verenigde Staten, waar de vraag naar synthetische drugs hoog blijft. De opbrengsten – vaak in contanten – worden eerst verzameld en daarna via tussenpersonen omgezet in cryptovaluta. Deze digitale activa worden vervolgens via complexe transacties en digitale wallets verspreid, waardoor de herkomst moeilijk te traceren is.

Eenmaal ‘schoongewassen’ wordt het geld gebruikt om betalingen te doen aan Chinese chemische bedrijven. Deze bedrijven leveren precursorchemicaliën, stoffen die nodig zijn om synthetische drugs te produceren. Hoewel sommige van deze chemicaliën legaal zijn, worden ze in dit geval misbruikt voor illegale productieprocessen.

Insight Crime wijst erop dat deze werkwijze de traditionele methoden van witwassen – zoals het gebruik van banken of contante smokkel – grotendeels heeft vervangen. Cryptovaluta bieden snelheid, flexibiliteit en een zekere mate van anonimiteit, waardoor opsporingsdiensten moeite hebben om de geldstromen effectief te volgen.

Daarnaast maakt de digitale aard van deze transacties internationale samenwerking ingewikkelder. Verschillende landen hanteren uiteenlopende regels voor cryptovaluta, wat juridische en praktische obstakels oplevert bij het bestrijden van deze netwerken.

Experts waarschuwen dat zolang de vraag naar synthetische drugs hoog blijft en de toegang tot chemische grondstoffen relatief eenvoudig is, deze crypto-gedreven witwasstructuren zullen blijven bestaan. Ze roepen op tot strengere regulering van cryptoplatforms, betere internationale samenwerking en meer toezicht op de handel in chemische stoffen.

Het rapport onderstreept dat de strijd tegen drugskartels zich niet alleen op straat of aan de grens afspeelt, maar steeds meer in de digitale wereld – waar geldstromen net zo belangrijk zijn als de drugs zelf.

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Padah buat laporan polis di Bandar Sri Damansara Peguam ‘Scammer’ Kington Tong ugut ‘Amoi’ lagi

Dalam satu emel yang dihantar kepada The Corporate Secret berkaitan laporan polis, Peguam ‘Scammer’ Kington Tong Kum Loong Pengarah Bukan Eksekutif Kumpulan Jetson Berhad mencederakan ‘Amoi’ cina di Restoran Finch The Westin Kuala Lumpur memaklumkan terdapat ugutan baru terhadap wanita itu.

Wanita yang bernama ‘Amy’  bekerja di syarikat hartanah melalui laporan polisnya  THSL/017677/22 di Balai Polis Sri Damansara Daerah Petaling Jaya pada 7 julai 2022 menggesa tindakan diambil terhadap Kington Tong Kum Loong

Kebimbangan gadis berumur 29 tahun itu berulang kembali susulan laporan yang terdedah itu menyebabkan  beliau diganggu serta diugut untuk menarik balik laporan polisnya.

Peguam Kington Tong Kum Loong seorang samseng, kasar dan jenis pendendam itu kini menyerangnya dengan segala cara  dan bertindak akan melaporkan polis sekali lagi jika keadaan lebih buruk menjejaskan keselamatan diri dan keluarganya.

Laporan polisnya sebelum ini masih samar dan sehingga kini pihak Polis Sri Damansara dan Petaling jaya masih membisu mengenai laporannya.

Beliau berharap Ketua Polis Balai Kota Damansara ASP Mohd Nasir bin Mustapha dan Ketua Polis Daerah Petaling Jaya, Asisten Komisioner Mohamad Fakhrudin Abdul Hamid mengambil tindakan aduan yang dibuatnya terhadap Peguam Kington Tong Kum Loong memandangkan laporan itu dibuat di Balai Sri Damansara

Edisi Siasat turut melaporkan mengenai kes ini.

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A VIX trader has resigned from Millennium after only a few months to join JPMorgan's equity derivatives team

A Citigroup VIX trader left this spring for $53 billion hedge fund Millennium Management amid scorching demand for volatility traders. Now, he's back on the sell-side, joining JPMorgan's equity derivatives group.

Benjamin Texier has resigned from Millennium and is joining JPMorgan to trade the CBOE Volatility Index, according to sources familiar with the matter.

A JPMorgan spokeswoman and a Millennium spokesman declined to comment.

A deluge of sell-side volatility traders have been poached this year following record performance in 2020, which attracted the attention of hedge funds like Citadel, Balyasny, and Millennium. More than 60 US equity derivatives traders have departed the sell-side seats they started the year in, according to figures compiled by Insider and industry executive recruiters.

Texier in May left Citigroup, where he was a director in index volatility trading, along with several other Citi equity derivatives traders. Before joining Citi in 2016, he spent nearly eight years at BNP Paribas.

Texier's arrival at JPMorgan will help fill some gaps after the bank suffered departures of its own in July.

The firm parted ways with Ishan Malik, an executive director who traded the VIX, amid scrutiny over a series of tweets. Borzu Masoudi, a star volatility trader who ran the equity macro derivatives, was poached by Millennium a few weeks later.

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The End of Expat Managers at TBI: Part 1 of 4

1. TBI Dago                    Mid 2010

2. TBI Fatmawati           Mid 2010

3. TBI Sudirman            Early 2011

4.TBI Kuningan              Late 2011

5. TBI Riau                     Early 2012, later reverted to Luke Preece’s crony, Scott

In April 2012, when Ratna took over from Scott Martin, Luke Preece’s disgraced crony, the Indonesianization of school management was complete at TBI group schools. (Group schools are those which are those directly under the control of USG, also known as UniSadhuGuna.) For the first time ever, there was not one expat manager at a group-owned TBI school. This was a complete and drastic reversal from the situation of a just a short time before. As late as early 2010, all of their group-owned schools had expat managers. Why had things changed so much?

INDONESIANIZING TBI

Unlike their competitors, who still employ some expat school managers, TBI (The British Instiute) has undertaken to aggressively remove non-Indonesian managers, and there is now only 1 from 17 surviving at the school manager level- the best friend of Luke Preece, the corrupt Aussie who is the right hand man of the TBI Director. As late as early 2010, all of TBI’s five group schools- those listed in the table above- had expat managers. Now not one of them does. The dates in the second column show the point at which they switched from expat to Indonesian school managers.

In a period of two years between April 2010 and April 2012, every single expat school manager was removed from their positions. These five schools, with an approximate total enrollment of 3600 students, had over half of the TBI student enrollments during this period. In early 2010 they were 100% managed by an expat school managers, and now they are managed by locals in 16 out of 17 cases. This was a sudden and dramatic change, but bizarrely, at no point has it ever been explained, justified or even mentioned by Head Office to TBI teachers. TBI has even seemed reluctant to admit that the transfer of power had occurred. We received comments at some points denying that any such policy of ‘Indonesianizing’ school management existed, while it is plain as daylight. (See the above table).

Incredible as it may seem to TBI competitors, this shift was never formally acknowledged by TBI. Instead, they have vilified and attacked the sitting school managers and blamed it all on them. This ruthless campaign of vilification has claimed high-achieving school managers at times. The former school manager of TBI Kuningan, C******, had boosted enrolments to a record high of 675 paid students just at the moment he was removed. This was a 35% increase on a year before. Similarly (more on this tomorrow) the same campaign claimed the head of an Australian RD, who was TBI’s most successful franchise school manager, with six hundred students enrolled at TBI Bogor. Rather than admitting this change of policy, Luke Preece, Ashley Platts and Mariam Kartikatresni at Head Office have conspired to vilify and defame their own managers and claim that they all deserved to be sacked or ‘removed’.

DENYING THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS

To the authors of this blog, it is symptomatic of the arrogance and deceit of Luke, Ashley and Mariam that rather than admit TBI’s new policy and risk offending TBI expat teachers, they have chosen to conduct a cowardly smear campaign against people who had achieved great things in their schools and somehow infer that these ‘forced out’ school managers deserved it. Luke Preece, in particular, went around inventing all sorts of horrible things that former managers were supposed to have done, such as “refusing to have teacher Mark B. return to Jakarta“. Once we contacted Mark B. himself he confirmed that he himself had requested to move to Bandung and Luke’s story that this manager had blocked it was a total fabrication. Such lies had then been used to tar the name of Luke Preece’s rivals, and assurances were made that TBI was better off without expat managers.

But we ask people to look at the table above and think of this simple, undeniable fact. 100% expat management in April 2010, and 100% Indonesian management by April 2012 at the five biggest TBI schools. We ask any objective person to evaluate whether this shows like ‘a coincdence’ or ‘an orchestrated policy change’. The answer is obvious. This raises the question: who got rid of all the expat managers? The answer is hardly surprising: their bosses.

Luke Preece, Ashley Platts and Mariam Kartikatresni attacked, undermined, slandered and finally fired every single expat manager in TBI group schools between 2010 and 2012. This was an orchestrated plan to take over the company, which has succeeded. But fortunately there is a silver lining. The uproar caused by their outrageous deceit has now encouraged other TBI victims, such as the teachers of TBI Bekasi and Riau to come forward, and TBI’s carefully protected mask of respectability has fallen off.