The Dominican Connection
Part 2 of 5 in a series exposing the connections between the politicians, their strange and Anti-American actions and vast amounts of illicit money from criminal sources
The Dominican Republic is not just a transit point - it is a major control center for drug distribution. Yet it has been given a pass when it comes to money laundering and drug smuggling by both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. It was NOT forced to change by a FinCEN Advisory as other nations were.
By shutting most laundering nations illicit operations down, and leaving the Dominican Republic still operating, the FinCEN was able to give a big advantage to the Dominican Republic for the drug money business. You might call it Most Favored Money-Laundering Nation Status.
Above: Bill Clinton and the Leftist President of the Dominican Republic do lunch.
Written by Dagny D'Anconia
Tuesday 24 March 2007
The problem of bribing politicians is similar to the problem of money laundering. Both involve hiding the sources of funds. There is an effort to track down foreign accounts by the Treasury Department, but here's where it gets very interesting:
FinCEN (The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network [12]) started to issue money laundering Advisories back in 1996 during the Clinton Administration. Their first Advisory was for the Seychelles. [13] The Seychelles had set up its laws so anyone with 10 million US$ to invest in the country could have an account and could live there indefinitely regardless of the crimes he or she had committed elsewhere. It was a tropical haven for world class criminals. Grover Norquist, the right wing free-market tax crusader was the lobbyist for the Seychelles at the time. (More about him later.)
The Advisory said "Banks and other financial institutions are advised to give enhanced scrutiny to all financial transactions routed into or out of the Seychelles, or involving persons domiciled in the Seychelles.... Institutions subject to the Bank Secrecy Act, but not yet subject to specific suspicious activity reporting rules, should consider their obligations to report such a transaction either under other applicable law or on a voluntary basis." [14]
Once an advisory was issued, banks world wide were thus instructed to watch for any irregularity, and American banks were required by law to do so. It made it very difficult for anyone to launder money through the Seychelles as every transaction in or out was scrutinized.
The Seychelles were no longer as useful to those who wanted to launder criminal money. After 7 years (well into the Bush Administration) the Seychelles finally instituted legal and accounting practices that satisfied FinCEN and they issued another Advisory lifting the previous admonition. The same Advisory treatment was given to Antigua and Barbuda by the Clintons three years later in 1999.
Nations with laws against money laundering and institutions to deal with it generally become members of a group of over 100 nations called "The Egmont Group"[15]. While being in the Egmont Group does not guarantee that the nation is free of money laundering, it is at least giving official appearances that it is not and is putting forth some effort. Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) in each member nation cooperate with each other over a secure web site to fight money laundering. [16]
In the last year of the Clinton Administration 13 other nations were given the FinCEN Advisory treatment including Israel, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Russia etc. These all were forced to end institutionally permitted money laundering policies and their institutions were given a clean bill of health in a FinCEN Advisory shortly thereafter. Most redeemed countries were inducted into the Egmont Group, although a few (Nigeria, Burma, Nauru, and the Seychelles) were not. [17]
The interesting thing is that two well known money laundering centers were NOT forced to change by a FinCEN Advisory. By shutting most down, and leaving one or two still operating, the Clintons' FinCEN was able to give an big advantage to the ones that were kept open for the drug money business. You might call it Most Favored Money-Laundering Nation Status.
Conspicuously missing from any Advisories were the Dominican Republic and Haiti. [18] The Dominican Republic is also conspicuously missing from the list of "Money- Laundering Countries" put out by the National Center for Policy Analysis. [19]
This omission is terribly striking to anyone who has read law enforcement documents from the Department of Justice or CIA reports concerning the flow of drugs and money laundering in the Caribbean. According to the CIA the Dominican Republic has "substantial money laundering activity; Colombian narcotics traffickers favor the Dominican Republic for illicit financial transactions." [20]
In fact, the Colombian cartels have worked a deal with the Dominican gangs to handle the transportation and retail sales of cocaine, marijuana and heroin throughout the East coast of the U.S.. [21] Haiti and the Dominican Republic occupy the island of Hispaniola east of Cuba. The fashionable east end of the Dominican Republic is only 80 miles from Puerto Rico. Once in Puerto Rico, materials no longer have to pass through customs - a major advantage for smuggling:
"The Dominican Republic, on the eastern half of the island was only a short eighty mile boat or plane ride from the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. South American drugs, smuggled successfully into Puerto Rico could travel to New York without being interfered with by U.S. Customs - because they were already in the United States. " [22]
"The key to the drug trade in Puerto Rico is the island's U.S. Commonwealth status. Once a shipment of cocaine, whether smuggled from Haiti or the Dominican Republic by maritime, air, or commercial cargo, reaches Puerto Rico, it is unlikely to be subjected to further United States Customs inspections en route to the continental U.S." [23] Haiti's role ... "at just under 430 miles from Colombia's northernmost point [the island of Hispaniola] is easily accessible by twin engine aircraft hauling payloads of 500 to 700 kilos of cocaine." [24]
Plus the Clintons made it even easier for drugs and money to slip thorough:
"Under Clinton, legislation changed from transit-zone interdiction to source-country efforts, which meant that it became that much easier to overlook what was happening in Puerto Rico. ... What also makes it so easy is that Puerto Rico is surrounded by water. The dealers have droves of boats available to them while the police have a handful, and those that they do have cannot make it into the shallow regions where the drug dealers' boats go." [25]
The Dominican Republic is not just a transit point. It is a major control center for drug distribution. According to the Department of Justice:
"Dominican drug trafficking organizations have traditionally been responsible for the street-level distribution of cocaine. ... Cocaine continues to be transported through the Caribbean; Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti are the predominant transshipment points for Colombian cocaine transiting the Caribbean.
Within the United States, ethnic Dominican criminal groups have played a significant role in retail-level heroin distribution in northeastern markets for at least the past two decades. During the 1990s, Dominican groups secured their role in the heroin trade by selling high-purity SA heroin. Currently, Dominican groups dominate retail heroin markets in northeastern cities such as New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. New York City is the primary base of operation for ethnic Dominican groups. Colombian distribution networks at the wholesale level deal directly with Dominican trafficking groups responsible for retail sales." [26]
In short: Colombians are the producers and Dominicans are the wholesalers and retailers.
Today the dominant Colombian drug cartel is the North Coast Cartel, which is allied with leftist FARC Marxists. "The FARC is is a communist revolutionary and illegally armed terrorist organization in Colombia. It was established in 1964-1966 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, and is designated by the Colombian Government, the United States, and the European Union, amongst others, as a terrorist organization for their actions against not only the government but also towards civilians and infrastructure." [27]
The Dominican Republic is listed at the CIA as the money laundering place of choice for Colombian cocaine syndicates. It should have been the first nation to get a FinCEN Advisory. It is an egregious violator. Haiti is a place of vast corruption where (according to the CIA) Colombian narcotics traffickers are involved in substantial bulk cash smuggling. Instead they got a pass from the Clinton Administration.
I presume by now you are seeing the financial connections between the Clintons, the Communist terrorist FARC, the cocaine trade, and the favors to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Here are the details:
In the Dominican Republic President Hipolito Mejia (from the centrist party) came into office in 2000 and made apparent progress against money laundering. In October 2001, Mejía announced a plan to harden the punishment against money laundering, and to coordinate efforts with other Caribbean countries to combat illicit activity. [28] Mejia's progress apparently helped bring the Dominican Republic into the Egmont Group in 2000. [29]
Mejia was also America-friendly. He contributed troops to Iraq, and just before leaving office signed the CAFTA (the Caribbean version of NAFTA). As of the end of 2004, the Dominican Republic was still an Egmont Group member according to the OAS. [30]
In 2003 it was discovered that officials of the Dominican Republic's Baninter Bank had been keeping two sets of books and embezzling it for the prior 14 years. Thus the corrupt embezzlement had been started under the corrupt Balaguer Presidency back in 1989. President Fernandez won back in 1996 by allying himself with the corrupt former president Balaguer. The banking crisis was thus the result of corruption that started in 1989 under Fernandez's ally Balaguer and maintained in Fernandez's prior administration. [31]
The bank's failure led to a bailout by the Dominican Republic's government and the IMF. This botched bailout destabilized the currency causing severe problems including inflation, power outages and energy shortages. The lowered standard of living that resulted outraged the citizens and they blamed Mejia. [32] As a result in 2004 President Mejia was voted out, and the the former President and Left wing candidate Leonel Fernandez was voted in.
The embezzlement had been started under an ally of Fernandez and then continued under Fernandez. Indeed the problems may well have been caused/manufactured by Leftists and their allies. Nevertheless the people simple-mindedly voted out Mejia and Fernandez once again became president. As you might expect, prosecutions and seizures of laundered money and the number of investigations dropped abruptly under Fernandez. Extradition of criminals from the Dominican Republic also dropped. [33]
The most recent reports on the Dominican Republic's enforcement indicate a lot of foot dragging, with little or no enforcement of the laws and policies that got the Dominican Republic into the Egmont Group. As of December 2006, the Dominican Republic was not reported as a member of the Egmont Group according to the US State Dept. Thus it appears that the Dominican Republic was very quietly kicked out of the Egmont Group sometime between 2004 and 2006. This was on Leftist President Fernandez's watch. [34]
Cooperation with other Egmont members was also poor, with information requests from the Egmont Group taking nearly a month to respond to. Furthermore, money laundering is only a crime in the Dominican Republic if drug related - and it is not a crime if terrorism related. Conspiracy to commit money laundering is also not a crime, and extradition is not allowed unless it is for something that is legally a crime in the Dominican Republic. Thus anyone convicted of money laundering without proven drug connections is home free. Even any kind of conspiracy or terrorist funding is legal there. [35]
Furthermore, there is no law to publicly list the ownership of trusts in any central public register. Thus trusts have no transparency or laws defining or controlling them, and can be used for money laundering. It is a loophole big enough for a money truck to drive through. No wonder it is the favored money laundering location for the Colombian syndicates.
When President Bush came into office and 9-11 happened, the FinCEN Advisory treatment was extended to just 3 more countries: Grenada, Egypt, and the Ukraine - none of which were major drug money laundering centers. In 2002 Nigeria and Burma (Myanmar) was finally the subject of an Advisory, and the Macau bank servicing North Korea was "Advisoried" in December of 2005. [36] Extreme basket cases with totally screwed up banking systems like Somalia and North Korea were not "Advisoried" either.
Why was the Dominican Republic given a pass up to the present day? As the other places were shut down, this nation, with help from Haiti, has maintained a virtual monopoly on the Colombian drug and money laundering business through the region thanks to the selective enforcement by FinCEN. This selective enforcement has persisted through both the Clinton and the Bush Administrations.
In Part 3 we examine the intimate details of the Clintons dealings and their sanctuary in the Criminal Leftist Elite Paradise.
References:
12. http://www.fincen.gov/
13. http://www.fincen.gov/advis2.html
14. http://www.fincen.gov/advis2.html
15. http://www.fincen.gov/int_fius.html
http://www.fincen.gov/int_egmont.html
16. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2609
17. http://www.fincen.gov/int_egmont.html
http://www.fincen.gov/pub_main.html
18. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/dr.html
http://www.cfatf.org/profiles/media/MEVAL%20Report%20-%20Dominican%20Republic%202006%20(En).pdf
19. http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?page=article&Article_ID=9906
20. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/dr.html#Intro
21. http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs23/23502/drugover.htm
22. http://www.narconews.com/USDominican1.html
23. http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/cngrtest/ct041200.htm
24. http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/cngrtest/ct041200.htm
25. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/liars_and_thieves_video
26. http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/state_factsheets.html
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs3/3950/
27. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARC
28. http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/World-Leaders-2003/Dominican-Republic-FOREIGN-POLICY.html
29. http://www.cfatf.org/profiles/media/MEVAL%20Report%20-%20Dominican%20Republic%202006%20(En).pdf
30. http://www.cicad.oas.org/MEM/ENG/Reports/Progress_2003-2004/Rep_Dominicana%20-%20ENG.pdf
31. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dominican_Republic#1980.E2.80.94present.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb83.pdf
32. http://www.bankintroductions.com/dominican.html
33. http://www.cfatf.org/profiles/media/MEVAL%20Report%20-%20Dominican%20Republic%202006%20(En).pdf
34. http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2007/vol2/html/80882.htm
35. http://www.cfatf.org/profiles/media/MEVAL%20Report%20-%20Dominican%20Republic%202006%20(En).pdf
36. http://www.fincen.gov/advisory.pdf http://www.fincen.gov/pub_main.html