The Red Syndrome (5 page)

The entire episode had taken only a minute or two, and we didn't seem
to have attracted any attention. There were no pedestrians around, and the
few cars that were passing hadn't bothered to stop. I took inventory: Other
than breathing heavily, a ringing in one ear, and my disheveled clothes,
there'd been no serious physical consequences. I went up to my room,
leaving the front door open so as not to lock myself in with an intruder.
When I was certain I had no uninvited company, I bolted the door.

Who were these guys? Was the attack random, a failed robbery of a
tourist, or was I the intended target? It had to be the latter. They hadn't
tried to rob or kill me; one bullet would have done that. Their purpose
had been to intimidate, to send me a message to back off. First the bug
in my coat, now the attack. I got the point: Their next move could be less
friendly. But I had no intention of taking these hints seriously.

Since I had no further business in Stuttgart, my first instinct was to
check out of the hotel and leave Germany. But reason overtook anxiety,
and I changed my mind. In any case I would have to find another hotel
for the night, or go to the airport immediately. I did not want to meet up
again with Igor and Oksana's associates.

I waited in the room until the early morning, then checked out; two
porters carried my luggage. I walked between them, making them an
improvised protective phalanx, and ignoring their surprised expressions. I
took a cab to the Echterdingen airport, checking occasionally to make
sure I had no escorts behind my cab. We were alone on the road.

From the airport gate, just before boarding, I called Dr. Bermann. "I'm
writing my report and I need your help."

"I am very sorry, Herr Gordon" he said candidly. Well, of course he was;
the nincompoop had dragged me all the way to Germany only to realize
that his smelly client wouldn't talk. He could have done it over the phone
and spared me the trouble.

"I spoke to Igor again. He is not responding to my request to reconsider talking to you. In fact, he won't even discuss it."

"Too bad about that. Anyway, I need to describe our meeting to my
boss. Could you please give me the interpreter's full name?"

"It is-" He paused for a minute. "-let me see here...ja, her name
is Oksana Vasilev."

"Got it. And she is an official interpreter?"

"Yes, authorized by the court."

"You were lucky to find a Belarusian interpreter; I don't suppose too
many people in Stuttgart speak that language."

"You are correct, Herr Gordon. In fact I think this is her first job. After
our first telephone conversation, I asked Igor if he knew of any Belarusian
interpreters because we would need one for his court hearing. A few days
later, Frau Vasilev called me and said she spoke both German and
Belarusian and even some English, so she could be an interpreter in Igor's
case. I assumed Igor had sent her. I told her that she had to register with
the court first. It took her one week to prepare the application, and now
she is an official interpreter with the court. Otherwise she would not have
been permitted to enter the prison. If Igor or Oksana were to have any
difficulty with English, then I could translate from English to German
and Oksana from German to Belarusian."

"Nice of you to think of it, and at the same time to help her," I said,
thinking of the chaos a twice-removed translation could cause.

"I think so, too. She told me that she was new in town and needed a
job. I paid her fifty dollars just to be in the prison for one hour. I don't
think she made that much in Belarus in a month." I could almost see him
grinning in self-satisfaction.

I called David from a different airport pay phone; my cell phone could easily have been picked up by a sophisticated listening device. After my
encounter with the state-of-the-art bug, I didn't want to take any further
chances.

"There have been some positive developments," I said.

"Igor changed his mind?"

"No, something else. I'll send in my report and we can discuss it after
you read it. I'm on my way back." I decided not to mention the attack.
There were too many people around me waiting to find an available pay
phone, or maybe to eavesdrop on me. I couldn't be sure.

Back in my New York office, I forwarded to David in DC my summary
of the facts I had gathered from Oksana's trash.

On December 1, 2002, Igor Razov opened a bank account at the
Global Kredit Privatbankiers in Frankfurt am Mein. On the
same day, he deposited into that account sixteen cashier's checks
totaling approximately $60 million. Four days later, that money
was wire-transferred to Barclays Bank in Nevis, the federation of
Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, into an account owned
by Bright Metalwork, Ltd., a Nevis company. A week later, the
money continued its route through Panama City to Caracas until
it resurfaced as a deposit made by Sling & Dewey Goods and
Services, PLC, registered in Australia. Then the money was sent,
probably by mail or by courier, to Eagle Bank of New York.
Additionally, several checks were drawn on a bank in the
Seychelles Islands. The source of the money is still unknown.

I called David two hours later waiting for his litany of praise. Nothing.
It had taken a full week of my life to unravel the whirlwind tour of the
laundered money around the world. I'd rummaged through garbage,
taken a beating, and endured a ringing ear, and this was the thanks I got?
Granted, it took me only twenty minutes to actually write my report.

"Good progress," he finally said. "But we need to know why the money traveled as it did. Usually money launderers take one or two interim steps,
not five or six. Why so many? And where did Igor get this kind of money,
anyway? It's way out of his league."

"No clue. I have no doubt that the money isn't his. Maybe it's
Zhukov's."

"We looked into that possibility, too. The whirlwind is also very much
unlike Zhukov."

"Maybe this one is different; Zhukov's or not, somebody worked very
hard to obscure this money's source. But there could be any number of
other possibilities," I said.

"Keep going, then. Sort them out," said David.

n the beginning it seemed like any other case. A routine audit by
FDIC examiners had discovered movements of more than sixty million dollars between the Seychelles Islands and Eagle Bank of New
York, all in connection with Sling & Dewey Goods and Services, PLC -
private limited company.

But instead of the expected Currency Transaction Reports that the
bank should have filed under the Bank Secrecy Act, there were only
insignificant reports filed by Eagle Bank regarding smaller amounts and
concerning different account holders, not Sling & Dewey. The FDIC
report had attracted the attention of a Treasury agent, who had then
ordered a report from FinCEN - the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network in Vienna, Virginia, an obscure intelligence agency of the
Treasury Department. FinCEN in turn issued Positive Database
Extracts, which shed further light on the unusual money transfers and
deposits coming into Eagle Bank without any visible, legitimate business
purpose. Under normal circumstances, the bank would have had to file a
Suspicious Activity Report with its regulatory agency if it suspected it
might have been used as a conduit for criminal funds. But no such reports
had come in. So the bank itself became the target of an investigation. A
phone call by the Treasury agent and a memo to DC had followed. The
scope of attention widened.

Now the Department of Justice showed interest. An intelligence report
on Eagle Bank of New York was ordered. The report that came back was
alarming because it raised suspicion that the massive money deposits
were part of illegal activity. The division chief assigned the matter to
David Stone.

I reviewed a copy of the case file that David had sent me along with a note: "Dan, take a look. I think you'll be hearing the name of this bank a
lot. Call me after your review."

I opened the file. On the top was a FinCEN report, which looked like
dozens of others I'd seen.

FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK
VIENNA VIRGINIA 22182

Intelligence Report

Requester: Peter S. Yarmouth; Date of Request: April 21, 2002
Att. Special Agent Ben R. Bailey FinCEN case # 02PPPS866o
Requester Case # 02-384

Subject: Eagle Bank of New York, et al.

SYNOPSIS

The Office of Investigative Support searched its financial and
commercial databases on Eagle Bank of New York. It is the subject of an investigation resulting from the bank's failure to report
suspicious activity to avert further regulatory investigation.

The financial database listed 102 positive Currency Transaction
Reports (CTRs) on Eagle Bank of New York totaling
$211,011,009 for the month of January 2002 and 33 positive
International Transportation of Currency Monetary Instrument
Reports (CMIRs) on Eagle Bank of New York for currency
arriving at JFK Airport between January and March 2002
totaling $76,556,000. None of these reports concerned Sling &
Dewey Goods and Services, PLC. It seems that the bank had
failed to report significant suspicious activities concerning
money transfers in amounts exceeding $6o,ooo,ooo. Please see
the narrative section of this report and the enclosed database
extracts for further details.

Prepared By: G. Walker Bryn

Title: Lead Data Analyst

Reviewed by: Lawrence X. Francis II

Title: Investigative Review Specialist

Telephone: (703) 555-5590

Distribution: DOJ/AR/ML Date: July 28, 2002

Any financial database information contained in this report is
sensitive and is not to be disseminated outside of your organization (with the exception of authorized U.S. government attorneys who have a legitimate legal interest in such material)
without express approval of the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network.

BACKGROUND

Research on the suspects was conducted in databases available to
FinCEN. Below is a description of the databases accessed for
this report on the subjects of your request. Only positive or
inconclusive database results are included in this report. FinCEN
limits its research to only those subjects presented in your
request. Because information may exist on other entities identified pursuant to our research, you are invited to submit another
request on those subjects.

Financial Databases: Bank Secrecy Act information received
from either U.S. Homeland Security or IRS computer centers.

Includes Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) filed by banks
on transactions of more than $ro,ooo in cash; reports of
International Transportation of Currency or Monetary
Instruments (CMIRs) - filed by individuals or businesses when
physically transporting or shipping/receiving more than $io,ooo
in either currency or bearer-negotiable instruments; Currency
Transactions Reports by Casinos (CTR-Cs) - similar to CTRs,
but filed by U.S. persons to report financial interest or signature
authority or other authority over accounts in foreign countries if
the aggregate value is over $ro,ooo at any time of the year, filed
annually; Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) - reports filed by
banks and other depository institutions under suspicion that one
or more of various financial crimes may have been perpetrated
by, at, or through the financial institution.

Note: One of FinCEN's main objectives is to locate information
not normally found or used by law enforcement agents in the
field.

NARRATIVE

Attached referral to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern
District of New York was made by the regulators once they realized the bank was a huge washing machine for laundered money.
FYI.

I took out a yellow legal pad from my drawer, ready to begin planning
the investigation, although there wasn't much in the way of hard information. Obviously, my first step should be the perpetrator's last, Eagle
Bank of New York. That's where the money had landed. But complicated
banking regulations and the need for complete secrecy forced me to
reevaluate. I would have to settle for the penultimate step. Sling & Dewey
had made huge deposits into Eagle Bank in cash, wire transfers, and
checks drawn on a Seychelles bank. Let's see what I can find out about the
depositors, I said to myself, identifying my first challenge.