[
Real life is better than movies. No doubt. Today's surprise came from Moscow, when an announcement came from the state organization investigating major crimes that the Ukrainian company Burisma was involved in financing terrorists:
Russia's top investigative body announced Tuesday that it has launched a criminal investigation into senior officials from the United States and NATO member states who are suspected of “financing terrorism.”
Russia's Investigative Committee, which investigates major crimes, said it had “established” that money from commercial organizations had been used in recent years to “eliminate prominent political and public figures” inside and outside Russia. -With the intention of “causing economic loss”. Country. , , ,
The top law enforcement body has named Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings as one of the organizations involved. Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, served as a member of Burisma's board of directors between 2014 and 2019.
So what is the big deal in this? We already knew about Hunter. What does this have to do with the CIA? Does the name Coffer Black ring a bell?
International energy group Burisma has expanded its board of directors to include an expert in the field of security and strategic development. Joseph Cofer Black, former director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, recently joined the board of Burisma Group as an independent director. Ambassador Black resigned from public service in 2005 after a 30-year career and is considered a leading expert and key figure on U.S. and international security issues.
how about that. A career CIA officer with no experience in the oil and gas industry other than pumping gas for his vehicles gets a sweet spot on board with Hunter Biden. Prior to joining the Board of Burisma, Mr. Black held a position on the Board of the Latvian Bank:
The extraordinary meeting of shareholders of the joint-stock company Baltic International Bank ('the Bank') was held on 11 October 2016 where decisions were taken on changes to the composition of the Bank's Supervisory Board.
Joseph Cofer Black has been invited to join the current members of the Bank's Supervisory Board – Valerij Belokons, Vlada Belokona, Andris Ozolin and Dr. Hans-Friedrich von Ploetz – as of November 1, 2016.
Cofer Black's obvious qualification to serve on the bank's board was his counterterrorism background. In an interview with DELFI, a business magazine, Cofer claimed expertise in terrorist financing:
What do counter-terrorism and banking have in common? how much time you have? In fact (they) are surprisingly similar. I spent the last 12 years of my time (at the CIA) in counterterrorism, but before that I worked in other areas (intelligence). An important consideration in counter-terrorism is what we now call financial counter-terrorism. At the beginning of my career, there was very little counterterrorism in the financial sector. It was my responsibility, but I was not very keen to get involved in it, as it is time-consuming, labour-intensive and expensive. In that time you are trying to defeat and stop the terrorists before they kill the people.
Turns out, Kofer was of no help to the Latvian bank on this issue. Fine was imposed on the bank in 2018:
Latvia's financial regulator, the Financial and Capital Markets Commission (FKTK), said on December 6 that it was fining Baltic International Bank (BIB) 1.5 million euros “for deficiencies in the bank's internal control system.” , ,
“In 2018 the FKTK conducted an on-site inspection of the Bank, as well as a targeted inspection, during which the FCMC identified that the Bank's internal control system did not fully comply with regulatory requirements governing the prevention of money laundering and terrorism. Does it. and Extension Financing (hereinafter – AML/CTPF),'' FKTK said.
“The Bank did not establish an adequate internal control system to address its risks in the field of prevention of money laundering and terrorism and proliferation financing, which would ensure effective compliance with regulatory requirements,” it said, explaining that “a number of cases “The bank did not take adequate measures to ensure that the beneficial owner shown is the beneficial owner; did not obtain documentation and did not take the necessary measures to ensure the origin of the financial instruments in their client accounts and did not document the findings; did not ensure appropriate and high quality enhanced customer due diligence; had not duly taken decisions on terminating business relationships with customers and, in one particularly damaging comment, had not paid “sufficient and special attention to unusually large, complex, inter-related transactions with no clear economic purpose or clear legal purpose.” Had given.”
Returning to the allegations made by Russia's Investigative Committee, if Coffer Black was on the Burisma board at the time when Burisma funds were being transferred to groups with ties to terrorists, then it is quite understandable that Russia would Would be inclined to believe that the C.I.A. Implicated, at least indirectly, in terrorist attacks in Russia. Too bad the Latvian bank didn't hire me and my partner to replace Kofer. We actually wrote and implemented compliance programs for banks and investment firms that kept them out of this kind of trouble. I can't wait to see the proof.
Some interesting and unusual interviews today. The first was with Brazilian Marcos Soares, who lives and works in Italy. The second DD was with Sara in Geopolitics. We discussed the CIA's ties with terrorist organizations.