Another scandal hits MSM-ML: Swiss banks used in money laundering?
Did the Attorney General of Mauritius Ravi Yerrigadoo get directly or indirectly involved in a money laundering case that involved using Swiss banks for the cleansing of illicit earnings from an online gaming site, bet365?
The attorney general of the island nation of Mauritius stepped down on Wednesday after allegations he had helped launder gambling money. His stepping down may indicate that he is directly involved.
Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth told reporters he wanted an investigation into Ravi Yerrigadoo to be conducted transparently.
The case involves a modus-operandi allegedly set up by the AG and his associate in order to put “undeclared funds” back in the legal circuit. This is money laundering 101 the Mauritius style!
The case was made public by one Husein Abdool Rahim who is now accusing the AG of involvement in the money laundering case, and the latter said using the Swiss banks were part of the structure to cleanse both his illicit earnings on bet365 and the use of the online gaming site to ‘cleanse’ money belonging to people close to the AG.
The cleansing process apparently took place after Husein Abdool Rahim opened an account on behalf of Sylvio Sundanum, a manager of ‘Dry Cleaning’ on bet365 for about 10,000 euros. Sundanum is said to have introduced Husein to the AG, whom the latter met half a dozen times in the AG’s office where the fraudulent plan would have been concoted.
The bettor, Husein, who has already his own account on bet365, gets Sylvio Sundanum to allegedly credit about 10,000 euros to that account. The idea of the protagonists: generate “clean” activities on bet365 to ‘familiarize’ Swiss banks and dubaiotes (Banks linked to Dubai) – where both men opened accounts – to cash their “clean” payments.
Since the cleansing of the money through bet365 is insufficient and is only part of the structure to launder funds, the accused gave time to the Swiss and Dubai banks to get accustomed to the ‘clients’.
The idea was to allow their regular transactions – which would have appeared genuine to the bankers – to be seen as genuine by the banks following which the band resorted the issuance of false receipts from bet365.
These false receipts were accompanied by a letter signed and stamped by the Attorney General of Mauritius, documents that made the ‘customers’ look “clean” for payments from the banks, with the hope that the Swiss banks and others would accept their transactions.
So far, there are no indications whether the Swiss Attorney General is aware of the scandal.
The regime of Pravind Jugnauth which is hell bent on proving it is right in its actions – despite losing much of the court cases – is now facing yet another massive scandal with its Attorney General Ravi Yerrigadoo embroiled in this money-laundering case.
While the AG is in denial, and is refusing to step down or give any clarification on the scandal, the Mauritius government has refused to take any actions on the affair which broke early this week.
The L’Express daily, which publishes in French, summarised the case in 10 simple points which it said is evidence of the alleged involvement of the AG in the affair.
However, the police and the anti-corruption agency the Independent Commission Against Corruption Mauritius (ICAC) is also silent on the matter.
The only drawback in the case against the AG is the fact that the informant has a case of swindling pending on him.
Yesterday, L’Express published a series of WhatsApp messages that Husein Abdool Rahim, the informant, said is evidence of the AG’s involvement in the money laundering case.
The WhatsApp messages shows Mr Ravi Yerrigadoo’s messages and instructions to Husein, purportedly for the purpose of cleansing the latter’s cash, earned in another fraudulent case.
Husein Abdool Rahim said he explained to the AG, whom he met through an intermediate who happens to be the manager of ‘Dry Cleaning’, on the origins of his illicit earnings from bet365 online gaming site.
The meetings with Yerrigadoo. Husayn Abdool Rahim, who is Ravi Yerrigadoo’s friend Sylvio Sundanum, meets the Attorney General at his office for the first time on 14 February 2017.
Both men begin to exchange messages via WhatsApp. Husein Abdool Rahim then sends his bank statements and screenshots of bet365 to Ravi Yerrigadoo. He will meet the latter half a dozen times.
The plan. Husein Abdool Rahim says Ravi Yerrigadoo, Sylvio Sundanum and a Dick Kwan Tat, a financial lawyer who is also a friend of the Attorney General, then decided to set up a structure to legitimize Sylvio Sundanum’s “undeclared funds”.
Clean bets. To understand the plan, you need to know how a clean player bets and gets his winnings. This is done through prepaid cards, a service offered by several national and international banks. A prepaid card is a card where a customer of a bank transfers money. It can then use it to make online transactions, purchases at in-store outlets or even bank withdrawals from ATMs, without these transactions appearing on the statement of its main account.
The reverse path is also possible. Thus, he can ask bet365 to pay it on his prepaid card (cash out) and make withdrawals from an ATM. For any cash out, bet365 sends an electronic receipt to its customer. Receipt which can obviously serve as a “proof of fund” when money withdrawn from ATMs is to be paid into banks.