The Mirage That Moved Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Through Major Banks
A $27.1 million shipment of fluorescent lamps. A bogus website. Elusive owners. A FinCEN Files detective story. buzzfeednews.com/article/johnte…
With a website claiming more than 200 employees and an office in a business complex in the middle of Singapore, Ask Trading — “a trading and investment company focusing on the Russia/CIS market” — might appear to be a thriving midsize business.
But actually it’s a mirage.
Between 2001 and 2016, Ask Trading managed to move at least $671 million in transactions through Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of New York Mellon, from sources no one at those banks ascertained, for purposes it never revealed.
Shell companies like Ask Trading keep a low profile, but they play an outsize role in the dark economy, the trillions of dollars of dirty money that course through Western banks in full view of government regulators.
Ask Trading also turns up in the case of an epic Russian money laundering scheme, known as the mirror trades, conducted through Deutsche Bank accounts. During the bank’s internal investigation, in 2016, officials found that Ask had received $17 million as part of those trades.
🚨Ask Trading also turns up in the case of an epic Russian money laundering scheme, known as the mirror trades, conducted through Deutsche Bank accounts. During the bank’s internal investigation, in 2016, officials found that Ask had received $17 million as part of those trades.
This #FinCENFiles story is based on a shit ton of reporting led by @jtemplon and more than 200 pages of suspicious activity reports a handful of banks filed with Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
A little backstory on this week's FOIA Files newsletter 🧵
Not long after Russia launched airstrikes in Ukraine in 2022, I started seeing tweets that said some of Russia’s targets were labs where Ukraine had secretly been developing bio weapons w/the help of the US govt 1/
The allegations seemed to be an obvious attempt to justify the invasion. They garnered thousands of retweets. Soon Fox News was amplifying the claims.
2/
The stories had a huge impact. One poll in late March of that year found that more than a quarter of Americans believed the US-Ukraine bioweapons theory.
3/
NEW FOIA Files newsletter is out with a SCOOP based on 2500 pages of docunents about how a Defense Dept office struggled to fend off a "Russian lie" related to biolabs in Ukraine after the February 2022 invasion
The documents provide a rare behind-the-scenes look into an escalating disinformation war during a critical two-month period after the Ukraine invasion
It took me more than a year to liberate these records from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the division that was targeted by Russia's disinformation campaign
2/
One name that stands out prominently in the cache is Robert Pope, the director of DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Pope said he’d suspected that his agency would eventually wind up in Russia’s crosshairs.
SCOOP: 2nd edition of my weekly newsletter, FOIA Files, is out (SUBSCRIBE!), based on FBI docs related to the classified docs Trump took to MAL & how the Aug 2022 search roiled some of FBI's rank & file
The FBI employee sent that email to the FBI ombudsman shortly after the MAL search. “If he took documents, give him a call and ask for them back. Like ...Seriously? My own agency .... A bunch of democrat political hacks up top…I've lost just about all faith in our leadership”
2/
Another FBI employee was even harsher, characterizing the bureau as a “Banana Republic” and an “embarrassment,” and demanding answers to a series of questions.
Fighting for records continues to be painstaking, difficult work but my @business colleagues & I still managed to overcome the culture of secrecy & pry loose 1000s of pages of docs from state & federal agencies this year
The greatest hits
1/
The ultimate META FOIA: I FOIA'd Trump's FOIA to the IRS & then in Jan @laurapdavison & I landed this scoop: Trump used the FOIA to try and hinder IRS release of his tax returns
@laurapdavison Also in Jan, a FOIA lawsuit @business & I filed against NARA resulted in the first release docs related to the retrieval of 15 boxes of presidential records Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago.
🧵 For the past decade, DOD has been ignoring a handful of my #FOIA requests, the ones I didn't sue over
This week, I have received 9 letters from the agency asking me if I am still interested in receiving docs in response to requests I filed in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018 & 2020
1/
These requests related to documents I sought about Guantanamo, Afghanistan, drone strikes and pressing policy issues. DOD just blatantly violated the law and didn't process a single one.
2/
These "still interested" letters are often sent out at the end of the fiscal year when agencies pad their FOIA stats and try to show their complying with the law. It's deceptive.
3/