The ultimate money laundering instrument

Source: www.world-check.com, Feb. 14, 2008

(http://www.world-check.com/articles/2008/02/14/i-examine-ultimate-money-laundering-instrument/)

I am holding in my hands a copy of what must be the largest-denomination bearer instrument in circulation today: a Global Promissory Note, in the amount of US$ 102,770,208.22, issued by Ministry of Finance of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on 19 March, 2003, and signed by the then-Minister of Finance, Tobias Nobrega Suarez. It is but one of five such notes, totalling over a half a billion dollars in value, issued in bearer form by Venezuela. How did I came into possession of such a confidential instrument? Read on.

The note, the original that is, was seized by Venezuelan law enforcement officials during a lawful search of the residence of one of the country's leading pro-government bankers. It was extracted from a safe in the banker's home. The officers who found it included one who decided that he could no longer accept the officially-sanctioned corruption that has run rampant in the country, and he made the document available to me as primary evidence that money laundering of criminal profits is totally out of control.

I have carefully examined the note, and it recites the appropriate governmental legal authorisations for its issuance, clearly identifies the signer, and validates that he is acting in his representative ministerial capacityLet us look at this instrument, which matured on 18 March, 2007, bearing interest at the rate of 5%:

Such a note in bearer form is instantly negotiable, without any audit trail, meaning that it could be hand-carried to an offshore financial centre, and its global movement totally undetected.

Who on earth has $100m in cash or cash equivalent, to purchase and sell this note, other than criminal elements of the highest order?

If this was a bank-to-bank instrument, or a conventional financing arrangement, it would never be in bearer form, due to the risk of unauthorised sale, loss or destruction, hypothecation, or any number of untoward events that the maker, a sovereign state, would not want to see.

How did this $100m bearer obligation of the state end up in the personal vault of a prominent banker? if it was purchased by a financial institution, it would not, in the ordinary course of business, ever be permitted to leave the bank's premises, for any purpose .

Obviously, the banker had an illegal purpose in mind for this "Global Note," but who was the prospective customer? The Colombian Cartels?

Perhaps we see the instrument at the very end of the money laundering cycle, after its has transited the globe, and will be presented for redemption at the Central Bank, a payor totally above suspicion.

Perhaps someone should ask Tobias Nobrega about these notes. Just whom did he give them to, and why? And where did the half a billion dollars go?