On message

MLB would like to thank Paula Nino and moneylaundering.com for their kind permission to attend this event. Reporting by Timon Molloy.

It is certainly rare, though not unheard of, for a bank to be indicted for criminal acts, Adam Kaufmann, Bureau Chief, Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, New York, Investigation Division Central, observed at the recent moneylaundering.com 14th Annual Anti-Money Laundering Conference in Miami. Lloyds TSB joined a select group when in January this year it submitted to deferred prosecution agreements with Kaufmann’s office and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) over stripping the originator details off wire transfers from Iranian and Sudanese clients that hit the US clearing system. The Sudanese angle has tended to be overlooked in the focus on Iranian nuclear ambitions, which rankles with Kaufmann, “It was equally egregious conduct – one shouldn’t overlook the genocide under the Al- Bashir regime – though for a smaller US dollar amount,” approximately US$30m between 2002 and 2007, against about US$300m SWIFT MT103 Iranian transfers that terminated in the US between 2002 and 2004.