[R-P] Cómo la AIG servía para lavar dinero y evadir impuestos

[Néstor Gorojovsky]

[No tengo tiempo para traducir. Pero esta nota es muy reveladora sobre
cómo funciona el capitalismo real. La principal aseguradora del mundo,
ahora estatizada por Wáshington, servía (y seguramente servirá, en un
paradójico servicio de autoliquidación del Estado norteamericano) de
canal de evasión de riqueza hacia los "paraísos financieros" de la
banca mar adentro (offshore).

Si hay paraísos financieros, entonces el resto es el infierno o, según
la teología católica, infierno o purgatorio. El problema es que la
banca offshore es invento protestante, y por lo tanto carece de
purgatorio.]


>>  AIG's pioneering devlopment of "captive" reinsurance
>>      companies to launder profits and evade taxes
>>
>> http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2005/11/ftr-531-interview-with-lucy-
>> komisar.html FTR #531 Interview with Lucy Komisar about Offshore
>> Recorded October 30, 2005 http://spitfirelist.com/?p=157
>>
>> Featuring the brilliant investigative journalist Lucy Komisar, this
>> program highlights the use of "Offshore" entities to evade taxes,
>> maximize corporate profits and finance a variety of criminal
>> enterprises. Much of the first side of the program consists of
>> analysis and discussion of insurance giant AIG and its prolific use
>> of "offshore" scams. In addition to presenting AIG's pioneering
>> devlopment of "captive" reinsurance companies to launder profits
>> and evade taxes, the program highlights AIG's use of Coral
>> Reinsurance for a variety of illegal gambits. It should be noted
>> that AIG's illegal operations have been aided by a number of
>> powerful and influential people. Much of the second side of the
>> program consists of review of the pivotally important Clearstream
>> network, and its use by intelligence agencies, corporations,
>> criminal syndicates and terrorist organizations.
>>
>> Program Highlights Include:
>> A working definition of "Offshore;"
>> the links of AIG to the intelligence community;
>> assistance given to AIG's scams by luminaries
>> such as Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of
>> the Treasury Richard Rubin; Clearstream's use
>> of unregistered accounts; the role of the
>> Clearstream network in the Banco Ambrosiano,
>> October Surprise and BCCI scandals; the role
>> of the Clearstream network in the financing
>> of Al Qaeda and 9/11; the role of the Clearstream
>> network in the machinations of the Russian criminal
>> networks of Mikhail Khordokovsky; discussion of
>> the "Bermuda Inversion" gambit; discussion of
>> "Transfer Pricing;" discussion of an organization
>> formed by Lucy Komisar that is working to
>> eliminate corporate tax evasion through the
>> use of "offshore."
>>
>> 1. In this return appearance by the formidable
>> Lucy Komisar, we begin the discussion of "Offshore"
>> with a functional definition:
>>
>> "DAVE: 'Define 'Offshore' for us, Lucy.'
>>
>> LUCY: 'Offshore financial centers are, mostly,
>> confidential and parallel financial systems
>> segregated from the traditional banking structure
>> of the jurisdiction and restricted to non-residents.
>> There are more than 4000 offshore banks thought to
>> exist in about 70 offshore jurisdictions.
>> They lack the regulation and supervision of
>> banks found in developed onshore jurisdictions.
>> In many OFCs, a bank can be formed, registered
>> and its ownership placed in the hands of nominee
>> directors via the Internet. There are few, if any,
>> disclosure requirements, bank transactions are
>> free of exchange and interest rate restrictions,
>> there are minimal or no capital reserve requirements,
>> and transactions are mostly tax-free. Some OFCs
>> permit the licensing and registration of 'shell banks'
>> that exist only on paper and do not have a
>> physical presence. They generally have legal
>> frameworks designed to obscure the identity of
>> the beneficial owner. Some OFCs offer the ability
>> to form and manage secretly a variety of
>> international business companies (IBCs), trusts,
>> investment funds and insurance companies, many with
>> nominee - that is front -directors, nominee
>> officeholders and nominee shareholders.'
>>
>> 2. Much of the program focuses on the scandals
>> surrounding the insurance giant AIG. We begin
>> with an introductory discussion of this
>> enormous corporation and its position in the
>> corporate landscape.
>>
>> "DAVE: 'Now, let's turn to the subject of
>> insurance giant AIG, the focal point of two
>> of your Alternet articles. Tell us about the
>> company's size and importance in the industry
>> and the corporate landscape in general.'
>>
>> 'LUCY: 'AIG is the world's second largest
>> financial conglomerate and the largest
>> underwriter of commercial and industrial
>> insurance. In 2003, AIG reported net income
>> of $10 billion. It has $648 billion in assets,
>> a market value of $195 billion, $77 billion in
>> sales and $6.5 billion in annual profits.
>> It has operations in 130 countries and nearly
>> 77,000 employees. It ranks third on Forbes'
>> list of the world's biggest companies, after
>> Citigroup, and General Electric."
>>
>> (Note that the material on AIG was drawn from
>> Lucy Komsar's two articles written for AlterNet:
>> "The Fall of a Titan" by Lucy Komisar; AlterNet;
>> 3/17/2005; "Take the Money and Run Offshore"
>> by Lucy Komisar; AlterNet.)
>>
>> 3. AIG and its CEO Maurice ["Hank"] Greenberg
>> are very closely related with the
>> intelligence community.
>>
>> "DAVE' 'Tell us about AIG chief Maurice [Hank] Greenberg,
>> and his relationship to the intelligence community.'
>>
>> 'LUCY: 'The American International Group at its origins
>> was linked to the OSS (Office of Strategic Services)
>> the forerunner of the CIA.
>> It grew from the Asia Life/C. V. Starr companies
>> founded by Cornelius Starr who started his insurance
>> empire in Shanghai in 1919, the first westerner to
>> market insurance in China. Starr served with the OSS
>> during World War II, and the Starr Corporation,
>> located in the same building as the OSS in New York,
>> provided intelligence on shipping, manufacturing and
>> industrial bombing targets in Asia and Germany.
>> When Casey became CIA director in the Reagan
>> Administration, he wanted Greenberg to be his deputy,
>> but Greenberg decided to stay with AIG. After the
>> Ames scandal, Sen. Spector floated his name as a
>> replacement of Woolsey, but the job went to Tenet.'"
>> (Idem.)
>>
>> 4. AIG features a number of luminaries on its
>> board of directors and international
>> advisory boards:
>>
>> "DAVE: 'Tell us about some of the prominent
>> people on the board of directors and international
>> advisory boards of AIG.'
>>
>> LUCY: 'Henry Kissinger chairs AIG's
>> International Advisory Board. Its board of
>> directors includes William S. Cohen,
>> Former United States Secretary of Defense
>> and Senator, Caria A. Hills, Former United
>> States Trade Representative,
>> Richard C. Holbrooke, Former United States
>> Ambassador to the United Nations.'' (Idem.)
>>
>> 5. AIG's illegal and/or unethical stratagems
>> feature a pioneering use of "captives."
>>
>> "DAVE: 'Let's turn to the subject of what AIG does.
>> What are 'captives' and how does AIG use them?'
>>
>> LUCY: 'A captive is an insurance company that
>> is owned by the company it insures - and has
>> that company as its only client. Reinsurance
>> is insurance that an insurance company buys
>> so that if it has to pay out a claim, it doesn't
>> take all the risk. I discovered and reported on
>> a case where AIG used a reinsurance company
>> secretly owned by its client's CEO to help him
>> evade taxes, and by the way, to increase AIG
>> profits in a way that cheated the client's
>> stockholders. I wrote about the case on Alternet,
>> but it has not been reported in the corporate press.
>> Victor Posner, who died in 2002, was a crook known
>> as the original 'corporate raider,' famed for
>> engineering hostile takeovers of companies and
>> looting them. He had a history of corrupt dealings.
>> He owned a Delaware factory called NVF that made
>> Vulcan rubber. NVF had a workers compensation policy
>> with an AIG company, which reinsured it with
>> Chesapeake, a reinsurance company based in Bermuda,
>> an offshore center. It turned out that Chesapeake
>> was owned by Posner. In the early 90s, a Delaware
>> insurance investigator discovered that NVF was
>> paying twice the market rate to AIG for the insurance.
>> The transaction meant all the parties came out
>> ahead: AIG would keep a portion of the inflated
>> NVF premium before sending the rest to Chesapeake,
>> which meant AIG would have a higher commission.
>> Posner would write off the entire amount as a
>> business expense and enjoy the extra cash in
>> Bermuda, tax free. A former Delaware insurance
>> regulator told me, 'This was not an isolated
>> case with Vulcan. AIG did that a lot.' He said,
>> 'AIG helped companies set up offshore captive
>> reinsurance companies. AIG would then overcharge
>> on insurance and pay reinsurance premiums to the
>> captives, giving the captive owners tax-free
>> offshore income.' However, the Delaware
>> Insurance Department took no action against
>> the insurer. When I gave AIG the details of
>> this scam, company spokesman Andrew Silver
>> told me, 'We don't have any comment on that.'
>> AIG declares on its website that it 'pioneered
>> the formation of captives almost 60 years ago,'
>> and it offers management facilities to run the
>> captives in offshore Barbados, Bermuda,
>> Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man,
>> and Luxembourg - all places where corporate and
>> accounting records are secret and taxes minimal
>> or nonexistent.'' (Idem.)
>>
>> 6. AIG also used offshore insurance interests
>> to move debt off its books, thereby making the
>> company appear to be more profitable than it
>> actually was. Of course, this did nothing to
>> damage the price of its stock.
>>
>> "DAVE: 'What else did [does] AIG engage in
>> that was illegal?'
>>
>> LUCY: 'In the late 90s, four state insurance
>> departments New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania
>> and California were aware that AIG was moving
>> debt off its books via the use of an offshore
>> insurance company it secretly set up and
>> controlled. But despite clear evidence of
>> wrongdoing, no sanctions were ordered.
>> State laws require insurance companies to
>> keep a certain amount of capital available
>> to pay out claims. If they have reinsurance,
>> that amount can drop. The reinsurer, of
>> course, has to be an independent company;
>> the risk isn't reduced if it's just moved
>> to another division of the same company.'"
>> (Idem.)
>>
>> 7. The program turns to the subject of
>> AIG's Coral Re gambit, and the considerable
>> assistance provided by investment firm
>> Goldman Sachs to the furtherance of this
>> scam: "'In the mid-80s, two of AIG's reinsurers
>> failed. AIG now was going to show unacceptably
>> high levels of debt on its books from claims
>> it would now have to pay out itself.
>> So Hank Greenberg decided to set up Coral Re,
>> a reinsurance company, to move his bad debts
>> off AIG books. It set up a shell company in
>> Barbados, where capital requirements and
>> regulation was minimal compared to the U.S.,
>> where American regulators couldn't readily
>> discover AIG's involvement and where, as an
>> added incentive, it could move money out of
>> reach of U.S. taxes. The scam company was
>> arranged with the help of Goldman Sachs then
>> headed by Robert Rubin, who would become
>> President Clinton's Treasury Secretary and
>> is now chairman of the executive committee
>> of Citigroup. It got some high-level corporate
>> executives to front for this supposedly
>> independent company. But I have a confidential
>> memorandum by Goldman Sachs which told why the
>> company was formed. 'AIG's interest in
>> creating the company is to create a reinsurance
>> facility which will permit its U.S. companies
>> to write more U.S. premiums. For a U.S.-domiciled
>> company, a high level of surplus is required to
>> support insurance premiums in accordance with
>> U.S. statutory requirements. The statutory
>> requirements in Barbados are less restrictive.'
>> The people who got this memo were corporate
>> executives who, in exchange for their names,
>> were offered a guaranteed return of $25,125
>> in the first year and $45,225 each subsequent
>> year. They didn't have to put up any money:
>> they got financing from Sanwa Bank of Chicago
>> secured by the Coral Re shares, a guarantee
>> of enough dividends from Coral Re to cover
>> the interest, and agreement they could hand
>> off the shares and debt whenever they chose.
>> Who got this no-lose so-called investment?
>> They included serving or former chairmen of
>> Reynolds Metals; Kraft; Itel, Mennen Company;
>> Morton Thiokol. The Arkansas Finance and
>> Development Authority, headed by a man who
>> went to work in the Clinton White House,
>> became lead investor, although state law
>> banned it from buying stocks. Clinton was
>> then governor of Arkansas. He would make
>> Rubin his Treasury Secretary. The new company
>> was not a legitimately independent business.
>> For investors, there was no money at risk;
>> the board of directors never made a decision;
>> and Coral Re had no office of its own but was
>> managed by American International Management,
>> a subsidiary of none other than AIG.
>> Eventually, the scheme unraveled.
>> In 1992, Delaware examiners smelled a rat,
>> AIG initially refused to provide Coral Re
>> documents to the examiners, and it took
>> them a couple of years to nail the connection.
>> When AIG finally supplied Coral Re's financial
>> papers, the regulator was incredulous.
>> He told me, 'The books were definitely cooked.'
>> But the cowardly regulators in Delaware,
>> Pennsylvania, New York and California, though
>> they agreed in 1996 that AIG owned Coral Re
>> and that there was no transfer of risk, did
>> not act to punish AIG, just told it to stop
>> using Coral Re. If Coral Re was an AIG affiliate,
>> it would have to pay taxes on its income.
>> If it was 'independent,' that money came tax-free.
>> But the IRS didn't have the guts to go after
>> them, either. AIG spokesman Andrew Silver simply
>> denied the validity of what all the insurance
>> commissions found. He told me that 'AIG was not
>> involved in the offer and sale of Coral Re's shares.
>> That was done by Goldman Sachs, which approached
>> potential investors with which it had relationships.
>> AIG did not control or have an equity interest
>> in Coral Re.' That of course it completely untrue.
>> Goldman Sachs failed to respond to inquiries about
>> its role in setting up Coral Re. In May this
>> year (2005), New York State Attorney General
>> Eliot Spitzer filed suit against AIG and Greenberg,
>> charging a pattern of fraud through the use
>> of 'sham transactions' that bolstered the
>> conglomerate's financial statements." (Idem.)
>> [CONTINUED] http://spitfirelist.com/?p=157
>> http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2005/11/ftr-531-interview-with-lucy-
>> komisar.html

-- 

Néstor Gorojovsky
El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autoría