On Mon, 7 Oct 1996, John Young wrote:
10-7-96. WaPo:
"Russian Crime Finds Havens In Caribbean"
Russian organized crime groups are using unregulated and secretive Caribbean banks to launder their illicit gains, according to U.S. and Caribbean law enforcement officials. One bank that has drawn the scrutiny of U.S. authorities is European Union Bank in Antigua. EUB describes itself as the first bank on the Internet, offering the chance to open accounts, wire money, order credit cards or write checks by computer from anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day. A U.S. official said, "The bank is being investigated for violating U.S. laws with open solicitations on the Net, which is at best for tax evasion and at worst for money laundering."
Of course I'm very interested to hear exactly what laws have been broken in this case. Last I checked offering accounts, credit cards, and checks 24 hours a day was a selling point, not a crime. This hardly surprises me however. The money laundering and tax evasion rhetoric is dragged out whenever there is no tangible crime being committed. EUB is probably in more trouble than they realize because they chose an interesting solution to their bandwidth problem. For a long time their home page resolved to a U.S. access provider, and only forwarded offshore for the secure HTTP connection. This might still be the case. See below: European Union Bank (EUB-DOM) PO Box 1948 St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda Domain Name: EUB.COM Administrative Contact: Richards, Pete (PR374) 75057.2515@COMPUSERVE.COM (809) 480-2370 Technical Contact, Zone Contact, Billing Contact: Kulkov, Val (VK41) val@GREATIS.COM (202) 835-7489 Record last updated on 03-Dec-95. Record created on 23-Jun-95. Domain servers in listed order: ELF.GREATIS.COM 205.229.28.5 WHALE.GREATIS.COM 205.229.28.10 I found this curious and called them up to ask them about it. I think, though I don't remember exactly, that I spoke with Mr. Richards. Whoever it was, they were very sure that their U.S. connection would not be a problem. I think they are about to be in for a great big surprise. They have effectively put themselves in U.S. jurisdiction and their local access provider is likely to be in some trouble as it is the easiest thing to reach. Prediction: EUB will change its structure dramatically in the next 6 months if it still exists at all in that time. Lesson learned: Never involve the United States directly. Clever political risk analysis would have prevented a great deal of trouble for EUB. Future institutions take note. -- I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist unicorn@schloss.li