Monday, December 22, 2014

Bank Leumi Admits Tax Wrongdoing, Agrees to Deferred Prosecution agreement, and Agrees to $400 Million Payments (12/22/14)

DOJ Tax just issued this press release -- "Bank Leumi Admits to Assisting U.S. Taxpayers in Hiding Assets in Offshore Bank Accounts," here.  Key excerpts (bold-face supplied by JAT)
A major Israeli international bank admitted that it conspired to aid and assist U.S. taxpayers to prepare and present false tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by hiding income and assets in offshore bank accounts in Israel and elsewhere around the world.  A deferred prosecution agreement between the Bank Leumi Group and the Department of Justice was filed today in the Central District of California that defers prosecution on a criminal information charging the bank with conspiracy to aid and assist in the preparation and presentation of false tax returns and other documents to the Internal Revenue Service.  This unprecedented agreement marks the first time an Israeli bank has admitted to such criminal conduct which spanned over a 10 year period and included an array of services and products designed to keep U.S. taxpayer accounts concealed at Bank Leumi Group’s locations in Israel, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the United States. 
The Bank Leumi Group’s parent company is Bank Leumi le-Israel, B.M.  Bank Leumi le-Israel is one of Israel’s largest banks, with subsidiaries in seven countries and more than 13,000 employees.  Other subsidiary banks entering into this deferred prosecution agreement include The Bank Leumi le-Israel Trust Company Ltd., the oldest and largest of all bank trust companies in Israel; Leumi Private Bank S.A., a Switzerland-based subsidiary; Bank Leumi (Luxembourg) S.A., a Luxembourg-based subsidiary; and Bank Leumi USA, a FDIC-insured, full-service commercial bank with offices in California, Florida, Illinois and New York. 
According to documents filed in the case, to account for their criminal conduct, Bank Leumi Group will pay the United States a total of $270 million. Of this total payment, $157 million represents a penalty for U.S. taxpayer accounts held at Leumi Private Bank in Switzerland.  This $157 million penalty is consistent with the department’s Swiss Bank Program, which permits certain Swiss Banks to avoid prosecution by making a full and complete disclosure of their U.S. taxpayer-held accounts and paying substantial penalties.  The agreement further provides that Bank Leumi Luxembourg and Leumi Private Bank will cease to provide banking and investment services for all accounts held or beneficially owned by U.S. taxpayers. 
* * * * 
According to the filed statement of facts, from at least 2000 until early 2011, the Bank Leumi Group took affirmative and extensive steps to assist U.S. clients in concealing their assets offshore, including:
  • surreptiously sending private bankers from Israel and elsewhere around the world to the United States to meet secretly with U.S. clients at hotels, parks and coffee shops to discuss their offshore account activity;
  • assisting U.S. clients in using nominee corporate entities created in Belize and other foreign jurisdictions to hide their undeclared accounts by concealing the U.S. client as the true beneficial owner of the account;
  • using the Bank Leumi le-Israel Trust Company as a nominee account holder for U.S. clients with accounts in Israel to conceal the U.S. client as the true beneficial owner of the account;
  • maintaining U.S. clients’ undeclared offshore accounts under assumed names or numbered accounts to conceal the U.S. client as the true beneficial owner of the account;
  • providing hold mail services so that correspondence and other account information would not go directly to the U.S. client to make it more difficult to connect the client to the secret offshore account;
  • extending loans to U.S. clients from Bank Leumi USA that were collateralized by the assets in those clients’ offshore accounts, so that the clients could leverage their offshore assets to obtain and use capital in the United States while keeping their foreign accounts secret and undetected from the U.S. government; and
  • after the department’s investigation into UBS and other Swiss banks’ criminal conduct in aiding U.S. taxpayers to evade their taxes became public, the Bank Leumi Group opened and maintained accounts for U.S. taxpayers who left UBS and other Swiss banks due to the investigation in an effort to continue to avoid detection by the U.S. government.
* * * * 
According to documents filed in the case, as part of its agreement with the department, the Bank Leumi Group provided the names of more than 1,500 of its U.S. account holders.  As part of the agreement, the Bank Leumi Group will continue to disclose information to the government regarding its cross-border business and provide testimony and information regarding other investigations. 
For articles I just picked up, see

  • Israel's Bank Leumi to pay $400 million for U.S. tax settlement (Reuters 12/22/14), here.

1 comment:

  1. People.  Wake up, they are liars
    It isnot the Koreans hacking and I can prove it
    Listen here, the hackers are the Feds,BILDERBERGS, G 8, dragons white and red, bush, Clinton's, Anonymous hackers and all the ones I named all along are big liars since they hack rob all my transactions, clients, commissions all I do, as I informed you many times and do the same to all the brokers working in large financial transactions.

    Sony first got hacked when I sent  my computer for repair.  Because the thieves have been stealing all my transactions it was infected by all their programs and Trojans.
    my computer was new and because they broke my wifi light and I was not able to connect it, I sent the computer to Sony to be fixed! I was in Florida and sent it to Sony California To be fixed and when Sony opened my computer on their premises, they got infected.

    My computer is the P SERIES and all can be verified with Sony and obviously my hard drive which recorded all of their moves

    Sony did not want to hear when I told them that they are the ones and stole trillions and trillions from me and trillions and trillions from other brokers.
    It was too much for them and now they come out with this movie.

    What happened?  The hackers bought Sony?   And they again are trying to pull a dirty misleading trick by accusing the Koreans?????

    Are you surprised?

    They need to be jailed

    We had enough of the liar thieves

    Investigator of investigators, judges, the ones that will help us to do something about this fraud so we can have a decent life

    My number. 1 438 939 4380

    God has His plan and has His anointed that will bring us deliverance from this atrocious abuse on us and our children.

    I allow you all to put this worldwide, TRUTH MUST BE SPOKEN

    Why should we be trampled and lied to by a bunch of good for nothing losers that can succeed by hacking and robbing the hard work of single moms.

    Don't you all agree, it takes low life losers to do such a thing and you know they deserve the guillotine.

    We had enough of the mean detestable terrorists because they are the terror
    Of terrors, imagine how gross their actions are

    They made so much from robbing us they have millions of servers where they host our bank accounts, phones, computers, tvs and are pushing for more control so they are not tried in a court of law.

    They should be tried and given the guillotine

    YOU ALL KNOW YOU WILL ANSWER TO GOD FOR ALLOWING THESE RATS TO MAKE US ALL HOMELESS

    ReplyDelete

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