Thursday, April 28, 2011

Russian America: Полицейский в США застрелил гражданина Казахстана у дома его друзей, приняв его за грабителя.

Апр 28, 2011

Выражаю искреннее и глубокое соболезнование семье Кирилла.

Yefim Toybin
April 28, 2011 @ 21:15
Phoenix, AZ

Кирилл Денякин. Фото с блог-платформы yvision.kz

В субботу, 23 апреля в Портсмуте полицейский застрелил 26-летннего казахстанца Кирилла Денякина возле дома его друга.



По рассказу очевидца происшествия, у Денякина не было ключей от дома, ему пришлось постучать в дверь. Кирилл начал стучать в дверь, его заметил мимо проезжавший полицейский патруль; полицейский принял его за грабителя и потребовал предъявить документы, когда Кирилл пошел к ним навстречу, страж порядка открыл огонь и выстрелил несколько раз. Кирилл богиб на месте от полученных ранений.
В полиции впоследствии заявили, что казахстанец вел себя подозрительно, а затем двинулся в сторону полицейского, Офицер заподозрил, что «грабитель» может быть вооружен, и выстрелил.

Гражданин Казахстана Кирилл Денякин приехал в США два года назад и работал поваром в отеле Renaissance в Портсмуте (штат Вирджиния).
Местные жители, с которыми казахстанец за это время познакомился в Портсмуте, отзываются о нем положительно. Знакомые говорят, что он был добрым и отзывчивым человеком.

Семья убитого в США казахстанца Денякина намерена судиться с полицией Портсмута.

Cемья убитого в США казахстанца Кирилла Денякина намерена судиться с полицейским ведомством Портсмута. Об этом корреспонденту Tengrinews.kz заявил брат погибшего Роман Денякин.

"Мы обязательно будем судиться, добиваться наказания для полицейского, - говорит он. - Посольство Казахстана в США обещало оказать нам юридическую помощь. Нам говорят, что Кирилл сделал "скрытое движение рукой", но не объясняют, что это значит. Он мог и нос почесать", - говорит брат убитого.

Мать 26-летнего казахстанца Кирилла Денякина – Елена Денякина сегодня вылетела в США.
Деньги на поездку собрали друзья, знакомые и близкие. Как сообщили в МИДе республики, посольство Казахстана в США всячески поддержит соотечественника и займется вопросами транспортировки тела Денякина на родину – в Караганду.

Мать Кирилла Денякина. Фото из социальной сети "Мой мир"

МИД Казахстана выясняет причину гибели карагандинца Кирилла Денякина, застреленного полицейским в США.
Казахстанские дипломаты официально заявили, что застреленный полицейским в США Кирилл Денякин являлся гражданином Казахстана и сейчас выясняют обстоятельства его смерти.

На месте происшествия многочисленные друзья Кирилла Денякина установили импровизированный мемориал, украшенный цветами и воздушными шарами. «Покойся с миром, КГБ», - написано на растянутом плакате. Шутливым прозвищем «КГБ» Кирилла Денякина называли все приятели и соседи.


PS Для своей личной и семейной безопасности и во избежание трагических случаев: при встрече с полицейскими, будте всегда послушны, выполняйте их команды и требования и не провоцируйте их на крание меры жестикулируя руками.
Be safe.

Источники информации - Казахстанская, Российская и Американская пресса.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Russian AmerIca: Русский Рэмбо убил двух женщин и предположительно скрылся в Москве. Mom & daughter in slay horror and suspect fled for Russia

Read English version below.

Татьяна (слева) и Лариса Приходько. Фото с профиля на сайте Facebook

Власти США разыскивают Жителя Нью-Йорка Николая Ракоши (Nikolai Rakossi), предположительно гражданина России, по подозрению в убийстве своей сожительницы и ее дочери, также уроженок СНГ.
В Штатах он получил прозвище Русский Рэмбо, предполагается, что Ракоши служил во Вьетнаме и Афганистане. Подозреваемый, как утверждают в полиции, сбежал от американского правосудия в Россию. В российском бюро Интерпола говорят, что в международный розыск возможного убийцу пока не объявили.

Правоохранительные органы США объявили в розыск 52-летнего выходца из России Николая Ракоши. Он подозревается в жестоком убийстве двух жительниц нью-йоркского района Бруклин. Жертвами стали также россиянки — 56-летняя Татьяна Приходько и ее 28-летняя дочь Лариса, сообщает The New York Post. По предварительным данным, они провели в Штатах более 13 лет. Обе работали медсестрами, жили недалеко от Брайтон-бич.

Поводом для визита правоохранителей в дом Приходько стало обращение Феликса Зелцера (Felix Zeltser), который, по сведениям The Wall Street Journal, в прошлом собирался жениться на Ларисе. Сообщается, что женщина должна была забрать у него их общего сына, которого она оставила бывшему жениху на выходные.

В полицию также обратились коллеги Ларисы, когда она не пришла на работу. Полицейские забрались в ее квартиру по водосточной трубе, но не обнаружили в помещении ничего подозрительного. На тумбочке лежали сотовый телефон девушки и ее документы. Решив, что хозяйка куда-то срочно уехала, они ушли. Однако вскоре тревогу забили коллеги Татьяны Приходько — она также куда-то пропала. Когда полицейские вошли в квартиру матери (она жила в том же доме тремя этажами выше), они обнаружили трупы обеих пропавших.

На теле обеих убитых нашли множественные колото-резаные раны. Судмедэксперты установили, что первой была зарезана Татьяна Приходько, затем убийца расправился с ее дочерью. На месте преступления полиция обнаружила три окровавленных ножа.

На телах было множество ранений, а в квартире были признаки борьбы.

Судя по всему, преступление произошло утром в минувшее воскресенье. Видеокамеры запечатлели, как около 11 утра дом спешно покидает сожитель Татьяны Николай Ракоши с двумя большими сумками в руках. Полицейские, опросив таксистов, выяснил, что россиянин вызвал машину до аэропорта JFK. «Он сказал, что ему срочно нужно в аэропорт, сказал, что его жена очень больна», — пояснил стражам порядка диспетчер. Он добавил, что клиент вышел через черный вход, натянув на нос платок.

Ракоши выглядел очень нервно, «говорил явный бред», утверждают таксисты. В частности, он якобы заявил, что был мэром российского города Калуга и там у него остался дом.

В полиции считают, что подозреваемый вылетел из Нью-Йорка в Москву. В настоящее время сотрудники юридического департамента Штатов ведут переговоры с посольством США в Москве «с целью заставить российскую сторону арестовать подозреваемого», сообщает The New York Daily News.

В американской прессе Ракоши называют «русским Рэмбо».

Его приятель, менеджер компании Russian Baths («Русские ванны») в Бруклине Рустам Зарипон заявил, что Ракоши — ветеран-спецназовец, который раньше был спецагентом и работал в горячих точках во Вьетнаме, Афганистане и Африке. «Если он не захочет, чтобы его нашли, его никто не найдет, — заявил Зарипон. — Он был элитой среды элиты». Впрочем, в Бруклине Рэмбо трудился разнорабочим, и не о его боевых навыках никто не догадывался.

В национальном бюро Интерпола при МВД РФ «Газете.Ru» сообщили, что к ним еще не приходил запрос из США на Ракоши.

«После того как его объявят в международный розыск, страна-инициатор направляет уведомление в страны — члены Интерпола, — сообщила сотрудница бюро Светлана. — После этого разыскиваемый ставится на погранконтроль, и если он будет задержан в России, то могут быть два развития событий. Россия не выдает своих граждан, и если он гражданин России, то сюда через Генпрокуратуру будут запрошены материалы уголовного дела, возбужденного в Америке, и уже в России будет принято решение, виновен он или нет. Отбывать наказание в этом случае он будет здесь. Если он гражданин другой страны, то не исключено, что его могут выдать США».

Пока предполагаемый убийца не пойман, полицейские пытаются выяснить возможные мотивы преступления. Соседи говорят, что у Ракоши и его супруги, проживших вместе 12 лет, никогда не было ссор и скандалов. Впрочем, они высказывают предположение, что конфликт могла спровоцировать дочь Приходько Лариса. Девушка вела «светский образ жизни» и за ней частенько «приезжали молодые мужчины на люксовых автомобилях». У Ларисы Приходько остался трехлетний сын. Незадолго до смерти она передала ребенка его отцу, живущему неподалеку.

Resorces: Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru.
Edited by Yefim Toybin


English version.
Psycho coolly boards Moscow-bound flight after butchering girlfriend and her daughter, sources say

BY Rocco Parascandola, Katie Nelson and Larry Mcshane
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, April 19th 2011, 4:00 AM

A raging Russian national butchered his live-in girlfriend and her stunning daughter in Brooklyn, then coolly boarded a Moscow-bound flight before the bodies were found, sources said.

Larisa Prikhodko (left) and mom Tatyana Prikhodko (right) were savagely murdered.

International fugitive Nikolai Rakossi was already on a plane when police discovered the two dead nurses Sunday night inside the apartment he shared with Tatyana Prikhodko, 56, officials said Monday.

Police believe Larisa Prikhodko, 28, was savagely attacked after walking in on her mother's murder, two police sources told the Daily News. Cops found three knives at the gruesome scene on E. 13th St. in Sheepshead Bay.

via Facebook. Police believe Larisa Prikhodko was attacked after walking in on her mother's murder.


"He cut them up pretty bad," said one source. "The apartment was a bloody mess, a lot of cuts and signs of a big struggle."

Rakossi, 56, was caught on a security camera lugging two suitcases while leaving the building about 8:30 p.m. Saturday - the day of the slayings. The next evening, Rakossi bought a one-way ticket to Moscow using his own name and passport at Kennedy Airport, sources said.

The fugitive double-murder suspect was aboard a 9 1/2-hour Aeroflot flight when the bodies were found in the older woman's sixth-floor apartment. Larisa lived three floors below.

Although the NYPD was working with the State Department and Russian officials on the international manhunt, authorities were skeptical about his return.

"If he has money or influential ties there, he's gone," a law enforcement source said. "They won't send him back."

He's 'filled with rage'

Rakossi, a day laborer, was living legally in the U.S. on a permanent visa. He had no previous New York criminal record.

"He's not a big hulking guy, but he worked all his life with his hands and he is strong ... and filled with rage," the law enforcement source said.

It was unclear what ignited the bloody rampage inside apartment 6-F. Neighbors reported hearing a Saturday argument, but provided cops with few details.

"Everyone says the suspect is a nice guy," one police source said. "Really, everyone involved, nobody has a bad word to say about any of them."

The bodies of Tatyana Prikhodko and her daughter - both stabbed multiple times in the face, neck and torso - were found in separate locations, police said.

Tatyana was inside a blood-spattered rear bedroom, while Larisa's body was found inside the front door with a bloody knife nearby, police said.

Another bloody blade was found in the dining room, with a third knife recovered in the kitchen. There was no sign of forced entry, and anguished neighbors were stunned to learn of the tragedy.

"It's sad, it's very hard, knowing something like this happened to them," said neighbor Inna Hozhda, 33.

Residents said the two slain women doted endlessly on Larisa's 3-year-old son, Ryan. Tatyana, who immigrated to Brooklyn years ago, was described as a hardworking woman who raised two daughters.

"[It's] absolutely terrible," said Nina Kikah, 44, who recalled chatting Saturday with Larisa about the boy.

Two memorial candles burned in the lobby of the Neck Road Arms building, where yellow crime scene tape was strung loosely outside.

The bodies were found after the young mother - last seen Saturday at 3:30 p.m. on building surveillance - failed to pick up her son Sunday morning at his father's nearby home.

When she didn't show by 8:30 p.m., Felix Zeltser, the concerned dad, went to the 61st Precinct stationhouse. Police checked Larisa's apartment first before breaking down the door at her mom's place - and walking into the carnage.

Larisa worked in the maternity ward at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, while her mom was a nurse at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn.

"You don't expect things like this to happen," said Maliha Sayla, 26, a Mount Sinai resident. "She's very young, she's a great nurse.... It's just a shock to everyone."

With Alison Gendar, Simone Weischelbaum, Kerry Wills, Matthew Nestel, Lukas I. Alpert and Jennifer H. Cunningham

lmcshane@nydailynews.com

Arizona's summer is approaching: Be on the lookout and protect yourself from the Arizona Sun.



In March and April, rattlesnakes become more active and move to areas where they can soak up the sun.

• During summer months, they are more active at night. After the monsoon begins, rattlesnakes are at their most active.

• The shaking of the rattle can serve as a warning, but not always. Rattlesnakes can strike without warning.

• Babies are typically born at the end of July and are capable of biting from birth.

SYMPTOMS

• Immediate pain or a burning sensation occurs at the site of the bite; fang marks are usually visible.

• Victims may experience a metallic or rubbery taste.

• Significant swelling usually occurs within minutes, and symptoms may progress to weakness, sweating and/or chills, nausea and vomiting.

• Venom can cause severe tissue damage, blood thinning and other effects.

TREATMENT

• Seek emergency medical attention immediately.

• If you are far from your car or other help, move slowly to get help.

If bitten

• Stay as calm as possible. If bitten on the hand, remove all jewelry before swelling begins.

• Don't apply ice to the bite site or immerse the bite in a bucket of ice.

• Do not restrict blood flow in any manner.

• Leave the bite site alone.

• Don't try to capture the snake.

• Physicians treat the symptoms as they occur and modify the antivenin/treatment as needed. Treatment is not snake specific.

Source: Banner Good Samaritan Poison & Drug Information Center.


Arizona Bark Scorpion: Prevent Stings

Most scorpion stings in Arizona occur on the hands or feet. The hands get stung easily because they reach for things in places where an Arizona Bark Scorpion may be hiding. The feet often get stung, because either someone puts on a shoe where a scorpion is hiding or they step on a scorpion with unprotected feet.

Here are some tips that we followed:

* Never walk around barefoot at night. At about dusk, the scorpions start to come out and look for food.
* Always check your shoes before putting them on in the morning. We kept our shoes on a shoe rack. It seems like scorpions would have to make more of an effort to get inside of them.
* Carry a blacklight around with you at night if it’s dark in the house and you have to get up. You’ll be able to see scorpions, because they glow green under a blacklight.
* If you are worried about scorpions getting into your baby’s or child’s bed, put each leg of the bed inside a smooth, glass mason jar. Scorpions cannot climb up glass.
* Be very careful with clothes you have lying on the floor. I have heard countless stories of people getting stung because a scorpion was in their clothing. It is the perfect place for them to hide. Make sure you shake the clothes out well before you put them on.
* Be cautious when putting your hands into a dark space, like a kitchen cabinet. Try to look before you reach.
* Scorpions love wet, damp places. Be careful in the bathroom or the kitchen areas. One time, there was a scorpion curled up on the inside of the shower curtain while I took a shower.

These tips should help you to improve your odds of not getting stung by the Arizona Bark Scorpion.

Sun Protection Tips

* Practice sun protection all year. UV rays can cause skin damage no matter what the season, even on cloudy or hazy days.

* Wear sun protection clothing: loose-fitting long pants, a long-sleeved shirt and a wide-brimmed hat made of special sun protective fibers which have SPF ratings. For regular clothing, tightly woven fabrics work best.

* Always wear a broad-spectrum sunblock or sunscreen of at least SPF 15. The higher the SPF the better.

* Many doctors recommend using a sunblock instead of "sunscreen." A sunblock has the added protection of zinc oxide or titanium oxide and is gentler on the skin.

* Choose a sunblock or sunscreen that provides "broad spectrum protection" against both UVA and UVB radiation.

* Apply sunblocks and sunscreens at least 20 minutes before you go outside.

* How much sunblock or sunscreen should you put on? Doctors recommend one ounce of sunblock, which is about a shot glass-size amount. It takes aboutthat much sunblock to cover your body at the pool.

* If you will be using bug spray too, do not apply it at the same time as the sunblock, as the products lose their efficacy. Put on the sunblock first, then apply the bug spray 20 minutes later. Use the products separately. Two-in-one sunscreen/bug spray products are not as effective.

* Check the sunblock’s expiration date. If expired or more than 3 years old, discard and purchase a new sunscreen.

* Always wear a broad-spectrum lipscreen of at least SPF 15.

* Remember to reapply your sunblock and lipscreen, especially if you’re swimming or sweating, and during peak sun hours.

* Do not use sunscreens on babies younger than 6 months. Cover them up with a hat and clothing and keep them shaded from the sun.

* Protect your eyes from the sun: wear wraparound sunglasses that provide 100% UV protection (for both UVA and UVB rays).

* Avoid outdoor activity between the peak sun hours of 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. whenever possible. This timeframe is when the sun’s rays are the strongest.

* If you must be outside during peak sun hours, seek shade whenever possible.

* UV rays can reflect off of any surface and can reach you in the shade. Always wear protective clothing, sunblock and lipscreen even if you’re in the shade.


Sources: American Academy of Dermatology; the Skin Cancer Foundation; Mayo Clinic; National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention


Information collected and edited by Yefim Toybin
Photos are from the Internet
April 20, 2011 @ 20:35
Phoenix, Arizona


Thursday, April 14, 2011

Русская Америка: Выходца из Украины, грабителя-наркомана, ФБР и полиция ловили три месяца

Поймать за 100 дней

Артур Степанов, Lenta.ru

03.30.2011, 18:17:35

Марат Михайлич. Кадр видеонаблюдения, фото AP

В Нью-Йорке утром во вторник, 29 марта, был арестован 35-летний выходец из Украины Марат Михайлич, который разыскивался ФБР за серию вооруженных ограблений банков. Героиновый наркоман, Михайлич успел ограбить девять банков, прежде чем, наконец, из-за собственной же ошибки был задержан федералами.

Череда ограблений банков в Нью-Йорке началась 9 декабря 2010 года. Тогда жертвой, как позже выяснилось, серийного грабителя стало одно из отделений Sovereign Bank в нью-йоркском районе Квинс. Одетый во все черное высокий мужчина вошел в отделение и передал банковскому клерку записку с характерным требованием - отдать ему все наличные деньги. Серьезность своих намерений злоумышленник подтвердил, показав служащему 9-миллиметровый пистолет.

Поначалу ни полиция, ни журналисты не обратили особого внимания на это в общем-то ничем не примечательное событие. Единственное, что бросалось в глаза в этом рутинном для негритянского Квинса ограблении, так это то, что преступник был белым мужчиной.

Однако в течение декабря ограбления произошли еще в двух банковских отделениях. 23 декабря был совершен налет на Ridgewood Savings Bank в Бруклине, а 30 декабря - на другое отделение Sovereign Bank в том же Квинсе. Показания потерпевших и свидетелей совпадали с рассказами о первом ограблении: все тот же высокий белый мужчина в черном облачении и солнцезащитных очках. Сомнений не было - в городе орудует серийный грабитель. В силу того, что преступления попали на рождественские каникулы, грабитель с легкой руки журналистов тут же получил прозвище "бандит по праздникам".

За "праздничного бандита" взялись всерьез. Вести дело было поручено специальному отделу ФБР по расследованию ограблений. Первые результаты его работы появились в середине января 2011-го. Тогда нью-йоркское отделение ФБР отчиталось об установлении личности грабителя. Им оказался 35-летний выходец из Украины Марат Михайлич, снимающий квартиру в квартале Квинса Ямайка.

Казалось бы, с этого момента Михайличу в лучших детективных традициях следовало бы залечь на дно где-нибудь в Джерси-Сити и потихоньку тратить нечестно заработанные деньги. Однако Михайлич поступил ровно обратным образом - через неделю после заявления ФБР он вновь напомнил о себе, без особого труда ограбив свой четвертый банк.

Марат Михайлич. Фото полиции, переданное (c)AP
Марат Михайлич. Фото полиции, переданное (c)AP
Но и на этом Михайлич не остановился и продолжил грабить банки, причем стал делать это все чаще. В феврале один за другим были ограблены еще четыре банковских отделения, включая Sovereign Bank в Вудбридже. То есть, грабитель решил не ограничиваться Нью-Йорком и распространил свою деятельность на соседний штат Нью-Джерси.

Постепенно в прессу стали просачиваться подробности совершенных Михайличем преступлений. По словам очевидцев, грабитель действовал нагло и решительно и даже не старался заметать следы или хоть как-то маскироваться. Например, он больше не пытался скрывать свое лицо. Впрочем, и необходимости в этом уже не было, ведь к этому моменту Марат Михайлич был включен в список самых разыскиваемых преступников Нью-Йорка, а его ориентировки были разосланы буквально повсюду.

Тем временем в ФБР и полиции утверждали, что Михайлич тщательно готовил свои налеты и прекрасно знал о разного рода банковских хитростях, вроде помеченных денег и красителей, призванных свести на нет все усилия грабителя. "Никаких красителей, сигнализаций или помеченных денег", - написал он в одной из своих записок банковскому клерку. Места преступлений Михайлич всегда покидал только пешком, причем однажды (на Статен-Айленде 4 февраля) он сумел избавиться от хвоста в виде полицейского вертолета.

Кажущаяся неуловимость Михайлича принесла ему славу своего рода "Джона Диллинджера XXI века". Однако от ошибок не застрахован никто. Не избежал их и украинский грабитель банков.

28 марта украинец ограбил Cathay Bank в Эдисоне, штат Нью-Джерси. Скрываясь с места преступления, Михайлич почему-то отступил от своих принципов и решил поймать машину (по не слишком правдоподобной версии, грабитель и вовсе заранее заказал такси). Таксист, увидев в руках у потенциального клиента пистолет, бросил машину и убежал.

Тут-то Михайлич и совершил роковую для себя ошибку: он сам сел за руль и уехал на угнанном автомобиле, тем самым облегчив работу федеральных агентов - объявленный в розыск автомобиль найти куда проще, чем человека. Вскоре машину, Toyota Camry 2007 года выпуска, засекли камеры видеонаблюдения в Квинсе, а вместе с ней - и самого Михайлича. Он был вооружен, но сопротивления при аресте не оказал. По словам сотрудников ФБР, грабитель, державший в страхе нью-йоркских банкиров, был сговорчив и охотно пошел на контакт.

После этого вскрылись интересные подробности о личности Михайлича, проливающие свет на истинные мотивы его поступков. По словам неназванных участников расследования, украинец - героиновый наркоман, который был готов на все, чтобы найти денег на очередную дозу. Журналисты добавляют, что Михайлич 29 марта даже не смог посетить первое заседание суда, поскольку ему срочно понадобилась помощь наркологов.

Если эта версия подтвердится, то возникнет вполне резонный вопрос: каким образом одержимому дозой наркоману удавалось более трех месяцев водить за нос нью-йоркских сыщиков. Получается, что заявления полиции о профессионализме, с которыми Михайлич грабил банки, являются не более чем попыткой оправдаться за собственную бездарную работу.

Неутешительный для нью-йоркцев вывод косвенно подтверждает еще один недавний случай с другим украинским иммигрантом - Максимом Гельманом. Он более суток разгуливал с ножом по все тому же Нью-Йорку и успел убить четырех человек, пока не был задержан пассажиром метро Джозефом Лосито. Последний, кстати, уже объявил о намерении подать в суд на Нью-Йорк за трусость и непрофессионализм городских полицейских.

Фото полиции,АР

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

USA, Arizona: Court upholds judge's ban on Arizona immigration law. Суд оставил Аризонский закон о нелегалах частично заблокированным.



04.12.2011, 13:08:30
Апелляционная комиссия из трех судей оставила в силе решение судьи штата Аризона, заблокировавшего некоторые статьи местного закона об иммиграции, сообщает Los Angeles Times. Комиссия подтвердила, что вопросы, касающиеся нелегальных мигрантов, должны решаться федеральным правительством.

Как стало известно, решение коллегии не было единогласным. Один из судей посчитал, что разрешение полиции требовать документы у "подозрительных лиц" не противоречит конституции США. Тем не менее, остальные судьи придерживались другого мнения.

Губернатор Аризоны Джен Брюэр (Jan Brewer) уже выпустила официальное сообщение, в котором подвергла решение суда критике.

Закон об иммиграции, вызвавший неоднозначную реакцию в американском обществе, был принят аризонскими властями в апреле 2010 года. В соответствии с этим законом, в частности, полицейские штата получили право проверять документы у всех лиц, которых они подозревают в нелегальном нахождении на территории Аризоны. В случае если подозреваемый не может подтвердить законность своего пребывания в США, полиция имеет право задержать и впоследствии депортировать нарушителя.

Иммиграционная реформа вызвала волну протестов по всей стране. Некоторые города, например, Сан-Франциско и Лос-Анджелес, объявили Аризоне бойкот. Президент США Барак Обама также не одобрил решение властей штата, в то время как первые лица Мексики назвали закон "расистским".

В июле правительство США обратилось в суд, посчитав новый закон неконституционным. По мнению Вашингтона, иммиграционные вопросы государства находятся исключительно в компетенции федеральных властей. Суд первой инстанции признал незаконными и заблокировал ряд положений закона, после чего власти Аризоны подали апелляцию. Теперь, после отклонения этой апелляции, разбирательство может быть продолжено в Верховном Суде.

A federal appellate panel agrees that parts of SB 1070 intrude on immigration and foreign policy, which should be left to the federal government. A showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court may be next.

By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times

April 12, 2011
Reporting from Denver—

A federal appellate court Monday upheld a judge's ban on the most controversial parts of a tough new Arizona immigration law, setting the stage for a showdown before the Supreme Court on how far a state can go in trying to expel illegal immigrants.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a federal judge in Arizona who found that provisions of the law, known as SB 1070, were an unconstitutional intrusion into immigration and foreign policy, which is the prerogative of the federal government. The law was signed last year by Gov. Jan Brewer, who argued that her state was overrun by dangerous illegal immigrants. Critics contended it would lead to racial profiling.

In a partial dissent, one judge argued that a key provision, which requires police to determine the status of people involved in traffic stops whom they suspect are in the country illegally, was constitutional. But that stance did not sway the majority, making the ruling a victory for the Obama administration, which challenged Arizona's law in court last year.

The administration "couldn't have asked for more in the results of the ruling or the reasoning of the ruling," said Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University who has closely followed the case.

Brewer and Arizona Atty. Gen. Tom Horne issued a statement criticizing the ruling. They did not say, however, whether they would appeal it to a full panel of the 9th Circuit or straight to the Supreme Court. The top court is already considering a challenge to another Arizona law that dissolves businesses that repeatedly hire illegal immigrants.

"I remain steadfast in my belief that Arizona and other states have a sovereign right and obligation to protect their citizens and enforce immigration law in accordance with federal statute," Brewer said.

Civil rights groups and immigration advocates were jubilant.

"We're really glad to see the side of civil rights and the Constitution have prevailed," said Phoenix activist Lydia Guzman, who helped organize protests against the law before it was largely suspended in July.

All the judges — two appointed by Republican presidents and one by a Democrat — agreed that the state went too far in making it a crime to lack immigration papers in Arizona or to work there while being in the country illegally. They agreed that Congress and the courts have historically reserved the ability to penalize illegal immigrants for the federal government.

Judge Richard Paez, who was appointed by President Clinton and wrote the majority opinion, argued that requiring police to perform immigration enforcement makes it impossible for the federal government to regulate immigration.

"By imposing mandatory obligations on state and local officers, Arizona interferes with the federal government's authority to implement its priorities and strategies in law enforcement, turning Arizona officers into state-directed [immigration] agents," Paez wrote.

Judge John T. Noonan, an appointee of President Reagan, wrote a separate concurring opinion emphasizing that Arizona had clearly tried to create its own immigration — and, therefore, foreign — policy. He noted that a number of countries protested the law, which begins by stating that "attrition through enforcement" is now the state's policy.

"It would be difficult to set out more explicitly the policy of a state in regard to aliens unlawfully present," Noonan wrote. "Without qualification, Arizona establishes its policy on immigration."

But Judge Carlos T. Bea, an appointee of President George W. Bush, contended in his partial dissent that Arizona had a right to tell its police to check immigration status because Congress had clearly authorized local police to aid in immigration enforcement. Bea, a native of Spain who was nearly deported from the United States before winning his citizenship, also warned against giving foreign governments a "heckler's veto" by citing their objections.

Gabriel "Jack" Chin, a law professor at the University of Arizona, said the dispute between Bea and the other two judges on what a state can tell its police to do set the stage for a Supreme Court challenge. He said the finding that police need permission from the federal government to enforce immigration laws conflicts with rulings from some other appellate courts.

"This is a diffuse law with lots of bits and pieces that were thrown against the wall to see what sticks," Chin said. "Maybe they found a way to get that issue, which is near and dear to their hearts, to the Supreme Court."

Monday, April 11, 2011

Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space.108 mins that stunned the world: Russia and the World honors Gagarin.



Yefim Toybin
April 11th, 2011
Phoenix, AZ @ 20:30 MNT

On April 12th, 2011, the world is marking the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's space flight.
The information presented below is my own contribution to this beautiful and grandiose event. We all, who somehow remember that glorious time in the history of the world, will never forget Yuri’s first flight into the orbit in the history of mankind. It is hoped that in the fifty years from today, the world will still pay tribute the first man concurred space.
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин); 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968, was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. Gagarin was born into a family of a peasant. He was the first human to journey into outer space when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961. Yuri’s sincere smile symbolizes the beginning of the space exploration era for 50 years.

Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and honours, including Hero of the Soviet Union.
“He became a pilot and then the world’s first-ever cosmonaut. He could find a common language with anyone, even with the British Queen, who once invited him for dinner,” cosmonaut Pavel Popovich said.
Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup to the Soyuz 1 mission, which ended in a fatal crash. Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him.
He became the most famous and probably the most recognizable man on the planet at age 27.
His call sign in this flight was Kedr. During his flight, Gagarin famously whistled the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows." The first two lines of the song are: "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows/Where her son flies in the sky". This patriotic song was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1951 (opus 86), with words by Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky.
Gagarin died when a training jet he was piloting crashed in 1968.
He did not have a vestige of the superiority complex because of his fame and will always be remembered as a simple, friendly man.

The article below was writtten by Alissa de Carbonnel; edited by Paul Taylor)

STAR CITY, Russia | Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:47am EDT

Sergei Khrushchev, center, joins, from left, historian Sergo Mikoyan, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, and Yuri Gagarin, at the Kremlin, in Moscow, in 1962.


(Reuters) - His 108-minute flight into space 50 years ago set new a horizon for humanity and overnight turned a farmworker's son named Yuri Gagarin into one of the century's heroes.
But half a century after his exploit captured the world's imagination and fueled a space race with the United States, Russia has found it necessary to release top secret archives to counter persistent rumors that Gagarin was later murdered on the orders of jealous or paranoid Soviet rulers.
"Gagarin once said: 'To me my whole life seems to be one perfect moment,'" recalled veteran Soviet space journalist Vladimir Gubarev earlier this month.
The 27-year-old's single Earth orbit on April 12, 1961 was one of the Soviet Union's most enduring Cold War victories and is proudly remembered today, especially in the cosmonaut town that is the heart of the nation's space program.
Star City, the world's oldest space-flight training center, resembles in many ways a shrine to the first man in space, whose premature death in a mysterious plane crash seven years after his flight cemented a poster-boy status.
Visitors on a rare open day were greeted by a lone statue of Gagarin dominating the snowy paths between worn buildings scattered behind a perimeter fence in a pine forest outside Moscow like some isolated university campus.
A mural of the national hero leads into a small museum hall filled with memorabilia: Gagarin's orange-brown space suit, gifts from foreign dignitaries and a room that painstakingly re-creates his office as it was on the day he died.
One striking photo shows Gagarin's round orbiter, scorched from its fiery descent, lying in a field in Russia's central Saratov region, where he was famously offered milk and bread by an astonished farmworker moments after landing.
NEW EVIDENCE ON DEATH
Conspiracy theories abound that he did not die in a plane crash, but was murdered on the orders of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev for an unspecified offence or disloyalty to the party.
In an apparent bid to quash such whisperings about Gagarin's death ahead of the anniversary, the archives declassified by post-Soviet Russia last week shed new light on the crash.
The documents show a Soviet probe concluded that Gagarin had most likely lost control of his jet after swerving sharply to avoid a weather-forecasting balloon, archives official Alexander Stepanov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.
Gagarin's maiden orbit nearly ended in disaster. "For 10 whole minutes of his flight, he thought he was dead," said Gubarev, who knew Gagarin as a young fighter pilot.
"The flight was absolutely heroic. It was unimaginably difficult. People thought a man might go crazy in space," he told Reuters.
When Gagarin's Vostok-1 capsule hit the atmosphere on re-entry, the cables hooking the descent module to the service module failed to separate.
The craft shook violently before they burned loose and Gagarin was sucked down by gravity. He experienced G-forces -- the force of gravity on a body -- two to three times steeper than those felt by today's astronauts.
"When I dream now, it is mostly nightmares about the descent," said veteran cosmonaut Georgy Grechko, 79, who worked as an engineer on Gagarin's space capsule.
"When the craft re-enters the thick levels of the Earth's atmosphere, it burns. The flames tear at the craft. It rolls and the coating melts. It's scary."
A letter Gagarin drafted to be sent to his family in case he died was among the documents declassified last week, and offered a glimpse into the steely-eyed courage of the young pilot.
"I trust the hardware completely. It will not fail. But it can happen that a man trips at ground level and breaks his neck. Some accident may happen," the letter previewed by opposition paper Novaya Gazeta said.
"If it does... do not waste yourself with grief. Life is life, and nobody is safe from being run over by a car."
FROM FARM BOY TO SPACE ICON
The 19 candidates selected for the Vostok-1 flight were all test pilots, unafraid of speed, and slight enough in build to fit into the tiny 2m-wide (6ft) capsule.
The Soviet-era charm of Gagarin's humble roots may have favored him over others, including his backup Gherman Titov.
Born in the village of Klushino, some 150 km (95 miles) west of Moscow, his father was a carpenter and his mother a milkmaid. The family was forced to live in a tiny mud hut when the village was burned down during the German occupation in World War Two.
"Yura (Gagarin) was a very quick learner. He assimilated everything new. His mind was stellar," Gubarev said.
Gagarin sung Soviet hymns during the last checks, strapped atop the 30m-high (98 ft) rocket that would blast him into space from the long-secret Baikonur cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppe.
"Poyekhali! (Let's go!)," he cried, in a phrase that has become synonymous with Gagarin in Russia.
"The most emotional moment was when we heard he was walking and waving; his arms and legs were whole. We understood in one sigh that our five to six years of hard work had paid off and we had achieved something huge," Grechko said.
The United States responded 10 months later, when John Glenn made the first U.S. orbital flight.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

ARIZONA: IMMIGRATION PHYSICALS @ Minor Medical Care Center

IMMIGRATION PHYSICALS
USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service) Approved Doctors/Designated Civil Surgeons for Immigration Purposes (Arizona)
Dr. Uma D. Sopori, MD

DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME WITH AN EXPERIENCED PHYSICIANS

Dr. Uma Sopori attended medical school at NTR University of Health Sciences, Vijayawada Kurnool Ap, India and graduated in 1969 having more than 40 years experience.

Come to the best in the valley for care and proper documentation

APPOINTMENTS:

•Same Day or Next Day
•Weekend Availability
•Call to Set Appointments

Minor Medical Care Center
4427 South Rural Road Suite 1
Tempe, AZ 85282
Phone: (480) 838-2289



Monday, April 4, 2011

Аризона: В Аризоне аварийно сел самолет с дырой в фюзеляже.


Дыра в самолете SoutWest Airlines

В США, 1 апреля, совершил аварийную посадку самолет авиакомпании Southwest Airlines, сообщает 2 апреля Agence France-Presse. Как выяснилось на земле, в верхней части корпуса летательного аппарата была дыра.
"Боинг-737" следовал рейсом 812 из города Феникс в штате Аризона в город Сакраменто, штат Калифорния. Во время полета экипаж заметил разгерметизацию салона. Было принято решение посадить самолет в пустыне Юма неподалеку от мексиканской границы.

Никто из 118 пассажиров не пострадал, один из бортпроводников получил легкие травмы. Также, по свидетельству очевидцев, слова которых приводит MSNBC, несколько пассажиров потеряли сознание.

Члены экипажа обнаружили в корпусе самолета дыру. По одним данным, она была размером с футбольный мяч, по другим - около шести футов (180 сантиметров). В телевизионном репортаже King5 видно, что отверстие было значительных размеров. Причина образования дыры пока неизвестна. Представители ФБР утверждают, что оснований считать случившееся терактом нет.

Resources: Lenta.ru, Internet

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Stunning World News: a big US bank, WACHOVIA, laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs

Ed Vulliamy
The Observer, Sunday 3 April 2011
Article history

Full version of the investigative report published (Y.T.)

A soldier guards marijuana that is being incinerated in Tijuana, Mexico. Photograph: Guillermo Arias/AP
As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored.

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel.

During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo.
The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller's cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme. Of special significance was that the period concerned began in 2004, which coincided with the first escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border that ignited the current drugs war.

Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year's "deferred prosecution" has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.

More shocking, and more important, the bank was sanctioned for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering strictures to the transfer of $378.4bn – a sum equivalent to one-third of Mexico's gross national product – into dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business.

"Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations," said Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor. Yet the total fine was less than 2% of the bank's $12.3bn profit for 2009. On 24 March 2010, Wells Fargo stock traded at $30.86 – up 1% on the week of the court settlement.

The conclusion to the case was only the tip of an iceberg, demonstrating the role of the "legal" banking sector in swilling hundreds of billions of dollars – the blood money from the murderous drug trade in Mexico and other places in the world – around their global operations, now bailed out by the taxpayer.

At the height of the 2008 banking crisis, Antonio Maria Costa, then head of the United Nations office on drugs and crime, said he had evidence to suggest the proceeds from drugs and crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to banks on the brink of collapse. "Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade," he said. "There were signs that some banks were rescued that way."

Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo during the 2008 crash, just as Wells Fargo became a beneficiary of $25bn in taxpayers' money. Wachovia's prosecutors were clear, however, that there was no suggestion Wells Fargo had behaved improperly; it had co-operated fully with the investigation. Mexico is the US's third largest international trading partner and Wachovia was understandably interested in this volume of legitimate trade.

José Luis Marmolejo, who prosecuted those running one of the casas de cambio at the Mexican end, said: "Wachovia handled all the transfers. They never reported any as suspicious."

"As early as 2004, Wachovia understood the risk," the bank admitted in the statement of settlement with the federal government, but, "despite these warnings, Wachovia remained in the business". There is, of course, the legitimate use of CDCs as a way into the Hispanic market. In 2005 the World Bank said that Mexico was receiving $8.1bn in remittances.

During research into the Wachovia Mexican case, the Observer obtained documents previously provided to financial regulators. It emerged that the alarm that was ignored came from, among other places, London, as a result of the diligence of one of the most important whistleblowers of our time. A man who, in a series of interviews with the Observer, adds detail to the documents, laying bare the story of how Wachovia was at the centre of one of the world's biggest money-laundering operations.

Martin Woods, a Liverpudlian in his mid-40s, joined the London office of Wachovia Bank in February 2005 as a senior anti-money laundering officer. He had previously served with the Metropolitan police drug squad. As a detective he joined the money-laundering investigation team of the National Crime Squad, where he worked on the British end of the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal in the late 1990s.
Woods talks like a police officer – in the best sense of the word: punctilious, exact, with a roguish humour, but moral at the core. He was an ideal appointment for any bank eager to operate a diligent and effective risk management policy against the lucrative scourge of high finance: laundering, knowing or otherwise, the vast proceeds of criminality, tax-evasion, and dealing in arms and drugs.
Woods had a police officer's eye and a police officer's instincts – not those of a banker. And this influenced not only his methods, but his mentality. "I think that a lot of things matter more than money – and that marks you out in a culture which appears to prevail in many of the banks in the world," he says.

Woods was set apart by his modus operandi. His speciality, he explains, was his application of a "know your client", or KYC, policing strategy to identifying dirty money. "KYC is a fundamental approach to anti-money laundering, going after tax evasion or counter-terrorist financing. Who are your clients? Is the documentation right? Good, responsible banking involved always knowing your customer and it still does."

When he looked at Wachovia, the first thing Woods noticed was a deficiency in KYC information. And among his first reports to his superiors at the bank's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, were observations on a shortfall in KYC at Wachovia's operation in London, which he set about correcting, while at the same time implementing what was known as an enhanced transaction monitoring programme, gathering more information on clients whose money came through the bank's offices in the City, in sterling or euros. By August 2006, Woods had identified a number of suspicious transactions relating to casas de cambio customers in Mexico.

Primarily, these involved deposits of traveller's cheques in euros. They had sequential numbers and deposited larger amounts of money than any innocent travelling person would need, with inadequate or no KYC information on them and what seemed to a trained eye to be dubious signatures. "It was basic work," he says. "They didn't answer the obvious questions: 'Is the transaction real, or does it look synthetic? Does the traveller's cheque meet the protocols? Is it all there, and if not, why not?'"

Woods discussed the matter with Wachovia's global head of anti-money laundering for correspondent banking, who believed the cheques could signify tax evasion. He then undertook what banks call a "look back" at previous transactions and saw fit to submit a series of SARs, or suspicious activity reports, to the authorities in the UK and his superiors in Charlotte, urging the blocking of named parties and large series of sequentially numbered traveller's cheques from Mexico. He issued a number of SARs in 2006, of which 50 related to the casas de cambio in Mexico. To his amazement, the response from Wachovia's Miami office, the centre for Latin American business, was anything but supportive – he felt it was quite the reverse.
As it turned out, however, Woods was on the right track. Wachovia's business in Mexico was coming under closer and closer scrutiny by US federal law enforcement. Wachovia was issued with a number of subpoenas for information on its Mexican operation. Woods has subsequently been informed that Wachovia had six or seven thousand subpoenas. He says this was "An absurd number. So at what point does someone at the highest level not get the feeling that something is very, very wrong?"

In April and May 2007, Wachovia – as a result of increasing interest and pressure from the US attorney's office – began to close its relationship with some of the casas de cambio. But rather than launch an internal investigation into Woods's alerts over Mexico, Woods claims Wachovia hung its own money-laundering expert out to dry. The records show that during 2007 Woods "continued to submit more SARs related to the casas de cambio".

In July 2007, all of Wachovia's remaining 10 Mexican casa de cambio clients operating through London suddenly stopped doing so. Later in 2007, after the investigation of Wachovia was reported in the US financial media, the bank decided to end its remaining relationships with the Mexican casas de cambio globally. By this time, Woods says, he found his personal situation within the bank untenable; while the bank acted on one level to protect itself from the federal investigation into its shortcomings, on another, it rounded on the man who had been among the first to spot them.

On 16 June Woods was told by Wachovia's head of compliance that his latest SAR need not have been filed, that he had no legal requirement to investigate an overseas case and no right of access to documents held overseas from Britain, even if they were held by Wachovia.

Woods's life went into freefall. He went to hospital with a prolapsed disc, reported sick and was told by the bank that he not done so in the appropriate manner, as directed by the employees' handbook. He was off work for three weeks, returning in August 2007 to find a letter from the bank's compliance managing director, which was unrelenting in its tone and words of warning.
The letter addressed itself to what the manager called "specific examples of your failure to perform at an acceptable standard". Woods, on the edge of a breakdown, was put on sick leave by his GP; he was later given psychiatric treatment, enrolled on a stress management course and put on medication.

Late in 2007, Woods attended a function at Scotland Yard where colleagues from the US were being entertained. There, he sought out a representative of the Drug Enforcement Administration and told him about the casas de cambio, the SARs and his employer's reaction. The Federal Reserve and officials of the office of comptroller of currency in Washington DC then "spent a lot of time examining the SARs" that had been sent by Woods to Charlotte from London.

"They got back in touch with me a while afterwards and we began to put the pieces of the jigsaw together," says Woods. What they found was – as Costa says – the tip of the iceberg of what was happening to drug money in the banking industry, but at least it was visible and it had a name: Wachovia.

In June 2005, the DEA, the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service and the US attorney's office in southern Florida began investigating wire transfers from Mexico to the US. They were traced back to correspondent bank accounts held by casas de cambio at Wachovia. The CDC accounts were supervised and managed by a business unit of Wachovia in the bank's Miami offices.

"Through CDCs," said the court document, "persons in Mexico can use hard currency and … wire transfer the value of that currency to US bank accounts to purchase items in the United States or other countries. The nature of the CDC business allows money launderers the opportunity to move drug dollars that are in Mexico into CDCs and ultimately into the US banking system.

"On numerous occasions," say the court papers, "monies were deposited into a CDC by a drug-trafficking organisation. Using false identities, the CDC then wired that money through its Wachovia correspondent bank accounts for the purchase of airplanes for drug-trafficking organisations." The court settlement of 2010 would detail that "nearly $13m went through correspondent bank accounts at Wachovia for the purchase of aircraft to be used in the illegal narcotics trade. From these aircraft, more than 20,000kg of cocaine were seized."

All this occurred despite the fact that Wachovia's office was in Miami, designated by the US government as a "high-intensity money laundering and related financial crime area", and a "high-intensity drug trafficking area". Since the drug cartel war began in 2005, Mexico had been designated a high-risk source of money laundering.

"As early as 2004," the court settlement would read, "Wachovia understood the risk that was associated with doing business with the Mexican CDCs. Wachovia was aware of the general industry warnings. As early as July 2005, Wachovia was aware that other large US banks were exiting the CDC business based on [anti-money laundering] concerns … despite these warnings, Wachovia remained in business."

On 16 March 2010, Douglas Edwards, senior vice-president of Wachovia Bank, put his signature to page 10 of a 25-page settlement, in which the bank admitted its role as outlined by the prosecutors. On page 11, he signed again, as senior vice-president of Wells Fargo. The documents show Wachovia providing three services to 22 CDCs in Mexico: wire transfers, a "bulk cash service" and a "pouch deposit service", to accept "deposit items drawn on US banks, eg cheques and traveller's cheques", as spotted by Woods.

"For the time period of 1 May 2004 through 31 May 2007, Wachovia processed at least $$373.6bn in CDCs, $4.7bn in bulk cash" – a total of more than $378.3bn, a sum that dwarfs the budgets debated by US state and UK local authorities to provide services to citizens.

The document gives a fascinating insight into how the laundering of drug money works. It details how investigators "found readily identifiable evidence of red flags of large-scale money laundering". There were "structured wire transfers" whereby "it was commonplace in the CDC accounts for round-number wire transfers to be made on the same day or in close succession, by the same wire senders, for the … same account".

Over two days, 10 wire transfers by four individuals "went though Wachovia for deposit into an aircraft broker's account. All of the transfers were in round numbers. None of the individuals of business that wired money had any connection to the aircraft or the entity that allegedly owned the aircraft. The investigation has further revealed that the identities of the individuals who sent the money were false and that the business was a shell entity. That plane was subsequently seized with approximately 2,000kg of cocaine on board."

Many of the sequentially numbered traveller's cheques, of the kind dealt with by Woods, contained "unusual markings" or "lacked any legible signature". Also, "many of the CDCs that used Wachovia's bulk cash service sent significantly more cash to Wachovia than what Wachovia had expected. More specifically, many of the CDCs exceeded their monthly activity by at least 50%."

Recognising these "red flags", the US attorney's office in Miami, the IRS and the DEA began investigating Wachovia, later joined by FinCEN, one of the US Treasury's agencies to fight money laundering, while the office of the comptroller of the currency carried out a parallel investigation. The violations they found were, says the document, "serious and systemic and allowed certain Wachovia customers to launder millions of dollars of proceeds from the sale of illegal narcotics through Wachovia accounts over an extended time period. The investigation has identified that at least $110m in drug proceeds were funnelled through the CDC accounts held at Wachovia."

The settlement concludes by discussing Wachovia's "considerable co-operation and remedial actions" since the prosecution was initiated, after the bank was bought by Wells Fargo. "In consideration of Wachovia's remedial actions," concludes the prosecutor, "the United States shall recommend to the court … that prosecution of Wachovia on the information filed … be deferred for a period of 12 months."
But while the federal prosecution proceeded, Woods had remained out in the cold. On Christmas Eve 2008, his lawyers filed tribunal proceedings against Wachovia for bullying and detrimental treatment of a whistleblower. The case was settled in May 2009, by which time Woods felt as though he was "the most toxic person in the bank". Wachovia agreed to pay an undisclosed amount, in return for which Woods left the bank and said he would not make public the terms of the settlement.
After years of tribulation, Woods was finally formally vindicated, though not by Wachovia: a letter arrived from John Dugan, the comptroller of the currency in Washington DC, dated 19 March 2010 – three days after the settlement in Miami. Dugan said he was "writing to personally recognise and express my appreciation for the role you played in the actions brought against Wachovia Bank for violations of the bank secrecy act … Not only did the information that you provided facilitate our investigation, but you demonstrated great personal courage and integrity by speaking up. Without the efforts of individuals like you, actions such as the one taken against Wachovia would not be possible."

The so-called "deferred prosecution" detailed in the Miami document is a form of probation whereby if the bank abides by the law for a year, charges are dropped. So this March the bank was in the clear. The week that the deferred prosecution expired, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo said the parent bank had no comment to make on the documentation pertaining to Woods's case, or his allegations. She added that there was no comment on Sloman's remarks to the court; a provision in the settlement stipulated Wachovia was not allowed to issue public statements that contradicted it.

But the settlement leaves a sour taste in many mouths – and certainly in Woods's. The deferred prosecution is part of this "cop-out all round", he says. "The regulatory authorities do not have to spend any more time on it, and they don't have to push it as far as a criminal trial. They just issue criminal proceedings, and settle. The law enforcement people do what they are supposed to do, but what's the point? All those people dealing with all that money from drug-trafficking and murder, and no one goes to jail?"

One of the foremost figures in the training of anti-money laundering officers is Robert Mazur, lead infiltrator for US law enforcement of the Colombian Medellín cartel during the epic prosecution and collapse of the BCCI banking business in 1991 (his story was made famous by his memoir, The Infiltrator, which became a movie).

Mazur, whose firm Chase and Associates works closely with law enforcement agencies and trains officers for bank anti-money laundering, cast a keen eye over the case against Wachovia, and he says now that "the only thing that will make the banks properly vigilant to what is happening is when they hear the rattle of handcuffs in the boardroom".

Mazur said that "a lot of the law enforcement people were disappointed to see a settlement" between the administration and Wachovia. "But I know there were external circumstances that worked to Wachovia's benefit, not least that the US banking system was on the edge of collapse."

What concerns Mazur is that what law enforcement agencies and politicians hope to achieve against the cartels is limited, and falls short of the obvious attack the US could make in its war on drugs: go after the money. "We're thinking way too small," Mazur says. "I train law enforcement officers, thousands of them every year, and they say to me that if they tried to do half of what I did, they'd be arrested. But I tell them: 'You got to think big. The headlines you will be reading in seven years' time will be the result of the work you begin now.' With BCCI, we had to spend two years setting it up, two years doing undercover work, and another two years getting it to trial. If they want to do something big, like go after the money, that's how long it takes."

But Mazur warns: "If you look at the career ladders of law enforcement, there's no incentive to go after the big money. People move every two to three years. The DEA is focused on drug trafficking rather than money laundering. You get a quicker result that way – they want to get the traffickers and seize their assets. But this is like treating a sick plant by cutting off a few branches – it just grows new ones. Going after the big money is cutting down the plant – it's a harder door to knock on, it's a longer haul, and it won't get you the short-term riches."

The office of the comptroller of the currency is still examining whether individuals in Wachovia are criminally liable. Sources at FinCEN say that a so-called "look-back" is in process, as directed by the settlement and agreed to by Wachovia, into the $378.4bn that was not directly associated with the aircraft purchases and cocaine hauls, but neither was it subject to the proper anti-laundering checks. A FinCEN source says that $20bn already examined appears to have "suspicious origins". But this is just the beginning.

Antonio Maria Costa, who was executive director of the UN's office on drugs and crime from May 2002 to August 2010, charts the history of the contamination of the global banking industry by drug and criminal money since his first initiatives to try to curb it from the European commission during the 1990s. "The connection between organised crime and financial institutions started in the late 1970s, early 1980s," he says, "when the mafia became globalised."

Until then, criminal money had circulated largely in cash, with the authorities making the occasional, spectacular "sting" or haul. During Costa's time as director for economics and finance at the EC in Brussels, from 1987, inroads were made against penetration of banks by criminal laundering, and "criminal money started moving back to cash, out of the financial institutions and banks. Then two things happened: the financial crisis in Russia, after the emergence of the Russian mafia, and the crises of 2003 and 2007-08.

"With these crises," says Costa, "the banking sector was short of liquidity, the banks exposed themselves to the criminal syndicates, who had cash in hand."
Costa questions the readiness of governments and their regulatory structures to challenge this large-scale corruption of the global economy: "Government regulators showed what they were capable of when the issue suddenly changed to laundering money for terrorism – on that, they suddenly became serious and changed their attitude."

Hardly surprising, then, that Wachovia does not appear to be the end of the line. In August 2010, it emerged in quarterly disclosures by HSBC that the US justice department was seeking to fine it for anti-money laundering compliance problems reported to include dealings with Mexico.

"Wachovia had my résumé, they knew who I was," says Woods. "But they did not want to know – their attitude was, 'Why are you doing this?' They should have been on my side, because they were compliance people, not commercial people. But really they were commercial people all along. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the biggest money-laundering scandal of our time.
"These are the proceeds of murder and misery in Mexico, and of drugs sold around the world," he says. "All the law enforcement people wanted to see this come to trial. But no one goes to jail. "What does the settlement do to fight the cartels? Nothing – it doesn't make the job of law enforcement easier and it encourages the cartels and anyone who wants to make money by laundering their blood dollars. Where's the risk? There is none.

"Is it in the interest of the American people to encourage both the drug cartels and the banks in this way? Is it in the interest of the Mexican people? It's simple: if you don't see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 30,000 people killed in Mexico, you're missing the point."

Woods feels unable to rest on his laurels. He tours the world for a consultancy he now runs, Hermes Forensic Solutions, counselling and speaking to banks on the dangers of laundering criminal money, and how to spot and stop it. "New York and London," says Woods, "have become the world's two biggest laundries of criminal and drug money, and offshore tax havens. Not the Cayman Islands, not the Isle of Man or Jersey. The big laundering is right through the City of London and Wall Street.
"After the Wachovia case, no one in the regulatory community has sat down with me and asked, 'What happened?' or 'What can we do to avoid this happening to other banks?' They are not interested. They are the same people who attack the whistleblowers and this is a position the [British] Financial Services Authority at least has adopted on legal advice: it has been advised that the confidentiality of banking and bankers takes primacy over the public information disclosure act. That is how the priorities work: secrecy first, public interest second.
"Meanwhile, the drug industry has two products: money and suffering. On one hand, you have massive profits and enrichment. On the other, you have massive suffering, misery and death. You cannot separate one from the other.

"What happened at Wachovia was symptomatic of the failure of the entire regulatory system to apply the kind of proper governance and adequate risk management which would have prevented not just the laundering of blood money, but the global crisis."
www.guardian.co.uk/world

PS Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia in 2008, and while it was not involved in the unlawful activity, the Guardian says it paid the tab for Wachovia. The agreement says there is no evidence that Wells Fargo's money laundering program is deficient.