logo

Diego Bolivar is now a protected witness

Posted by admin   ·     ·   Jump to comments

Diego Bolivar is now a protected witness.All the defendants denied the charges, but were convicted after a five-month trial.Judge Graham Boal, QC, said yesterday: "All three of you have been convicted on compelling evidence of a cruel and cold-blooded contract killing. That 16-year old youth was executed for no better ostensible reason than that he had the impertinence to steal a gold chain from the neck of Luisa Bolivar's lover."Cedeno has convictions for drug dealing and robbery in New York before he came to Britain in 1998. Jaramillo came to Britain as an asylum-seeker.After the case, Detective Chief Inspector Martin Lloyd said police had been helped by the Colombian community during their investigation. "There was this massive omerta, a wall of silence imposed by fear of retribution, and without their help we would have been stuck.". A Russian couple suspected of being at the centre of a big international banking scandal arrived in New York from Britain yesterday to face multiple charges of fraud and money-laundering.

A Russian couple suspected of being at the centre of a big international banking scandal arrived in New York from Britain yesterday to face multiple charges of fraud and money-laundering. Lucy Edwards, former vice-president of the London-based East European department of the Bank of New York, and her husband, Peter Berlin, chairman of a company called Benex International, agreed to travel to the United States after police uncovered evidence implicating them in the illegal transfer of millions of dollars through the bank.The New York Times, which broke the first allegations of the scandal last summer, says they have agreed to plead guilty to charges of money-laundering. The paper quoted friends of the couple as saying they had agreed to admit several criminal charges, including conspiracy to commit money-laundering, visa fraud, wire fraud and bribery of a bank official.The money-laundering charge was crucial because it is the only one providing the US authorities with grounds for requesting the couple's extradition. The New York Times says that was the subject of hard bargaining between the couple and the authorities.The British National Crime Squad confirmed that Ms Edwards and Mr Berlin returned to the US voluntarily.Ms Edwards, who uses the surname from her first marriage to an American, was sacked in August. Among the reasons given by the bank was failure to disclose her personal and business links with Mr Berlin. His company's accounts were used to transfer millions of dollars of suspect origin.An FBI source said Ms Edwards and Mr Berlin had agreed to forfeit $8m (£4.9m) seized by US authorities from their personal bank accounts.Their voluntary agreement to surrender suggests they may have struck a plea-bargain for lighter sentences.

A part of such a bargain worrying the Bank of New York - and perhaps business and political circles in Russia - could well be an undertaking to supply information about how their alleged scheme worked, and to name names.The New York Times said Ms Edwards could testify about the senior members of the bank to whom she reported, exposing the bank to possible charges of misconduct and damaging lawsuits.The bank has already been censured by US banking regulators for lax auditing and oversight of international transfers. A relatively junior bank employee, Svetlana Kudryavtsev was indicted last month on charges of lying about payments she had received from Ms Edwards and Mr Berlin in the past five years.. George W Bush's increasingly strenuous attacks on John McCain, the challenger for the Republican nomination for President, seem to be paying off. And the governor of Texas plans a massive advertising campaign that is intended to edge out Mr McCain in Saturday's South Carolina primary. George W Bush's increasingly strenuous attacks on John McCain, the challenger for the Republican nomination for President, seem to be paying off. And the governor of Texas plans a massive advertising campaign that is intended to edge out Mr McCain in Saturday's South Carolina primary. Mr McCain is slipping in the polls, and Mr Bush has regained a slim lead in the state, the next big political test. But the key issue remains how many independents and Democrats the McCain campaign can persuade to turn out.Mr Bush leads Mr McCain by 49 per cent to 42 per cent among likely voters in South Carolina, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, a slight shift from the dead heat that recent soundings have shown.

readers comments

Comments are closed.

NBA

NBA

MLB

MLB

NFL

NFL

NHL

NHL

WWE

WWE

Your sideblock text goes here