Snuffed & Purloined #3: If you want peace, prepare for war - Vegetius
Locked up abroad, Wizard Spider cartels, 800 million USD laundered in Hong Kong
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The first story comes out of Hong Kong — yes, that’s 3 in a row, giving Hong Kong a hat trick here at The Main Streeter — but this time, it’s a story from 4 months ago. Mass arrests made in $810 million Hong Kong money laundering scheme.
That $810 million is in USD, or HK$6.3 billion.
The bankers were all mid-level players at Hong Kong institutions. These weren’t big-shot investment bankers — rather, think along the lines of your average 30’s something desk banker who opens business accounts.
Except this time the business accounts were opened for the expressed purpose of laundering dirty money.
The account holders, their names left out of the reports, are said to live in mainland China and Belgium. An odd pairing of nations that, to be sure.
The Main Streeter plans on looking closer at this particular story this upcoming weekend to see what we can dig up. It will be part of our weekend series of deep-dives into the most interesting true crime business stories that we stumble across.
As the the saying goes, “Follow the money” — and we figure $810 million is a good place to start.
I don’t know what I’m going to find once I start digging here, but you will be the first to know.
Expat readers may find this story of interest — as it’s a stark reminder that once you leave home, you’re leaving legal rights at the door, too: Brit, 60, hires smugglers to flee 'inhumane' Dubai jail but is caught at border.
Mr. Albert Douglas’ crime? Well, that’s a damn good question. I’m not entirely sure.
The report says that his son’s firm, which held business interests in Dubai, failed — and somehow this got Mr. Douglas caught in a legal bind. When he lost a judicial appeal for his case, he attempted a jailbreak — actually getting as far as the Oman border — where he was snatched up and given another 3 year sentence.
The family’s paid over 850,000 GBP in legal fees to free Mr. Douglas, all of it for naught. His son says that the only way his father’s getting out of the Dubai prison is if there’s political intervention on behalf of the UK government.
Now, I’m not British — but from what I’ve heard from my British friends, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that’s going to happen.
In the meantime, the fate of Mr. Douglas remains in the Bur Dubai prison, which is reportedly a festering den of torture and abuse. In doing some cursory research for this story, I came across this from two days ago: 14 prisoners died in a fire at Bur Dubai.
It seems that the only reason Mr. Douglas got involved in the UAE legal system was due to his son’s failed business ventures — which in free societies is normal. The Main Streeter will keep tabs on this story and relay updates.
DarkSide, as you recall, is the ransomware gang that’s dominated the headlines the past week since the Colonial gas pipeline attack in the eastern US.
The reports say 99 business and institutions fell victim to DarkSide’s ransomware, and 47% of them played ball with payments to the firm — which netted an average $1.9 million per victim that paid.
It’s likely that DarkSide has gone dark to avoid further attention from authorities. But let’s face it, the damage has already been done, and there’s no evidence that authorities have seized the crypto-wallets that are now flush with illicit gains.
For a further breakdown of what happens to the ransomware payouts once DarkSide got ahold of them, see this story: Tracking DarkSide Ransomware Gang's Profits.
And another story I found on Lexology, where one of the guys that runs a “crypto tumbler” service got busted.
His outfit, Crypto Fog, took cryptocurrency transfers and mixed them up with legitimate cryptocurrency transactions, effectively laundering the money and making it harder to track illicit funds.
One question that we’re asking at The Main Streeter is when will there be a coordinated international effort to stop these ransomware gangs and cybercrime syndicates?
The answer, probably obvious — never.
There are too many hurdles to jump to get there. What we’re stuck with are reactive solutions, damage control, and cleaning up the mess after successful attacks.
One angle that may work is to take the battle to the banks — although I’m not holding my breath in the hope that those institutions can win.
At the end of the day, fiat still rules the world, so when a syndicate of cyber criminals gets paid-off in crypto, they’re likely to convert it to cold hard cash sometime down the road.
The role does oversee money laundering activities, so the DarkSide story must be on their radar — right?
Well, the reports say that the appointment was to shore up DB’s reputation after money-laundering scandals rocked the institution.
It makes me wonder what suits like this do all day in their cushy posts.
While we’re on the line of money laundering, check out this story — Bahrain probes $1.3bn Iranian money laundering network.
The offenses took places between 2008 to 2012, and have ties all the way back to the Iranian central bank.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to sort out the reporting of this story on Wizard Spider and ransomware cyber-cartels.
Initially, I was taken in by the story, and started taking notes.
When I dug a bit deeper into the details, I found this piece from a niche publication last month.
It seems that much of what Irish Times reported is a rehash of what’s already been known about Wizard Spider, although I can understand Ireland’s interest as their healthcare system suffered an attack from the cyber-crime outfit.
The question of whether or not Wizard Spider and the other gangs are part of a cartel or not may seem like an esoteric question — but it’s important to define our terms clearly.
According to the niche publication, labeling the group as a cartel doesn’t fit the strict definition, as there’s no evidence the groups are sharing profits, even though they do share tactics and some infrastructure.
Whether it’s part of the world’s first cyber-cartel or not, the reality stands — if you want peace, you must prepare for war — and from where I’m standing, we’ve been caught with our pants down.
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