Search Results for: Switzerland

PROFITS from human trafficking are estimated at USD32 billion-a-year and growing, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), with the trade one of the fastest growing international crimes, now second to the drugs trade and ahead of arms trafficking. But despite its emotive nature as a crime, only recently has the money laundering angle to human trafficking been taken more seriously, and there is still a way to go.…

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has rejected a claim by the Swiss government that Germany had breached a 1999 European Union-Switzerland air transport agreement by restricting night and early morning flights to and from Zurich airport. Berlin insists on altitude minimums over German territory.…

SWITZERLAND’S oldest private bank, founded in 1741, is closing after pleading guilty January 11 to helping US taxpayers evade tax by setting up secret Swiss accounts for them to hide assets and interest from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The closure of Wegelin & Co is the first-ever guilty plea in the USA to tax law violations by a foreign bank.…

TWO property fraudsters who rooked Allied Irish Banks (AIB) and Bank of Scotland (BoS) for hundreds of millions of pounds in loans were jailed for a total of 12 years in London on January 17, in a case exposing lax lending oversight during the 2003-2008 boom years.…

SO diverse are the Middle East’s oil and gas reservoirs and the environmental conditions encountered that companies focused on optimising exploration and production view the region as a giant laboratory for proving new technologies.

Its oil also varies hugely in viscosity, from the Arab Light crude of Saudi Arabia’s Al Khurais onshore field to the heavy crudes in Oman’s Mukhaizna onshore field.…

THE ENERGY sector has been left guessing whether there will be a robust future international climate change agreement after the latest global diplomatic meeting on the subject in Doha, Qatar. Delegates attending the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change were tasked from November 26 to December 7 with solving two key issues: devising a post-Kyoto Protocol agreement that will kick in from 2020; and also devising a holding agreement for countries wanting to reduce emissions from the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol this December until the new agreement comes into force.…

THE BRITISH government is creating a unique regime of energy price incentives to spur commercialisation of carbon capture and storage systems, yet significant barriers remain to unlocking the billions of Pounds Sterling needed to build a CCS industry of sufficient mass in the UK able to create economies of scale for investors.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

ELCORE GmbH, a German maker of fuel cell micro-CHP (FC mCHP) units currently has only a few being put through their paces in homes in its domestic market. It has high hopes, though, of selling plenty on a fully commercial basis from late next year before spreading its wings into other European markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPE’S new airport policy network Airpol has started showing its operational worth, helping coordinate a two-day operation targeting 28 airports in 15 European counties, where 10 smugglers of cash, drugs and counterfeit goods were arrested. Airpol was launched late 2010 and has since developed operations as a coordinator of European network police.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THE GREEK economic crisis may provide the perfect backdrop for money laundering. Dr Ioannis Filos, professor of Auditing at Panteion University in Athens and director of the Greek chapter of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN) told the Money Laundering Bulletin that "it is obvious… that the financial stress is a big threat for someone to get involved in wrong actions/fraud/corruption."…