Plutus, Gould and Swerving SWIFT: the story behind Westpac

Almanac: Eric Hoffer on freedom and equality

“Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.” Eric Hoffer, The ... read more

House of Fraser: 'House of Horror' for reversing fur ban, says charity

JACK WATERFORD. Porter’s selective concern for fairness and justice

If integrity commissions shouldn’t ask nasty questions in public, why can, and do, royal commissions? … Continue reading→

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. The Frankenstein effect – why whistleblowers are needed now, more than ever

If we’re not properly informed .. we can create monsters. This is called the Frankenstein effect. Whether you’re a taxpayer, a citizen, a consumer or a shareholder expecting to live in a free and fair society with peace and prosperity, you certainly need whistleblowers and the journalists … Continue reading →

Vanda Gould guilty of witness tampering in $383m tax fraud case

Neil Chenoweth Senior writer

Former Sydney tax accountant Vanda Gould was taken into custody on Tuesday morning after a District Court jury found him guilty of witness tampering in a court case that uncovered a $383 million international tax avoidance scheme.
The jurors took two days to reach a verdict after retiring on Friday after a three-week trial. An earlier trial last year resulted in a hung jury.

The Tax Office issued $383 million in assessments for tax fraud against Mr Gould and his clients after a landmark 2014 judgment before Justice Nye Perram which found that Mr Gould secretly controlled an offshore empire which he operated through a Belgian-Australian lawyer, Peter Borgas.

Accountant Vanda Gould after being granted bail in October 2013. Those charges were later dropped before he was recharged with witness tampering. Photo: Rob Homer

The district court heard that in 2013 Australian Federal Police had obtained six telecommunication interception warrants over four telephone numbers associated with Mr Gould.
Mr Borgas was sensationally arrested at Sydney airport on October 15, 2013 as he was about to board a flight back to his home in Switzerland at the end of three days testifying before Justice Perram in the Federal Court.

Mr Borgas and Mr Gould, who was arrested at the same time, were charged with money laundering offences.  These were later dropped but documents found on Mr Borgas formed the basis of a witness tampering charge.
The documents were instructions from Mr Gould as to how Mr Borgas was to testify in the Federal Court proceedings before Justice Perram which involved Hua Wang Bank, a private bank in Western Samoa that Gould secretly controlled through companies in the Bahamas and Cayman Islands.

Borgas, who was born in Rockhampton, claimed that all the companies in the case belonged to him, not Gould. When asked why he had donated more than $1 million through these companies to a church he didn't belong to, on the other side of the world, Borgas testified: "I am a Christian first, a Protestant second and a Lutheran third."

Justice Perram found in 2014 that Borgas was lying. "This is the worst case I have come across in my entire career," he said in a 2015 costs hearing.
Mr Gould, who was deregistered as a tax advisor by the Tax Practitioners Board in May, had his bail revoked after the verdict and will face a sentencing hearing on Wednesday, with final sentencing not expected before February. 


R v Vanda Russell GOULD 

'Architect' of Plutus tax fraud pleads guilty

The Australian Financial Review

Plutus Payroll founder pleads guilty to tax fraud plot

Simon Paul Anquetil has admitted to his role in a conspiracy to defraud the Tax Office of more than $100 million.

Swerving SWIFT: the story behind Westpac’s money-laundering calamity

by Nathan Lynch

Bankrolling pedophiles, facilitating massive money-laundering schemes and terrorist-financing have branded Westpac, deservingly, an instant pariah of the banking world. As regulatory intelligence expert Nathan Lynch reveals here however, Westpac is unlikely to be alone. The story behind the story is industrial scale tax avoidance, the concealing of enormous cross-border payments

BITCOIN PARADISE

Less Paradise, more scandal. A new court case alleges that cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and its sister company Tether manipulated the crypto market. The lawsuit centers around a connection found in the Paradise Papers. Our documents reveal two executives of Bitfinex were also the beneficial owners of Tether. 

Wow just wow Science Can Now Find You With Just a Tiny Piece of Hair Popular Mechanics. The big problem with this “gee whiz” science is contamination, as well as errors in the lab. Imagine how far microscopic bits like this travel, say if you go to a gym or a school or use a bus or subway…or a hair salon!

 Liberation of Honecker’s “quiet” Germans

November 9 was the 30^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – the end of the authoritarian regime in East Germany where the Moscow-controlled dictator Erich Honecker, in the name of security, used state powers to ensure that citizens of the GDR behaved as unquestioning and compliant “quiet” Germans. The Berlin tourist promotion body visitBerlin has a web presentation of  Berlin’s celebrations last week.

 “Four Life Lessons from My Hero” (video).  With gusto: “Fashion, qualitative research, mentorship, & debate!”

Wild elephants mourn author's death - Beliefnet

For 12 hours, two herds of wild South African elephants slowly made their way through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of late author Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist who saved their lives.

Lawrence Anthony adopted African elephants and says human families could learn from them | Life and style | The Guardian

 Who Stole My Face? The Risks Of Law Enforcement Use Of Facial Recognition Software – Lawyer and Legal Technology Evangelist Nicole L. Black discusses the “reckless social experiment” that facial surveillance represents across all aspects of life in America. It is the norm on social media, in air travel, as a mechanism for state, local and federal government to identify location and means of travel (car, train, bus), in banking and financial transactions (smile next time you use your ATM), and as a security feature to unlock your phone, to name but some of its applications. You cannot opt-out of the use of your data nor the multifaceted ways that it impacts your diminishing privacy and civil liberties.

 
The Dark Psychology of Social Networks - The Atlantic: “…Social media has changed the lives of millions of Americans with a suddenness and force that few expected. The question is whether those changes might invalidate assumptions made by Madison and the other Founders as they designed a system of self-governance. Compared with Americans in the 18th century—and even the late 20th century—citizens are now more connected to one another, in ways that increase public performance and foster moral grandstanding, on platforms that have been designed to make outrage contagious, all while focusing people’s minds on immediate conflicts and untested ideas, untethered from traditions, knowledge, and values that previously exerted a stabilizing effect. This, we believe, is why many Americans—and citizens of many other countries, too—experience democracy as a place where everything is going haywire…It doesn’t have to be this way. Social media is not intrinsically bad, and has the power to do good—as when it brings to light previously hidden harms and gives voice to previously powerless communities. Every new communication technology brings a range of constructive and destructive effects, and over time, ways are found to improve the balance. Many researchers, legislators, charitable foundations, and tech-industry insiders are now working together in search of such improvements. We suggest three types of reform that might help…”

How do you judge tough military decisions?

CONQUERING YOUR BIAS: Who is least susceptible to bias? Basically: experience matters.

You might lose battles in your life time. However, every person that stands bravely on the side of justice, for people that have no voice, wins the true battle.

Vocabulary and Usage Boosts - Gallagher blogs about library research, library news and more… “I saw a house” tells you something. But what if I told you I saw a mansion, a shack, a villa, a hovel, or a two-story clapboard Cape Cod? Even if you have one word that will get the job done, it’s always useful to have a wider vocabulary so that you can get the job done a little better (or understand someone else’s writing or speech a little better). Here are a few online resources to build and polish your vocabulary…”