from the Miami New Times - Miami Played Host to $350 Million Argentinian Money-Laundering Scheme, Feds Say
As Argentina sunk deeper into economic turmoil, a set of Miami-based shell companies illegally siphoned vast sums of cash out of the country and into U.S. bank accounts, the feds say
Rivers of money were flowing from South America into a network of obscure Miami companies run by one Paul Oswald Morani as Argentina suffered a crippling economic crisis, according to court documents. In recent years, Morani's bank accounts and seven of his corporate entities, including firms in South Florida and Delaware, received $350 million in funds — largely from Argentina, federal investigators say. The firms were held out as shipping companies involved in the international transport of commercial loads.
For an operation of such a massive scale, the businesses appeared strangely dormant, the feds claim.
The companies' Florida documents allegedly listed no wages or earnings for Morani. Customs records showed barely any import-and-export activity for his entities, and he was making no unemployment fund contributions, indicating he had no staff, investigators say. According to a criminal affidavit obtained by New Times, the feds took one look at the businesses' operations (or lack thereof) and "quickly concluded that they were all shell corporations" designed to illegally funnel money out of Argentina.
"Exhaustive records of the defendant's above-mentioned shell corporations exposed a scheme that moved over $350 million in illicit proceeds," a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigator wrote.