Why was Venezuela never designated as a PMLC?
Was it because they were laundering a lot of their money into the US & China?

Was it because it would show that the socialists were running out of other people's money because they were stealing it!

Or did Venezuela escape designation because it bought friends in the Swamp?
Why do the investigations Venezuelan money laundering keep touching on Chicago, NYC & Miami?

Did Venezuelan crooks hiring Fusion GPS to run a PR campaign to hide the corruption play a role?

The same Fusion GPS that went after Browder for the Russians.
Went after Trump for the Democrats.
Went after Nunes to obstruct a criminal referral by Congress.

That Fusion GPS...

I found the Treasury document removing Ukraine from the list. They did it on the ground that Ukraine passed new laws criminalizing money laundering & requiring reporting & info sharing. But as we have seen those laws were never really enforced!
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-finance/Terrorist-Finance-Tracking/Documents/js1931.pdf

The revocation was under the authority of James F. Sloan then Director of FinCEN.
Sloan was a retired Deputy Assistant Director of the Secret Service who was appointed the Director of FinCEN by Clinton in April 1999, he left in 2003 to take over Coast Guard Intelligence.

Mr. Sloan retired & passed away in 2009 after a long battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_F._Sloan

In 2006, during the lull in designations, FinCEN lost 2 Directors being hired away by Merrill Lynch & Bank of America. Two of the big banks now on the hook in the #ButNothingsHappening cases.

But I've learned a lot of the work (and dirty deeds) is conducted at the Deputy Director level. It lets you blame the boss if you get caught!
William F. Baity was the DD at that time. He was appointed as DD in 1995 & watched a string of bosses pass thru! https://www.tax-news.com/news/Key_US_Treasury_Official_To_Give_Isle_Of_Man_Lecture____31205.html

Mr. Baity is now an Assistant Professor at University College, University of Maryland. I believe that is their online & remote campus... So it may be a part-time gig. https://www.napawash.org/mr-william-f-baity

I can't find a specific date when he left FinCEN though, but I'm sure it is out there.
But I did find a curious note that a William F. Baity, suspended his law license in Louisiana (he was with DOJ there) decades ago.
Active since 1988 but it was suspended 2 weeks ago!

I did find a diplomatic cable addressing questions from a Jordanian bank to Acting D of FinCEN Baity on how to deal with the Palestinian Authority's accounts as members of Hamas, one of Iran's terrorist groups, was joining the government.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06AMMAN1405_a.html

I found him on a listing of Federal Employee pay, where he is listed as a former employee. The last year that it is showing for him is 2009 but it looks like a full year salary...

So he may have left at the end of 2009.

This is also very interesting, from 2002-2008 Baity was Chair of the Egemont Group or Egemont Committee. Looks like a global professional association for Financial Intelligence experts & units. That would be quite a networking group...
https://egmontgroup.org/en/filedepot_download/1660/28

Why do you join a unit as Deputy Director & stay as DD for 15 years across 3 Presidential Administrations? While the Director's chair is a revolving door & you spend time as Acting Director but never get the job. While those Directors get big jobs to join the banks you regulate?

More on the Egmont group, this "informal group" of national financial intelligence units to set & maintain standards for conducting financial crimes intel & investigations. And they are hanging out in money laundering centers like Brussels & Bermuda to do it!

Looks like all the money laundering havens have a Financial Intelligence Unit that has a seat at the table of the Egmont Group.

Why would they meet in so many of the Swampy places in the world?

Who are Egmont Group's big partners on setting standards for how to investigate money laundering? The World Bank & the IMF, two of the biggest enablers of money laundering on the planet...

Either this guy was the biggest crusader for anti-corruption initiatives on the planet. Or he was helping design the system for setting standards in how not to notice money laundering & crime.
I guess time will tell...
@threadreaderapp unroll.