Data Mining International, Inc. |
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News Release, 6/12/08, ICE Launches Trade Transparency Unit in Mexico City, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE: "The ill-gained profits funneled across our international borders will lead the TTU to those responsible for transnational criminal activity," said Myers. "Mexico's cooperation has proven unprecedented and is the largest such initiative ICE has undertaken in our efforts to combat the rise in complex and sophisticated financial and trade crimes around the world."
2008 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, U.S. Dept of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcment Affairs,March 2008 “The success of the Brazilian Trade Transparency Unit (TTU), less than nine months after being established in late 2005, augurs well for the newer TTUs of Argentina and Paraguay. The Argentine TTU has uncovered a major trade-based anomaly that law enforcement is currently investigating.” ... "In cooperation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the GOP established a Trade Transparency Unit (TTU) that examines discrepancies in trade data that could be indicative of customs or tax fraud, trade-based money laundering, or the financing of terrorism. ICE estimates that U.S. $20 million left Paraguay for the U.S. on a daily basis in 2006, but less than U.S. $1 million was reported coming in."
Cornerstone Report, Volume V: No. 1, April 2008, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “Recent investigative analysis using DARTTS identified bulk shipments of euros moving from Colombia to the United Kingdom via the United States. From 2006-2007, Colombian casas de cambio shipped bulk currencyvalued at $4.8 billion to various U.S. ports of entry."
2007 National Money Laundering Strategy, U.S., “The TTU uses a data mining software application...to sift through trade data, passenger manifests, BSA filings, and immigration data looking for anomalies that might indicate BMPE activity. DARTTS is also effective in identifying under and over-valuation schemes, and can be used by governments to identify and recover revenue that is denied them through the workings of these types of fraud.”
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Best Practices Paper on Trade-Based Money Laundering: "establish a specialised unit that is designated responsibility for monitoring imports and exports, analysing trade data and identifying anomalies with a view to detecting TBML/FT and other illicit activity, and supporting related investigations and prosecutions."
HSToday, 10/2006, The Money Maze: Stopping Terrorist Trade, “ICE is using the TTU program to confront a clear and present danger to this country. If it were not for Customs visionaries like Bock and Cassara, terrorism financiers and drug kingpins would be able to continue to move funds in and out of the country with no fear of being discovered.”
The Houston Chronicle, 8/27/2006, South American scams funding Hezbollah? The U.S. believes so and has sent teams to tri-border area to help fight money laundering, “’To keep a closer watch on the tri-border region...the Pentagon has dispatched small teams of U.S. troops to Paraguay, while the Department of Homeland Security has sent so-called ‘trade transparency units’ to help crack down on money laundering and other financial crimes. Substantial financing for Hezbollah is coming from the tri-border area,’ said Daniel Glaser, the U.S. Treasury’s assistant secretary of state for terrorist financing and financial crimes. ‘The problem very much has not been solved.’”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement News Release, 8/18/2006, ICE assists Brazilian officials in dismantling $200 million trade fraud scheme: More than 240 locations in Brazil and the United States targeted in "Operation Deluge", “’The results of this massive trade fraud investigation demonstrate what can be achieved when law enforcement agencies from different nations work together. This cooperative operation dismantled an unscrupulous ring that cost the Brazilian government hundreds of millions of dollars. The searches and arrests are the first to result from collaboration between Brazilian authorities and ICE agents through our joint Trade Transparency Unit initiative. We believe this case is the beginning of many future successful joint ventures with the Brazilian government,’ said ICE Assistant Secretary Myers.”
U.S. House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee, 7/25/2006, Testimony of Julie Meyers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security" "Using the joint resources of ICE and Colombian TTUs, ICE implemented a BMPE initiative, involving the analysis of companies and/or subjects involved in BMPE schemes. This initiative allows U.S. and Colombian authorities to exchange information and data for ultimate criminal or civil action, and to target Colombian peso brokers, U.S. exporters, Colombian importers and financial accounts facilitating BMPE activity."
Financial Action Task Force: Trade Based Money Laundering, 6/23/2006, FATF – GAFI Report “Experience shows that trade transparency units create effective gateways for the prompt exchange of trade data and information between foreign counterparts. As such, they represent a new and important investigative tool to better combat trade-based money laundering and customs fraud.”
Anne W. Patterson, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 3/30/2006, Testimony before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere “In Paraguay, we are creating a Trade Transparency Unit...it will enhance greatly the capability of our countries to prevent and combat money laundering [and] terrorist financing, stem official corruption, and support economic development through enhanced revenue collection.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Current Web Site:, Trade Transparency Units: “At the core of the TTU concept is the Data Analysis & Research for Trade Transparency System (DARTTS), an ICE computer system designed to analyze import/export and financial data of the United States and its foreign partners for the purpose of identifying trade anomalies and financial irregularities. These anomalies and irregularities often serve as indicators of money laundering, customs fraud, contraband smuggling, and even tax evasion (e.g. value added tax, income tax, duty, tariff).”
The Wall Street Journal, 3/11/2006, Policing Trade to Nab Terrorists: New Effort Spots Illegal Exports Masking Money Laundering “The key to the effort is a software program that mines trade data for discrepancies between exports and imports. It can also link exporters to importers and commodities over time. The U.S. has provided funds to Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina to help purchase computers and the software program, known as DARTT [LEADMiner], as well as to train personnel units in each country. Mr. Allen says the program has already resulted in leads involving the smuggling of gold, computer parts and other commodities in and out of the U.S.”
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 3/2006, Description of Trade Transparency Unit (TTU) “ICE’s Trade Transparency Unit (TTU) identifies anomalies related to cross-border trade that are indicative of international trade-based money laundering. The TTU generates, initiates and supports investigations and prosecutions related to trade-based money laundering, the illegal movement of criminal proceeds across international borders, alternative money remittance systems, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. By sharing trade data with foreign governments, ICE and participating governments will be able to see both sides, import and export data for, of commodities entering or leaving their countries. This makes trade transparent and will assist in the identification and investigation of international money launderers and money laundering organizations.”
Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), 8/25/2005, Diamond Development Initiative: Background Paper on Macroeconomic Issues “The TTU approach ...would bring new financial and technical resources into these countries, and might reveal hitherto unidentified threats, providing greater impetus to other reform programs.”
Congressional Quarterly, 4/5/2005, DHS to Award Contract for Fraud-Detecting Software “The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced plans to issue a fixed-price contract to Data Mining International of Los Gatos, Calif., for its software and consulting services. The contract is part of the Trade Transparency Unit (TTU) — an initiative between ICE, the Treasury Department and the State Department to work with other countries on detecting and deterring money laundering.”
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 3/2005, Description of Trade Transparency Unit (TTU) “For the past several decades, the United States has championed the concept of financial transparency in the formal financial sector, particularly banks, and most recently non-bank financial institutions...”
Government Computer News, 5/24/2004, Trade Data Can Yield Crime Clues “In recent months, Iraq has become one of the world’s top five exporters of copper, though it has no copper mines. That anomaly reflects widespread looting of copper from the Iraqi telephone and electrical systems, according to sources in the copper industry. Tracking such trade discrepancies is one way to detect criminal activity, and the Homeland Security Department is looking to boost its tracking tools. The department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau uses the Numerically Integrated Profiling System to crawl through dozens of trade databases looking for clues to money laundering by terrorists, drug smugglers and other criminals.” Press
Release: 3/8/2004, Leading Firms Partner Government Computer News, 1/28/2004, To Nab Terrorists “Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the department’s Border and Transportation Security Directorate, plans to acquire 14 copies of LEADMiner, an improved version of the Numerically Integrated Profiling System (NIPS) now used by ICE to track down financial crimes.” 2003 National Money Laundering Strategy, Dept. of Justice and Department of Treasury “In the area of trade-based money laundering, such as the Black Market Peso Exchange System, BICE’s Numerically Integrated Profiling System (“NIPS”) identifies anomalous trading patterns.”
Dean Boyd, Office of Public Affairs, US Customs “NIPS has evolved into a revolutionary analytical tool used by more than a dozen foreign governments and by numerous U.S. agencies, ranging from the Defense Department to the EPA.”
Journal of Homeland Security: 4/2003, Countering Terrorist Financing “The ideal would be actions to encourage other nations to share information with the United States so that it can be evaluated using NIPS, with the eventual goal of trade transparency. This is an efficient means of expediting a counter-terrorist action to understand the scope of the problem faced by the United States and the world.”
Washington Post, 12/12/2002, Small Scams Probed for Terror Ties: “The program, which traces commodities entering and leaving the country, helped pick up telling anomalies -- such as the contrast between gold imports to the United States and the amount of jewelry sold -- that led to nationwide raids on more than 70 mostly Pakistani-owned jewelry shops in late June.”
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