1. Aruba News and Commentary:
Natalee Holloway: The Real Cover-up?
Money Laundering in the Multi-Millions?
Natalee Holloway Commentary Harry Tho
Topics: Natalee Holloway
On what turned out to be a rather slow news night for Natalee news, we have a summary from Greta,
before moving on to a follow-up on our previous posts addressing banking activities on Aruba and the
family-related/Mansur-related issues in the case that cable news has avoided discussing.
Last night, Greta interviewed Vinda de Souza and Tito Lacle on Fox News.
Vinda reported that Dave Holloway had met with the prosecutor and received a briefing on the case.
Vinda reported that the case is moving forward, and that new persons of interests have been
interviewed and re-interviewed. The only new evidence in the case are statements. To date, no tapes
have been received by the prosecutor from the FBI. Vinda expressed that everyone felt satisfied with the
progress of the case and are optimistic about a resolution. It seems that we've heard this before.
Tito Lacle reported that Deepak Kalpoe's lawyer is seriously considering charges against Dr. Phil and
Jamie Skeeters over the tapes. The lawyer contends that the meeting between Jamie Skeeters and
Deepak Kalpoe was supposed to be a candid discussion and not an taped interview, and Deepak Kalpoe
contends that he was unaware that his meeting with Jamie Skeeters was taped. Additionally, he claims
that the statements on the tape were coerced and manipulated. Interestingly, such a conversation
taped without a person's consent is illegal in Aruba and subject to the criminal process.
Tito stated that no opinion was circulating in Aruba as to whether or not NataleeHollloway is still alive.
However, the case is alive, and more people are being interviewed. And again, we've already been down
this road before and we all know where we ended up.

2. With little going on in the news department, I'd like to take a brief look at the subject of money
laundering on Aruba, since we've been looking at the banking and criminal activities of several of the
players involved with Natalee, including the Mansurs and the Twittys.
Money laundering is the process through which criminals conceal the true existence,illegal source, or
illegal application of income, and then disguise that income to make it appear legitimate. The most
common form of money laundering that credit institutions will encounter on a day-to-day basis, takes
the form of accumulated cash transactions which will be deposited in the banking system or exchanged
for other assets (monetary assets). These simple transactions may just be one part of the sophisticated
web of complex transactions.
Nevertheless, the basic fact remains that the earliest key stage for the detection of money laundering
activities is where the cash first enters the financial system.
Five Phases of Money Laundering:
The first phase is the exchange phase where criminals exchange their loot in return for money of
another currency, or gold, or cheques or diamonds.
The second phase is the placement phase. In this phase, the criminals attempt to bring their exchanged
cash into credit institutions. Cash in credit institutions becomes transferable money.
The third phase is called the layering phase. In this phase placed money separates from their criminal
sources via electronic transfers or wire transfers.
The fourth phase is the integration phase. In this phase, complex transactions occur within a financial
institution to produce loan back or back-to-back loan arrangements.
The fifth stage is the identification phase in which some form of identity is required for the laundered
money. Often identification is masked by some form of trade transaction.
Given the foregoing, money laundering is aided by the complicity of financial institutions. Money
accumulated in the Banco de la Construccion in Venezuela could be easily wire transferred to the
Interbank or the Intercon Financial Bank in Aruba. Clearly, the banks in Aruba only will require
authorizations from the Banco de la Construccion in Venezuela in order to approve the transfer. It will
be upon the Banco de la Construccion Venezuela to ascertain the identity of the source of the money.
The true identity of the enterprise in Venezuela would be masked by some commercial enterprise. The
wire transfer could be the result of a payment action derived form the terms of a letter of credit (LC) for
trade. Clearly, a bank has little control over the terms of an LC. Once the money arrives in the Intercon
Financial Bank or the Interbank in Aruba, it can be disbursed to a number of accounts under the
pretense of payment for services or goods. Once the money is received by the alleged creditors of the
goods or services, it has effectively been laundered into Aruba.

3. Clearly, this laundered money can now be assembled in the form of cash deposits or various certificates
of deposits upon which the money can be drawn in the form of loans for trade. These loans can be used
as part of development loans for construction projects anywhere in the world, including the United
States of America. Assembling money in order to support urban renewal projects could employ such an
avenue for funding. Large scale projects often involve sourcing form a number of financial parties. The
more risky seed money often gets overlooked in order to launch a project that will entrain funding from
the more legitimate financial institutions, as the project unfolds and meets certain benchmarks of
progress.
The loan back arrangement in the foregoing is difficult to identify, because the identity of the true
originator remains masked. However, the entity doing the urban development project in the USA could
the same party initiating the payment, via wire transfer, from Venezuela. Hence, criminally obtained
moneys end up being immersed into an urban development project in a US city. The urban development
project will be paid for by bonds drawn upon the tax dollars from American citizens residing within the
city in question.
In a sense, drug money is encouraged into civic projects by the promise of profit from US tax dollars.
From our previous posts on the subject, readers already know of the banking and criminal relationships
of some of the players - names that have been plastered all over cable news but with no disclosure as to
their backgrounds or the twisted network of criminal activities that they've been involved in. What, if
any, role the illegal activities have played in Natalee's disappearance remains to be determined, but so
far, it appears that no one is looking.
Posted for HarryTho