VAT scams used Bermuda based Transworld Payment Solutions to move money

Dutch mult-imillionaire businessman Johannes Christiaan Martinus "John" Deuss (64), who has a taste for Tattinger champagne and exceptionally pretty girls in bikinis, is/was the owner of Caribbean based First Curaçao International BankN.V(FCIB) (now in a form of administration from Sept 13th 2006 and not to be confused with First Caribbean International Bank) and was arrested in his Bermuda haven (Shore Lane, Tucker’s Town,for 30 years) -Former Bermuda Premier Sir John Swan & Bermuda businessman Ward Young posted bail of US$10Mn : "He [Deuss] is a good friend of mine. He'd do the same for me.") and transferred to prison in Holland last month , he agreed to the extradition(October 2006) .(Pic(c) Heat magazine)

It is reported his offshore bank allegedly aided UK and European VAT carousel (MITC) fraudsters, and is to be held in custody in the Netherlands for another 3 months.

The Guradian report that EU tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs told them that EU governments were losing an estimated €50bn (£33.7bn) to these VAT frauds.

His bank was apparently popular with British VAT fraudsters, and also Russian and Dutch companies involved with EU based VAT fraud. HMRC reckons every individual it has arrested for carousel fraud in the last 2 years held an account at FCIB. They suspect 2,500 + UK citizens of using the bank - it is a fair bet they also had one or two other bank accounts.

The Dutch arrest warrant listed allegations of habitual or deliberate money laundering, handling of stolen property and being in charge of a criminal organisation. Duess has hired the best and is currently engaging the services of the engaging and beautiful UK lawyer, Clare Montgomery QC (of Cherie Blair's Matrix chambers - see pic ) who successfully represented the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who fought Spanish attempts to extradite him from the UK 8 years ago. She also very recently acted to stop the launch of a share issue in Rosneft equity which it was calimed would amount to money laundering under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Poca) because 70% of the company's value came from the "unlawful seizure" of Yukos's main business, Yuganskneftegaz.

Claire famously succeeded at the appeal for solicitor Sally Clarke of murdering her two babies.

John D's lawyers are appealing (so far without success) his detention in custody.

His 60 year old sister Martina "Tineke", 60, a former director of BCB who is on the board of FCIB, was arrested in September and though she has since been released , it is understood she remains a suspect in the investigation being carried out by Dutch and British authorities.

John D. has a history of fraud in the 80's, started a life of fraud by stripping money from the Russian State oil company. The Kremlin are said to have chased him through the courts for more than 10 years before giving up - it is not known if they have had any hand in him being arrested.

Stephen Curtis, who mysteriously died in an unusual helicopter accident and had connections to UK based Russian oil oligarchs was also a director of Bermuda Commercial Bank (Total assets $754 million at April 30, 2002), Deuss's principal bank, which owned 33% of FCIB . Mayfair based Curtis had replaced Platon Lebedev late last year as Menatep director when Lebedev was arrested on tax evasion and fraud charges. and he was named in a US lawsuit brought by investors who say they lost up to $1billion after Russian oil giant Yukos collapsed.


Duess stepped down as chairman and chief executive officer of Bermuda Commercial Bank (BCB) in September when news broke that First Curacao International Bank, was being investigated for money laundering in the Netherlands and the Netherland Antilles Dutch island of Curacao.

BCB rented premises in Sir John Swan’s wonderful, shiny Bermuda Commercial Bank Building - he who so kindly posted his bail.

Deuss has some very interesting connections, in the world of international trade and commerce, for example, Vietnam spymeister Theodore G "Ted" Shackley (of Research Associates International) co-ordinated anti-Castro attacks on Cuba prior to the Bay of Pigs. He also ran Nobel Peace Prize Winner and War Criminal Harold Kissinger's secretive and undeclared wars in Laos and Cambodia , the secondary and bloody sideshows to the Vietnam war.

Shackley, AKA "The Blonde Ghost", was hired by Deuss after he left (do they ever?) the CIA 1979 to organise shipments of oil to South Africa. SA was then under a global oil embargo that Deuss's Transworld Oil cheerfully flouted, as did US tax exile Marc Rich (Clintonian pardonee - on the request of his ex-wife) who worked with Duess selling North Sea Brent Crude to the apartheid South African regime liberally spreading commissions, bribes and kickbacks as required.

This activity earned him a firebombing of his Dutch place at Berg en Dal near his birthplace in Nijmegen in the 1980's by anti-apartheid activists who called themselves, rather dramatically Pyromaniacs Against Apartheid .

It was at this time that Duess struck up a very close connection with the flamboyantly homosexual , sado-masochistic and secretive ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos.

No mean operator he featured on the front page of the WSJ in 1995 ,"Is John Deuss a Visionary or a Slick Operator? He Holds Key to the Project." , a fascinating discussion about his brainchild, the (now complete) Caspian Pipeline Consortium and the crude attempts by Chevron to push him out.

Stunning model and journalist Suzan Mazur who knows John D. @ scoop ponders (October 18th 2006) " Why Has John Deuss' Offshore Bank Been Singled Out?" and has some fascinating tales to tell.

FCIB also featured as the bankers at the collapse last year of Oz fraudster Gregory James Kennedy whose Virtual Games Global (VGG) = Pacific Delta International = World Games Incorporated (201 -2005 Canda, Sweden UK pyramid scheme with up to 450,000 members) = Aspiritus N.V.

What appears to be the basis of the case against John D is a business which started out as First Ecommerce Data Services (FEDS) a wholly owned subsidiary of First Ecom.com Inc a NASDAQ hot dot.com stock (NASDAQ: FECC,) which was described as, "FEDS is one of the first offshore credit card transaction processing companies to offer multi-currency processing and settlement .... a global, multi-currency e-payment processing solution " "FEDS provides banks and financial institutions in the Asia Pacific, Americas and Caribbean region with universal, secure, cost efficient electronic payment solutions.".. it was also a fraudsters dream banking system. So successful that it eventually became totally unecessary to physically move any goods and simply issue bits of paper and handle the TPS account accordingly.

FEDS seems to have gone the way of many dot.coms but became through Transworld Oil, Transworld Payment Solutions (TPS), a very powerful, online, global payments mechanism, for their own trading use. TPS apparently worked with FCIB clients in Europe giving them the highly desirable facility move money between accounts in real-time, 24 hours a day, and in multiple currencies.

These book transfers in the records of TPS enable EU (or anywhere else) customers to get their money out of the system, without travelling to Curaçao or Bermuda.

Notably FCIB had correspondent banking arrangements with Barclays Bank in the UK and Rabobank in Holland, and even more recently (probably coinciding with the extension of these carousel frauds involving EU / Swiss transfers) , Union Bank of Switzerland.

As HMRC activity (which only became possible under UK legislation in April 2005)started turning over some stones eachof these banks in turn shut the door on FCIB. Naturally warning FCIB clients and so FCIB had to warn many of its clients that it was being forced to shut their accounts, as without a correspondent bank in Britain, it would no longer be able to move funds for them.

It is fascinating to see that Mantas a Herndon, Va.,a banking software company and partner of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) with offices in London, New York, and Singapore. Mantas is a Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) announced in May 2006 that they had installed their Mantas Anti-Money Laundering at FCIB, this they claim ...

" .. mitigates risk with comprehensive, enterprise-wide surveillance of customer, account and transaction information to alert supervisors to suspicious behaviors. The system’s unique ability to analyze every transaction and generate risk-based alerts of suspected money laundering activities allows Anti Money Laundering and compliance officers to distinguish fraudulent from legitimate transactions. "

No doubt someone, somewhere has been able to provide similiar such services to FCIB / TWP - Lord Patel says you might start looking here and cop a look at this video about how easy it is here or if you like Mexican food here

Fuck it! Simply Google "global, multi-currency e-payment processing ".... HMCR have got their work cut out.