The US is busting Israeli banks: Bank Leumi, Israel's second largest bank, helped American customers evade income taxes, hide assets, and launder their money

Published: February 20, 2015

Source: CNBC

Bank Leumi, Israel's second largest bank, admitted late last year to helping its American customers evade income taxes, hide assets, and launder their money back into the United States. The bank agreed to pay $130 million in fines to New York regulators and another $270 million to the federal government, and assist in an ongoing probe of other Israeli banks.

Sam Antar: I was laundering money through Bank Leumi decades ago
Former Crazy Eddie CFO and convicted felon Sam Antar explains how he got away with laundering money through Bank Leumi decades ago and why it took so long for the Feds to crack down on the Israeli-based bank.
Foreign banks have been helping Americans dodge U.S. income taxes for years. But it's taken decades for law enforcement to catch up with them.During my criminal career at Crazy Eddie, my family used Bank Leumi to help them evade taxes, hide assets, and launder money because of their exceptional client services and discretion. From 1971 to 1984, I was intimately involved in my family's scheme to underreport cash revenues and evade income taxes at Crazy Eddie when we were a private company. Bank Leumi sent its Israeli employees to New York to assist my family in opening secret numbered accounts in Israel, ferry their skimmed cash overseas, and later helped them launder that cash back into the United States when they needed access to those funds.
But I know that the FBI and SEC have known about this for decades because I personally flagged it to them in 1989, when Crazy Eddie was busted for fraud and I was trying to avoid prison time. (Which I did.)

http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_US_is_busting_Israeli_banks%3A_Bank_Leumi%2C_Israel%27s_second_largest_bank%2C_helped__American_customers_evade_income_taxes%2C_hide_assets%2C_and_launder_their_money/42054/0/38/38/Y/M.html