It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Crypto Heavyweights Coinbase, Fidelity and Robinhood Back US Anti-Money Laundering Group
Ian Allison
A group of well-established firms active in cryptocurrencies in the U.S., including Coinbase, Fidelity and Robinhood, have joined together to bring digital assets in step with global anti-money laundering (AML) rules.
In total, there are some 18 virtual asset service providers (VASPs) participating in the launch of the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST). Announced Wednesday, the TRUST platform was created in response to AML data sharing requirements recommended by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and prescribed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The current U.S. TRUST membership includes: Anchorage, Avanti, Bitgo, bitFlyer, Bittrex, BlockFi, Circle, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Gemini, Kraken, Paxos, Robinhood, Standard Custody & Trust, Symbridge, Tradestation, Zero Hash and Zodia Custody.
There have been a number of proposed ways to accommodate "travel rule" requirements within the pseudonymous-by-design cryptocurrency space. Prior to its official launch, TRUST was known among crypto AML specialists as the U.S. Travel Rule Working Group, where the lead engineering firepower was provided by Coinbase, alongside a founding member group that included Gemini, BitGo, Kraken, Circle and Fidelity.
How it works
“There are two components to this solution,” said Gemini’s Chief Compliance Officer Elena Hughes in an interview. “There’s the ability to identify who’s on the other side of the transfer prior to initiating it. Secondly, there’s no centralized storage of personal data. So we don’t send it via a centralized repository; instead the information is exchanged on a bilateral basis.”
The plan, said Hughes, is to expand to other global jurisdictions, with building currently taking place in Canada, Singapore and Germany. The group’s goal is also to become an industry standard for complying with the travel rule. (Until now there has been only one standard agreed upon by the crypto industry, the Inter-VASP Messaging Standard, known as IVMS 101.)
Some jurisdictions, including Singapore, have chosen to go a step beyond the FATF travel rule recommendations for identifying beneficial owners of transactions between VASPs to include those with private or unhosted wallets – a point of contention among many in crypto.
With regard to the inclusion of unhosted wallets within the TRUST architecture, Hughes said: “We are working toward ensuring that we have a compliance solution in those other jurisdictions. What it will ultimately look like is going to be a bit of a ‘time will tell.’”
‘A tool in the compliance arsenal’
The TRUST solution’s compliance capabilities will be reinforced by a partnership with Exiger, a technology platform focused on regulation and financial crime, according to a press release. The TRUST protocol could also bolster the world of blockchain analytics, those firms that follow the money in the case of nefarious actors transacting in crypto, according to Paxos Director of Compliance Christel Chan.
“I do see the TRUST travel solution as a tool in the compliance arsenal with regard to being able to give signals to VASPs as to, is this a wallet of concern?” said Chan in an interview. “And also as a complementary tool when it comes to blockchain monitoring firms’ capabilities.”
Interoperability between the range of solutions on offer (Fidelity Digital Assets is a member of both TRUST and the institution-focused Travel Rule Protocol, for example), as well as across different regions, is another hot topic in the crypto travel rule space.
“I think a year or two down the line, interoperability will be a core requirement,” Chan said. “I know the different solutions are thinking about this with regard to the various partnerships they’re discussing today.”
The concerted effort behind TRUST is an achievement in itself, given how directly competitive these firms are with one another. Robinhood Chief Operating Officer Christine Brown via an emailed statement called it “an innovative compliance solution, while also persevering the integrity of private customer data.”
“Just as it takes a community of crypto investors and enthusiasts to democratize finance, we believe it takes a community of crypto businesses and platforms to work together to find a solution to preserve customer privacy while meeting the legal requirements of the Travel Rule,” she said.
U.S. intelligence report details 'indirect' Russian government support for Western neofascist groups
A U.S. intelligence community assessment obtained by Yahoo News concluded that the Russian government is providing “indirect and passive support” to neofascist groups operating in the U.S. and elsewhere, but stops short of accusing the Kremlin of supplying financial or material assistance to Western extremist groups.
The Kremlin “probably tolerates some private Russian entities’ support” for U.S. and European white nationalist groups “because it aligns with Kremlin efforts to aggravate societal fissures in the West,” states the report.
A still from a propaganda video by an American white supremacist group Atomwaffen Division. (AWD via Soufan Center)
Russian neofascist groups have attempted to recruit and provide paramilitary training to North American and European extremists in order to “expand their reach into the West, increase membership, and raise money,” according to the unclassified July 2021 intelligence report.
The support of Western neofascists by Russian extremists “poses a potential threat to Western security by encouraging and enabling attacks on ethnic minorities and government facilities,” states the report, which is titled “Russian Federation Support of Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists.”
But the report, which was prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with input from the CIA and the FBI, also says the U.S. government lacks “indications of direct Russian government support” for foreign white nationalist groups.
Russian state-backed online influence operations do, however, “amplify politically divisive issues” that likely help in “the radicalization and recruitment efforts worldwide" of white nationalist groups, the report states.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Russian extremist groups are actively training foreign white nationalists, the report states. One Russian neofascist group, the Russian Imperial Movement, has overseen paramilitary instruction for European extremists at its Russia-based camps, and has tried to recruit Americans to train there, according to the report.
The State Department designated the Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist group in April 2020. The organization “actively supplies paramilitary training to foreign nationals for possible future attacks in their respective home countries or on the battlefields of Ukraine,” according to a May 2021 Customs and Border Patrol bulletin obtained by Yahoo News.
Another Russian extremist group with foreign connections, the neo-Nazi Rusich Reconnaissance and Sabotage Group, sent members to fight in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015, according to the intelligence community assessment.
Rusich recently hinted on social media about its plans to return to eastern Ukraine, according to the New America Foundation. Rusich is closely aligned with Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group, according to New America.
An Instagram post showing members of the Russian extremist group Rusich Reconnaissance and Sabotage Group on a Russian tank, September 2021. (@rusichvpk/Instagram)
While the report describes the Russian government’s support for these extremist groups as “indirect and passive,” this is a “distinction without a difference,” said a former senior CIA official.
“When you look at the number of Russian neo-Nazis that are actively infiltrating, or looking to digitally infiltrate U.S. groups,” said the former official, “at some point, if it’s so pervasive, and the Russians aren’t doing anything to stop it, is that really materially different from the big stamp coming down from the sky and saying, ‘We approve?’”
Western fears about the growing links between domestic far-right extremists and their ideological allies in Eastern Europe aren’t limited to Russia. For years, the U.S. has tried to map connections between white supremacists in the United States and foreign groups.
Members of the Rusich Reconnaissance and Sabotage Group, a Russian far-right organization.(@rusichvpk/Instagram)
Now, with the looming threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials are scrambling to identify and track American white supremacists who might seek to travel to the region to fight on either side of the conflict there, according to three current U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials.
“There’s real concern here that this is another Syria,” said a current senior law enforcement official, referring to how the Middle Eastern country’s civil war turned into a training ground for foreign extremists.
Over the past several years, foreign fighters have flocked to join both sides of the Ukraine conflict. Since 2014, over 17,000 fighters from more than 50 countries have traveled to Ukraine, including far-right extremists, according to a 2019 report by the Soufan Group.
Members of the Russian Imperial Movement, a nationalist group in Russia that supports the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, at a training base in St. Petersburg in 2015. (Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images)
Worries about Ukraine becoming a vortex for extremists have “been a long time coming,” said the senior law enforcement official. “Wherever there is conflict there are people who want to join in and be a hero — so now we have a conflict, and now we have a real problem.”
The Azov Movement, a Ukrainian extremist group, has enlisted American white supremacist fighters to travel to Ukraine “to receive training, indoctrination, and guidance in asymmetrical warfare,” according to a January 2020 CBP intelligence bulletin obtained by Yahoo News.
CBP did not return Yahoo News’ request for comment.
Leaders of two American white supremacist groups, the Rise Above Movement and the Atomwaffen Division, as well as other known or suspected American white supremacists traveled to Ukraine to train with the group, according to the bulletin.
With the easing of COVID-19-related travel restrictions, U.S. officials have also become increasingly concerned about the movements in and out of the U.S. by associates of the Russian Imperial Movement, according to the May 2021 CBP bulletin.
A white nationalist wearing a Rise Above Movement T-shirt attends a gun rights rally in Richmond, Va., in 2020. The Rise Above Movement is a white supremacist group based in Southern California. (Jim Urquhart)
The State Department’s designation of the Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist group gives law enforcement more power to investigate Americans associated with the organization inside the United States. But since other Russian and Ukrainian far-right groups are not officially designated as terrorist organizations, this complicates tracking their suspected U.S.-based associates, according to the senior law enforcement official.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has had its own clashes with Russian white nationalist groups, experts say. While the Kremlin has taken a passive stance toward Russian neofascists' outreach to North American or European extremists, it has sometimes forcefully suppressed domestic groups — including by imprisoning their leaders — if it believes they are becoming too influential at home or are ideologically unreliable, according to the intelligence report and former CIA officials.
The war in Ukraine caused a major fracture in the Russian white nationalist movement, say experts, with “pan-Slavist” Russian extremists denouncing the Kremlin’s actions during Russia’s initial 2014 incursion, and facing the Kremlin’s wrath thereafter. The Russian intelligence services “absolutely crushed the pan-Slavist Nazis” during this period, said a former CIA official.
Other Russian extremists got the message, or saw the invasion of Ukraine in a different light. Some Russian white nationalists began funneling money to help send volunteers to fight alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, said a second former CIA official.
But extremist paramilitaries quickly found themselves in a morass in Ukraine, according to the former official. “These guys were in no shape or form to go up against a military,” said the former official.
Pro-Russian forces dubbed the "military forces of the autonomous republic of Crimea" attend their swearing-in ceremony in Simferopol, March 10, 2014. (Filippo Montefoprte/AFP via Getty Images)
The extremists did not endear themselves to their ostensible Russian government allies, either. The Russians looked at them as a “thorn in their side” and “sent them home,” said the former CIA official. Alternatively, Russian officials forbid some troublesome Russian extremist fighters from returning to Russia, forcing them to stay in the part of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russia insurgents, according to a former senior CIA official.
By 2015, Russia had also started stifling some domestic neo-Nazi groups’ use of Russian social media sites, which made the Kremlin’s laissez-faire attitude toward foreign extremist groups operating on these same platforms particularly notable, recalled the first former CIA official.
By the time former President Donald Trump was sworn in, CIA officials were “really concerned” about the growing relationship between Russian extremists and their Western counterparts, according to the former senior agency official. The CIA declined to comment.
At the CIA, these connections were seen as “a sufficiently problematic new wrinkle that they were making the point of publishing on it at least a few times a year,” said the former official.
Given the larger issues around Russia and the Trump administration, he added, it “was a fraught time to relay that message.”
In warning to U.S., COVID rates soar after Denmark lifts all restrictions
At the beginning of February, Denmark became the first major country to lift the last of its COVID-19 restrictions and effectively declare its part in the pandemic over.
Around the world, and especially in the United States, Denmark’s “liberation” from indoor mask mandates, vaccine passports and nightclub closures was heralded as a watershed moment — the shape of things to come. Democratic governors across the U.S. started rescinding their own mask rules a few days later.
People at a nightclub in Copenhagen on Feb. 4 in celebration of Denmark's first weekend of eased COVID-19 restrictions. (Ole Jensen/Getty Images)
“This marks the transition to a new era for all of us, because Denmark will once again be an open society, completely open,” said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. “We dare to believe that we are now through the critical phase."
Since then, however, Denmark has continued to record more COVID-19 cases per capita than nearly anywhere else in the world, and both COVID hospitalizations and deaths have shot up by about a third.
“The world is looking to Denmark as a guide to removing all restrictions,” Topol added in a subsequent tweet, “and it seems that we've seen this movie before.” He then attached a screenshot of a news story headlined “Denmark lifts all coronavirus restrictions and celebrates ‘a whole new era’” — from Sept. 10, 2021.
Topol’s argument was clear: By ending mitigation measures prematurely, Denmark has brought a resurgence of infection, hospitalization and death upon itself — and anyone who follows in the country’s footsteps risks doing the same.
Sarah Bülow Carlsen,11, prepares to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in Amager, Denmark, on Nov. 28. (Olafur Steinar Gestsson/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
But is that the right way to read the numbers? In response to Topol’s tweet — and others like it — Danish experts took to Twitter to object.
“Those data do not capture the epidemic situation in Denmark adequately,” tweeted political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who advises the Danish government and leads the country’s largest study of pandemic behavior.
“Hospital burden in regards to COVID-19 is still low compared to former waves, and mortality is low,” Søren Neermark, an official at the Danish Health Authority, went on to explain.
“Test-positive admitted in Denmark” — that is, the number of people who are hospitalized with COVID but not necessarily because of it — “reflects high incidence in society, but is not the best current indicator for the burden of COVID-19.”
At first, this might sound like an academic debate about Scandinavian statistics. But it’s actually something much deeper and more significant. Like Denmark before it, the United States is also hurtling toward its own post-Omicron tipping point — the moment that U.S. society, broadly speaking, decides that COVID risks have become more tolerable than COVID rules.
A COVID-19 testing site in New York on Feb. 10. (Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Such a pivot wouldn’t mean that the pandemic is over; the virus will spread regardless of how we label it, particularly in poorer, less vaccinated countries and communities. Instead, it would mean we have, in effect, given up trying to protect each other from the pandemic collectively, at least as a matter of government edict, leaving individuals to protect themselves as they see fit.
The question then becomes: How much risk — how many hospitalizations and deaths — is a society ultimately willing to tolerate in exchange for no more rules?
“Endemicity” — the less disruptive coexistence with a virus that comes after a pandemic — “just identifies a pathogen that’s fixed itself in our population so stubbornly that we cease to be seriously perturbed by it,” the Atlantic’s Katherine Wu has written. “We tolerate it. Even catastrophically prevalent and deadly diseases can be endemic, as long as the crisis they cause feels constant and acceptable to whoever’s thinking to ask.”
The current situation in Denmark offers an early glimpse of how that kind of “endemic” future could unfold. In late January, COVID cases there appeared to crest. But driven by BA.2, a more transmissible subvariant of Omicron, they began to rise again immediately after mitigation measures were lifted, reaching a new all-time high average of 7,970 cases per million residents on Feb. 13 — 13 times the country’s previous peak, recorded in December 2020.
A COVID-19 patient is operated on in Herlev Hospital outside Copenhagen in May 2020. (Olafur Steinar Gestsson/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
At the same time, Danish COVID hospitalizations began to climb as well, surpassing the U.K. rate on Feb. 6 and the U.S. rate one week later. About one and a half times more Danes are currently hospitalized with COVID than ever before. COVID deaths are a similar story; if they keep increasing at their current rate, Denmark will set a new record within the next few days.
On paper, that looks bleak. But Danish experts such as Petersen and Neermark argue that it is, in fact, tolerable. For one thing, they say, Denmark tests at nearly twice the U.K. rate — and more than six times the U.S. rate. That means, of course, that more COVID cases will be detected.
But since Omicron tends to trigger less severe disease, they continue, and since so many Danes are vaccinated — 82 percent overall (including 95 percent of those over 50, 90 percent of whom have also been boosted) — relatively few of these cases are worth worrying about.
To back up this claim, Petersen and others note that while the number of “incidental” COVID-positive hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths has increased in tandem with the ongoing surge, the number of hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths due to COVID itself has remained flat, according to governmentanalyses. This suggests that vulnerable Danes remain well protected through vaccination and/or prior infection and that the costs of trying to control Omicron and BA.2 would not have been proportionate to the current threat.
In contrast to last winter, when Denmark saw “a significant increase in all-cause mortality … due to COVID-19,” according to Neermark, “overall mortality in Denmark in all age categories has now fallen into the normal spectrum as Omicron has become fully dominant.”
A nurse comforts a COVID-19 patient who had been operated on for respiratory issues at Herlev Hospital outside Copenhagen in May 2020. (Ritzau Scanpix/Olafur Steinar Rye Gestsson via Reuters)
“So we essentially let the Omicron epidemic roll,” Dr. Jens Lundgren, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Copenhagen, told the New York Times.
It is not hard to imagine the U.S. fully embracing a similar “Let ’er rip!” attitude in the months ahead. In truth, many Americans — including nearly all Republican politicians and most red-state residents, as well as a substantial minority of left-leaning Americans — have been living that way for some time now.
Bars and restaurants are packed even in supposedly “restrictive” places like Los Angeles and New York City; patrons are unmasked even as COVID rates surpass previous peaks. Regardless of policy, behavior has largely reverted back to the norms of 2019, signaling widespread public impatience with the economic and social trade-offs of mitigation measures.
Once states such as California repeal their indoor mask mandates, in schools and elsewhere — and once the last few federal rules about masking for interstate air travel are lifted — the United States, like Denmark, will officially “once again be an open society,” to quote the Danish prime minister. As Omicron numbers now plummet across the country, this spring could mark “the transition to a new era” for the U.S. as well.
But then what? Will U.S. leaders acknowledge that new variants — variants such as BA.2, but perhaps even more transmissible, and possibly more virulent — could emerge? Will they recognize that immunity tends to wane over time, and that even now, 35 percent of U.S. seniors remain unboosted (and that nearly as many 40- to 65-year-olds aren’t fully vaccinated) — and do whatever it takes to increase those numbers?
And, to pose a more politically perilous question, will they be able to reinstate indoor mask requirements if conditions deteriorate?
Or will Americans just live with whatever comes their way? And if so, what price will they pay?
Andy Slavitt, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Dr. Rebekah Gee, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health, at a health care panel discussion in 2019. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)
Earlier this week, Scripps immunologist Kristian Andersen spoke to former Biden administration COVID adviser Andy Slavitt about precisely this issue. A Danish expatriate himself, Andersen has been observing his home country closely in recent weeks — and he is worried about the message it’s sending, particularly to places like the U.S. that are far less protected and far more divided than Denmark.
“Saying, ‘Look, we’re going to lower all these remaining restrictions, because it’s not reasonable to put them on people and we want people to make their own decisions’ — I get that,” Andersen said on Slavitt’s podcast.
However, Andersen said, “we have to be realistic. If we say we’re not going to have restrictions, it’s up to you to get your boosters and wear a face mask if you can — if we say that’s your decision entirely — we should probably expect that for the next few years to come that most people will get infected a couple of times a year. And we should expect 200,000 to 250,000 deaths [a year] in this country alone.”
If officials make that clear up front, Andersen continued, “then that is the decision we make, and we can agree or disagree on whether we think that’s acceptable. But that’s a very, very different conversation [from] what they’re doing in Denmark.”
The alternative, Andersen said, is fairly straightforward — a middle path that allows restrictions to toggle on and off in response to changing conditions, and that places greater emphasis on innovation.
“It’s saying, ‘We’re going to lower these restrictions, but we’re going to innovate the heck out of this,’” he explained. “We can get better home testing, better masks, better vaccines, better antivirals. … That is where I would like to see us go, because that gets us to a place faster where the virus is going to be much less of a concern.”
“But it also requires that we realize [COVID] is going to be a problem we’re going to continue to deal with during the next five to 10 years,” Andersen concluded. “If we say it’s all over, my concern is that the innovation stops. Because then it’s like, ‘Well, what’s the point?’”
Animal exploitation group calls for investigation into Ames USDA facility
Danielle Gehr, Ames Tribune Thu, February 17, 2022, USDA National Center for Animal Health building in Ames,
where allegations of animal exploitation have been made.
An animal exploitation abolitionist group filed complaints against an Ames United States Department of Agriculture facility after a death of a fawn in their care and the misplacing of four others.
In a letter to USDA Director of Welfare Operations Robert Gibbens, Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! calls for the firing of personnel at the Ames National Animal Disease Center, 1920 Dayton Ave., and an investigation over two incidents, one leading to the death of a fawn.
"We believe it's important to stand up for the animals in every animal laboratory," SAEN founder Michael Budkie said. "It is extremely hypocritical for them (USDA) to be citing other laboratories for violating the Animal Welfare Act when they can't live up to it themselves."
The Ames facility and the USDA Animal Plant & Health Inspection did not return requests for comment. The facility has more than 3,000 animals, according to a USDA report, more than two-thirds of which are mice. The facility has 116 deer in its care.
In one incident cited by SAEN, a student employee ran over the fawn at 6:30 a.m. June 8 during a morning search for fawns. The fawn later died.
In another incident, deer were left locked in a working box July 7 where they remained for the next three days until they were discovered. According to a USDA report, an adequate headcount of the deer had not been completed for several days.
The report described the four deer as "hungry" when found and it is unclear whether they had any access to food.
"If there had been any health issues with these animals, they could have become serious, even fatal, due to the lack of observation," the letter reads.
The organization asserts these are violations of the Animal Welfare Act. The incidents violated USDA "Animal Handling" guidelines and "personnel qualifications," SAEN argues, "because thoroughly trained and qualified staff would actually have noticed that they were missing four deer."
SAEN filed three other recent complaints against USDA facilities across the country, including an incident where 106 cattle were left without water in extreme heat in Montana and a facility in Nebraska where a calf was run over by staff.
The Animal Welfare Act requires a committee review, and investigation if necessary, regarding any concerns of animal welfare. Budkie said SAEN has not yet received an acknowledgment of the complaint.
Danielle Gehr is a politics and government reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached by email at dgehr@gannett.com, phone at (515) 663-6925 or on Twitter at @Dani_Gehr.
A state-backed group in China has added more companies to its committee focused on developing the metaverse, reports said Wednesday.
State-owned China Mobile started the committee that's working on creating standards and discussing technology projects for the emerging industry.
The committee's membership of companies and individuals has increased to 112.
China is extending its push to put its stamp on the development of the online virtual world known as the metaverse, enlisting more companies to work on related technological and industry projects, according to reports Wednesday.
The China Mobile Communication Association's metaverse industry committee has added 17 new companies to its roster, and three of them are publicly listed in local markets, according to Reuters, citing a notice on the committee's website. The move boosts the committee's membership of companies and individuals to 112. State-owned China Mobile started the committee last year and is focused on creating standards and discussing technology projects for the emerging industry.
The committee is among the initiatives that involve state-backed groups and local officials in China seeking stakes in metaverse companies, according to the Financial Times. Its report Wednesday noted that a district in Beijing last month established a fund to help financially support metaverse start-ups and research. China's Huawei Technologies and Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms are among major tech companies putting money and resources into metaverse activities. Analysts have predicted the metaverse will be a massive growth opportunity, with Goldman Sachs projecting it to become an $8 trillion market.
BRO KULTURE
Microsoft's Activision Acquisition Triggers Regulatory Subpoenas Over Workplace Harassment
Anusuya Lahiri Fri, February 18, 2022
The Wall Street Journal reports that federal and state regulators have broadened their investigations into Activision Blizzard Inc's (NASDAQ: ATVI) leadership role in handling workplace misconduct claims.
State watchdog, The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing subpoenaed Activision's directors over its workplace issues.
It also has subpoenaed police departments in the Los Angeles area for records related to CEO Bobby Kotick and 18 other current and former Activision employees.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M HAMBURGALER Family behind Fatburger under investigation for alleged fraud, money laundering, records show
Matt Hamilton Sat, February 19, 2022 Andrew Wiederhorn, CEO of Fat Brands, at their corporate offices in Beverly Hills on Sept. 19, 2017. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Federal authorities have been investigating Andrew Wiederhorn, chief executive of the company that owns the Fatburger and Johnny Rockets restaurant chains, and examining one of his family member’s actions as part of an inquiry into allegations of securities and wire fraud, money laundering and attempted tax evasion, court records show.
During the probe, federal agents in December raided the Beverly Grove home of Wiederhorn's son Thayer and daughter-in-law Brooke Wiederhorn, according to search warrant records filed in court.
Brooke is not named in court records reviewed by The Times. She's the oldest daughter of actress and erstwhile "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Kim Richards, and her 2014 nuptials to Thayer were chronicled on the Bravo reality TV show.
Agents hauled away phones, digital storage devices, tax documents and other records from the couple's residence, according to court filings.
Federal investigators also sought a judge’s permission to search the elder Wiederhorn’s Beverly Hills mansion, although court filings do not indicate whether that raid took place. They also monitored him walking his dogs by the property last year.
In a November affidavit outlining the investigation, a special agent for the FBI focusing on complex financial crimes alleged that Wiederhorn, 56, had “devised and executed a fraudulent scheme” to avoid paying taxes and received “millions of dollars in sham loans” through his companies.
The affidavit identifies years of credit card purchases by Wiederhorn, his children, and other relatives — $183,500 at a London jeweler; $150,000 apparently for a down payment on a Rolls-Royce; more than $100,000 to a Beverly Hills divorce attorney — and alleges they were "paid primarily" out of accounts held by an affiliate of the publicly traded FAT Brands.
The filing also alleges that Wiederhorn generated millions of American Express rewards points by routing company money through his son's PayPal account.
The agent concluded there was probable cause that Wiederhorn "engaged in the following criminal conduct," including tax offenses, misrepresentations to investors, and fraud offenses "relating to personal expenses that Wiederhorn caused FAT ... to pay."
The status of the investigation is unclear. No charges have been filed against any person or against FAT Brands, of which Wiederhorn is the largest shareholder.
His attorney, Douglas Fuchs of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said in a statement late Friday that "Mr. Wiederhorn categorically denies these allegations and at the appropriate time we will demonstrate that the government has its facts wrong."
"These loans were completely legitimate and were independently reviewed and approved. In addition, Mr. Wiederhorn’s tax returns were prepared and approved by independent tax professionals and he has been making payments under a plan approved by the IRS," Fuchs said in the statement.
"We are unable to comment more specifically on the allegations because despite our requests, the government has refused to provide us with a copy of the affidavit."
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment. Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in L.A., said she could not confirm or deny an investigation.
Beverly Hills-based FAT Brands said late Friday: "The government has informed FAT Brands of its investigation and the Company is fully cooperating."
The inquiry comes nearly two decades after Wiederhorn was first ensnared in financial crimes. In 2004, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Oregon to charges of paying an illegal gratuity to an associate and to filing a false tax return. He spent 15 months in federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., and paid a $2-million fine.
The day before he pleaded guilty, the company he led, Fog Cutter Capital, awarded him a $2-million bonus and agreed to keep paying him during his incarceration.
The arrangement prompted New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to bestow on Wiederhorn his inaugural "award for greed," writing: "I can't think of a board that has ever so disgraced the principles of corporate governance by overpaying a CEO even as he sits in prison."
Once released, Wiederhorn embarked on a public relations campaign to restore his and his family’s reputations, including an appearance on "Undercover Boss" at a Fatburger restaurant in Mesa, Ariz.
“I’ve always adamantly denied doing anything wrong intentionally,” Wiederhorn told The Times in 2017. “I’m very grateful for it. I felt like I paid the fine. I did the time. I did everything I was supposed to do to make this go away and put it behind me.”
That interview came just before Wiederhorn took FAT Brands public, with the goal of expanding from nearly 300 restaurants to 500 in the U.S. and overseas. The company has since grown to more than 2,000 outlets — mostly as franchises — by acquiring sports bar Twin Peaks, Italian restaurant chain Fazoli's, Round Table Pizza and Marble Slab Creamery, among other brands.
Wiederhorn even considered purchasing Del Taco, but decided "that was just going to be a lot of work," he told a food service podcast last year.
The aggressive expansion has taken place amid a backdrop of some investor ire. In June 2021, a shareholder lawsuit filed against FAT Brands in Delaware accused Wiederhorn of "looting" the company and "bleeding it of its cash." The suit referenced loans issued to him that were later forgiven and numerous members of Wiederhorn's family who were on the payroll earning six-figure salaries.
Attorneys for Wiederhorn and the company have countered that the suit didn't allege they had done anything wrong.
It is unclear what prompted the recent investigation by the FBI, whose agents appear to have pored over Wiederhorn’s banking, loan and tax records.
Part of the inquiry outlined in the affidavit examined whether Wiederhorn filed a false tax return, citing discrepancies between loan applications. His 2018 tax return listed income of $403,311 and, in 2017, income of $395,508, according to the court filing.
But in applications for a car loan and home purchase in 2018, he reported earning $200,000 per month, or about $2.4 million per year.
The affidavit makes ample references to Wiederhorn's "luxurious lifestyle" — a $24,739 bill at Hotel Byblos in Saint-Tropez and $29,913 at Hotel Arts Barcelona — while the Internal Revenue Service has clamored for unpaid income taxes over the last decade.
Wiederhorn has entered into several "installment agreements" to pay back taxes. The filing notes he was complying with his current installment plan, but as of November 2021, he owed nearly $3 million in personal income taxes, penalties and interest.
The FBI agent also outlined how he believes Wiederhorn "converted" money from FAT Brands and its affiliates via credit cards that show purchases at Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani and Restoration Hardware.
One of Wiederhorn’s cards had subaccounts for credit cards issued to his six children, his mother, personal household employees, his ex-wife and others. Their charges include “significant expenses, which appear to be personal in nature,” such as doctor bills, clothing, shoes, mattresses, groceries, tutoring services and pet care.
From October 2017 — the date of FAT Brands' initial public offering — to May 2019, about $5 million from the company or its subsidiaries went to cover various Wiederhorn credit card balances, according to the court filing.
Thayer Wiederhorn, an executive at FAT Brands, is referenced specifically in connection with an alleged scheme to route millions of dollars of company money through American Express charges to a PayPal account bearing his name. The FBI agent suggests the apparent goal was to generate credit card rewards points for his father.
The court records describe the scheme as “round-trip transactions," with money traveling from the younger Wiederhorn's PayPal account, to his personal Bank of America accounts, and back to FAT or its subsidiaries.
The FBI agent tabulated a cost more than $250,000 in fees to PayPal out of about $9 million that traveled "round trip."
Those $250,000 in fees were spent "for no legitimate corporate purpose," the FBI agent wrote, but "to further Wiederhorn's fraudulent scheme."
Times researcher Cary Schneider contributed to this report.
QUIT COVERING UP FOR CELIBACY FAIL Vatican ponders priesthood amid abuse research, revelations
Pope Francis arrives to attend his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. The Vatican this week is hosting a three-day symposium on the Catholic priesthood amid renewed public attention to clergy sex abuse scandals and fresh research into the abuses of priestly power that harm children as well as adults.
(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
NICOLE WINFIELD Wed, February 16, 2022
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican this week is hosting a three-day symposium on the Catholic priesthood amid renewed public attention on clergy sex abuse scandals and fresh research into the abuses of priestly power that harm both children and adults.
Pope Francis opens the symposium Thursday, and no fewer than a half-dozen Vatican cardinals are scheduled to either address the conference or preside over its sessions.
The high-level lineup suggests the topic has particular relevance as the Catholic hierarchy grapples with dwindling numbers of priests in Europe and the Americas and calls for a reform of everything from celibacy requirements to the role of women in the church.
But the sex abuse scandals are still making news, most recently with allegations that Pope Benedict XVI botched cases when he was an archbishop. While such revelations have been emerging for decades, new attention is focused on clergy who abuse their power to engage in sexual activity with adults, oftentimes abusing them spiritually in the process.
Recent developments have shed light on a problem the Vatican has long tried to ignore. These include the #MeToo movement, revelations of nuns abused by priests and the scandal over disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked in 2019 after the Vatican determined he bedded adult seminarians as well as minors.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis told his fellow bishops over a year ago that the McCarrick scandal “gives us the moment to speak about” the abuse of adults in the Church, and to do some “mature thinking” about how to address their trauma and the clergy who cause it.
The Catholic hierarchy has long insisted that these are consensual “affairs” between adults that are sinful for the priest but not criminal. But recent Catholic scholarship underscores that the behavior amounts to professional sexual misconduct, and that victims are traumatized both by the acts themselves and the church's dismissive response.
Recently a team of German researchers published an anthology of 23 women who describe the spiritual and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of priests, many of them current or former nuns but some laywomen as well.
The women described being trapped in toxic relationships with purportedly celibate, holy men, unable to break free because of the trauma bonds they formed with their abusers.
The stories were the subject of a conference this month organized by the Centre for Safeguarding Minors and Vulnerable Persons at the Catholic St. Paul University in Ottawa.
“There is a growing community, a network of academics, scholars and survivors,” said Doris Reisinger, a former nun and survivor of adult abuse who has become a leading researcher in the field.
Australian researcher Stephen De Weger recently published a thesis on the sexual abuse of adults which also examined the role the purportedly celibate priesthood has in the problem. He took as a starting point the estimate by the late Richard Sipe, a former priest and researcher, and confirmed by other studies, that only about 50% of priests abide by their vow of chastity, and that clerics are far more likely to engage in sexual misconduct with adults than children.
He noted that Australia’s Royal Commission investigation into institutional abuse found nearly 30,000 adults had been “sexually involved” with Australian Catholic clergy since the 1950s. Much of the scandal over the sex abuse of minors, De Weger argued, was due to the culture of secrecy created by religious superiors who didn't take action against priestly pedophiles because they had their own sexual skeletons in the closet.
“They don’t want this stuff exposed,” De Weger said in a phone interview. “Why? Because the male, supposedly celibate clergy are the core central power base of the church. If you start exposing the fact, that like Sipe says, 50% have given up on chastity, that’s going to really rock their power to the core.”
While this week's Vatican conference isn't expected to tackle such problems, celibacy and the role of women in the church are on the official agenda.
One of the speakers, theologian Michelina Tenace, told a Vatican press conference that the abuse scandals were evidence the whole process of discerning priestly vocations and training seminarians must be rethought.
“One way to verify the call to the priesthood must be to never aspire to any power,” she said.
POLITICAL ECOLOGY
Exclusive-India makes record U.S. soyoil purchases as drought parches South America A combine harvester is used to harvest soybeans on a farmland in Chivilcoy,
on the outskirts of Buenos Aires
Fri, February 18, 2022 By Rajendra Jadhav
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian traders have contracted to import a record 100,000 tonnes of soyoil from the United States because of limited supplies from drought-hit South America, at a time when prices of rival palm oil are scaling record highs, three dealers told Reuters.
The higher purchases from the United States are expected to support U.S. soy oil prices, which have climbed nearly 20% this year to close to their highest in a decade, fuelling worries about food inflation.
The world's biggest edible oil importer traditionally buys soyoil from Argentina and Brazil, but lower bean output in these two leading exporters of the commodity forced New Delhi to turn to the United States, they said.
"Indian buyers have bought U.S soyoil vessels. Prices were attractive and supplies were not enough in South America," said the India head of a global trading firm, who sought anonymity because of the company's policy.
"Buying of another two vessels in the short term is possible."
India usually gets two-thirds of its soyoil needs from Argentina, and the rest from Brazil.
But last season's reduced soybean output has tightened soyoil reserves in Argentina, forcing Indian buyers to shop around for alternatives, such as sunoil from the Black Sea region.
"Sunflower oil is cheaper than palm and soyoil, but some buyers are sceptical about deliveries because of geopolitical tension (in Russia)," said Sandeep Bajoria, chief executive of Sunvin Group, a vegetable oil brokerage and consultancy firm.
"They are going with soyoil."
Crude palm oil (CPO) is being offered at about $1,575 a tonne, including cost, insurance and freight (CIF), in India for March shipments, compared with $1,620 for crude soybean oil and $1,515 for crude sunflower oil, traders said.
Soyoil was cheaper than palm and sunflower oil last month, but the sudden jump in soyoil demand has lifted prices by 16% in a month to the highest in 14 years, traders said. SUPPLY SQUEEZE India gets nearly two-thirds of its edible oil needs through imports, mainly palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.
But Indonesia's decision to curb palm oil exports has lifted the price of the tropical oil to a record and created scarcity in the edible oil market, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.
"Edible oil importers were looking for an alternative in the form of soyoil, but massive output reduction is going on for the soybean crop in South America," the dealer said.
This month, Brazilian statistics agency Conab slashed its soy output estimate for the 2021/2022 cycle by about 15 million tonnes, while Paraguay's soybean harvest could fall by as much as half.
Top soyoil exporter Argentina also faces a drop of 5 million tonnes in soybean output for 2021/22.
In addition, lower water levels on Argentina's key Parana river have left it struggling to fully load soybean vessels, so that cargo sizes have been reduced by up to 30%.
On the other hand, the United States faces a potential surplus of soyoil after the Biden administration proposed cutting the biofuel blending mandate, another dealer with a trading firm said.
India could import as much as 160,000 tonnes of soyoil from the United States in 2021/22, up from 36,000 tonnes a year ago, he said.
Indian traders also signed deals to import 30,000 tonnes of soyoil from the Black Sea region, but port congestion is delaying shipments, said the India head of a global trading firm.
(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants workers to be renamed as 'metamates'
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to further push the company formerly known as Facebook into the metaverse.
Video Transcript
BRIAN SOZZI: Well, let's stay on unusual, Julie, because Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder, wants his employees to be known as Meta Mates. I guess that makes us, Julie, Yahoo's. But again, Meta Mates just really corporate jargon. That really means absolutely nothing. You mean to tell me if you're in Facebook's headquarters if you happen to be there at all, you're going to go up to a water cooler or the coffee cooler and say, hey, what's up, Meta Mate? Probably not. I think it just shows the clear disconnect between the management team over at Meta and probably a lot of employees inside the company right now.
JULIE HYMAN: Well, apparently, this stems from something that they use over at Instagram, which comes from a Naval phrase, which is ship, shipmates, self. Like, that's--
BRIAN SOZZI: Sure, OK.
JULIE HYMAN: --how you think about it, OK?
BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah.
JULIE HYMAN: But I don't know that that extends to Meta, Meta Mates, me, which is what Zuckerberg talked about. I mean, it's just-- in addition to everything else, I think that the culture of Facebook is relevant because what we so frequently get from the company seems so disconnected from the outside world, in some ways, whether it's the development of the Metaverse itself, whether it's some of their reactions to some of the critiques leveled at the company. And this is just sort of a piece with that, maybe at times, tone deafness or insular nature of the company.
BRIAN SOZZI: If I walked-- if I worked at Facebook or Meta, Julie, and I went up to my colleague and said, hey, what's up, Meta Mate? Good morning. I would expect to be just ostracized from the group and not being talked to. Come on, come on. What, Tesla now is going to rename its employees Musk Mates? Get real here. Ridiculous.
JULIE HYMAN: OK, Yahoo, we'll talk about this later.
