Nicolas Louis Deák (8 October 1905, Hátszeg, Transylvania, Hungary (now Hațeg, Romania) — 18 November 1985, New York City, US) was a Hungarian-born American banker, chairman of the Deak-Perera group and a secret service operative, serving both in the OSS during World War II and its successor the CIA during the Cold War. [1] [2]
Deak earned a Ph.D. from the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland in 1929. In 1939 he came to New York to open Deak & Company, a foreign exchange business. During World War II he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, serving in Egypt, Burma, Thailand and Malaya. In 1946 he returned to New York and resumed his business, subsequently acquiring Perera U.S., Inc. His business expanded into banking and dealing in gold coins and bullion. [3]
His worldwide financial group, spanning both legitimate enterprises and fronts for CIA operations, was shaken in the late '70s and early '80s by multiple scandals involving money laundering and criminal connections. In 1984, Deak & Co. faced allegations from the President's Commission on Organized Crime that they laundered money for Latin American drug traffickers, facilitated the Lockheed bribery scandals, and smuggled currency from the Philippines. [4] [5] [6] [7] As a result, Deak & Co. declared bankruptcy in December 1984 in order to reorganize. [4] [8] In 1985, the company was purchased by a Singapore lawyer for $52 million — the most valued asset was Deak's Swiss bank. [9] [10] In 1986, the foreign exchange and gold business was sold to Australia's Martin Properties Ltd. (later renamed Deak Morgan [11] ) for $12 million. [12] [13] [14] In the following year, the company was transferred to New Zealand based NZI and expanded its gold coin dealerships by one-third. [15] At the same time, Deak Investor Services, Inc. changed its name to Deak International Goldline Ltd.
On November 18, 1985, a mentally unstable and homeless woman, Lois Lang, entered Deak's office and shot and killed both Deak and his receptionist. Lang was arrested and tried in court. She had claimed that she was a part owner of Deak & Co. and said that she had suffered some injustice from the company. She was initially institutionalized at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, but later sent to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. Because of Deak's work for the intelligence community and the company's involvement with money laundering some theories have been suggested that Deak was targeted for assassination. [16]
Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, underground sex work, terrorism, corruption, embezzlement, and gambling, and converting the funds into a seemingly legitimate source, usually through a front organization.
The Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, is a financial institution that is situated inside Vatican City and run by a Board of Superintendence, which reports to a Commission of Cardinals and the Pope. It is not a private bank, as there are no owners or shareholders; it has been established in the form of a juridical canonical foundation, pursuant to its statutes. Since 9 July 2014, its president is Jean-Baptiste de Franssu. The IOR is regulated by the Vatican's financial supervisory body ASIF.
Standard Chartered PLC is a British multinational bank with operations in consumer, corporate and investment banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retail banking in the UK, and around 90% of its profits come from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
The Brink's-Mat robbery was one of the largest robberies in British history, with £26 million worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash stolen. It occurred at the Heathrow International Trading Estate, London, on 26 November 1983, from a warehouse operated by Brink's-Mat, a former joint venture between US security company Brink's and London-based company MAT Transport. The bullion was the property of Johnson Matthey Bankers Ltd. Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson were convicted of armed robbery. Most of the gold has never been recovered. Lloyd's of London paid out for the losses, and several shooting deaths have been linked to the case.
Michele Sindona was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as "The Shark", Sindona was a banker for the Sicilian Mafia and the Vatican. Sindona was a member of the fascist Propaganda Due (#0501), a secret Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy. He was fatally poisoned in prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli.
The Sonora Cartel, also known as Caro Quintero Organization, was a Mexico based criminal cartel. Upon the cartel's disintegration, its leaders were incorporated into the Tijuana Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel.
ITC Hotels is an Indian hotel chain, which is a part of the ITC Limited. With over 100 hotels, it is India's third largest hotel chain. It has a franchise agreement to operate most of its hotels as part of The Luxury Collection of Marriott International.
Shearson was the name of a series of investment banking and retail brokerage firms from 1902 until 1994, named for Edward Shearson and the firm he founded, Shearson Hammill & Co. Among Shearson's most notable incarnations were Shearson / American Express, Shearson Lehman / American Express, Shearson Lehman Brothers, Shearson Lehman Hutton and finally Smith Barney Shearson.
Vito Roberto Palazzolo is an Italian businessman previously living in South Africa. Born in Terrasini, he moved to South Africa in the mid-1980s. He also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian Mafia, an allegation he denies. In March 2009, the highest court in Italy confirmed a 2006 nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia. He is alleged to be a Mafia treasurer linked to Bernardo Provenzano, the Mafia boss arrested in April 2006 in Corleone, Sicily, and his predecessor Salvatore Riina, both serving life sentences in Italian jails. Palazzolo maintains his innocence and claims that he has been persecuted by the Italian government, the press, lawyers, politicians, and "opportunists" for many years. On March 30, 2012 Palazzolo was arrested by Interpol at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand.
Goldline, LLC was a retail seller of gold and silver coins, and other precious metals for investors and collectors. Goldline traced its formation to a Deak & Co. subsidiary created in 1960, a firm that in the late 1970s was the largest storefront gold retailer and later went into bankruptcy in the 1980s. The company was later bought and sold several times in the ensuing years. The company sold its assets to A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc. in August 2017.
Rana Kapoor is an Indian former banker who was the founder, managing director and CEO of Yes Bank, an Indian private sector bank. Following a career in financial institutions, he co-founded Yes Bank in 2003, with its registered office in Mumbai. He was appointed as the president of ASSOCHAM in July 2013, and was succeeded by Sunil Katoria after serving his two year term.
Arkadi Kuhlmann is an American-Canadian businessman. He is best known as a banker, having been CEO of both ING Direct Canada and ING Direct USA. In July 2012, Arkadi founded his sixth banking startup, ZenBanx, and was as its CEO before selling the business to SoFi in February 2017.
ScotiaMocatta, originally founded as Mocatta Bullion in 1684, was a precious metal and base metal trading company that operated as the metals trading division of the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) from 1997 until January 2019.
Dan Gernatt Farms is a dairy farming, and horse breeding and racing enterprise, located in the Western New York town of Collins. Daniel R. Gernatt, Sr. and Flavia C. (Schmitz) Gernatt co-owned and established Dan Gernatt Farms in 1938. They built up their farming business, being recognized in the 1950s as having the largest milking dairy herd in Erie County.
Alberto Youssef is a Brazilian black-market banker. He has been implicated in several of Brazil's largest scandals during the past generation. He was a figure in the Banestado scandal, and later was a major target of Operation Car Wash, the official investigation of corruption surrounding Petrobras, the government-controlled oil company.
Edemar Cid Ferreira was a Brazilian economist, banker, and art collector. He was the founder and head of Banco Santos, which went bankrupt in September 2005. Ferreira was convicted in Brazil of bank fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering. He began serving 21-year prison sentence in December 2006. As part of the case, a judge ordered the search, seizure and confiscation of assets that were acquired with illegally obtained funds from Banco Santos. Ferreira assembled a 12,000-piece art collection while he controlled Banco Santos. Before his arrest, he smuggled his collection out of Brazil. The United States government seized items from a storage facility in New York that did not comply with customs laws. They returned Basquiat's Hannibal painting, a Roy Lichtenstein, a painting by Joaquín Torres-García, a Serge Poliakoff, and other works with an estimated value of $20 million to $30 million.
K. P. Shashika Udari Perera, popularly known as Udari Perera, is a Sri Lankan film actress and model. In 2016, she won the title Mrs. Sri Lanka and subsequently participated in the Mrs. Universe pageant.
Hannibal is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1982. The artwork, which features his signature skull and crown motifs, was sold at Sotheby's for $13.1 million in October 2016.
Hawala and crime describes notable examples of hawala used in money laundering.
Lionello Arturo Lopes Perera was a banker, philanthropist and patron of the arts and music, active in New York at the beginning of the 20th century.
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