An Austrian banker accused of corruption arrived within the US to face federal costs that he conspired to launder a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} by way of the American monetary system, after preventing his extradition from the UK for 4 years.
Peter Weinzierl, former chief govt officer of Anglo Austrian AAB Financial institution AG, is now in custody on the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn, New York, in accordance with the Federal Bureau of Prisons web site, and is predicted to seem in federal courtroom in Brooklyn as we speak. He has denied the costs.
Weinzierl was indicted in 2020 for allegedly conspiring with Odebrecht SA — Latin America’s greatest building firm, now named Novonor — in a decade-long scheme to pay bribes to win enterprise all over the world. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn declare that in a single four-year interval, he helped Odebrecht transfer greater than $170 million from New York by way of the financial institution to offshore shell accounts. The financial institution, higher identified by its outdated title of Meinl Financial institution, wasn’t charged.
Odebrecht wasn’t named as a defendant in Weinzierl’s indictment, however the US stated in a 2020 courtroom submitting that his case was straight linked to a scandal across the Brazilian firm. Odebrecht admitted in 2016 that it engaged in a large graft and bid-rigging plot relationship again no less than to 2001 and involving a hidden unit dubbed the “Division of Bribery.” Weinzierl was charged with 4 counts, together with one depend of conspiracy and two of cash laundering.
His US attorneys, Claiborne Porter and Michael B. Nadler, didn’t return voicemails and emails in search of touch upon the case.
Weinzierl, 59, had argued that his 2021 arrest within the UK on the behest of US authorities was an abuse of the authorized course of. His UK attorneys stated their consumer was “lured” to fly his non-public jet to London by a US spy who had advised an individual near Weinzierl that he labored for the Central Intelligence Company — a declare that attorneys for the US declined to verify or deny. Weinzierl was arrested on the airfield.
In line with the US, Odebrecht wired cash to Meinl Financial institution from US accounts to e book false tax write-offs in Brazil. It then “layered most of the ensuing slush funds right into a Meinl subsidiary financial institution in Antigua and Barbuda with a purpose to pay bribes secretly to international officers and intermediaries,” prosecutors stated. The indictment detailed a dizzying variety of banks and shell corporations used within the alleged money-laundering scheme, together with banks in New York, Portugal, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Mozambique and Panama.
Prosecutors stated Friday Weinzierl ought to stay in federal custody whereas awaiting trial, saying he presents a critical flight danger as a result of he has no ties to the US and has “substantial belongings exterior the nation.”
“That extradition concerned a years-long battle that the defendant fought at each attainable step,” stated prosecutor Jonathan Siegel.
“So long as he remained in the UK, the defendant may have hope that he would evade US courtroom proceedings by preventing extradition,” Siegel wrote. “These hopes have now been dashed, and his incentive to flee has due to this fact by no means been larger.”
Based in 1923 as a financial savings membership for workers of Julius Meinl AG, a espresso and grocery chain that prospered below the Austro-Hungarian empire, the financial institution confronted collapse when the European Central Financial institution revoked its banking license. The ECB cited alleged failures within the prevention of cash laundering, together with in connection to Odebrecht. The financial institution entered into insolvency proceedings in 2020.
In its responsible plea, Odebrecht acknowledged making secret funds of about $788 million to international authorities officers, their representatives and political events. Whereas it agreed to pay $4.5 billion, a federal decide later decided it may afford solely $2.6 billion.
The case is US v. Weinzierl, 20-cr-383, US District Courtroom, Jap District of New York .
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