Caribbean-based Investment Advisors, Attorney Plead Guilty To Laundering And Concealing Funds

WASHINGTON, D.C., CMC – The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) says two Caribbean-based investment advisors and an attorney have pleaded guilty to laundering and concealing funds in Offshore Bank accounts.

The DOJ said Joshua Vandyk, a US citizen, and Canadians nationals, Eric St-Cyr and Patrick Poulin, pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder monetary instruments in the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands.

The DOJ said Poulin, 41, Vandyk, 34, and St-Cyr, 50, were indicted by a grand jury on March 6, and the indictment was unsealed six days later after the defendants were arrested in Miami.

According to the plea agreements and statements of facts, Vandyk, St-Cyr and Poulin conspired to conceal and disguise the nature, location, source, ownership and control of property believed to be the proceeds of bank fraud, specifically US $2 million.

Vandyk, St-Cyr and Poulin assisted undercover law enforcement agents posing as US clients in laundering purported criminal proceeds through an offshore structure designed to conceal the true identity of the proceeds’ owners.

“This investigation highlights the Justice Department’s commitment to worldwide enforcement of federal laws designed to ensure that US taxpayers fully disclose and report all foreign income and assets,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ronald A. Cimino of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

“The Tax Division is committed to using every tool available to hold these wrongdoers accountable,” he added.

US Attorney Dana J. Boente for the Eastern District of Virginia said the three defendants “played a shell game by creating offshore entities designed to help their US clients evade taxes and other legal requirements, and they used that same shell game to launder purported criminal proceeds.

“We are committed to working with our law enforcement partners to penetrate and combat these schemes wherever they occur,” he added.

The three men will return to court at a later date for sentencing.