Gangsters Govt – 黑社会政府

Many years ago, gangsterism in Taiwan was so rife that there appeared to have a parallel govt run by the gangsters in the island. I am not too sure what is the situation today but it is quite often to see senior govt officials paying respect at the funerals of gangster chiefs. In the Chinese vocabulary, the secret societies are called 黑社会, or Black Society. This has become a friendly joke even here when wearing black becomes a fashion among the young and they were affectionately called 黑社会.

The pervasive presence of the Black Society in all walks of life emboldened them, particularly in the movie industry that they started to make movies to glorify their lifestyles, playing up on values like brotherhood, loyalty and honour and how good they were. I could still remember a movie starring Tony Leung as a secret society chief.  And they were having their clandestine ‘cabinet’ meeting in the spa pool. Several secret society chiefs were present.

Tony Leung proposed that they should go into politics, run for election and hold their meetings in Parliament in the next round. His idea was shockingly realistic. He told them that being members of the 黑社会, their main business was related to finance. They controlled the gambling dens, prostitution, drugs, smuggling people, and yes, money lending and money laundering in a big way. And there were similar legitimate organizations in the main stream society, casinos, stock exchange, social escort agencies, night clubs, pharmaceuticals, employment agencies, banking and finance and money laundering in a big way by the banks.

If only they were in Parliament, they could appoint their own finance minister, CEOs of banks, of casinos, of stock exchange, and all the related money making agencies legally. In other words, if the黑社会 was the govt in charge, they could take over the whole island. They could own the island by appointing their own secret society members and clans men themselves. Oh, the fighters, the hit men, can take over the police and the army as police commissioners and generals. If I am not mistaken, the黑社会  also has their justice system too.

The secret society chiefs gave him a standing ovation. They said, let’s do it and the stupid govt would not have a clue what was happening when they had taken over everything. And Tony Leung would be the natural President of the island. This was some thirty years ago. Obviously they did not succeed or the Black Society, 黑社会, would be running the island today.

It was a great practical thought then and they could succeed if the govt was weak and careless and did not know what was going on. The 黑社会 was well organized, and could conspire to achieve what they set out to do. They were not only as well organized as the political parties, except without legitimacy, they could be very ruthless working under cloak and dagger to get their ways and put their members in position of power.

Tsai Ing Wen or her predecessor Ma Ying Jeou don’t look like gangster chiefs from whatever angle you view them. Thank God it was only a movie. Can’t imagine what the island would become if the 黑社会, succeeded. They would be wearing black ties, black shirts and black suits in Parliament and making themselves very rich, controlling all the financial institutions and the casinos and the stock exchange in the island.

More transparency on the cheating under CHAS and PG card schemes

Would our MPs be asking more questions for more transparency and accountability in the cheat cases by medical and dental clinics? Or would it be that the question and answer session is over and everyone can go home and have a good sleep? Case aired in Parliament and case closed? How much have been claimed, how much have been cheated or falsely claimed by the clinics have yet to be established.

If people can be tarred and branded for life for a few dollars of indiscretion, what about the hundreds of thousands being pilfered from these two schemes? As Seah Kian Peng said, it is public money and a lot of public money at stake.

A few questions came to mind, what is the total amount of claims made by these

clinics since the scheme came into effect? How much were supposed to be subsidies? Can we have some numbers? Calling a few patients up to verify what kind of treatment they received in some suspicious cases would easily reveal the seriousness and pervasiveness of this scam.

How much public money have been wasted or cheated under the CHAS and PG

card schemes? Anyone think this is important enough to know?

All my rotten teeth can bear witness for nothing was done do them to improve their condition and well being. I am not accusing anyone of wrongdoings, but some verifications like audit checks on the patients, on what they were treated and the claims made on their behalf would remove all the doubts and expose any wrongdoing. Too difficult to do, not enough manpower? Don’t make aunty angry again.

Melania Trump’s speech

Melania was a Slovenian. Does that ring a bell? Third World?  She is beautiful and charming, an ex model and wife of Donald Trump, Republican’s nominee for the President of the USA and potentially the next first lady. She had to make a speech. In the US and in many countries, such speeches are written by professional speech writers, experts in crafting words that could work on the emotions of the audience.

Two experts were commissioned to write her speech. These are the equivalents of the straight As students here, the no bluff academic nerds that are really good in their stuff. It was reported that Melania turned to someone she trusted, a ‘Meredith McIver, a New York City-based former ballet dancer and
English major’ to rework the draft by the two professionals. Not sure if this Meredith is also from the third world, but she must have been impressive and trusted by Meredith. You need people with third world intellect or mentality to trust third world talents. This is our experience. If not there would not be so many third world ‘talents’ in high places hiring more third world ‘talents’ to replace our straight As daft.

Ok, back to the story. This brings me back to the sophomore years as students. Writing essays is a serious challenge to first or second year students. Many would copy profusely from what they read and patched them together as their essays. What plagiarism? What is that? Never heard of! And good stuff written and accepted by authors cannot be wrong.

How could the words of a first lady, so well praised be wrong? And I am going to be first lady and saying the same thing cannot be far wrong.  Good stuff. Anyway speeches are all written by speech writers, so what’s the dif?

Melania’s speech is going to be just a speech. When it is practiced country wide, to rely on third world ‘talents’ instead of daft straight As locals, that is a real serious problems. Being impressed by third world ‘talents’ reflects the intellect or or lack of intellect of the person being impressed. But that is a small consolation. The country or organizations and the people will be the victims of such stupidity.

This is a Kodak Moment at a mammoth scale. Melania’s Kodak Moment is just a flash in the pan, nothing to worry about. It is understandable for Melania to be impressed by someone she admired or trusted if you know that she was born in Slovenia. If she was born an American, brought up in the US and went through the educational system, she may have done differently, to trust the professional speech writers instead.

I will trust our daft straight As than the fakes of the third world with their glib tongues.

3 big banks, DBS, UBS and Stanchart, serious lapses in AML

I can expect the foreign banks to be involved in money laundering activities as many have been charged in the US and fined by the billions. It is looking like the main business of many big banks, to make big money to be paid big bucks. Were UBS and Stanchart also fined in the US for such ‘lapses’, not intentional money laundering? Anyone can confirm this?

DBS is as good as the national bank and to be found with anti money laundering lapses is a big surprise. It cannot be and definitely cannot be intentional. It must be due do some low level staff’s carelessness. DBS would never get stuck in this kind of shit. DBS would be the one setting the standard for everyone to follow, the flag bearer of Singapore, the cleanest and most incorruptible country in Asia.

I can swear DBS is clean and blameless. I have seen how it operates and have attended AML classes umpteen times, at least twice a year to remind us, little boys on the floor to be aware of money laundering activities. Anyone making payments of more than ten or twenty thousand dollars in cash would have to make a statement to declare where the money came from.

Here we are talking about millions, hundreds of millions. How can there be lapses for such big sums of money passing through the banks for so long and no one noticed, no one escalated this to higher management? The external parties transferring such monies must be very sophisticated to be undetected. They are professional money launderers, so cannot blame the bank staff. I am sure they have done their best and would have gone through intensive training on anti money laundering and would have known one if they saw one.

Trust DBS would do all the right things to check on money laundering. Not to be alarmed.  Everything is fine. It happened everywhere, in every big banks, in UBS, in Stanchart and in many big banks in the US and Europe.  It is part of the business risk in the industry. We are so lucky this is the first time it happened. I am sure nothing of this would ever happen again. All the holes would be plucked.

My only reservation is that little people like us would have to attend many many more AML courses to make sure we know what is money laundering and check on our clients closely, to know our clients well. We will make very sure that our little clients would not be involved in money laundering at our low level, at ground zero.

The Empire robbing Najib of his billions

Read in front page news that the Americans are going after the assets of Najib in the US worth more than US$1b. The Americans have unilaterally judged that the assets were illegally acquired using stolen money from 1MDB by Najib’s step son Riza Aziz, Najib’s friend Jho Low and Mohamed Badawy al-Husseiny. The best part, the Americans are forfeiting the money, all US$1b. Najib would now be US$1b poorer.

How can the Americans do that? Najib is not guilty of any charges in Malaysia and has accounted for all the money from 1MDB. The Americans must return the money to 1MDB, the rightful owner. How can the Americans keep the money?

This case is even better than the kangaroo court case on the South China Sea. At least the tribunal put up a show, like everything is legal and the arbitration was fairly done, by their own appointed judges and even convinced the nitwits around the world that it was UN backed. The Americans used the US Court of Justice to grab the money, not an international tribunal, not backed by the UN.

Najib must learn this lesson fast. Do not offend the Emperor. Unless Najib can say, ‘What is US$1b?’ And Najib’s govt is very close to the Americans, supporting the Americans in the South China Sea kangaroo court. Now getting a piece of the same American medicine for good taste. Perhaps if Najib had agreed to go along with another kangaroo court to sue China he may have been let off.  Alternatively he could have let Hishammudin send his naval flotilla to chase the Chinese Navy out of the South China Sea and everything would be fine with him and his assets.

How many more dumb Asians, Arabs and Africans are parking their money and assets in the US waiting to be seized and forfeited? This is not the first time it happened. It has happened many many times and dumb Asians, Arabs and Africans, 3A ratings, continue to repeat this silly mistake.

Oh, I forgot, stupidity has no cure. Singapore is also seriously and furiously investigating this 1MDB fraud and has also seized the properties related to … oh, it is Jho Low, not Najib.  Heng ah, or else Singapore would have another tight rope to walk.

Najib better be very careful. If they could do it to Erdogan, it can easily be his turn.