Local money laundering suspects deny charges

(CNS): Following revelations on CNS last month that Eric St-Cyr, the owner of a Cayman Islands based asset management company that was caught in a sting operation by US authorities, has denied money laundering charges and has been released on bail. St-Cyr, who is a Canadian national and the owner of Clover Asset Management, along with an employee of the firm, American citizen Joshua VanDyk, pleaded not guilty in a Virginia court this week and will face trial in July. Arrested in Miami by undercover IRS agents, the men are accused of agreeing to launder criminal proceeds for the purposes of tax evasion.

Attorney Patrick Poulin, who is based in Turks and Caicos, was also caught up in the offence and arrested with the two Cayman financiers as he allegedly assisted with the transfer of the cash through that jurisdiction as well.  Poulin has not yet answered the charges against him as he is still detained in Florida.

St-Cyr was originally remanded in custody but has since made bail, though his passport has been confiscated, preventing him from returning to Cayman, and he has been ordered to set up temporary residence in the area until trial and has posted a US$2 million bond.

According to the indictment, the men were asked by what they thought was a client to help launder ill-gotten gains from a US bank fraud. The men then reportedly created an offshore foundation domiciled in Cayman called "Zero Exposure Inc".

The men allegedly wired $200,000 from the USA last December from a bank in Arlington, Virginia, first to the Turks and Caicos Islands and then a few days later on to Cayman, where the cash was invested.

During the process of the alleged conspiracy, which was meant to see some $2 million laundered through Cayman, the court documents say that Vandyk and St Cyr told the US agents that they charged clients “more to launder criminal proceeds than to assist in tax evasion.”

A resident of Cayman for several years, St-Cry is also an amateur chef, having won the Bon Vivant contest at the 2012 Cayman Cook-off.