Early this month, news broke of a multi-count indictment over a $50 million international securities fraud and money laundering scheme. Based on a release from the New York Department of Justice, six individuals and four brokerage/management corporations are involved … among them are Panayiotis Kyriacou, Arvinsingh Canaye, Adrian Baron, Linda Bullock, Aristos Aristodemou, Beaufort Securities Ltd., Loyal Bank Ltd. and Matthew Green (the London based art dealer).
According to the press release: the defendants engaged in an elaborate multi-year scheme [starting as early as 2011] to defraud the investing public of millions of dollars through deceit and manipulative stock trading, and then worked to launder the fraudulent proceeds through off-shore bank accounts and the art world. It goes on to report that between October 2017 and February 2018, Kyriacou; Aristodemou, the uncle of Kyriacou; and Green, the owner of an art gallery in London, United Kingdom, together with their co-conspirators, agreed to launder £6.7 million, the equivalent of over $9 million dollars, which the Undercover Agent represented to be the proceeds of securities fraud. After initially proposing the use of real estate investments to launder the funds, the co-conspirators devised a scheme to “clean up the money” through the purchase and subsequent sale of art … a 1965 Pablo Picasso painting titled Personnages. Of course, the charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.