Transcript of an interview between John Chevis and Nick McKenzie.

Transcript of Interview between John Chevis and Nick McKenzie

Transcript of an interview between John Chevis and Nick McKenzie.

This is a transcript of McKenzie’s interview with John Chevis, that became a big part of the defamatory 60 Minutes Broadcast. But during that interview, Mckenzie led Chevis to make false conclusions by lying to him about me and the bank.  Based on all the lies, it’s no wonder that by page 21 Chevis concluded that I was “a character who looks to fly outside the rules.”
On page 9, Mckenzie initially told Chevis “Peter Schiff rather openly promotes tax minimization, not tax evasion. Is…”  But Chevis wasn’t able to hear that statement due to connection issues.  But when Mckenzie rephrased it on page 10, he lied and said the following instead.
“Okay. Uh, John, Euro Pacific Bank is in Puerto Rico, an offshore tax haven, openly promotes tax evasion. His father was a, a tax crook who was jailed repeatedly. How obvious red flags are these?”
So McKenzie knowingly mislead Chevis about my advocacy of tax evasion, then biased him further by telling him that I’m the son of a crook.
Chevis later commented on page 10,  “it was fairly apparent, uh, that Peter Schiff, um, was operating in a, in a manner that was intended to attract customers who were looking to either evade tax or perhaps launder money.” Yet the only evidence Chevis had to support this were the lies told to him by McKenzie. In fact, all of Mckenzie’s own research proved this was not the case. But Mckenzie did not share any of that research with Chevis. Instead he fed him a bunch of lies intended to evoke a particular response.
On page 11, Mckenzie than asked Chevis “how would you characterize Westpac’s decision to get into bed with Peter Schiff?”  “Getting into bed” clearly implies something sleazy was going on. But there was nothing sleazy about WestPac doing business with Euro Pacific Bank. Westpac did pay a $2 billion fine for violating AML rules on millions of transactions, but not a single one of those transactions involved Euro Pacific Bank.
On page 13, Mckenzie then asked Chevis “Why would Simon Anquetil, the engineer of Australia’s largest tax fraud want to bank with Euro Pacific Bank?”  But he neglected to tell Chevis that the bank turned down the Plubes Payroll account application, the company through which Anquetil and others committed that fraud, and that the bank had shut down an unrelated Anquetil account two years before he had any criminal record, based on compliance red flags. Fewer than a dozen transactions for less than $100K were effect in that account before it was frozen.
On page 14, Mckenzie then asked Chevis  “Why would someone like Darby Angel, a convicted drug trafficker want to set up a bank account at the Euro Pacific Bank?” But he neglected to tell Chevis that the conviction was over 20 years old, was a suspended sentence, and was hidden from public records based on Australian law for spent convictions. So my bank had no way of knowing about it.  He also neglected to tell Chevis that Darby had no other convictions in the twenty plus years since and that his Euro Pacific Bank account was never even funded.  In fact, when Mckenzie repeated “why would a drug trafficker want to put their money in a Puerto Rican bank?” he falsely implied Angel was still trafficking drugs.
Later on page 14, Mckenzie framed the following loaded and dishonest question. “The fact that so many crooks with recorded convictions have accounts at Euro Pacific Bank, what does it say about the bank’s due diligence? It’s obligation and seriousness? I’ll ask that again. The fact that multiple crooks, people with recorded criminal convictions and serious offending have bank accounts at Euro Pacific Bank, what does that say about the bank’s compliance culture?”
Chevis replied. “Well, it suggests that the bank wasn’t, uh, particularly robust in its approach to due diligence. It suggests that, that perhaps they were waiving customers through without actually, uh, really considering the risk that those customers were going to be placing proceeds of crime in the accounts that they were opening.
Sure, if the bank actually did have all these criminal clients, then Chevis response would make sense.  But in reality no crooks, or people with recorded convictions for serious offenses had accounts at Euro Pacific Bank, as its compliance was far to strict. But Mckenzie lied to Chevis to evoke the reply that he needed as a 60 Minutes soundbite.
In fact, in the Age article, McKenzie claimed the bank had hundreds of criminal customers. But in my winning defamation lawsuit they were not able to identify even one. That’s part of the reason they lost.