Document confirming Patrick Flynn's statement on EPB's strict compliance measures.

Patrick Flynn Confirms EPB Strict Compliance

Document confirming Patrick Flynn’s statement on EPB’s strict compliance measures. 

This transcript is from the second call from Charlotte Grieve, posing as a consultant representing a corrupt government official looking for a bank account to hide dirty money. She is speaking with Patrick Flynn, who refers his clients to several offshore banks, including Euro Pacific Bank.

On page four, Patrick Flynn becomes suspicious and clearly tells Grieve he wants nothing to do with what appears to be illegal activity. Neither Grieve nor Mckenize revealed Flynn’s clear unwillingness to participate in an illegal scheme to public.

Flynn: Stop, stop, stop. So this is not something I want to get involved with, mate. It’s too hot.
Grieve: But it’s legitimate.
Flynn: No, it sounds like a bribe.
Grieve: No, it’s not a bribe.
Flynn: No, it smells like a secret commission. It’s just not the sort of thing I want to get involved with, I’ll be honest.
Grieve: Okay. But it’s not a bribe, it’s a legitimate contract.
Flynn: Nevertheless, it’s not the sort of… It’s a very risky area, and it’s not an area that I’ll be, in terms of my risk appetite, that I’d be prepared to work with.

Then on page five, Grieve finally mentions Euro Pacific Bank in Puerto Rico and asks how long it would take to open an account there. Flynn replies that it would take six to eight weeks. Grieve, seemingly surprised, asks why it would take so long and if it’s a complicated process. Flynn explained as follows:

“Is it a complicated process? How long is a piece of string? It’s a process. And you just have to work through the process. Basically, you’ve got to give the bank certified copies of the company, KYC regarding the funds of the foundation, counselors of the foundation, beneficiaries of the foundation. You’re going to provide a detailed business plan regarding the foundation. And then once that’s all submitted, the bank vets all that information. And then they start asking questions. Commonly, we’ll get one round of questions, we answer them, a second round of questions, we answer them, a third round of questions, we answer them, a fourth round of questions, we answer them. These sorts of entities, from the bank’s perspective, are regarded as high-risk customers. And so the bank asks a million questions before they eventually agree to open the bank account. And that’s why it takes so long.”

Then on page eight, Grieve asks Flynn to explain some of the negative reviews she read about the bank. Flynn replied with the following:

“Yeah. We’ve been working with them for about eight years and those negative reviews all come down to the bank… In certain transactions, the bank asks questions… What’s going on here? Why are you paying this money? Please present copies of documents proving why you’re paying this money. And clients don’t like that… They are a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes. If you send money, before they process the transaction, they want to know, why are you sending this money? Show me your copy of the contract. We need to know it’s a legitimate transaction. That can be a bit painful. I’m prepared to put up with the pain in order to get the benefit.”

So Flynn clearly told Grieve that Euro Pacific Bank’s compliance was so rigorous that customers complained about it and that it was a pain in the ass that customers have to put up with if they want the benefits of having an account there. However, Nine omitted all of these exculpatory statements from the highly edited clips they included in the 60 Minutes broadcast or referenced in The Age article.

The entire premise of both the broadcast and the article was that Euro Pacific Bank had lax compliance, that the bank didn’t do the type of KYC and AML that most other banks did. In actuality, when it came to AML and KYC, Euro Pacific Bank went above and beyond what most other banks did. The “journalists” knew this from their “investigation” but lied to the public about what they found to create the false impression that the bank was guilty of facilitating tax evasion and money laundering.