David Hauenstein

Criminal charges are being prepared in the British Virgin Islands against a Bermuda domiciled investment fund that is suspected of being a money laundering vehicle for Russia's Telecommunications Minister, Leonid Reiman.The BVI authorities have drafted "preliminary charges" against IPOC International

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in the British Virgin Islands into IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd., Jeffrey Galmond, Michael Ludwig Rudolf North, Lapal Limited, Albany Invest Limited and Mercury Import Limited for allegedly laundering the proceeds of corruption by Russia's Minister of Telecommunications, Leonid Reiman.

A James Bond-like tale involving allegations of corporate espionage, bribery, corruption, and a Bermuda Government whitewash of a suspected $1 billion money laundering scheme is unfolding in a U. S. court. Among the cast of characters are Russia's Telecommunications Minister, Leonid Reiman; a Bermuda-based, so-called mutual fund in which Reiman appears to be the only investor and which he may have used to launder the proceeds of corruption, IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd.; IPOC's banker, fund administrator, custodian, and accountant, Bermuda Commercial Bank; IPOC's Bermuda representative and provider of various services, including directors and officers, Wakefield Quin; the firm appointed by Bermuda's Minister of Finance to investigate IPOC, KPMG Financial Advisory Services Ltd.; and Diligence LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence-gathering firm that is headed by a former officer of the U.K. Security Service known as MI5 and whose advisors include a former Director of the CIA and the FBI.

The founding president/director of a Bermuda-registered open-ended mutual fund has resigned after it was disclosed that he had served a prison term in Germany in 1997-99 for fraud and embezzlement. Vidya Sharma, apparently a former Merrill Lynch banker, stepped down from IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd. in October of last year after his criminal conviction came out during court proceedings involving the Fund in the British Virgin Islands.