IPOC

On January 12, 2009, Bermuda and the USA signed a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, pursuant to which each country can formally apply to the other to obtain information for criminal investigations. The Bermuda Government lauded the agreement as "yet another

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.