CHERUB: The Syndicate

21: Scheme

When Katie got back, just after one in the morning, she looked like death warmed up following twenty-six hours sitting on various aeroplanes. Alice made her a strong black coffee so she'd be semi-awake for the briefing, to which Linda and Dawn were accompanied by the mission controller, Pete, who shook both their hands with a wide grin.

"Just flew in from Britain for the grand finale," he chuckled. "I've been keeping a close eye on it and you've done a better job than anyone had expected."

Katie settled down in an armchair with her drink. "What's the situation?"

"In a nutshell, we've been through everything we've got about Zach and his financial dealings and we're almost there," Dawn said. "The problem is, we don't have as much as we need."

Pete took over. "Minor financial offences rarely carry heavy prison sentences because the criminals are unlikely to be violent and they aren't actually making contact with their victims. This means that even with a really solid case, Zach would only be looking at a year or two in prison, or less. The biggest benefit to us would be destabilising the Syndicate and hopefully destroying the networks it uses, which was the initial aim of the mission. However, since we know he's off in Burma making deals with drug suppliers, we've got an unprecedented opportunity to hit him with the charge of money laundering, which here in Australia has a maximum sentence of twenty-five years."

George cracked a grin. "Sounds like a good deal to me."

"There are two legal points we need to consider," Pete continued. "Firstly, we needed to find out the amount of money being used to fund the drug suppliers. Sometime this morning a number of associates of Zach's began the process of withdrawing about AU$2.5 million in US dollars through the travel agency in Melbourne, in bursts of AU$10,000 at a time. We're ninety percent sure this is money intended for the suppliers.

"Secondly we need to prove that Zach knows that the money is being used to purchase drugs. In court, he'll claim that the money is clean and that he didn't know it was being used illegally, which will cut down his sentence in a big way. We've got about twenty-four hours to find concrete evidence to prove him wrong before he moves the money out of Australia and distances himself from it. A key part are the photographs that you took, Katie, in Bangkok airport. The men he's meeting with are wanted for importing drugs into Japan and Korea. This, combined with other evidence we've obtained from Katie's job at the travel agency and through Alice, is probably enough to prove he knows it's being used illegally, or at least to prove he's aware that it might be."

"So we just need evidence he knows the money is dirty?" Katie asked.

"Almost. Our chances of proving that the money was originally the proceeds of crime are low, but we've got a good chance of proving that he laundered the money so it could be used for crime, which, in law, amounts to the same thing. All of the money the Syndicate has withdrawn has passed through a holding company first, which is registered in the Cayman Islands under anonymous ownership."

"What's a holding company?" George asked, and Katie replied after finishing the dregs of her coffee.

"It's a company that basically owns other companies. They're normally used for tax avoidance."

Pete nodded. "Since it's owned anonymously we can't prove that Zach knows anything about it. However, a separate investigation into an Anglo-American bank by the British security services back in March led to a list of financial transactions undertaken by the bank, along with who was making the transactions. One of these, between our holding company and the University of Melbourne, bounced, and the bank tried to resolve the issue by phoning the university. They put the bank through to someone at the holding company, and the diligent telephone operator in the States recorded in their system that the man she spoke to was one Zachary Kurjak." He finished with a flourish and Katie broke into a wide grin. George wasn't really sure why he should be so pleased, but it seemed like something important so he tried to look excited.