MARIANAS Consultancy Services and its sole member, Alfred Yue, are claiming ownership of funds seized from two Bank of Saipan accounts in 2019 totaling $310,276.26.
Represented by attorney Mark Hanson, Marianas Consultancy Services or MCS and Yue filed a verified claim in federal court on Feb. 7.
Hanson said MCS is the beneficial owner of the bank accounts from which the seized property was seized and the beneficial owner of all the seized property seized from those two bank accounts.
“As the sole member of MCS, Alfred Yue also has a vested property interest in some or all of the seized property as the beneficial owner/distributee of the profits and earnings of MCS and for payment or reimbursement for expenses, taxes and other MCS obligations to Alfred Yue,” Hanson added.
In January, District Court for the NMI Magistrate Judge Heather Kennedy issued the arrest warrant following a complaint from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Districts of Guam and the NMI which sought to forfeit funds seized from two Bank of Saipan accounts in 2019 for wire fraud and money laundering totaling $310,276.26.
The complaint was a civil forfeiture action and did not provide names of any defendants but refers to two bank accounts of “MCS” at Bank of Saipan.
According to the complaint, $271,087.88 was seized from “MCS account 1,” and $39,188.38 was seized from “MCS account 2.”
A resident of the CNMI, “A.Y.” is the sole owner and operator of MCS, the complaint added.
The seized funds are currently in the custody of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The complaint arises out of an investigation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service of a suspected conspiracy by foreign entities and entities and individuals in the CNMI to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
“The suspected conspiracy involved the transfer of funds, including by international wire transfer, for the purpose of promoting two schemes to defraud: first, to promote the misrepresentation of material facts to, and the concealment of material information from CNMI regulatory authorities, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343; and second, to illegally influence government officials in exchange for preferential treatment, thereby depriving the citizens of the CNMI of their intangible right to honest services of those CNMI government officials, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1343 and 1346,” the complaint stated.
The suspected conspiracy involved a third scheme: “to evade the payment of the proper amount of income taxes owed to the CNMI government, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343.”
According to the complaint, the “conspirators used international wire transfers made with the intent to promote the carrying on of any one or more of these wire fraud schemes, each of which constituted specified unlawful activity.”
“The wire transfers therefore constituted acts of international promotional money laundering,” the complaint added.
A.Y. incorporated MCS for the stated purpose of “banking and financial services, real estate development, and business management,” the complaint added.
On Nov. 7, 2019, the FBI executed search warrants at the Office of the Governor, casino investor Imperial Pacific International and the office of Alfred Yue of Marianas Consultancy Services LLC, among other offices. Marianas Consultancy Services LLC was a consultant of IPI.
