New York Attorney General Reports $ 1 Billion Sackler Family Transfers



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The discovery of wire transfers comes amid growing claims from New York and other states that the Sackler family is transferring billions of dollars offshore to protect their wealth. This is also following news two days ago of a draft regulation of Purdue Pharma with thousands of states, counties, cities and tribal governments as part of their ongoing lawsuit accusing the company to fuel the epidemic of opioids in the country.

The New York Attorney General's office is trying to figure out how much money the Sacklers have amassed and where it is located. The details of wire transfers, including some facts reported by the authorities as being routed through Swiss bank accounts, were published as part of a new file filed by Attorney General James in the current lawsuit.

"While the Sacklers continue to blame the victims and avoid a responsible settlement, we refuse to allow the family to misuse the courts in order to protect themselves from financial misconduct," said James in a statement. written declaration. "The limited number of documents that have been provided to us up to now underlines the need to respect all subpoenas."

Millions of dollars in wire transfers involving Mortimer D.A. Sackler, a former member of the Purdue board, was mentioned throughout the new document.

In a statement to CNN, Sackler said: "These decades-old transfers, which are perfectly legal and appropriate in every respect, are of no interest.

"This is a cynical attempt by a hostile enemy bureau to make the slanderous headline in an attempt to torpedo a win-win settlement, supported by many other states, and would allow billions of dollars to be paid to communities and people in the country needing help, "Sackler said.

The Sacklers and Purdue Pharma, which manufactures OxyContin, fought to limit the discovery and subpoena of the Attorney General's office.

Mark S. Cheffo, a lawyer representing Purdue Pharma, said in a document filed Sept. 6 that "Purdue has already produced more than 51 million pages of documents for the state, including many financial and commercial information" .

He also argued that subpoenas should be set aside because they are "premature, seemingly deficient, excessive and cumulative from the discovery that Purdue has produced".

But David E. Nachman, attorney representing the New York Attorney General's office, said in a letter to the court that the archives had helped officials identify the shell companies that a family member Sackler had had. Habit to conceal.

"These documents have already allowed the state to identify previously unknown shell companies used by one of the Sackler defendants to transfer Purdue money from one account to another around the world and then hide it in at least two separate multi-million dollar real estate investments, here in New York, disinfected (up to now) from any easily detectable connection with the Sackler family, "wrote Nachman." Based on these only elements of evidence, the state provides for the addition of one or more of these fictitious entities hitherto unknown as defendants directly liable for the state claims on DCL. "

Some wire transfers continued last year, says the document.

Sackler participated in 137 wire transfers totaling nearly $ 20 million, and some of these transfers took place as recently as 2018, the document says.

Sackler has received a portion of these transfers, he redirected "a substantial part of this product" to two other entities owning real estate on his behalf, says the document.

According to the court document, Sackler transferred nearly $ 40 million to Central Eight Realty LLC, which owns a New York City townhouse on its behalf. Cherry Tree Holdings LLC, which owns a home in Amagansett, New York, has received a bank transfer of nearly $ 4 million.

"Because defendant Mortimer D.A. Sackler placed these properties in New York on behalf of fictitious corporations, their property would have been impossible to detect from public records and without access to financial records," said the district attorney.

In another transfer, Sackler received $ 64 million from the newly discovered trust named Purdue Pharma Trust MDAS, and this money was sent via a Swiss bank account, the document says.

He also received money transferred via this same Swiss bank account from the Heatheridge Trust Company Limited, trustee of a trust owned by Sackler, according to the court record.

The filing on Friday indicates that this only reflects the initial findings of the response of only one anonymous financial institution to the Attorney General's summons in this case.

The New York Attorney General's Office has identified several previously unknown entities that would be "supposed to serve as relays for Purdue transfers to Sackler defendants" on the basis of documents provided by this unnamed financial institution.

Officials only identify it as "Institution A", according to the rankings.

CNN's Rob Frehse has written and written since New York, and Nicole Chavez has written and written since Atlanta.

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