Robert Bandfield, Money Laundering, New York 2023

Architect Of Offshore Fraud Haven Pleads Guilty To $250 Million Money Laundering Scheme

BROOKLYN, NY – On an unspecified date, Robert Bandfield, a U.S. citizen and resident of Belize, pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy for facilitating the stock manipulation of more than 40 U.S. publicly-traded companies and then laundering more than $250 million in profits through unidentifiable debit cards and attorney escrow accounts.

Pursuant to his plea agreement with the government, Bandfield has agreed to forfeit, among other things, $1 million and all his rights and interests in three corporate entities — IPC Management Services LLC, IPC Corporate Services Inc., and IPC Corporate Services LLC (collectively, IPC Corp.) — that he founded and controlled in Belize.

When sentenced, Bandfield faces up to 20 years in prison.

The guilty plea was announced by Robert L. Capers, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; Diego Rodriguez, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI); Shantelle P. Kitchen, Special Agent-in-Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, New York (IRS-CI); and Angel M. Melendez, Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations, New York (HSI).

According to the court filings and facts presented at the plea hearing, between January 2009 and September 2014, Bandfield and his co-conspirators engaged in three interrelated schemes: (1) to induce U.S. investors to purchase stock in various thinly-traded U.S. public companies through fraudulent promotion of the stock, concealment of their ownership interests in the companies, and fraudulent manipulation of artificial price movements and trading volume in the stocks of those companies; (2) to circumvent the payment of capital gains taxes and the IRS’s reporting requirements under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA); and (3) to launder the fraudulent proceeds from the stock manipulation schemes to and from the United States through debit cards and attorney escrow accounts.

Through these schemes, Bandfield helped his corrupt clients — who included more than 100 U.S. citizens and residents — launder more than $250 million in fraudulent proceeds.

Bandfield’s scheme also enabled the U.S. corrupt clients evade reporting requirements to the IRS by concealing the proceeds generated by the manipulated stock transactions through the shell companies and their nominees.

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