Word: ill-gotten
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...because of the breakdown of law and order that accompanied communism's collapse. For years it was an open secret that communist Party and KGB officials pilfered diamonds from mine operations in Yakutia. Now that the old communists have fallen on hard times, millions of dollars' worth of their ill-gotten diamonds appear to be making their way into Western salesrooms. According to Mikhail Gurtovoi, the head of a Russian government anticorruption unit, large batches of illegally acquired Russian diamonds are turning up in Belgium...
Unless the thieves are caught in the act, stealing art and then selling it is remarkably easy. Ill-gotten Greco-Roman sculptures, Renaissance Bibles or friezes from an Egyptian Pharaoh's tomb can be iced away for a time and realize a generous return. In Switzerland, which treats goods in storage with the same discretion as bank accounts, a work can come out of a bonded free- port warehouse in Zurich or Geneva with clear legal title to the possessor after five years. In Liechtenstein and the Cayman Islands, the term is seven days...
...dubbed the "war of the widows." Aquino had conceded the first point by reversing her ban on Marcos' return after a Swiss judge ruled that the former First Lady must be found guilty in a Philippine court before the government could hope to recoup an estimated $350 million in "ill-gotten wealth" from frozen Marcos accounts in Swiss banks. Aquino also agreed to allow interment of the still unburied body of the late President Marcos in his home province. But Imelda insists on a hero's burial in Manila's national cemetery. She returned without the corpse -- but in time...
...Levine's new book, Inside Out, his wife repeatedly asked him, "Why?" Why did he need the ill-gotten money? He really couldn't answer. But let's look at what Levine did for a living. He put people together and arranged deals. In the time you and I spent on the phone arranging this visit, he could have made tens of thousands of dollars. You don't feel efficacious or psychologically competent when people bring things to you and, essentially, do your paper work for you. There is no challenge. You may feel rich...
Levine still seems astonished at how easy it was to get rich the ill-gotten way. All it took, he notes in flat but serviceable prose, was a tight ring of conspirators whose Wall Street jobs yielded confidential information about upcoming takeovers and other corporate news. Once armed with a tip, Levine dashed for the nearest pay phone to dictate orders to buy and sell stock to the manager of his secret Bahamas bank account. (When one offshore bank balked at carrying out such orders, Levine picked another out of the Nassau phone book.) "My God," he told himself after...