unfortunately, it turns out, they had the right to extend his 30 day detainment for an additional 30 days at their discretion.

a hearing is scheduled for wednesday for his release.

we feel he was detained as a defensive strategy by a bank we were preparing legal action against in macedonia.

all of our know your customer & anti-money laundering procedures comply with basel II intl compliance standards and have cleared muster with new zealand, uruguay & switzerland.

in addition, all our larger transfers were explicitly approved by the macedonian central bank.

to be implicated in money laundering charges capital conservator would have to be shown to be in full knowledge that they'd received funds from a criminal source. otherwise, the us govt could incarcerate *every* us bank executive right now (which actually would be a good idea for 'tarp' come to think of it).

the "charges" are a non-issue, imo.

if i'm wrong, client identities are protected by uruguayan bank secrecy. one of our clients would have to be convicted of a real, non tax crime in their home country & we would have to be petitioned through the govt of uruguay on a case by case basis.

further, all client records are held in a diff country under attorney client privilege that has strong bank secrecy as well that we have no exposure to.

that said, i think the only risk one runs of having their identity revealed is if they are *convicted* in their home country of a non tax crime & a successful petition is filed through uruguay.