 Cynthia Thayus with us. She's incredible. We had a show. When did we have a show? Was it six or eight months ago? Maybe something like that? Yes. Yes. Cynthia is truly amazing. Cynthia was a prosecutor in Kona. And she decided one day she'd file an application with the Hague and be a prosecutor of international crimes in the Hague and an investigator there. And she trundled off to the Hague for seven or eight years, as I recall. Seven, yes. Seven years. Yes. And prosecuted war crimes and international crimes. Yes. Genocide crimes against humanity and war crimes. Yeah. And then she came back. But when she came back, she established a little company. That's right. A little nonprofit. A little nonprofit. It's a project expedited justice. That's right. Operating out of Kona, you didn't know this. You know, this is why you should watch Think Tech. So you would know things like this. That's right. International criminal investigation company operating out of Kona as a nonprofit, helping the world deal with international crimes, crimes against humanity, international financial crimes. And she's still active. Gosh. You know, sometimes if you need somebody to carry your bag, I'll be there. Take me with you, okay? You can be my partner in crime. In crime. So, you know, I wanted to talk about your most recent and most spectacular adventure as an investigator of such crimes, having to do with Paribas. And Paribas is a huge, big French bank. What was it? Three or four biggest bank in the world? BNP Paribas is the largest bank in France and right now I believe the fourth largest bank in the world. All right. And it's about financial crimes by this bank in Sudan and a couple of other countries. That's right. And why did you get involved in this? What happened? Somebody sent you a letter? What? Well, it's actually quite a long story. We started following this case in 2014, 2015. They were, the case originated actually right here in the United States in the Southern District of New York, which is the center of money, Wall Street. Berman. Exactly. Where the money flows, as they say. And when there's an actor, it could be a government, an individual, a group that commits bad acts, human rights violations, and or corruption, the US, the Office of Foreign Asset Control here in the US, sanctions them and prohibits the use of US dollars. This is an extremely effective tool because it can cut off money flows for obviously people who are committing or corrupt or committing human rights violations. So in May of 2015, BNPP pled to the charge of trading with the enemy and another financial crime for providing funds in US dollars to the government of Sudan. At that time, the government of Sudan was a sanctioned entity. They were not supposed to trade using US dollars. How did you determine that? Department of Justice. American, US Department of Justice. That's right. So in the second circuit, they brought a case, prosecutors in the Southern District brought forward a case against BNPP or using the financial system at a time when it was prohibited. Okay, just let me ask a couple of things here. Sure. One is this kind of crime is probably all over the world. This happens. Yes. But what's different here is that BNPP Powerboss is a big bank. Yes. And banks have legal and social obligations more than, you know, the ragman down the street. That's right. And banks have such a profile that if they violate this kind of law, it is absolutely worth investigating and prosecuting them. Yes. So walking this back, if you will, the really interesting thing, well, in this day and age, we think a lot about war crimes. We think, I mean, the wars are happening around the world, innocent people, civilians are being injured everywhere. And we have tried in international justice to stem or curtail these acts from happening. But what we also have to recognize, and this is really why it's such a precedent-setting case, is today we know that war is a business. It might not be a legitimate business, but it is a business. And so those of us that are involved in international criminal law need to view it through that lens and take a perhaps a more holistic approach, if you will. And part of that holistic approach is looking not only at the actual tool or the soldier that commits the crime, and actually even going beyond the commander that commits that crime. And let's look at the financiers. Let's look at other people that contribute to these horrible acts. But the view is stopping the horrible acts. Exactly. So this is really important. So ultimately, you know, the mission here is to cut off dehumanizing violent war-like acts everywhere they take place. That's right. So in 2015, the U.S. government did criminally prosecute BNP Padiba here in the Southern District of New York. And they were fined close to, excuse me, the forfeited amount was over $8 billion. Billion dollars. Yes. We like to deal in large round numbers. Exactly. So actually close to $9 billion, but a bit shy. At least counting. Exactly. So they were prosecuted here. And at Sentencing, Department of Justice turned around and said, we want to hear from the affected communities, i.e. those communities that were affected from the transfer of money. Because their thoughts, their reactions, their comments are relevant to the sentencing. Well, I think that their thinking was that if they could hear from those that had been affected on the ground, that perhaps some of that forfeited money could be used to rebuild those communities, to do some sort of restorative justice for the Sudanese communities, Iranian communities, and the Cuban communities that had been hurt from this illicit flow of funds. Who decides that? Who puts that money back into those communities? Well, it was up to the Department of Justice. And to be very clear in the U.S., it went back into a general fund. So it was up to the U.S. it was up to me and Justice to decide whether the Attorney General, at that particular time, to decide where that money would go. And within the United States in 2015, what happened was that money was discretionary again. And it was used to replenish the funds for the 9-11 first responders. Ah, okay. So that's a terrific idea. We all, we want the first responders of the 9-11 attacks to receive compensation. But it really left those affected communities without a remedy. Yes. They didn't get a penny. They got nothing and they were, they still deserve some sort of compensation. Yes. So with that in mind, P.E.J. participated. We submitted a brief to the Department of Justice. We saw the money being diverted to the 9-11 first responders. And we looked for a remedy for our Sudanese clients. And we elected to file a case in France after working on the case for four years. The allegations in France are quite different because there was no breach of using illicit funds, if you will. So at the beginning of this month, we filed a case in Paris alleging complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity. Okay. This is a different case. Different allegations. Different allegations. Different crimes. Different statutes. Exactly. Different, completely different. But maybe relief that could be used to go back to Sudan and help those people. That's right. That's our hope. Okay. Ooh. Yeah. Okay. So what is it trading with the enemy? What do you have to do to trade with the enemy? Well. You have to have one of a country that's on a list of enemies. That's the first thing. Uh-huh. What do you have to do to trade with them? Well, in... I'll be sure I don't do that. For sure. So we all want to make sure that we don't do that. So for institutions like banks, there are databases, if you will, that are in place that alert them to prohibited persons or prohibited entities. And in... If you were to read the statement of facts that was relied on during sentencing, it was quite clear that what BNP... BNP Puttybot did is they overrid their compliance officers. And they knew very well that they were not allowed to transfer funds to the government of Sudan. So instead, what they did is they used different entities, created different entities. They diverted the money so that it was less detectable, if you will. Cover up. Exactly. So with that said, yes, they covered it up mainly through Geneva and the Paris headquarters. So after seeing the Sudanese, the Cubans, and the Iranians without a remedy, we researched the issue and we decided that the French law was favorable. To our clients, we sought out the help of French lawyers as we are not barred there. And we filed a case with the help of our partners on behalf of nine Sudanese victims that had been injured through the genocide. Yeah, but you were not alone, I guess. It was not... You called it PEJ, just to be clear, that's Project Expedite Justice out of Kona. Yes. Okay, but you had International Federation for Human Rights, the League of the Rights of Man. Right. You want to get that right? That's in French. The African Center for Justice and Peace Studies, and the Sudan Human Rights Monitor. All of those organizations working together, yeah. That's right. So FIDH is a federation of organizations that promote and advance human rights. Their Sudanese partners also participated in this case, and that's the African ACJPS and the other organization that you referred to. So yes, we pushed the case forward together. But you have to know the evidence. Yes. You have to investigate the evidence. As I recall from my last discussion, that was something you did. You have done consistently. Yes. You worked in the Hague as a prosecutor. Yes. And when you were an investigator, sort of a freelance investigator in Kona. That's right. You were an investigator. So you had to investigate here and find out what Paribas was doing. How do you do that? Did you have the power of subpoena or was it just charm? I wish it was just charm. But it's actually just a lot of hard work and a lot of digging, as we say, open source. We find a lot of information on the internet. It is actually shocking how technology has been able to help us all. In creating and amassing information that is later used. Identifying key players. Identifying what happened. And combined with financial records, that's very helpful. But as you all know, financial crimes are one of the most difficult. While they are the most effective tool that's available to us as prosecutors and as those of us that are pushing back on crime, they are very laborious and they take a lot of time to put together. That's exciting from the investigator's point of view. There you have all these numbers on the page and the average person, those numbers don't mean anything. And yet you look at them, you connect them up, you make analyses, you infer, you make inferences. That's right. And then it flashes on the wall. There it is. So it's very much a game of what you know. So if you know that somebody has an illicit flow, you can also look at a government, let's say, and find, assuming that it's a government that is receiving the money. And you can identify where their spend is. It becomes a little harder when they're trying to hide it though. That's right. But it's not impossible. Okay. Yeah. It's not impossible. So, wow. So did you have, did you have affirmative help in the investigation from those other organizations I listed? Or was it only PEJ? Well, what PEJ is part of the puzzle is, is that we do the factual analysis and we manage all of the witnesses and the complainants, if you will. That was our contribution because we are not French lawyers by any stretch of the imagination. But you can help French lawyers. Right. We partner with French lawyers to bring forward the case. So that's where AFIDIASH came in, FIDH. And they did a wonderful job and also pro bono lawyers in France that help us to craft the complaint according to French law. Okay. So here's, so we're talking about a complaint. This case has not yet been tried. That's right. And I should also state that it's very different knowing that most of our audience here is accustomed to a common law system, which is primarily adversarial, right? So here in the US lawyers do the deposition. We do the interrogatories. We make question witnesses and we put our best case forward as adversaries and the judge simply rules. I shouldn't say simply, but they take a more neutral position as an arbiter to ensure that the truth is known. However, in a civil law country, which is the French system, they have what they call a juge d'instruction, which is a more active role. What that judge is responsible for is very forward leaning. They are in charge of the investigation. They have a team of investigators and they are responsible for a more aggressive approach, if you will, to fact finding. And the lawyers take more of a neutral role. We propose witnesses and we are allowed to provide guidance on a very limited scale. So by the time it gets to a complaint, the juge d'instruction, did I say that right? The judge of instruction. He's already made, spent some time here. No, so what happens is that we follow the complaint and it gets sent to the head juge d'instruction, who then assigns the appropriate juge d'instruction. And that's where we are now. Exactly. So interestingly, BNPP, this is not the first complaint that they have faced, but there was a preceding case involving the Rwanda genocide where they were implicated in that case as well. They got a history. Is that relevant? I mean, is it admissible? I don't think it's admissible on its face, but I think it does provide us with some glimpse of what pattern, evidence, intent evidence, knowledge evidence provides us with information on processes that are frequently used by that bank. So this is the celebration here, the notable news event, is that the complaint was filed. Yes. Because that means that, you know, there's a certain, we might call it probable cause here. The evidence has been established as far as the complainants are concerned. And it is going to trial hopefully soon. I don't know what the timetable is like. And at that point, the evidence will be introduced and hopefully there'll be a conviction. Yes. And the French system is just so different from ours. Interestingly enough, one of the things that we learned was that a corporation can actually be put on trial as opposed to individuals like we do in a common law system. So it's different. So we lodge the complaint. It gets processed internally. And then hopefully we will hear from them within perhaps three to six months on what they decide to do. They could, for example, open parts of the case, finding bad acts with respect to torture, but not on other offenses. They could accept in part and reject in part, as we say here in the U.S. Well, this is pretty exciting to see. Yes. And you don't have input on that. No. You've given them the complaint. That's right. And now it's up to them. That's right. But if there is a trial, you're going to go and introduce, or you're going to help the French lawyers introduce the evidence. Yes. So if there's a, for example, the next step that would happen is the justice instruction could interview witnesses and bring them forward. We would have to accompany those witnesses to Paris. We would not be allowed to participate in the process. We would not be allowed in the room, so to speak. But we would provide support for our clients. This is pretty exciting. So you have the fourth biggest bank in the world here. They have a few bucks. They have some resources. Yes. They have friends. They probably have friends in government. Yes. It's the way it works. You must have had some pushback, or maybe you anticipate some pushback now. Well, we'll have to see how those things, how those circumstances or factors play out for sure. That doesn't put you off the track for one minute, does it, Cynthia? No. Okay. No, not at all. I want to get that straight. We, of course, they will have, you know, there's no equality of arms here. We know that they will have more lawyers than ours. But we have eight teams of lawyers here on our side, and we will push the case forward as diligently as we can. Does the complaint ask for relief? No. It doesn't ask for particular relief. And another difference between a common law system and a French system is that the awards are not as great. But similarly, in a French system, you, as a lawyer, because they're in the French system, there is a judicial instruction. The investment in discovery is a lot less. Whereas here, if a law for more to undertake the case, so to speak, you would have to consider your costs and your, of discovery, of all of those things that you would need to do to bring the case forward. The onus really falls on the move-on. You have a civil law in many ways. It's more efficient, isn't it? Yes. I think it makes it more accessible for cases such as this that are very resource-intensive. But we felt that that coupled with the fact that the jurisdictional book, if you will, that being that BNP-Puddy-Baw is a French company, was an important, was the right choice for this particular case. Yeah. What's the public opinion about this? Are you getting feedback from the public? People are saying, good for you. We were always wondering about Paribas, and now you've demonstrated there's some fire behind the smoke. Well, I think that, I can't say that we've received specific feedback, but what I will say is that within the international criminal community, within the practitioners groups, that there has always been a thought that we need to look at this more holistically, that no longer should we rely. We have not been successful in making war stop. We have not stepped on that in its entirety. And so as a group, we understand that really pursuing the financiers is the next wave or the next set, if you will. And it's very important to recognize that. Could you have gone to the Hague, to the International Court of Criminal Justice in the Hague? Your old stomping grounds? We could have. Yes, it's not explicitly accounted for. Just as it's not explicitly accounted for, let's say environmental crimes. Yes, in theory you could apply there. We just felt that the national system to address this particular crime in France was the best and most efficient approach. Has the French, have the French courts taken cases like this? Yes. So there's a certain amount of precedent here. That's right. The Rwanda case that I referred to earlier, that was filed in France. I believe that there was also a cement company, I believe LeFage in Libya, was also prosecuted there. So it's not a standalone. But again, we believe that it's very important as a precedent to deter other financiers from moving in this direction. We want people to know that if you choose to finance with the knowledge that your money is being used to commit crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, that there are consequences. And you are treated the same as the actor, if you will. So no individuals have been charged here. This is a, I guess it's a criminal case. Yes. But the defendant, if you will, is the corporation, B&B Paribas. Yes. And it can also be with, of course, the naming of those that are principally responsible. But they don't risk going to jail. They do? They do. So the court can identify the ones that you identified. Yes. They said you're a defendant now. Yes. Just like in any business, there's an executive officer, there's a CFO. There's an executive committee and boards that make the most critical decisions for any company. Let's take torture for a minute, okay? You know there's a guy at Columbia Law School that teaches torture. That's his subject. And the students come from miles around so they can learn about what he has to teach. Anyway, torture. So Paribas gives some money in violation of the trading with the enemy concept to the wrong people who are in fact doing torture. Right. Is that enough? If you can show that Paribas gave him the money and they knew that this government entity, this dictator, what have you, was torturing people. And in fact he didn't torture them. Do you have to connect it up further? Do you have to show that the money specifically enabled this guy to do torture? Yes. I think you have to put the screws on the engine, if you will. You have to tighten it up a little bit. Yes. It's not enough. Many times people will say, well, that's an airplane that bombed me. That airplane is part of this government. Therefore that's enough. It's not. You have to show orders. You have to show a greater causation or nexus, if you will. Follow the money. Exactly. And you can. Yes. But for that you have to get into the dictator's records. Yes. You would have to know for a country how does the money, how is the money appropriated? Who makes those decisions? Where did the money go? So you're evaluating it on both sides. Exactly. One is that the bank is giving it to this, we're going to say this country. And then what happens to the money? The money is at the country. Exactly. You're in both places. Exactly. And you say you can do it on the internet, but you probably have to go there too, right? Not always. Not always. I'm not carrying your bag when you go to these places. That's where you draw the line. It sounds pretty risky to me. But like any company, you know, you're going to try to find an insider. There will be people that are perhaps whistleblowers, people that are, who know how the internal governmental workings are, that later become disgruntled, that may wish to share that information. Well, taking you to a step further, let's assume this goes through the Jues d'instruction, that there's ultimately a conviction that the bank and some of its officers are found responsible criminally, and that hopefully a large fine is imposed, maybe even jail terms on the individuals. Okay, what do you hope to achieve with that? I mean, of course, you're making a statement. And as we discussed before, you're going to try to diminish the amount of bad activity like this around the world. But how would that work? If I nail BNP Paribas, is every bank going to know about it? Is every bank going to adjust their conduct? Are we in fact going to have less torture in the world? We hope, yes, that's what we hope. We want to deliver the message that if you participate in these, if you choose to fund or spend your money in this fashion, and you know how it's going to be used, you should be held accountable just as a direct perpetrator is held accountable. That is the message. The individual plaintiffs, of course, can use their award as they see fit. So you want to get in this case, as opposed to the Southern District case that you spoke of, in this case, you want to get the court to distribute the money to the people who are victimized. That's right. That would be a decision made by this French court. That's right. That's part of the complaint. That's right. So our hope is that when we filed the complaint, we filed with a handful, literally a handful of plaintiffs, with the hope that if the case is opened, then we could add more plaintiffs, if you will. How high does this stand on the mountain of such activity in the world? In other words, are you the only show in town where there are many PEJs around that are doing the same thing in many of these French organizations, too, that are doing them? There must be other cases, right? There must be other people who feel and act the way you do, am I right? Indeed. I think that there are a number of practitioners in this sector, if you will, that really are looking very, very hard at financial crimes and looking more holistically at how to end atrocities. And this is just one tool that we use. What about, let's take Russia, just as an example, with an oligarch who is funding money? Well, the country itself is funding money. And you find out about that. You find out the money is going to a dictator or somebody who is engaged in really bad activities. Is this something that would also be covered by the same approach? Or is it different when you're talking about a country or an oligarch? Well, I think that the first analysis has to be whether or not that they're a prohibited person. And what I mean by that is whether or not they're subjected to the OFAC sanction program. And if they aren't, why not? And should they be? Because they're corrupt and or because they committed human rights violations. That would be an analysis that would be performed and perhaps one of the doors, if you will, the doors of justice or tools that we would use. Absolutely. And you would go against a country? You could go against individuals in a country? Well, for example, if I find out that a country is doing the same thing as BNP Paribas is doing, and I found a court that would take my complaint, they in France, I could go after the country the same way? You could. This opens the door to all kinds of things. It becomes historic in its own way. Well, I think, yes. I think the really interesting, the time, if you will, or the time in which we're living is a very interesting time. Where we are seeing that traditional norms, traditional places where you would look for justice, such as a court, are perhaps one avenue of accountability and a valid door towards accountability. But there are also other steps that we can take, such as placing, you know, going to the U.S. Treasury and asking that an individual be sanctioned. There are other steps that we can take to highlight the issue and also make it more difficult in a shorter period of time, if you will, to cut off money flows so that crimes are reduced. That's the idea. Last question, Cynthia. Sure. You're seeing this. You're traveling, you're talking to the people who are involved, you're sort of seeing the detail, drilling down on these things, not only in the law, but you're drilling down on all the players in the field. So, as I said before, it sounds like there's plenty of bad action going on in the world today. And it's being funded by bad actors who know better. But your effort and the effort of these other organizations that are involved in the Arribas case, is it growing? Will there be more of it? Will we see more suits like this? Yes, I believe so. Of course, one can't be certain, but are these, is there a finite amount of bad actors? No, there's not. We all know that there's not. We're just trying to send the message to this bank in particular and other financiers that this conduct is not appropriate and just because you are not the direct perpetrator, that you are not absolved, you are too responsible. Good for you, Cynthia. I said it last time and I'll say it again. It's really wonderful to meet somebody, spend a little time with somebody who is actually engaged, taking risk, making the world a better place. It's so important in our time. Thank you so much. On behalf of everyone, all eight billion others. Thank you, Jay. Next time we'll do it again. Yes.