Inge Lynn Collins Bongo

Inge Lynn Collins Bongo (also known as Inge Alia Bongo; born December 15, 1960) is a Los Angeles socialite and a former spouse of Ali Bongo Ondimba, the current president of Gabon. Embroiled in several high-profile controversies, Ingle Lynn Collins Bongo was singled out in the report released on February 4, 2010 by the United States Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as a Politically exposed person (PEP) who hid her PEP status from banking institutions to get around anti-money laundering laws.
CONTROVERSIES
Inge Lynn Collins Bongo was involved in the following controversies: her lawsuit against Sean Combs, her one-time landlord in Beverly Hills; her appearance on VH1 program Really Rich Real Estate; her Bankruptcy Case; her application for welfare in California; and her implication in money-laundering as alleged in a report of the United States Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Inge Bongo v. Sean Combs, et al
Inge Lynn Collins Bongo was the plaintiff in a lawsuit against rap star Sean Combs, in which she alleged that a house she rented from Combs was "infested with insects, rodents and vermin.". Combs denied the charges. According to court documents, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo formally filed the lawsuit as “Inge Bongo” against Sean Combs, et al at the Central District Court of California in Los Angeles on 02/01/2001. Combs answered by filing a counterclaim. The parties eventually settled the case and an “order of dismissal upon settlement of case” was issued by the court on 08/02/2001.
Inge Lynn Collins Bongo’s appearance on VH1 series Really Rich Real Estate
Inge Lynn Collins Bongo was featured in Episode 1 of the now-canceled 2007 VH1 series Really Rich Real Estate.. She was seen being helped by real estate agent Kurt Rappaport to pick up a $25-million mansion in the exclusive Broad Beach area of Malibu which she deemed lacking in grandeur. She was then seen being shown another $25-million mansion in Beverly Hills by the real estate agency co-owner Stephen Shapiro, a house which seemed to her liking. Inge Lynn Collins Bongo was introduced in the program as the “heiress to a very rich country in Africa,” a characterization that stirred much controversy in Africa for Gabon is a republic and cannot possibly have an “heiress,” let alone the sheer amount of the money involved in the purported real estate transaction.
Inge Lynn Collins Bongo’s Bankruptcy Case
On 10/01/2007,Inge Lynn Collins filed a voluntary petition for chapter 11 as “Inge Alia Bongo, aka Inge Lynn Collings, aka Inge Bongo-Ondimba” at the United States Bankruptcy Court of Central District of California in Los Angeles. But as early as 11/02/2007,and on a number of other occasions, the U.S. Trustee, Peter C. Anderson, filed motions to dismiss the chapter 11 or to have it converted to a chapter 7 bankruptcy. The Trustee ultimately prevailed and the chapter 11 petition was dismissed on 06/25/2008. The case was formally closed on 10/23/2008.
Application for welfare and food stamps
In September 2009, in the heels of the controversial Gabonese presidential election, 2009, an ABC News report alleged that “Gabon's First Lady Lives on Food Stamps in California.” The “First Lady” in question was Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, who was quoted in the report as saying: “I'm going to claim my right as first lady. I'm going to make a lot of noise. I'm going to take this opportunity to make some changes, whether he (Ali Bongo Ondimba) likes it or not."
Allegations of money-laundering by a report of the United States Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
On February 4, 2010, the United States Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 330-page report entitled “Keeping Foreign Corruption out of the United States: Four Case Histories.” The four case histories were the following: the Obiang case study (Equatorial Guinea), the Bongo case study (Gabon), the Abubakar case study (Nigeria), and the Angola case study.
The report documents how Politically exposed persons (PEPs) used American financial institutions as well as real estate and escrow agents “to circumvent U.S. anti-money laundering and anticorruption safeguards."
In the Bongo case study, the report singled out, among other people, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo:

Another member of the Bongo family, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, is the wife of Ali
Bongo, the current President of Gabon and its former Minister of Defense. In 2000, she formed
a U.S. trust, the Collins Revocable Trust, and opened accounts in the name of that Trust at banks
in California. For three years, from 2000 to 2003, Ms. Inge Bongo accepted multiple large
offshore wire transfers into the Trust accounts and used the funds to support a lavish lifestyle and
move money among a network of bank and securities accounts benefiting her and her husband.”

The Senate report further offers these details on Inge Lynn Collins Bongo’s money-laundering activities:

In December 1999, five years after her marriage to Ali Bongo, Ms. Collins Bongo used
legal counsel to establish the Collins Revocable Trust, naming herself as the sole trustee.(…) The
Collins Trust does not use her married surname “Bongo.” By making the Trust “revocable,” Ms.
Collins Bongo retained access to and control over the trust funds. The trust was established one
month after the Subcommittee’s November 1999 hearing which examined a number of U.S. bank
accounts used by President Omar Bongo and his relatives.

Ms. Collins Bongo opened several accounts under the name of the Collins Trust at U.S.
financial institutions, including Fidelity Investments (…) and HSBC Bank. In December 1999,
soon after the Trust was established, Ms. Collins Bongo opened a mutual fund account in the
name of the Collins Trust at Fidelity Investments, a securities firm. Because, at the time,
securities firms had no legal anti-money laundering obligations, Fidelity opened this account
without exercising customer due diligence or evaluating the source of funds in the account,
which was initially funded with nearly $3 million. Over the next two years, Ms. Collins Bongo
treated this mutual fund account as if it were a checking account, using it to move nearly $2
million to a network of accounts she maintained at other banks, including $625,000 to Collins
Trust accounts at HSBC Bank. The Fidelity mutual fund account balance dropped over time
and, after the first two years, showed minimal activity. Fidelity told the Subcommittee that for
nine years, from 1999 to 2008, it had been unaware of Ms. Collins Bongo’s PEP status until
contacted by the Subcommittee during this investigation. In April 2009, Fidelity designated Ms.
Collins Bongo a PEP client; it continues to maintain her Collins Trust mutual fund account
which has had minimal funds and account activity for several years.

In addition to the Fidelity mutual fund account, in April 2000, Ms. Collins Bongo opened
checking and savings accounts in the name of the Collins Trust at Republic Bank California
N.A., which merged with HSBC Bank in 2000. Neither Republic Bank nor HSBC was aware of
her PEP status until two and a half years after the accounts were opened.

During those two and a half years, the Collins Trust accounts received over $650,000 in wire transfers from accounts in Gabon, Luxembourg, and Belgium, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Collins Trust account at Fidelity and from two California escrow agents. In November 2002, Ms. Bongo made a $70,000 cash deposit into the Trust checking account, which triggered a review of the accounts and ultimately led to their closure four months later. HSBC told the Subcommittee that it was “not terribly proud of the relationship.” (..)The accounts were closed on April 8, 2003.

The two Collins Trust accounts examined in detail here were part of a larger network of
U.S. accounts opened in the name of the Collins Trust or Inge Lynn Collins. (…) The
Subcommittee did not attempt to trace all of these accounts or their interconnections. The
document reviewed by the Subcommittee, however, indicate that many of the accounts and
transactions did not reference the name “Bongo,” raising the question of whether Ms. Collins
Bongo was masking her connection to the Bongo family in Gabon when utilizing the U.S.
financial system. The Collins Trust accounts appear to be part of that effort.

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