If you happen to live in the Trenton, New Jersey, area, check out the Soup Kitchen on Escher Street. It shares space with the local Animal Control yard, and serves a valuable service to the Trenton, New Jersey community. It also holds another distinction. Somehow, this soup kitchen also shares the same Employer Identification Number with Principal Life in Des Moines, Iowa, and was included in a short list of plans that had lost almost a billion dollars in their 401k plans over the past three years. Reports filed with the Department of labor included this soup kitchen (T.A.S.K, Inc.) in a Form 5500 filing, and Principal’s EIN number was listed as the Employer. But the soup kitchen isn’t the only employer filing with Principal’s EIN number. In this ERISA Short Form 5500 report and others listed Principal’s EIN number who the business report names. Great American Duck Races, Inc., located in Scottsdale, AZ, and Interstate Energy in Duluth, MN also had reports filed with their names and Principal’s EIN number. You can click on the image to link to a .pdf copy of the report filed with the Department of Labor. (Click on each image for a larger version, then click the return arrow to return to this page..)
The Principal Select Savings Plan for Employees…
The Principal Life Insurance Company also offers the Principal Select Savings Plan for Employees, a typical 401k savings plan that is offered nationally to employers. The same EIN number used by their 401k plan as was identified in use by the above mentioned employers. Interestingly, while the associated plans lost almost a billion dollars between 2009 and 2014, the Principal savings plan gained a similar amount in value during the same time period. In 2009, the Principal plan had slightly more than a billion in value, and by 2014, the plan had almost doubled in dollar value. This fact could lead one to believe that money was first laundered into the more discreet plans to remain under the radar, then moved into the Select Savings Plan where the money could be selectively invested in an assortment of proprietary funds to be sold later to Principal clientele.
Identity Theft often plays a major role in money laundering schemes, and Principal had the resources to accomplish this goal undetected. It appears Principal had access to archived records and financial records from these companies, and may have used those records to fabricate these Form 5500 reports and submit them to the Department of Labor. It is highly unlikely that these outside companies had any knowledge of the existence of these records, and they certainly did not have such a large sum of money in their 401k plans.
