The CIA and Riggs Bank

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The CIA and Riggs Bank
A Wall Street Journal story that the press gang should chase.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, at 1:10 PM PT


"Follow the money" could be Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn R. Simpson's motto. His sophisticated dispatches from the banking/terrorism/money-laundering/organized crime nexus routinely advance well-covered subjects.

On the last day of 2004, Simpson published a Journal story about the Justice Department's investigation of purported money-laundering at Riggs Bank, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Previous news reports had connected Riggs to the dubious financial machinations of Saudi diplomats and despots from Africa and South America, including Chile's former maximum leader, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Banking regulators fined Riggs $25 million last year for its violations, the institution put itself up for sale, and a Justice Department investigation was started.

Simpson's Dec. 31 piece—inexplicably appearing on Page A-4 instead of A-1—locates what may be the common denominator shared by Riggs, the Saudis, the Africans, and the South Americans: the Central Intelligence Agency.

Citing unnamed U.S. government officials and people familiar with Riggs operations, Simpson reports that the bank has enjoyed a "relationship" with the CIA for some time. "That relationship, which included top current and former Riggs executives receiving U.S. government security clearances, could complicate any prosecution of the bank's officials, according to private lawyers and former prosecutors," he writes. By "complicate" one can safely assume that Simpson means "make impossible." He writes:

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