BCCI, The Dirtiest Bank of All (Time article)

[rollingrock]

This has to be seen to be believed if you haven't already, it was big news back in 91 but probably very relevant to what's happening today. I had no idea of the scale and reach of this vast secret criminal operation until now. They are probably still operating today probably under some new name under the protection of the Bush's and others in the US government, especially the republicans.

Why was George Bush Sr.'s Justice Department trying to destroy all investigation of this international crime syndicate's operations in the US?? Answer: it has to do with the fact BCCI was started under Poppy Bush in the early 70's when he was director of the CIA, with the asistance of Saudi and Pakistani intelligence. The Bush family's Carlylye Group profited directly from its worldwide money-laundering and other criminal activities.

This is not a wild conspiracy theory. The BCCI scandal has been well-documented by many major publications such as Time, Newsweek, the Financial Times, etc.

btw, BCCI stand for Bank of Credit & Commerce International.



Monday, Jul. 29, 1991
B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All

Time

By JONATHAN BEATY and S.C. GWYNNE NEW YORK;Cathy Booth/Miami,
Jay Branegan/Hong Kong and Helen Gibson/London

Bank-fraud cases are usually dry, tedious affairs. Not this one. Nothing in the history of modern financial scandals rivals the unfolding saga of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International, the $20 billion rogue empire that regulators in 62 countries shut down early this month in a stunning global sweep. Never has a single scandal involved so much money, so many nations or so many prominent people.

Superlatives are quickly exhausted: it is the largest corporate criminal enterprise ever, the biggest Ponzi scheme, the most pervasive money-laundering operation and financial supermarket ever created for the likes of Manuel Noriega, Ferdinand Marcos, Saddam Hussein and the Colombian drug barons. B.C.C.I. even accomplished a Stealth-like invasion of the U.S. banking industry by secretly buying First American Bankshares, a Washington-based holding company with offices stretching from Florida to New York, whose chairman is former U.S. Defense Secretary Clark Clifford.

But B.C.C.I. is more than just a criminal bank. From interviews with sources close to B.C.C.I., TIME has pieced together a portrait of a clandestine division of the bank called the "black network," which functions as a global intelligence operation and a Mafia-like enforcement squad. Operating primarily out of the bank's offices in Karachi, Pakistan, the 1,500-employee black network has used sophisticated spy equipment and techniques, along with bribery, extortion, kidnapping and even, by some accounts, murder. The black network -- so named by its own members -- stops at almost nothing to further the bank's aims the world over.

The more conventional departments of B.C.C.I. handled such services as laundering money for the drug trade and helping dictators loot their national treasuries. The black network, which is still functioning, operates a lucrative arms-trade business and transports drugs and gold. According to investigators and participants in those operations, it often works with Western and Middle Eastern intelligence agencies. The strange and still murky ties between B.C.C.I. and the intelligence agencies of several countries are so pervasive that even the White House has become entangled. As TIME reported earlier this month, the National Security Council used B.C.C.I. to funnel money for the Iran-contra deals, and the CIA maintained accounts in B.C.C.I. for covert operations. Moreover, investigators have told TIME that the Defense Intelligence Agency has maintained a slush-fund account with B.C.C.I., apparently to pay for clandestine activities....

....But the CIA may have used B.C.C.I. as more than an undercover banker: U.S. agents collaborated with the black network in several operations, according to a B.C.C.I. black-network "officer" who is now a secret U.S. government witness. Sources have told investigators that B.C.C.I. worked closely with Israel's spy agencies and other Western intelligence groups as well, especially in arms deals. The bank also maintained cozy relationships with international terrorists, say investigators who discovered suspected terrorist accounts for Libya, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization in B.C.C.I.'s London offices.

The bank's intelligence connections and alleged bribery of public officials around the world point to an explanation for the most persistent mystery in the B.C.C.I. scandal: why banking and law-enforcement authorities allowed the bank to spin out of control for so long.

In the U.S. investigators now say openly that the Justice Department has not only reined in its own probe of the bank but is also part of a concerted campaign to derail any full investigation. Says Robert Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, who first launched his investigations into B.C.C.I. two years ago: "We have had no cooperation from the Justice Department since we first asked for records in March 1990. In fact they are impeding our investigation, and Justice Department representatives are asking witnesses not to cooperate with us."...

continued
www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,973481,00.html


I could tell you what you want to know, but I must worry about my wife and family -- they could be killed."

-- a former top B.C.C.I. officer

"We better not talk about this over the phone. We've found some bugs in offices that haven't been put there by law enforcement."

-- a Manhattan investigator probing B.C.C.I.

[KDLarsen]

1. Uh, dude..

Bush have been out of Government for 8 months?

And given that the Democrats have a majority, how exactly would the Republicans be able to protect anything?

[rollingrock]

2. When Bush I was in office

his Justice Department didn't lift a finger to help with the investigation of BCCI.

But today, Obama has already made it abundantly clear he won't be doing anything to hold the Bush administration accountable for anything it did. In other words, he's protecting the criminals.