U.S. Seeks Assets of Ex-Riggs Executive

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Government Alleges Improper Transfers

By Terence O'Hara
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 29, 2004; Page E01

Federal lawyers are seeking to seize nearly $1 million and property owned by Simon P. Kareri, a onetime senior vice president at Riggs Bank who managed the accounts of African and Caribbean embassy clients, arguing that the assets are tied to money laundering.

In a court filing Dec. 7, the government alleged Kareri, without authorization, wired $700,000 from a Riggs account belonging to the government of Equatorial Guinea into an account controlled by a company he created. The U.S. government is seeking to seize those and other funds in Kareri's accounts, totaling nearly $1 million.

The forfeiture proceedings are not a criminal action, and Kareri has not been charged with a crime. His lawyers, Jonathan Shapiro and Christopher Hoge, did not return calls seeking comment. Kareri did not respond to a message left at his home yesterday.

U.S. attorneys involved in the case also could not be reached yesterday. The proceedings were reported in Monday's Legal Times.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32473-2004Dec28.html

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1. Wainstein's comment:

Kenneth L. Wainstein, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, alleged in the September court filing that Kareri developed a relationship with the owner of two construction companies. The U.S. attorney's filing alleges that Kareri would "arrange" for the companies to perform maintenance or construction projects at embassy properties or diplomatic residences in the Washington area. The papers allege that the two men agreed that the contractor would inflate the prices for the work, and then pay Kareri the difference between the normal cost and the price charged to the embassy.

The companies' owner, Hardutt Singh, could not be located for comment. No actions have been filed against him.

In one instance, the U.S. attorney's filing alleged, Singh performed a renovation project at Benin's embassy on Kalorama Road in the District. According to the filing, Singh prepared a written estimate of $186,000 for the work. Kareri then told Singh to submit an estimate for $410,000 to the embassy and pay Kareri the $224,000 difference. Singh was paid the $410,000 in a check drawn on Benin's Riggs Bank account overseen by Kareri, the filing alleges.

Eventually, the government claims, Kareri used some of the funds generated by the scheme to buy the Potomac property the government is attempting to seize.

[seemslikeadream]

2. more

...

In the September filing, the U.S. attorney alleged that Kareri gained the trust of several embassy officials and had oversight of their accounts at Riggs, including the accounts of the African countries of Benin, Togo, Mozambique and Equatorial Guinea. Equatorial Guinea was Riggs's largest deposit customer before Riggs closed the account early this year as federal regulators were raising questions about the bank's failure to comply with laws designed to prevent money laundering.

Both court filings cite an internal Riggs investigation of Kareri and his management of Equatorial Guinea's accounts. The December papers said the Riggs investigation found that Kareri "had made unauthorized interbank transfers of large sums of monies that he oversaw to corporate accounts that were controlled by his wife," Nene Fall Kareri. Her lawyer, Nina Ginsberg, was traveling yesterday and could not be reached for comment.

...

"As Riggs has previously disclosed, at the beginning of 2004, Riggs terminated Mr. Kareri and referred the matter to appropriate authorities," said Mark Hendrix, a Riggs spokesman. "It would be inappropriate for Riggs to comment further about his activities given investigations by various authorities underway."

...

Kareri, who joined Riggs in 1994, managed more than a dozen embassy relationships. Equatorial Guinea's accounts at Riggs were fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in payments from oil companies producing the country's vast reserves. At one point, Equatorial Guinea and its officials had more than $700 million in various deposit accounts at Riggs. A federal grand jury and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking at whether bribes were paid by U.S. oil companies to the ruling family of Equatorial Guinea through the Riggs accounts.

According to a Senate subcommittee report in July, Kareri oversaw multiple suspicious transactions involving Equatorial Guinea accounts. The report cited such "lax oversight" by Riggs officials of Kareri that he was able to wire more than $1 million from the country's main oil account into an offshore company he controlled. That company, Jadini Holdings, was incorporated by Kareri's wife.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32473-20...

:hi:

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4. Mrs Kareri? Keeping it all in the family, like the Bushes....

How are you? Looking forward to 2005?

[UpInArms]

3. do you think they'll start sniffing around Jonathan Bush?

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_J._Bush

excerpt:

On May 31, 2000, Riggs Bank N.A. "announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman.

"Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997. Mr. Dudley, a 24-year veteran of Riggs, will continue to be responsible for all of Riggs Bank's investment management, trust and private banking business.

"Located in the nation's capital, Riggs Bank has 53 branches in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, as well as banking offices in Miami, London and Berlin."

In July 26, 1991, the Boston Globe's Frank Phillips reported "State Fines Bush's Brother in Stock Case."

"Massachusetts securities regulators have fined the stockbrokerage firm owned by President Bush's brother Jonathan $30,000 and barred it from trading with the general public for one year because the company and Bush violated state registration laws.

"As part of a consent order worked out with Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly's securities division, the New York firm of J. Bush & Co., whose only principal is Jonathan J. Bush, also agreed that it would offer to reimburse its clients in Massachusetts for stocks it had sold them since January 1988. . . .

"Connolly's securities chief, Neal Sullivan, said yesterday that Bush's problems began in February when Bush informed his agency that he had never registered as a broker-dealer in Massachusetts. But Sullivan said Bush compounded his legal problem by taking a cavalier attitude toward the violation of the Uniform Securities Act when he continued to carry out transactions even as state regulators were negotiating a consent decree with him.

"'That created great concern for us. We were dismayed,' Sullivan said. 'Anyone who has been notified that he is violating state law and continues to do so certainly exemplifies a cavalier attitude toward the registration laws.'"

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=2974

excerpt:

The revelations of the activities at Riggs Bank demonstrate how commonplace and extensive criminal activity has become within the American financial and political establishment. Not coincidentally, the bank’s activity has a great deal in common with certain features prominent in the Bush administration: the heavy influence of oil interests, the close ties with the Saudi ruling elite, the funding and support given to dictators and former dictators, including General Pinochet.

The relationship of Riggs to the Bush administration is more than tangential. Riggs owns a money management firm, J. Bush & Co., operated by Jonathan Bush, the brother of George H.W. Bush and the current president’s uncle.

Jonathan Bush played a very important role in helping find investors for the various failed oil businesses that George W. Bush ran before he began his career in politics. Jonathan Bush also helped raise money for George H.W. Bush and is a former chair of the New York Republican State Finance Committee. In 2000, he was briefly named president and CEO of Riggs Investment Management Company (RIMCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of Riggs Bank.

While Jonathan Bush appears not to have been directly involved in the Saudi, Pinochet or Equatorial Guinean accounts, his position at Riggs is an indication of the close ties between the bank and the Bush family.

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5. More gloom for Riggs in London:

This excerpt from yesterday's Daily Mail, Richard Kaye column. Not available online (paysite, ludicrous subscription rate) but verbatim transcript from the printed edition, page 31:

"Raine's Dishy toyboy":

Snip:
Princess Diana's stepmother, Raine Countess Spencer, once complained about how dull her social life was in her adopted county of Devon...........

The new man in Raine's life is handsome fortysomething banker David Bachetti.........managing director of US banks Riggs in London...described....as "drop-dead gorgeous".........

endsnip

Can't get a pic out of google of him

From Riggs website:

David Bachetti

Bachetti transferred to London from Washington in early 2000 and was named Chief Credit Officer in 2001. As Managing Director, he will guide Riggs Bank Europe's commercial lending activities in the United Kingdom.

"David brings to this position an outstanding track record in credit administration, along with the drive, talent and energy to succeed," said Allbritton. "He is a great addition to the executive management team."

Prior to his London appointment, Bachetti was Senior Managing Director of Riggs' Investment Banking Division. He joined Riggs in 1989 and held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility in the bank's credit administration and loan review divisions. Bachetti earned an M.B.A. from Georgetown University and a B.A. from the College of William & Mary.

http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/july12_01.html

Raine, 75, works for Mohammed Fayed, CEO of Harrods and the Paris Ritz.