Pinochet's Fortune Comes From Arms Trafficking Commissions, Prosecutor Say

[Judi Lynn]

Pinochet's Fortune Comes From Arms Trafficking Commissions, Prosecutor Says
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The Associated Press

Published: Oct 13, 2005

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - The fortune accumulated abroad by former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet is the result of commissions he received from arms trafficking operations, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Prosecutor Maria Teresa Munoz said her agency has detected "a number of deposits made by arms manufacturing companies into accounts owned by Gen. Pinochet or businesses related to him."

Munoz is one of several lawyers asking the Supreme Court to strip Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution and allow his trial on corruption charges.
(snip)

Pinochet's defense lawyer, Pablo Rodriguez, has insisted the money is legitimate and came from savings, investments and donations.
(snip/)

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBE9O7DREE.html

[ck4829]

1. It's time to face the music, you mass-murdering monster

[callady]

2. Detective Story that Linked £1m Pinochet Cash to BAE

Detective Story that Linked £1m Pinochet Cash to BAE
US investigators find 100 accounts linked to general; Secret payments listed to alleged front companies


by David Leigh, Jonathan Franklin in Santiago and Rob Evans

The dogged pursuit of his multimillion dollar fortune by a Chilean judge, Sergio Muñoz, culminated last month in the arrest of General Pinochet's wife and son in Santiago. The hunt has unearthed a sophisticated array of bank accounts and offshore hiding places. It has also left Britain's biggest arms company, BAE, facing many questions in what may prove one of the biggest scandals to hit an already scandal-prone company.

The Chilean legal documents, based on US banking records, list secret payments by BAE to what are said to be front companies and middlemen for Gen Pinochet. They total $2,098,841 (more than £1m). The payments began in 1997, and the latest were recorded last year. A final $189,940 payment went into an alleged front company on June 30 last year. Many of the recent payments were not recorded in the name of BAE, but in that of Red Diamond Trading, an entity registered in the financial "black hole" of the British Virgin Islands. The company was set up in 1998 by a discreet subdivision of BAE at its Farnborough HQ. It has the uninformative title of HQ Marketing Services.

Its staff are frequent visitors to Switzerland, where they keep records of agents' contracts in a bank vault. Red Diamond Trading is used by Marketing Services to make covert payments to agents in South America who help BAE make arms and aerospace sales to Latin American governments. Documents obtained by the Guardian show that Red Diamond is not listed as a subsidiary in BAE's accounts, but transfers secret "commissions" on their behalf through Lloyds Bank.

Why would BAE pay Gen Pinochet all this money in so secret a fashion? The Chilean media accuse him of taking bribes for delivering arms sales, and there are two big arms deals in which BAE has been involved in recent years. One was the Rayo rocket system.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0915-08.htm

[Marie26]

4. Pretty sophisticated operation

for a man who the defense argues is too senile to stand trial.

[1932]

5. It's amazing that this is what progressives have to fight.

People who want to make life better for strangers, motivated by little more than a compassion for people they've never met, are up against powerful people who stand to make millions by spreading misery.

[AlCzervik]

3. I bet Henry Kissinger has some of the money sitting in the Caymans right

now. When is it his turn?

[Say_What]

8. Don't forget Poppy Bush, he was head of the CIA and covered

up for DINA when Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier was car bombed/assassinated with his assistant Ronnie Moffit on Embassy Row in September 1976. His assassination was part of Operation Condor.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB112/

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010306/

[struggle4progress]

6. kick

[Kralizec]

7. Geez. I wonder what nationalities those "business'" are? Toughie. (eom)

[Say_What]

9. $27 million from "savings, investments and donations"

And on a soldiers wages even!!! :rofl:


I just hope they prosecute the POS before he croaks. They're investigating his wife and five kids too. The wife and son Marcos have already been arraigned on embezzlement. May they suffer the way he brought suffering to so many thousands.