Riggs' Controlling Family Could Gross $194 Million in Buyout (Albritton)

[UpInArms]

http://www.thestreet.com/_tsclsii/markets/matthewgoldstein/10171809.html

Joseph Allbritton and his family, the biggest shareholders in scandal-tainted Riggs National (RIGS:Nasdaq - news - research), are laughing all the way to the bank -- the PNC (PNC:NYSE - news - research) bank, that is.

Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial announced early Friday it's buying Riggs for about $779 million in stock and cash. The deal, which values Riggs shares at $24.25 a share, means Allbritton and his wife Barbara, who beneficially own about 8 million shares, stand to walk away with about $194 million.

That's not a bad payday considering the tongue lashing Riggs banking officials received earlier in the week from a Senate committee investigating allegations of money laundering by the Washington institution.

During a hearing Wednesday, senators scolded the bank for helping hide money for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The committee's investigation found that from 1994 to 2002, Riggs helped set up phony offshore companies to hide Pinochet's assets from the prying eyes of bank regulators and foreign prosecutors seeking to freeze the ousted dictator's holdings.

The committee revealed that Allbritton, who recently stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Riggs, even traveled to Chile more than a decade ago to personally solicit the former Chilean president's business.

...more...

[Sven77]

1. Bushs all over this bank

President Bush's uncle, Jonathan J. Bush, is a top executive at Riggs Bank, which this week agreed to pay a record $25 million in civil fines for violations of law intended to thwart money laundering. Jonathan Bush, who is a major fundraiser for his nephew, was appointed in 2000 to run Riggs Investment Management Co.

"Bush's Uncle Is Executive At Bank Fined for Laundering Saudi Money."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28396-2004May14.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006540.html

tons of stuff found googling

[seemslikeadream]

2. No need to google it's all right here

WaPo: Ex-Riggs Manager Won't Testify About Accounts (front page)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x689210
PNC to Buy Riggs Bank for $779 Million
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x689797
Senate investigators grill Riggs officials
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x689802
Riggs and Equatorial Guinea
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=9558&mesg_id=11993&page=
Bank 'ignored laundering laws' in handling dictator's accounts
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x686504
British businessman accused of leading role in failed coup
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=557727
Thanks for the links Sven77 :hi: and keep googling!

[SpiralHawk]

4. Uncle Jonathan Bush is a Skull & Boner

Just like Chimpy, and Poppy, and grave-robbing Prescott "Banker to the Nazis" Bush.

Jonathan will have to go some to beat the taxpayer ripoff sleaze pulled by itchy brother Neil Bush at the Silverado Savings and Loan. But I won't be surprised if...


“What used to be done on the high seas under the skull and crossbones is now done by accountants and lawyers and investment bankers with phony numbers and rigged partnerships. And that's a threat to ordinary Americans.”
- Kevin Phillips

[seemslikeadream]

5. Let's do Allbritton

The Bank of Dad

He bought a horse farm in Upperville, where he breeds and raises descendants of equine celebrities like Secretariat and Seattle Slew. Allbritton's Hansel won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1991.

He has been active on the boards of the Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan presidential libraries (never mind that Gerald Ford editorial). He donated the portrait of Reagan that hangs in the White House. Former president George H.W. Bush has attended Allbritton's post-Alfalfa brunch. When George W. Bush's inaugural parade passed the Riggs branch on Pennsylvania Avenue, he spotted Allbritton and said, "Hey Joe, how are you doing?"

But Allbritton has never sought to enhance his public profile. He rarely publicizes his extensive philanthropy, which can be gauged only by checking publicly available IRS documents. He has endowed a $9 million art institute and his foundations give more than $1 million a year to an eclectic list of recipients, including churches, hospitals and schools. "I do not think of myself as shy," he says. "However, I think the things I've done . . . can speak for themselves."

His role at the bank was inevitably more public. Bank analysts think he missed opportunities. In 1985, interstate banking became legal, and large out-of-town banks invaded the city and suburbs, grabbing customers and gobbling up smaller banks. Riggs slipped to the fifth- or sixth-largest bank in the region.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62544-2004Jun22_5.html

BANKING
The Bush-Riggs Connection

The decision last week by federal regulators to fine Riggs Bank $25 million for a "willful, systemic" violation of anti-money-laundering laws is raising new questions about whether the Bush administration's ties to powerful moneyed interests is unduly influencing U.S. foreign and national security policy. Riggs Bank is headed by longtime Bush family friend Joe Allbritton, employs President Bush's uncle Jonathan as a top executive, and other executives have been financial donors to the Bush campaign. The bank is at the center of a controversy, according to the Wall Street Journal, for failing to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian and Equatorial Guinean embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) "said members of the bank's board of directors should be held to account for failing to exercise their watchdog role over Riggs's operations" and said refusal to follow money laundering laws "allows terrorists to funnel their blood money through the system."

CONNECTION – JONATHAN BUSH AND RIGGS: Jonathan Bush, President Bush's uncle, was appointed CEO of Riggs Bank's investment arm in May of 2000, just months after his nephew secured the nomination for the presidency. At the time of the appointment, Jonathan Bush had already become a major financial backer of his nephew, rising to "Bush Pioneer" status by raising more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000. The move solidified the relationship between Jonathan Bush and Riggs, which was originally initiated in 1997 when, according to American Banker newsletter, Riggs paid Bush $5.5 million for his smaller investment firm. That transaction, according to the NYT, "deepened links to the Bushes." While Riggs denies any connection between Bush and the accounts being investigated in the money laundering probe, Riggs President Timothy Lex told the Washington Times in 1997 that "there's a blurring of distinctions between banks, mutual-fund families, broker dealers and everything else across the board."

CONNECTION - ALLBRITTON-BUSH LINK: Allbritton, who said during the federal probe that he was stepping down from Riggs's board, also was close to the Bush family. As the NYT reported, he (along with Riggs client Saudi Prince Bandar) was a financial backer of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, with National Journal noting he contributed between $100,000 - $250,000 to the project. And there also appears to be a personal bond with the current President Bush: As the 2/15/01 WP noted, "When President Bush climbed out of his limousine on Inauguration Day at the corner of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, he spotted Allbritton, waved and said, 'Hey Joe, how are you doing?'" That might have something to do with the fact that, according to the 11/7/2000 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Allbritton-owned TV station KATV in Little Rock broke 39 years of precedent and publicly endorsed Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The station, which is the biggest in the state, proceeded to air its endorsement 10 times throughout Arkansas, and refused to give equal time to Democrats "who asked for the time to present an alternative to the station's endorsement."

more
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:2VkJMNwbUYMJ:www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp%3Fc%3DbiJRJ8OVF%26b%3D99415+Joseph+Allbritton+george+bush&hl=en

A Shift in Strategy for Riggs
Bank Struggles to Find Focus for Investment Advisory Business
By Terence O'Hara and Kathleen Day
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 27, 2004; Page E01


Riggs Bank's slogan for much of the past 20 years -- "The most important bank in the most important city in the world" -- was intended to distinguish Riggs from the common run of banking.



This upper-crust vision of Riggs, cultivated by former chairman Joe L. Allbritton to attract Washington's unique class of moneyed demi-celebrities, guided many of the bank's strategic moves under his tenure.

One of these moves was the 1997 purchase of J. Bush & Co., a Connecticut money-management firm founded, owned and run by Jonathan J. Bush, the former president's brother and the current president's uncle, for an estimated $5.5 million.

At the time, Riggs was positioning itself as a personal bank and investment adviser to the wealthy after it lost ground in its core retail banking operations to larger, out-of-state competitors. J. Bush & Co., with a successful track record and a sterling name, fit the bill. Bush is now an employee of Riggs and continues to run the company with his name on it.
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58805-2004May26.html

Baylor College of Medicine Board of Trustees

Morrie K. Abramson
Morrie K. Abramson Interests Inc., JP Morgan Chase of Texas,

(Kent Electronics Corporation, Sterling Electronics)

Director of the Houston Technology Center, University of Houston,

Joe. L. Allbritton
Perpetual Corporation, Riggs National Corporation, Allbritton Communications Company, University Bancshares Inc., Washington Star, ALLNEWSCO Inc., Westfield News Advertiser Inc.,

(Houston International Bank of Luxembourg, Citizens Bank & Trust Co., )

Robert H. Allen
Federal Express Corporation, Gulf Canada Resources Ltd., Gulf Indonesia Resources, Ltd., Challenge Investment Partners, BCM Technologies Inc., GeoQuest International, Nuevo Energy Corporation,

(Gulf Resources and Chemical Corporation)

Advisory Board of the George Bush School of Government TAMU, UTIMCO, Texas Investment Management Company,
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:xTFIjZ7ISZwJ:www.fiatpax.net/dohe/bcm.htm+Joseph+Allbritton+george+bush&hl=en

"The order said the bank's internal controls 'were, and continue to be, seriously deficient.'"

"Riggs said last month it is pulling back from its foreign operations and that the head of the family that controls the bank was resigning from the board of its parent company. Investors viewed the moves as steps toward recovery or a possible sale. ... The bank also indicated that family patriarch Joe Allbritton, Riggs's former chief executive, is resigning as vice chairman of the parent company's board of directors. Timothy Coughlin, president of parent Riggs National Corp., also is resigning."
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Riggs_Bank_N.A.

Initial List of Council on Foreign Relations Members
BB=Bilderberger CFR=Council on Foreign Relations J=Jewish (very incomplete)
RS=Rhodes Scholar S&B=Skull and Bones (Yale) TC=Trilateral Commission

Name Particulars:

Joe L. Allbritton CFR
http://www.greencity.com/cfrlist.htm

[Snazzy]

9. Special Grand Cross Capping Presentation For Ill. Joe L. Allbritton, 33°,

Special Grand Cross Capping Presentation For Ill. Joe L. Allbritton, 33°, G.C.

On July 6, 2000, a special Grand Cross capping presentation was held in the office of Sovereign Grand Commander C. Fred Kleinknecht for Brother Joe L. Allbritton. Ill. Allbritton was unanimously elected by the Supreme Council to the Scottish Rite's highest honor, the Grand Cross, during the October 1999 Biennial Session. Grand Commander Kleinknecht arranged for this special event in the House of the Temple so that he could personally give the Grand Cross cap to his good friend and congratulate him on obtaining and deserving this great honor. He noted that Ill. Allbritton has been helpful in and around the capital city for many years and that his son, who will ultimately take over the business, is petitioning for membership in Freemasonry. Also in attendance at the ceremony were Ill. William G. Sizemore, 33°, G.C., Grand Executive Director, and Bro. Todd E. Carton, 32°, Chief Financial Officer of the Supreme Council.

Bro. Allbritton was raised a Master Mason in Baylor Lodge No. 1235 in Waco, Texas, in 1949 (meriting him 50-year Masonic honors in 1999) and became a Scottish Rite Mason in the Valley of Houston, Texas, in 1952. For his many services to Masonry and America, he was invested with the K.C.C.H. in 1975 and coroneted a 33° Inspector General Honorary in 1981.

Ill. Allbritton is Chairman of the Board of Riggs Bank N.A., the largest bank headquartered in the nation's capital. A native of Mississippi, Ill. Allbritton received a law degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and engaged in extensive banking activities in the United States and abroad prior to coming to Washington, D.C., in 1974 and purchasing the Washington Star newspaper. He served as the newspaper's Chairman and Publisher until 1978, when he sold it to Time Inc. Ill. Allbritton, through privately held companies, owns and operates eight ABC network-affiliated television stations in the United States, and a 24-hour local news cable channel in the Washington area as well as daily and weekly newspapers.

Active in numerous civic, professional, and cultural endeavors, Ill. Allbritton is a past officer or present member of the Council on Foreign Relations of New York; the Federal City Council and the Bankers Roundtable in Washington, D.C.; the Protestant Episcopal Foundation of the District of Columbia; Georgetown University; the Greater Washington Board of Trade; the National Geographic Society; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the National Fund for the United States Botanic Garden; Baylor University and the Baylor College of Medicine; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; and the George Bush Presidential Foundation.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Ah you got the best one!

[Snazzy]

12. The George Washington Gavel

"This Gavel was prepared for Bro. George Washington for the purpose of laying the Corner Stone of the U.S. Capitol and was so used by him September 18, 1793. He then presented it to Potomac Lodge No. 9 of Maryland, afterward Potomac Lodge No. 43 and now Potomac Lodge No. 5 of the Grand Lodge of the D.C., by whose Order of 1840 this Inscription is place upon it. 1856"

... in 1922, due to the long and friendly association between the Lodge and the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, now a branch of the Riggs National Bank, the Bank officials suggested that it be placed in a specially constructed box of their deposit vault for safe keeping. This arrangement was most fortunate as the Lodge building at 1210 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., burned to the ground on July 7, 1963 and everything therein was totally destroyed.

The close association between this bank and Potomac Lodge dates back to July 26, 1827 when William Wilson Corcoran, then a prosperous Georgetown merchant and later a co-founder of Riggs and Company, now Riggs National Bank, was raised a Master Mason in Potomac Lodge. He endowed the Art Gallery which bears his name at 17th and New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D. C.

The following Presidents of the United States, all Master Masons but two, have either used or been present at the using of the Gavel on the occasions cited below:

James K. Polk in the laying of the cornerstone of the Smithsonian Building,
May 1, 1847.

Millard Fillmore in the laying of the cornerstone of the extension of the U. S. Capitol, July 4, 1851.

James Buchanan at the dedication of the Equestrian Statue of George Washington, February 22, 1860.

William McKinley at the George Washington Centennial Observance at
Mt. Vernon, December 14, 1899.

Theodore Roosevelt at the celebration of the sesquicentennial date on which General Washington received the Master Mason's degree, November 2, 1902; in laying the cornerstone of the House Office Building, April 14, 1906; and again, in laying the cornerstone of the Masonic Temple, 801 13th Street, N.W., June 8, 1907.

William H. Taft in laying the cornerstone of the All Souls Unitarian Church, February 13, 1913.

Warren G. Harding in laying the cornerstone of the Washington Victory Memorial, November 14, 1921.

Herbert Hoover in laying the cornerstone of the Department of Commerce, June 10, 1929 and the Department of Labor, December 15, 1932.

Harry S. Truman in the Centennial Observance of the cornerstone laying of the Washington Monument, July 1, 1948, this being a repeat engagement for the Gavel as it was used to lay the original cornerstone of the Monument, Jul 1, 1848.

Dwight D. Eisenhower when it was used to lay the cornerstone of the new extension of the U. S. Capitol building, July 4, 1959.

http://www.potomac5.org/gavel.htm

----

Shouldn't surprise me that I can get into (weird) mason stuff from Riggs so easily, considering its former home on the back of the 10 spot:



(behind the Treasury, wink wink)

[seemslikeadream]

13. R.I.P. RIGGS BANK

1836
William Wilson Corcoran opens a note brokerage house---an early form of bank.

1837
Businessmen from New York and abroad, including former neighbor Elisha Riggs, shield the Corcoran brokerage house from collapse during the economic panic.

1840
Corcoran and George Washington Riggs, Elisha's son, form Corcoran Riggs, a partnership that offers depository and checking services.

1842
States-rights Democrat John Tyler is the first President of the United States to bank at Corcoran & Riggs.

1844
The U.S. government selects Corcoran & Riggs as the sole federal depository in Washington.

1845
Corcoran & Riggs finances the invention of the telegraph by Samuel Morse.
Corcoran & Riggs purchases the buildings and assets of the Washington branch of the defunct Second Bank of the United States, located across the street from the Treasury.

Corcoran & Riggs invests heavily in railroads and land, contributing to the nations push westward.


1847
Corcoran & Riggs lends $16 million to the U.S. government for the Mexican War and subsequently covers the loan by selling bonds to London financial houses. As the first sale of American securities in Europe since 1837, this transaction bolsters the credit of all American bankers.

1850
Senators Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster bank at Riggs.

1853
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opens Corcoran & Riggs accounts for construction of the Washington Aqueduct and the extension of the Capitol.

1854
Corcoran retires to devote his life to private investments and charitable causes; George Washington Riggs takes over the bank under its new name, Riggs & Co.

1861
Abraham Lincoln opens an account at Riggs shortly before Civil War hostilities begin, only weeks after Confederate President Jefferson Davis closes his account.

1865
Instead of accepting a charter under the new national bank act, Riggs & Co. remains a private bank. This decision accounts for the bank's stability in the aftermath of the Civil War.

1868
Upon the request of Secretary of State Seward, Riggs & Co. supplies $7.2 million in gold bullion to the U.S. government to purchase Alaska from Russia.

1873
Financial panic throws banking houses across the nation into confusion, yet Riggs deposits double within the next three years.

1881
Following the death of George Washington Riggs, Charles Carroll Glover becomes the dominant force in the bank.

1896
Riggs & Co. accepts a national banking charter. The Riggs National Bank elects its first board, sells stock, and shifts its focus from specialized investment services to general banking services for a large clientele.
Glover becomes the first president of the bank.


1900
Lawrason Riggs, the last member of the family associated with the bank, retires from the board of directors.
With deposits of more than $5 million, Riggs is twice as large as any other bank in the District of Columbia. Riggs issues stock to National City Bank, the largest New York bank, to forge a profitable alliance.
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/timeline.html

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. Joseph Allbritton

the top shareholder at Riggs is a long-time Bush family friend, a major campaign contributor and is also a Trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation.
http://www.georgebushfoundation.org/bush/asp/OverView/Trustees.asp

[KoKo]

6. I wonder if this isn't some of what Sibol Edmunds knows. Ties to

semi-legitimate organizations, money laundering...folks in high places.

And from the article: "...senators scolded." Why didn't Martha get a "scolding?" How can these folks get away with this? I thought under the Patriot Act money laundering to aid terrorists was a crime.

I guess Pinochet doesn't count. :eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

7. Yes definitely KoKo01

I'll look for it, it's somewhere here. or maybe another whistler?

Here's what I was thinking of

Hijacked bank

Questions also remain regarding the web of money transfers from Princess Haifa, Prince Bandar and the daughter of late King Faisal, some of which reached Nawaf Alhazmi and fellow terrorist Khalid Almihdar.Princess Haifa's bank account--the source of the funds which ultimately supported the alleged hijackers--was with Riggs Bank where Jonathan J. Bush, the brother of former President George H. W. Bush and uncle of President George W. Bush, is CEO, President and Director of Riggs' investment management subsidiary.

snip

After Al Bayoumi fled the U.S. to England in July, 2001--two months before the attacks, Princess Haifa's Riggs Bank checks were then sent to Osama Basnan, who with his wife Majeda Dweikat, were both later to be found in the U.S. illegally as a result of poor or suspicious State Department visa supervision.

Former FBI linguist Sibel Edmonds said she found evidence of espionage in both the State Department and the FBI in pre-9/11 translations of intelligence intercepts--which also warned about planes used as weapons well before the attacks.A federal law enforcement source said Basnan was a known "al-Qaeda sympathizer" who "celebrated the heroes of September 11" at a party after the attacks and openly talked about "what a wonderful, glorious day it had been," according to Newsweek.

Al Bayoumi and Basnan both befriended Alhazmi and fellow Saudi hijacker Khalid Almihdar after they arrived in San Diego, according to the sources; and the Riggs checks from Prince Bandar's wife helped the terroists pay rent and living expences in the months just prior to the attacks, according to reports. Newsweek said Al Bayoumi helped them obtain social security cards and helped them arrange for flying lessons in Florida--indicating dramatic evidence of the state of congressional internal security oversight.

Basnan was convicted of visa fraud and deported to Saudi Arabia on November 17, 2002. His wife Majida Ibrahim--who had also laundered checks from Riggs Bank--was deported the same day to her native Jordan for visa violations. (Washington Post, 9-24, 2002) Reasons were not given why the White House allowed the high profile suspects to leave the country on charges much less important than being implicated as an accessory to mass murder.

more
http://www.tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=pri...


British businessman accused of leading role in failed coup
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=557727

[seemslikeadream]

8. from Snazzy

Snazzy
Interesting but not surprising that whatever congressional inquiry is flying under the radar. The $25 million is nothing but a slap (Riggs has $6.4 billion in assets), as someone here pointed out. But the fact that Allbritton stepped down, and they are shutting down Miami and some of the other money laundering capabilities, suggests the shit has hit the fan.

Here's the guy who runs the London Riggs: Steve Pfeiffer (who googles better).

Bio: http://www.fulbright.com/site_map/FindAttorney/371.htm

I'd guess his operation would the point for paying out the British mercs. He's some sort of Africa specialist, former assistant to Sec of the Navy (and assistant CINC Europe and NATO muckty-muck) sometime around Regan. (Yale Law too).

Here's the Riggs 2002 annual report:
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/annualreport200...

Lots of names worth checking out--I'm going to see what comes up with Juan Luis Toro, who ran the Miami international operation. I'll bet there's some connection to Haiti, Columbia/Venezuela and/or something more with 9/11.

[Snazzy]

17. rescuing my post from one of the giant Plame threads

Steven B. Pfeiffer runs (or maybe ran, things are changing) Riggs International, including the London and Channel Island branches, with Florida reporting to him. Interesting guy: Yale Law, Council on Foreign Relations, a former NATO commander, Navy, on board of a prominent SA co. too. But most interesting is he also a bigwig at Fulbright & Jaworski. Yeah, giant law firm, but also a giant energy law firm, and also a giant help the Saudis law firm. One notable client: Mahfouz.

http://www.fulbright.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=attorneys.detail&emp_id=371&site_id=357&sitesearchstring=Pfeiffer

Pfeiffer is for sure a guy to watch what happens with as the bank gets swallowed.

Some other guys I was checking out with related links:

Riggs Florida, the actual bank that processed foreign banks transactions, was/is run by a guy named Juan Luis Toro. Haven't turned up too much on him, except he's (or was until very recently) on two boards: FIBA (Florida International Bankers Association), where the current is President Thomas P. Noonan (an evil name if I ever heard one!).

Noonan runs BAC Florida (no relation to Bank of America--that's their stock symbol), the US face of a giant Nicaraguan bank/investors, mainly doing offshore credit card processing and buying property in Florida. BAC Florida was also just slapped with an enforcement from the Comptroller of Currency, just like Riggs. Jeb Bush and Noonan keynoted the Annual Assembly of the Federation of Latin American Bankers this past November, right after FTAA. Noonan also keynoted FIBA's annual money laundering conference in March. Noonan is now out of there--guess he wasn't a total expert on money laundering or they all wouldn't have been caught. Point is, Florida is the nexus.

http://www.antimoneylaundering-fiba.com/program.asp
http://www.bacflorida.com/eng/management.html
http://www.fiba.net/
http://www.grupopellas.com/
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/enforcement/NewOrders/04-083b.html

Toro is also the most recent past prez of the Miami Bond Club (sadly, I know even less about bonds than I do about banking. Current prez is from UBS--also just fined, $100 million, for money laundering involving cash to Cuba, Libya, Iran and Yugoslavia.

http://www.miamibondclub.org/pages/direct.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3702259.stm

These last two guys are going to point to the Jeb connection. Or so I think.


Some other bd. members of interest:

J. Carter Beese is vice chair of Riggs & Co. (see Jonathan Bush) and president of its $100 million venture capital fund, Riggs Capital Partners. Before joining Riggs in 1998 Beese was chair of investment bank Alex Brown International (see Jeffrey Amling). Beese also is a global finance specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He and other board members of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association were embarrassed to learn in 2002 that the director of this money-manager trade group had embezzled association money for her own use. Beese was a major fundraiser for the first President Bush, who appointed him in 1990 to the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., which subsidizes the foreign investments of U.S. corporations. That President Bush also appointed Beese in 1992 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The second President Bush appointed Beese to the President’s Information Technology Committee in 2003, even as Beese sits on the advisory board of the Optical Capital Group, a venture capital fund investing in cable and telecommunications companies. In 2002 Beese chaired the SEC’s Auditor Oversight Roundtable under failed Bush SEC Chair Harvey Pitt.. Carter Beese is vice chair of Riggs & Co. (see Jonathan Bush) and president of its $100 million venture capital fund, Riggs Capital Partners. Before joining Riggs in 1998 Beese was chair of investment bank Alex Brown International (see Jeffrey Amling). Beese also is a global finance specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He and other board members of the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association were embarrassed to learn in 2002 that the director of this money-manager trade group had embezzled association money for her own use. Beese was a major fundraiser for the first President Bush, who appointed him in 1990 to the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., which subsidizes the foreign investments of U.S. corporations. That President Bush also appointed Beese in 1992 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The second President Bush appointed Beese to the President’s Information Technology Committee in 2003, even as Beese sits on the advisory board of the Optical Capital Group, a venture capital fund investing in cable and telecommunications companies. In 2002 Beese chaired the SEC’s Auditor Oversight Roundtable under failed Bush SEC Chair Harvey Pitt.

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/ContributorsAndPaybacks/pioneer_profile.cfm?pioneer_ID=521

Charles A Camalier, III

Mr. Camalier, 52, has been an attorney with the law firm of Wilkes Artis, Chartered since 1977 and is currently the Managing Partner. He is also President of Rock Spring Properties, Ltd., a commercial real estate asset management company. Mr. Camalier served on the Board of Riggs Bank from 1989 to 2001. He chairs the BSA Compliance Committee, co-chairs the Executive, Risk Management and Budget Committee and serves on the Nominating/ Corporate Governance and Audit Committees.

William L. Walton has been the chairman, CEO, and president of Allied Capital since 1997. Allied Capital (NYSE: ALD) is the nation’s largest business development company with a market capitalization of $3 billion and provides long-term debt and equity investment capital primarily to support the expansion of private companies in a variety of industries. Mr. Walton’s previous work experience includes managing director of Butler Capital Corporation, a mezzanine buyout firm; investment adviser to William S. Paley, founder of CBS; senior vice president in Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb’s Merger and Acquisition Group; and founder of two education service companies: Language Odyssey and Success Lab. Mr. Walton is a director of Riggs National Corporation, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Wolf Trap Foundation. He has served as director of Allied Capital since 1986.

[seemslikeadream]

19. Joe L. Allbritton CFR also

http://www.greencity.com/cfrlist.htm

[Sven77]

11. more timnews.com links

SENATE - Riggs Bank manager hauled a 60-pound suitcase filled with $3 million in plastic-wrapped cash to a Riggs's branch in the District of Columbia .. UPI
Director Jonathan Bush not questioned

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040716-065814-6002r.htm

NEW BCCI - Riggs Bank failed to inform bank regulators that it was handling accounts worth tens of millions of dollars for Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, and for top officials in the African dictatorship of Equatorial Guinea .. Financial Times
Jonathon Bush's political laundry

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373733601

[seemslikeadream]

14. I just stumbled on this, Sven77

Maybe some good stuff

The Chronology

I will now turn to the chronology of events surrounding the discovery that UBS had engaged in ECI transactions with OFAC-sanctioned countries and had concealed those transactions from the New York Fed.

On April 20, 2003, the Sunday New York Times reported that U.S. armed forces had discovered, in Baghdad, approximately $650 million in United States currency. According to the article, the wrapping on the currency indicated that it originated, in part, from the New York Fed. Upon reading this article, I sent an e-mail directing staff at the New York Fed to attempt to determine how currency bearing the mark of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York might have traveled from our offices to Baghdad. Around the same date, staff from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (“Board of Governors”) in Washington were contacted by the Treasury Department and asked to assist in tracing the same currency. Also at this time, staff at the New York Fed and other Reserve Banks received telephone calls from agents of the U.S. Customs Service seeking information regarding the discovered banknotes.

Within days, the New York Fed received serial numbers for a small sample of the banknotes found in Iraq. By April 24, 2003, our cash staff in East Rutherford, N.J., had determined, using serial number records, that the sampled notes were part of twenty-four shipments that had been sent from our offices to three of our ECI facilities: HSBC in London, Bank of America in Zurich and UBS in Zurich. Over the next few weeks, we received additional serial numbers from other samples of the discovered currency as well as serial numbers from samples of an additional $112 million that was discovered in Iraq shortly after the initial hoard. We successfully traced those serial numbers to the same three ECI facilities, as well as to HSBC’s ECI facilities in Frankfurt and London; to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s ECI facility in London; to a number of commercial banks in the United States and abroad; and to several foreign central banks.

In an effort to follow the currency trail further, in early May of 2003, we contacted each of the ECI operators, and one of the commercial banks that had done a large volume of relevant currency purchases, and asked them to provide us with information regarding the counterparties to whom they sold the identified banknotes. By the end of May, we had received responses from HSBC and Bank of America that included, for HSBC, specific counterparty information, and for Bank of America, more general country information, for the relevant shipments. No transactions with Iraq or any other OFAC-sanctioned countries were contained in these responses. Our investigative efforts to follow the trail of the currency discovered in Iraq are continuing.

http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/speeches/2004/bax040602.html

[seemslikeadream]

15. Proof of Trillions in Bu$h Family Business With Saddam

Proof of Trillions in Bu$h Family Business With Saddam 1989-1991
author: Gordon Thomas
The Bush family were doing business with Saddam Hussein from 1989 up to months before the outbreak of the first Gulf War.

In a document obtained by the respected London-based International Currency Review, it was claimed that after a year long investigation, it had uncovered evidence “of the mobilisation of trillions of dollars in 1989-91”. The document names a number of banks it alleges were “supervised by the Bush Sr White House” in the transactions

Business links – involving “the mobilisation of trillions of dollars” – by President Bush’s father and his brother Neil, were under investigation by America’s top spy catcher, Paul Redmond, when he resigned.

A well-placed Washington intelligence source said that Redmond quit after a White House meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

They are known as “The Enforcers” – ensuring there is no taint on the reputation of the increasingly embattled President with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Already, said the Washington source, the two men have ensured Bush distances himself from Tony Blair’s claims that the weapons will be found.

But equally Downing Street will want to stay clear of the allegation that the President’s family were doing business with Saddam from 1989 up to months before the outbreak of the first Gulf War.

In a document obtained by the respected London-based International Currency Review, it was claimed that after a year long investigation, it had uncovered evidence “of the mobilisation of trillions of dollars in 1989-91”.

The document names a number of banks it alleges were “supervised by the Bush Sr White House” in the alleged transactions.

The banks identified in the document include the British Royal Family bankers, Coutts; Morgan Guaranty Trust and Chase Manhattan, New York; Banco Exterior de Espana, Spain; First International Bank of Denver in the United States.

“What will cause astonishment is the provenance of some of these compromising documents. For many months we considered carefully whether they could be forgeries, and whether it could be credible that an intelligence organisation or a private gang of blackmailers and counterfeiters could replicate the precise behaviour of an obsolescent IBM computer to produce output identical to those images shown with this analysis. We checked these possibilities repeatedly with experts and also consulted banking sources to see whether these documents could possibly be fraudulent. The outcome of these investigations was unequivocally that the documentation is genuine.”

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/07/268817.shtml

Spies, Lies & Sneaky Guys: Espionage and Intelligence"

Paul Redmond is an internationally recognized authority on security, counterespionage, and counterintelligence, with hands-on experience throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Former Soviet Union.

Mr. Redmond is a member of the Technical Advisory Group to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and a Consultant to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Crime and Loss Prevention Institute, Northeastern University College of Criminal Justice.

During his thirty-year tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Redmond managed the CIA’s extensive counterintelligence organization, and counseled three succeeding Directors of Central Intelligence on highly sensitive counterintelligence matters, including technical and personnel security concerns. He established and built productive working relationships with NATO and with foreign intelligence and security chiefs worldwide. Redmond oversaw the counterintelligence aspects of personnel, computer systems and physical plants in the U.S. and abroad, and supervised the support provided by the CIA to the private sector relating to commercial counterespionage. He was instrumental in the apprehension of Aldrich Ames.
http://www.sabatiergroup.com/redmond.html



Paul Redmond, who headed counterintelligence for the CIA, was appointed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after meeting UD students in the Global Agenda series.

http://www.udel.edu/global/agenda/2003/gallery.html

[seemslikeadream]

16. Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit,

Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict
Edwin Black
ISBN: 0-471-67186-X
Hardcover
400 pages
September 2004

New York Times and international bestselling author Edwin Black uncovers Iraq’s hidden economy and the companies that profit from its upheaval
Big business and global warfare have long been fiery and symbiotic forces in Iraq. Banking on Baghdad tells the dramatic and tragic history of a land long the center of world commerce–and documents the many ways Iraq’s recent history mirrors its tumultuous past. Tracing the involvement

of Western governments and militaries, as well as oil, banking, and other corporate interests in Iraq, Black shows that today, just as yesterday, the world needs Iraq’s resources–and is always willing to fight and invade in order to acquire and protect them.

While demonstrating that Iraq itself is partially to blame for its current state of turmoil, Black does not shy away from the uncomfortable truth that war and profit have also played an equal part in creating the Iraq we know today. Just as he did in IBM and the Holocaust, Black exposes the hidden associations between leading corporations, war, and oil–such as the astonishing connections between Nazi Germany, Iraq, and the Holocaust.

He exposes the war and race-based profiteering by some of the world’s most prestigious corporations, as well as the political and economic ties between the Bush administration and the companies that gain handsomely from its foreign policy. Just as he did in War Against the Weak, Black offers a compelling blend of history and contemporary investigative journalism that spans a century and eschews easy answers for complicated questions.

Edwin Black (Washington, DC) is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust, The Transfer Agreement, and War Against the Weak. His journalism has appeared in the Washington Post, The Village Voice, The Sunday Times (of London), and The Los Angeles Times.

more
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471...

[Snazzy]

18. interesting, isn't it

That was the sting that got UBS caught with its hand in the money-laundering cookie jar.

$100M fine.