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In 1988, John Kerry began an investigation of international drug connections as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. He discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a powerful global financial institution, was laundering drug money for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and serving as a banker for some of the world's most notorious terrorists, criminals and despots, including Osama bin Laden and Saddaum Hussein.
Kerry met with opposition in Washington from powerful political figures in both parties. Even George H.W. Bush, whose son George W. Bush received $25 million BCCI loan for his oil businesses, pressured Kerry to drop the investigation. Finally, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell, formally asked Kerry to end his probe.
Instead Kerry gave his information to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who launched a criminal investigation into BCCI. By 1991, the investigation exposed what Morgenthau described as "one of the biggest criminal enterprises in world history."
As Kerry's subcommittee discovered, BCCI catered to many of the most notorious tyrants and thugs of the 20th century, including Iraqi dictator Saddaum Hussein, the heads of the Medellin cocaine cartel, and Abu Nidal, the notorious Paliestinian terrorist. It also did business with those who went on to lead al Qaiada.
By July 1991, Kerry's work paid off. That month, British and US regulators finally responded to the evidence provided by Kerry, Morgenthau, and a concurrent investigation by the Federal Reserve. BCCI was shut down in seven countries and served indictments for grand larceny, bribery, and money laundering.
A decade after Kerry shut down the bank, the CIA discovered Bin Laden was among those who had accounts at the bank. A French intelligence report in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were found to be involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with Bin Laden after the the bank collapsed, and the financial network operated by Bin Laden today is similar to the network put into place in the 1980's by BCCI.
One U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations." Years before money laundering became a centerpiece of the antiterrorist efforts Kerry crusaded for controls on global money in the name of national security. Kerry during his battle with BCCI, revealed himself as a man of integrity who refused to back down under pressure of special interests who could have ruined his political career. Kerry believes that privilege has it's duties and that public service means putting oneself in the line of fire, whether literally in the jungles of Vietnam or metaphorically in the political minefields of Washington, D.C..
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