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Atlanta

Georgia capital where BNL's branch lent Iraq billions off the books until the FBI raid of 1989, where BCCI's frontman bought Bert Lance's bank, and where CIA-funded LSD tests ran at the federal penitentiary.

City · Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia

BNL Atlanta

Between 1985 and 1989 the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, managed by Christopher Drogoul, extended more than four billion dollars in unreported loans and credits to Iraq, part of them guaranteed by the Commodity Credit Corporation; the money financed the purchases of Iraq's military procurement network, including Matrix Churchill and the brass plant of SerVaas Inc.12 The FBI raided the branch on August 4, 1989.3 The acting United States attorney in Atlanta, Joe D. Whitley, recused himself on taking office on June 1, 1990, because his former law firm had represented Matrix Churchill.4 The indictment returned in Atlanta on February 28, 1991, named Drogoul and, among others, Safa al-Habobi.5 Judge Marvin Shoob called Drogoul and his colleagues "pawns and bit-players in a far more wide-ranging conspiracy."6 The investigation became the BNL Scandal.

BCCI and the National Bank of Georgia

In January 1978 Ghaith R. Pharaon completed his purchase of the National Bank of Georgia from Bert Lance, with the help of Agha Hasan Abedi of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, who paid off Lance's 3.5 million dollar bank loan the same day. First American Bank, secretly owned by BCCI, bought the bank from Pharaon for 227 million dollars in 1987.713

MKULTRA

After May 1943 George Hunter White of the Office of Strategic Services tested a truth drug on suspected Communist soldiers at camps near Atlanta, Memphis and New Orleans.8 Under MKULTRA Subproject 47 the CIA tested large doses of LSD on volunteers at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary through Emory University.9

Other Records

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, with Martin Luther King Jr. as president, was organized in Atlanta on January 10 and 11, 1957.10 George R. Wackenhut was an FBI special agent in Atlanta and Indianapolis from 1951 to 1954, before founding the Wackenhut Corporation.11 The car James Earl Ray had driven from Memphis after the killing of King in April 1968 was found abandoned in Atlanta.12

Sources

  1. "Drogoul gets 37 months in BNL bank scandal." United Press International, December 9, 1993; United States v. Drogoul, 1 F.3d 1546 (11th Cir. 1993). ↩
  2. Gonzalez, Henry B. "Details on Iraq's Procurement Network," Congressional Record, House, August 10, 1992, and "Brass Factory in Iraq," September 25, 1992, p. H9502. ↩
  3. Gonzalez, Henry B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Scandal: High-Level Politics Try to Hide the Evidence." Congressional Record, House, September 14, 1992, p. H8349. ↩
  4. Lacey, Frederick B. "The Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Investigation: Report of the Independent Counsel," reproduced in House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Testimony of Former Employees of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Serial No. 103-95, 1993. ↩
  5. Friedman, Alan. Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq. Bantam, 1993, pp. 185, 281. ↩
  6. "Justice probe finds no 'Iraqgate' conspiracy." Associated Press, in the San Francisco Chronicle. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/justice-probe-finds-no-iraqgate-conspiracy-3160242.php ↩
  7. Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. Random House, 1993, pp. 11-14, as cited on the National Bank of Georgia page. ↩
  8. Marks, John D. The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control. Times Books, 1979, ch. 1. ↩
  9. Earman, John S., CIA Inspector General. "Report of Inspection of MKULTRA/TSD," July 26, 1963, as cited on the Project MKUltra page; Marks, ch. 4. ↩
  10. Garrow, David. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. William Morrow, 1986. ↩
  11. The Wackenhut Corporation, biographical sketch of George R. Wackenhut, annual reports, as cited on the George R. Wackenhut page. ↩
  12. Sides, Hampton. Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin. Doubleday, 2010. ↩
  13. As cited on the First American Bank page for BCCI's secret ownership. ↩

Connected to by shared pages

23 shared · Organizationvia SerVaas Inc., Amir al-Saadi, Matrix Churchill
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
27 shared · Placevia SerVaas Inc., Amir al-Saadi, Matrix Churchill
Iraq
14 shared · Personvia SerVaas Inc., Commodity Credit Corporation Iraq Program, Safa al-Habobi
Henry B. Gonzalez
15 shared · Eventvia Arms-to-Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
BNL Scandal
13 shared · Organizationvia SerVaas Inc., Matrix Churchill, Safa al-Habobi
Matrix Churchill
11 shared · Personvia Amir al-Saadi, Safa al-Habobi, Marvin Shoob
Christopher Drogoul
13 shared · Personvia Safa al-Habobi, Arms-to-Iraq, Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
12 shared · Placevia Matrix Churchill, Safa al-Habobi, Project Babylon
Baghdad

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    CityGeorgiaBNLBCCIMKULTRA