#Banking
16 entries tagged Banking.
People (6)
- Bert Lance T. Bertram 'Bert' Lance was Jimmy Carter's first Director of the Office of Management and Budget, who resigned in 1977 amid a congressional investigation into banking improprieties, and subsequently became the crucial intermediary who introduced Agha Hasan Abedi to Clark Clifford and facilitated BCCI's covert entry into the U.S. banking market.
- Clark Clifford Clark Clifford (1906-1997) was a Washington attorney who served as Special Counsel to President Truman, co-authored the National Security Act of 1947, served as Secretary of Defense under Lyndon Johnson, and became the central American figure in the BCCI scandal after he and his partner Robert Altman personally vouched to banking regulators that BCCI would not secretly own First American Bank -- a representation that proved false.
- David Rockefeller The youngest of the five Rockefeller brothers, David Rockefeller built Chase Manhattan Bank into the primary financial instrument of the Rockefeller family's Latin American strategy, serving as the network's commercial arm while Nelson directed its political and intelligence operations.
- Jes Staley Career JPMorgan banker who managed Jeffrey Epstein's private-banking relationship, later became Barclays chief executive, and was banned from senior UK finance roles in 2023 for misleading the regulator about the nature and timing of his Epstein relationship.
- Khalid bin Mahfouz Khalid bin Mahfouz (1949-2009) was a Saudi billionaire banker who owned approximately 20% of BCCI, was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in July 1992 on charges of defrauding BCCI depositors of $300 million, settled all charges for $225 million in December 1993, and was named in a May 1985 Department of Justice document as the intended recipient of espionage-modified PROMIS software brokered by Manucher Ghorbanifar, Adnan Khashoggi, and Richard Armitage.
- Robert Altman Robert Altman was a Washington attorney and partner to Clark Clifford who served as president of First American Bankshares and was indicted by Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau in July 1992 on charges of bribery and fraud related to BCCI's secret ownership of the bank; he was acquitted by a Manhattan jury in September 1993.
Organizations (6)
- Bank of Credit and Commerce International The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a Pakistani-founded offshore bank that operated across 78 countries before its 1991 collapse exposed a decade-long conspiracy involving money laundering for drug cartels and intelligence agencies, illegal acquisition of U.S. banks, bribery, fraud, and arms trafficking, in what regulators called the largest bank fraud in history.
- Bank of England The Bank of England is the UK's central bank and was the primary regulator of BCCI's British operations; its failure to act on clear warning signs about BCCI's fraud was documented in the 1992 Bingham Report, making it central to any account of how BCCI operated for so long under regulatory cover.
- Chase Manhattan Bank Chase Manhattan Bank, led by David Rockefeller from 1961 to 1981, served as the Rockefeller family's primary financial instrument in Latin America, with its credit policies in Brazil contributing to the economic conditions that preceded the 1964 military coup.
- Deutsche Bank German global bank that took Jeffrey Epstein as a client in 2013 after JPMorgan dropped him, processed suspicious payments to women and alleged co-conspirators despite internal warnings, and paid a 150 million dollar New York regulatory penalty and 75 million dollars to his victims.
- Federal Reserve Board The Federal Reserve Board (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) is the governing body of the U.S. central banking system, established 1913; it appears in this vault primarily in connection with the BCCI scandal, in which the Federal Reserve approved Clark Clifford and Robert Altman's First American Bankshares acquisition without knowing of BCCI's secret beneficial ownership, and later investigated and fined BCCI's principals for the regulatory deception.
- JPMorgan Chase Largest U.S. bank, which kept Jeffrey Epstein as a private-banking client from 1998 to 2013 despite internal compliance warnings and later paid 290 million dollars to his victims and 75 million dollars to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle sex-trafficking-facilitation claims.
Events (1)
- BNL Scandal The BNL scandal involved the Atlanta branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, whose manager Christopher Drogoul extended approximately $5 billion in unauthorized loans to Saddam Hussein's Iraq between 1987 and 1989; subsequent investigations found CIA awareness of or involvement in the scheme, and the Justice Department's handling of the prosecution was criticized as protecting intelligence equities over criminal accountability.
Places (3)
- Jordan Jordan is a Middle Eastern country whose capital Amman is home to the Arab Bank Limited, which under Chairman Abdul Majeed Shoman expressed willingness to process multi-billion-dollar reconstruction fund transfers connected to FIDCO and Lebanon-related covert finance operations.
- Liechtenstein Liechtenstein is a small Central European principality known for banking secrecy, where arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi established front companies alongside Swiss entities to handle commissions from Iran-Contra arms deals.
- Switzerland Switzerland is a European country whose banking secrecy laws made it the primary offshore jurisdiction for Iran-Contra arms dealer commissions, BCCI front operations, and Adnan Khashoggi's front companies, before Khashoggi was arrested there in 1988.