BANKING SCANDALS AND THE IRAQI NUCLEAR PROGRAM
"Known to regulators as the 'Bank of Crooks and Criminals', BCCI fostered a global looting operation that bilked depositors of billions of dollars," wrote Mark Riebling in Wedge, concerning the Bank of Commerce and Credit International. Published in 1994 by Alfred A. Knopf, Riebling's book details the long and tortured history of turf warfare between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, from its earliest roots in the Office of Strategic Services.
Although not intended as an indictment of former President George Herbert Walker Bush, Riebling's Wedge -- given the events of September 11th, 2001 -- makes it clear that Bush-41 and his most intimate associates in business and politics are directly responsible for the dramatic build-up of Iraqi power in the 1970s and early 1980s. Worse than that, it clearly demonstrates that the surging power of Islamic fundamentalism and the development of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan were direct side-effects of the strategic actions of the CIA, over time, in battling the former Soviet Union in central Asia.
Nothing more clearly demonstrates the serious nature of the turf war which has afflicted the FBI and the CIA, than the investigation of Banco Lavoro Nazionale ( BNL ), which commenced with the formation of a Justice Department team in March of 1989. "Faced with a wash of failed S&L and bank fraud cases," writes Riebling, "Justice had organized FBI agents, federal attorneys, and regulators into local fraud working groups."
On Friday, August 4th, 1989, shortly after 5:00 PM, FBI agents raided the offices of BNL in Atlanta, Georgia. They seized nearly every record and document being held by Banco Lavoro.
"This evidence, and a secret set of grey books," notes Riebling, "revealed that BNL not only had illegally loaned over $ 4 billion to Iraq, but was also funding Iraqi nuclear procurement. One of the persons soon wanted for questioning by the FBI was Safia Al-Habobi, Hussein Kamil's deputy for nuclear programs."
Hussein Kamil ( also spelled Kamal ), has been very much in the news of late: he was once the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, and he defected to the west via Jordan in 1995, taking with him his brother and crates of Iraqi nuclear documents. For reasons which are still obscure, he decided to return to Iraq in 1996, where he was warmly welcomed by his father-in-law, who promptly had him executed.
But, in 1989, Iraq was still among those countries in the middle eastern region which the Bush-41 administration was actively engaging. As Riebling tells it in his book, the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta -- after the BNL raid -- inquired of the CIA concerning their billions in loans to Hussein's Iraq. The specific question was asked -- if the CIA had any knowledge of illegal activities at BNL ?? More than a year and one half later, the CIA had not answered this query, despite having been tasked to assist Bush-41 in engineering the destruction of Iraq's war machineries in the Gulf War operation called Desert Storm. They blamed their "filing system" for losing the query.
Indeed, there are indications in Wedge that this FBI raid on the Banco Lavoro seriously crippled the Hussein government's ability to negotiate any of its international payments. "The BNL bust had dried up Iraq's single largest source of foreign capital", writes Riebling. "This meant that Saddam could no longer fund his nuclear projects ...." **
NEWLY ACQUIRED DOCUMENTS REVEAL THAT LEO WANTA WAS A KEY PLAYER IN THE BANKERS' PANIC OF AUGUST, 1989
The seizure of the banking records of the Banco Lavoro Atlanta branch -- as detailed by Mark Riebling in Wedge -- apparently set off a panic among international bankers and certain of their customers in the United States, including Mr. Leo Wanta. In the days which followed the action of the joint task force mentioned by Riebling, an extraordinary flow of money rippled through the international money swapping systems. Nine of the ten mega-dollar transfers involving Leo Wanta occured immediately after the collapse of the BNL "false front".
EVERY TRANSFER ORIGINATED WITH BANCO EXTERIOR DE ESPANA ~ MALAGA
AUGUST 5, 1989 -- $ 100 Billion went to Morgan Guaranty Trust in New York City, New York. The Wanta account numbered 722000011 was the receiver and the funds dropped at Prudential Bache Securities ( named to credit ).
AUGUST 7, 1989 -- $ 2 Billion went again to Morgan Guaranty Trust in New York City, to the Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, William W. Wilson Attorney Special Account.
AUGUST 8, 1989 -- $ 100 Billion to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Chase Manhattan, William W. Wilson, Special Account.
AUGUST 10, 1989 -- $ 500 Million to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Marine Midland Bank of Albany, New York, with First Constantine Corporation named to credit.
AUGUST 10, 1989 -- $ 10 Billion to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at NCNB Bank of Texas, Garland, Texas, Wyatt W. Lipscomb Escrow Attorney ( named to credit ).
AUGUST 10, 1989 -- $ 500 Million to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Bank of America, Walnut Creek, California, Pinnacle Holdings / Francis X. Driscoll Attorney Trust ( named to credit ).
AUGUST 11, 1989 -- $ 10 Billion to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Metropolitan Federal of Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee; Pilgrim Investments Trading Account ( named to credit, principal unknown ).
AUGUST 11, 1989 -- $ 25 Billion to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, New York, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Union Bank of Switzerland, Geneva, International Financial Services Ltd., R. J. George and Don Wilco principals ( named to credit ).
AUGUST 11, 1989 -- $ 25 Billion to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Bank of America, Walnut Creek, Pinnacle and Francis X. Driscoll ( named to credit ).
AUGUST 12, 1989 -- $ 25 Billion to the Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wanta account, and the funds dropped at Hawaii National Bank, Honolulu, Hawaii, care of their corporate trust department.
Further indicating the level of panic among the bankers, following the collapse of the BNL Atlanta front, $ 100 Billion was sent from Coutts Bank, London, England to Morgan Guaranty Trust credited to the account of MARTWELL INVESTMENTS, which was identified as an operation controlled by Marc Rich, the metals and precious gems speculator and fugitive from justice.
Additionally, on August 11th, the Banco Exterior De Espana, of Malaga, sent $ 1 Billion to the Banco De Panama, Panama City, Panama, in care of Pilgrim Investments, Jorge Bush principal; and $ 50 Billion to the Bank of China, Hong Kong, Synergy Trust ( named to credit ). This last transaction record has some contradictory notes attached so the total may have actually been $ 500 Billion U.S. and not merely $ 50 Billion. These three transfers were not indicated as being sent to Wanta accounts.
Another billion dollar transfer on August 10th was routed to the Arab Bank Corporation of Monaco, c/o Keith Bennet Group, who may or may not have been representing Pilgrim Investments.
The documents which show these massive, mega-dollar transactions following the joint task force raid on BNL Atlanta have been checked for authenticity by V.K. Durham and were obtained by her, from an intelligence agency source who held on to them secretly for thirteen years.
NO LAW THEN IN PLACE WAS VIOLATED.
Nothing in the entries noted here has anything to do, whatsoever, with the national security of the United States at the time of the transfers ( August 1989 ), nor does reporting on these events from seventeen years ago have any apparent bearing on or relationship to current issues of national security and financial dealings. None of the transfers named in the overall report studied by V.K. Durham involved the BNL Atlanta operation. It may, however, be entirely true that some of the money involved in swaps made at this time in this "bankers' panic," involved money owed to the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or money used to parlay futures purchasing of Iraqi crude oil. That's the great unknown.
According to Ms. Durham, CEO of the Durham Trust and Signatory to the Peruvian commodity contract, known as the Bonus 3392-181, the source who provided this detailed list of banking transactions believed that the late Vincent Foster was protecting Leo Wanta in the years 1989 to 1993. Foster is thought to have made several trips to Europe in that time frame and may have accompanied Wanta on one trip, specifically because of their suspicions about illegal money-laundering being conducted by Marc Rich.
** see: FACTION 1 AND FUNDING THE FOURTH REICH
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