-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- from: http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/ReportersAlley/thecatbirdseat/Catbird3.htm Click Here: <A HREF="http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/ReportersAlley/thecatbirdseat/Catbird3. htm">THE CATBIRD SEAT</A> ----- THE CATBIRD SEAT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To see where greed and evil meet, climb up in the catbird seat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Part II - THE NESTS When the notorious criminal Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, his famous response was, 'cause banks is where the money is. Today, we have amongst us another crooked Willie -- but instead of sitting in jail, this Willie resides in the White House. Ask this slick Willie where the money is and he may answer, it depends on what your definition of is, is. If pinned down, however, he would probably reply: Goldman Sachs (his largest campaign contributor), or Citigroup, the Bank of New York, American International Group, the U.S. Treasury, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Export/Import Bank, State Treasuries, Housing Authorities, and many other public or quasi-public entities that have check-writing authority for the public's money. These "banks" include employee pension plans and similar "safe depositories" for your money and mine. In these pages we will attempt to shine a light into some of the dark caverns where these financial bats hide our money -- and show how they legally -- or illegally -- slip millions into their own pockets under the guise of respectability and under the cover of financial institution secrecy laws. * * * So, if you've taken your daily dose of valium, or had a few glasses of Thunder bird, then you may be up to taking our tour of THE NESTS . . . * * * Allstate Insurance - From Conspirators' Hierarchy: . . . The English companies controlled by the British royal family are Eagle Star, Prudential Assurance Company, and the Prudential Insurance Company, which own and control most American insurers, including Allstate Insurance. . . American Express Bank International - From The Laundrymen: . . . Over the years, the Justice Department has become more adroit at digging deeper into a bank's affairs and rooting out the laundrymen, and more severe about holding the bank responsible for the actions of its employees. At the end of 1994, the government's wrath was directed at the American Express Bank International , after two of its senior officers were indicted in Houston for helping to wash $40 million belonging to Mexican drug trafficker Juan Garcia Abrego. . . . A Mexican gas station owner named Ricardo Aguirre Villagomez . . . was Abrego's primary laundryman. Under Villagomez's supervision, drug money collected on the streets of Texas was sent through exchange houses and banks along the Mexican border to Switzerland. From there is was wired to a holding company in the Cayman Islands established for Villagomez by Antonio Giraldi and Maria Lourdes Reategui at the Beverly Hills branch of AMEX. Some of his money was invested in a Blockbuster Video franchise . . . But the lion's share went into American real estate. Giraldi and Reategui accepted $29 million as collateral for $19 million worth of property loans, reputedly making Villagomez the bank's biggest customer -- at least until U.S. Customs identified and froze the funds in the Caymans. Giraldi and Reategui both pleaded not guilty to several charges, including money laundering, but a Brownsville, Texas jury found otherwise. He was sentenced to 10 years, and she got 3 . The government then went after the bank, fining it $7 million. Ame rican Express Bank International also had to forfeit $40 million of Villagomez's laundered money and assets, and was obliged to spend $3 million on employee training. . . . Others on the board of Xerox are Howard Clark of the American Express Company, one of the main conduits for moving drug money through "travelers checks" . . . American International Group - From The Washington Weekly, Mar. 17, 1997: . . . THE BARBADOS CONNECTION: CORAL REINSURANCE: . . . the link between the Arkan sas Development Finance Authority (ADFA) and AIG goes beyond $5 million. An AIG affiliate has managed over one billion dollars worth of ADFA's bonds, according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. An allegation that ADFA launders money for U.S. intelligence has repeatedly surfaced but without any direct documentary evidence to date . . . . Apart from ADFA, where does AIG get its money to fund, among other things, lobbying on behalf of the Chinese government? The answer is not clear, though some indications are available. (1) In 1995, AIG became the first company to be licensed to sell insurance in China. (2) AIG is a client of Kissinger & Associates. It was Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, who advised against harsh sanctions after the Tienanmen Square massacre. . . . (3) AIG has also been the focus of SEC and BCCI investigator, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau's attention . . . to explore its ties to the BCCI. (4) And finally, AIG is headed by Maurice Greenberg, one-time chairman of the NY Federal Reserve Bank, and in 1995 a candidate to head the CIA. Greenberg is chairman of the US-China Business Council and lobbied hard (and successfully) for the Clinton administration to sever the link between China's human rights record and renewal of China's Most-Favored-Nation trade status. . . . Whatever AIG is, it appears to be tied into that big, bipartisan, ugly network of intelligence, money laundering, Arkansas, and Communist China. > > > LATEST SIGHTING: On Feb 10, 2000, American International Group reported that its net income for 1999 increased 18.1% to $5.06 billion. AIG Chairman M. R. Greenberg reported, among other things, that during 1999: ". . . we opened our new life and general insurance branch office in Shenzhen, China, marking the fourth Chinese metropolitan area where AIG has established wholly-owned, full-service insurance operations. During the fourth quarter, we also entered into an agreement to purchase a 70 percent equity interest in a subsidiary of LIPPO LIFE, Indonesia's leading life insurance company. The new joint venture, renamed AIG LIPPO LIFE, is the largest life company in Indonesia, marketing life, pension and health products through a multi-channel distribution network. . . . [A Catbird Musing: Now, where have we heard that name LIPPO before? Oh, yeah, wasn't that the Indonesian/Chinese bunch connected with the Clinton-Gore campaign scandals? Hmmm!] See also: Coral Reinsurance; Arkansas Development and Finance Authority; Lippo Group; Maurice R. Greenberg; Jeffrey W. Greenberg; Marsh & McLennan, Inc; Panin Group; Bishop Estate. Arkansas Development and Finance Administration (ADFA) - From The Secret Life of Bill Clinton, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: . . . In 1989 the Arkansas Committee . . . started investigating the alleged nexus of drug-running, money-laundering, and covert activities linked to Mena Airport. The Arkansas Committee's lead advocate, Mark Swaney, came to suspect that Lasater and others were laundering funds through the Arkansas Development and Finance Administration (ADFA), a state-controlled investment bank created by Governor Clinton in 1985 to provide "low interest finance for economic development." . . . There was no need for Clinton to create ADFA. The state already had the Arkansas Housing Development Agency and the Arkansas Industrial Development Corp (later made famous by a clerk named Paula Corbin Jones). . . . ADFA gave Clinton a patronage machine that answered to the Governor alone. . . . As James Ring Adams reported in The American Spectator, it was designed with the help of a Boston consultant named Belden Daniels and allowed Clinton to tap into the huge reserves of the Arkansas Teachers Retirement System. At the same time, Cllinton steered bond business to Lasater, and low interest industrial loans to the others in the Arkansas group -- Seth Ward, for instance, the father-in-law of Webster Hubbel -- frequently without due diligence and over the objections of the agency staff. "They were giving money away like candy to the insiders," said Mark Swaney. . . . Funds had been flowing offshore. ADFA had done at least $250 million worth of business with the Fuji Bank, Grand Cayman Branch . . . It was a nice piece of arbitrage profiteering. . . . Whether the money . . . came back from Grand Cayman is anybody's guess. . . . In 1987 ADFA borrowed $5.04 million from Japan's Sanwa Bank to buy stock in a Barbados company called Coral Reinsurance . . . . The activities of Coral Reinsurance triggered an investigation by the Delaware Insurance Department in 1992, which caused panic at ADFA. . . . Swaney believes that ADFA was created by Clinton as an instrument for Dan Lasater. What we know is that Lasater wrote at least eight letters to Bill Clinton recommending people for the board of ADFA. Most of them were appointed. See also: Coral Reinsurance; American Insurance Group. Asset Management International Financing & Settlement - A New York City-based company purchased by West Tsusho, a Tokyo-based company allegedly connected with the Yakuza, in a deal brokered by Prescott Bush, Jr., older brother of President George Bush. See also: Yakuza; Prescott Bush, Jr. Assicurazioni Generali - From Conspirators' Hiearchy: . . . Insurance companies play a key role in the business of the Committee of 300. Among these are found such top insurance companies as Assicurazioni Generali of Venice and Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta, the largest and second largest insurance companies in the world, who keep their bank accounts at Bank of International Settlements in Swiss gold francs. Both control a multiplicity of investment banks whose turnover in stocks on Wall Street double that of U.S. investors. Atlantic Richfield - From Conspirators' Hiearchy: . . . Many of these organizations and institutions, companies and banks are so interfaced and interlocked as to make it an almost impossible task to sort them out. On RCA's board sits Thornton Bradshaw, president of Atlantic Richfield and a member of NATO , World Wildlife Fund, the Club of Rome, The Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations. Bradshaw is also chairman of NBC. . . . >From The Buying of the President (1996 ed.): . . . In 1988, 249 individuals each gave at least $100,000, achieving a total of $25 million, to help elect George Bush president. By giving that much, they became members of "Team 100" and not only had personal access to Bush and other members of the Bush administration, but many of them -- from real estate and construction to finance, from manufacturing to agribusiness to oil and gas interests -- received special favors during the Bush presidency. . . . The many quid pro quo relationships have been well documented by Common Cause magazine and others. The two largest donors were Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) and its chairman, Dwayne Andreas, who gave $1,072,000, and Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) a nd its chairman, Lodwrick Cook, who contributed $862,360. Both companies made or saved hundreds of millions of dollars from their well-placed Washington investments. . . . There are numerous examples of how companies that did as little as simply throw a cocktail party at the 1992 Democratic convention, to companies that contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaign and party, also had executives fly with (Ron) Brown on foreign trips. In each case, the company contributions or favors were done during, or subsequent to, Brown's tenure as chairman of the DNC. The companies involved include some of the country's largest. Executives from the oil company ARCO, the Atlantic Richfield Company, got to go to China, Hong Kong, and South Africa with Brown. ARCO donated $278,317 to the DNC in 1991 and 1992 while Brown was the party chairman and from 1993 through 1994, ARCO gave $164,500 in soft money to the DNC. The total contribution to the Democrats between 1991 and 1994 was $442,817. . . . Banco Ambrosiano - From The Laundrymen: Roberto Calvi . . . was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London on June 18, 1982. . . . Known as "God's Banker" because of his close associations with the Vatican, Calvi had been chairman and president of the Milan-headquartered Banco Ambrosiano. . . . And all sorts of strange dealings were going on. . . .In June 1979, the Nicaragua branch loaned $9 million to Nordeurop, a Liechtenstein shell company set up by Calvi in the United States. Nordeurop sent the money to another Calvi-created shell, this one in Panama, where it was recorded as a fee. . . . By May 1982, the newspapers reported that $1.3 billion of the bank's money was unaccounted for. Three weeks later, Calvi was dead. . . . The mystery surrounding his death unquestionably revolves around that missing money, much of which turns out to have been washed through shell companies registered in Panama and Liechtenstein -- shell companies that had affiliations, direct or otherwise, with the Vatican's private bank. . . . (Calvi) left Italy on Friday, June 11, 1982, with his briefcase . . . On the following Monday, Banco Ambrosiano's shares crashed. On Wednesday, the bank's board was dissolved. On Friday, Calvi was dead. . . . Rumor has it that Calvi was murdered for the contents of his briefcase. . . . Calvi's papers apparently proved the money had been washed through the heart of the British capital and then used by (Licio) Gelli, who was at the time acting for the Argentineans, to buy Exocet missiles, which were fired at British forces during the Falklands War. . . . Banco Ambrosiano was the greatest banking collapse in Europe since the end of World War II. Bank of Credit and Commerce, Inc. (BCCI) - From The Laundrymen: . . . Banco Ambrosiano was the greatest banking collapse in Europe since the end of World War II. It was shortly to be followed by the greatest banking collapse in the history of banking. . . . In 1988, the Justice Department launched Operation C-Chase, the letter C standing for currency. Posing as drug dealers, undercover agents put out the bait that they had loads of currency to launder. And BCCI fell for it. . . . A costly and complicated five-year operation -- involving agents from Customs, the IRS, the DEA, and the FBI -- C-Chase produced more than twelve hundred conversations and nearly four hundred hours of clandestinely recorded videotape. By assisting drug dealers to wash $34 million, the Justice Department was able to indict, and in 1990 to convict, several BCCI bankers and dozens of other individuals. In one blow, the Americans had unknowingly pulled the bottom out from under a gargantuan house of cards. . . . Then came the indictments in Florida. BCCI was fined $15.3 million for its money laundering activities. . . . official investigations were launched in Canada, France, Luxembourg, Brazil, Singapore, Bermuda, the Caymans, Cyprus, and even Nigeria. . . . In the States, one investigation went back ten years, to the time when BCCI was romancing Bert Lance and owned Financial General Bankshares, a financial holding company in Washington, D.C. . . . in 1982, Financial General was renamed First American Bankshares, a new entity totally independent of BCCI. . . . Nonetheless, the National Bank of Georgia and the Independence Bank of Encino, California, both supposedly owned by Pharaon, had been surreptitiously funded by Abedi through a $500 million loan from BCCI. As collateral, Pharoan had signed over the shares of the two banks. And although Abedi later arranged for First American Bankshares to buy the National Bank of Georgia, he had effectively, albeit illegally, gained control of three U.S. Banks. . . . Being a staunch believer in the doctrine that "credibility is contagious," Albedi and his cronies installed prominent Americans on First American's board. Clark Clifford . . . one of the most respected attorneys in Washington, was named chairman. Robert Altman, who was married to TV's "Wonder Woman," Lynda Carter, became the bank's president. . . . Bank of New York - On 09/22/99, James A. Leach, Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee of Banking and Financial Services issued this Press Release at the conclusion of the first two days of money laundering hearings concerning the Bank of New York: The meaning of today's testimony is than money-laundering has gone to the tome of the Russian political structure with the confirmation that President Yeltsin's son-in-law is the beneficiary of two accounts in the Cayman Island's branch of a reputable New York bank. . . . Second, the Bank of New York confirmed $7.5 billion in questionable money flowed through eight accounts controlled by one figure over a three-year period. . . . Third, the CEO of the Bank of New York acknowledged that his bank has correspondent relationships with 160 Russian banks and that on an average day $3.5 billion flows through those accounts. This figure is particularly noteworthy given prior testimony before the Committee that many Russian banks are mob-influenced and serve more as money-laundering platforms than providers of traditional banking services. A 3-count indictment was filed under seal on September, 1999. It names as defendants Peter Berlin, Lucy Edwards - a former V.P. at the bank - and Aleksey Volkov, as well as Benex International Co., Inc., Becs International LLC and Torfinex Corp. Lewis Schiliro, an FBI assistant director in charge of the New York office, said the FBI is primarily focused on determining the origin of the funds and tracing the path of transactions through accounts at the Bank of New York. The indictment alleges that the defendants conspired from 1996 to August 1999 to illegally transmit funds and receive deposits through the Benex and Becs accounts. Berlin was the president of both Benex and Becs and was married to Edwards. > > > LATEST NEWS: From the 02/17/00 on-line edition of The New York Times, by Timothy O'Brien with Raymond Bonner: . . A former executive of the Bank of New York and her husband told a federal judge yesterday that they helped a group of small but politically connected Russian banks create an elaborate money laundering scheme that moved billions of dollars out of Russia through the American bank. . . . After more than 18 months of investigation, federal authorities delivered Lucy Edwards, a former Bank of New York vice president, and her husband, Peter Berlin, to the U.S. District in Manhattan. They described how between 1996 and last year, more than $7 billion left Russia illegally and flowed through a network of front company accounts at the Bank of New York that were controlled by Mr. Berlin. From there, the money was transferred to offshore accounts. . . . The network, according to the couple, was designed by Russian bankers to whisk money electronically between Russia and the United States for three broad purposes: to evade Russian taxes on money from legitimate business transactions, to avoid Russian customs duties on imports, and to "wash" the profits of outright criminal enterprises through legitimate banks, including a $300,000 ransom payment in 1998 to the kidnappers of a businessman in Russia. . . . The couple, who said they were paid nearly $2 million for their services, said the scheme allowed Russian bankers to conduct illegal banking activities in the U.S. that circumvented the scrutiny of federal banking regulators and law enforcement officials. . . . The couple agreed to plead guilty to a series of federal crimes, which carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison and heavy fines, and to cooperate with investigators in a plea bargain that federal authorities hope will produce more charges. . . . "More than one or two people had to turn the other way," an investigator said, "You don't transfer $7 billion through the spanking new Eastern European division without somebody knowing." . . . Ms. Edwards, Mr. Berlin and three companies controlled by Mr. Berlin -- Benex, Bec International and Lowland -- pleaded guilty to laundering money to promote criminal activity and defraud the Russian Government; conducting unlicensed banking operations; establishing an unauthorized branch of a foreign bank; operating an illegal money transmitting business; bribing a bank employee; receiving illegal payments as a bank employee and laundering those payments abroad; tax evasion; and fraudulently obtaining visas for hundred of Russians to enter the United States. . . . Ms. Edwards ... said she was first approached in late 1995 by representatives of DKB, a Russian bank whose full name is Depozitarno-Kliringovy Bank, who were interested in using the Bank of New York's offices and technology to illegally move money out of Russia. During the following years, Ms. Edwards said, those activities came to include money laundering and the other schemes to which she pleaded guilty. . . . Russian banking during the 1990's has been a notoriously freewheeling affair, with allegations of extensive involvement in the banks by organized criminals. Ms. Edwards noted in her testimony that DKB's Moscow employees told her in 1998 that they were afraid to leave the bank's headquarters because "customers with machine guns were waiting for them." . . . Bank of Nova Scotia - See Canadian Institute for International Affairs. Bank of Boston - From The Laundrymen: . . . the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 attempted to force banks, savings and loans, and other financial institutions to report all cash transactions over $1,000 to the IRS. But the ceiling proved to be too low. . . . Because there weren't enough people to process them, most of those forms wound up decomposing in a Detroit warehouse. . . . Although forty-three . . . banks, including Chase Manhattan and Bank of America were penalized for a total of $20 million, the currency-reporting requirement was still widely disregarded until 1985. That's when the government decided to call time. It accused the Bank of Boston of gross and flagrant violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, alleging that the bank had failed to report 1,163 cash transactions amounting to $1.22 billion. Among the companies the Bank of Boston had supposedly exempted from cash reporting was the law firm of F. Lee Bailey. More ominously, the bank had given dispensation to a pair of real estate agencies controlled by a local organized crime boss. In the face of overwhelming evidence, the Bank of Boston pleaded guilty, admitting to an additional $110 million worth of violations, and was fined a then-record $500,000. . . . Bishop Estate - The bizarre story of the looting of this historic estate is too long and complex for the Catbird to tackle here for the time-being. For extensive archives and the latest news go to the Honolulu Star Bulletin's Kame hameha Schools/Bishop Estate link on the Catbird's homepage. See also: Goldman Sachs; Marsh & McLennan; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Robert Rubin; Crossroads Group; Chubb Group; MacArthur Foundation; Xiamen International Bank; Paul Silvester; Sumitomo Bank. Canadian Imperial Bank - See: Canadian Institute for International Affairs. Canadian Institute for International Affairs - From Conspirators' Hierarchy: . . . Like its American counterpart, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs is a child of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) and runs Canadian politics. Its members have filled the position of Secretary of State ever since it was founded in 1925. The Institute for Pacific Relations, the body that fostered the attack on Pearl Harbor, was welcomed in Canada after Owen Lattimore and his fellow members had their treasonous activities exposed in 1947 and left the United States before they could be charged. . . . The Canadian Institute for International Affairs is connected with the Rank Organization through Sir Kenneth Strong, who was second in charge of MI6 at the end of the Second World War. As a member of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Strong is the number two man in Canada for Rank and the British Crown's commercial interests. He is on the board of one of the most prolific drug banks in the world after the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the Bank of Nova Scotia, through which proceeds of the Canadian heroin trade are handled. . . . At the top of British Crown control of Canada was Walter Gordon. A former member of the Queen's hands-on oversight committee, also known as the Privy Council, Gordon sponsored the Institute for Pacific Relations via the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. As a former minister of finance, Gordon was able to place Committee of 300 selected accountants and lawyers inside the three main chartered banks: the Bank of Nova Scotia, the Canadian Imperial Bank and the Toronto Dominion Bank. . . . T hrough these three "Crown banks" a network of Committee of 300 agents responsible to Gordon oversaw the world's second largest dirty drug money laundering operation, with a direct open door to China. Before his death, Gordon controlled James Endicott, Chester Ronning and Paul Linn, identified by MI6 as Canada's top "China Specialists." All three men worked closely with Chou-En-lai, who once told Gamal Abdul Nasser that he would do to Britain and the USA what they had done to China, i.e., turn them into a nation of heroin addicts. Chou-En-lai made good on his promise, starting with American GI's in Vietnam. . . . Carlyle Group - a Washington-based merchant bank that is chaired by Frank Carlucci, the former secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration. Among Carlyle's partners are numerous former Reagan and Bush administration notables, including Richard Darman, economic adviser to President Bush, and James Baker III, the former White House chief of staff, secretary of state, and Bush-Quayle campaign chairman. > > > NEW ITEM: From Harper's Magazine, Feb 2000: How George W. Bush Got Rich - A heartwarming tale of influence, cronyism, and $1.7 billion, by Joe Conason: . . . On December 6, 1994, one month after he defeated Ann Richards to become governor of Texas, George W. received a large but belated campaign contribution from an acquaintance named Thomas O. Hicks . . . Hicks was easily one of the wealthiest men in Texas, and more specifically, he was the chief executive of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, an investment partnership he founded . . . Of the scores of appointments made by an otherwise weak governor under the Texas constitution, a seat on the University of Texas Board of Regents is among the most desirable. It carries significant prestige, opportunities for patronage, and preferred access to season tickets (or luxury boxes) at Longhorn football games. For someone like Tom Hicks, however, being a regent provided something far more valuable . . . Hicks had conceived an ambitious plan for the state university system's financial assets-- more than $13 billion-- that matched his own bold investment style. . . . . Friends and long-time associates of Thomas Hicks, and his firm's past and future business partners-- as well as major Republican contributors and political supporters of the Bush family-- received hundreds of millions of dollars from the University of Texas investment funds. . . . Under the guidance of Tom Hicks, a growing portion of the university's investment choices had a decidedly Republican tinge. On March 1, 1995, the regents voted to place what would prove to be a comparatively modest $10 million with The Carlyle Group . . . That a firm run by his father's associates would be awarded an investment contract only weeks after George W. to office was unseemly at best. But the Texas governor had his own long-standing and lucrative ties to Carlyle that dated back almost a decade. Among his more obscure business activities was a corporate directorship at Caterair, one of the nation's largest airline-catering services, which was acquired by Carlyle in 1989. The next year, a seat on the company's board was arranged for George W. by the former Nixon White House aide and longtime Bush associate Fred Malek, who was then an adviser at Carlyle. Although Bush remained on the catering company's board until 1994, his earnings as a Caterair director are not specified on his personal financial forms filed with the Texas Ethics Commission. . . . These days it is the governor's father who benefits from the Washington investment firm's largesse. Since leaving the White House, George Herbert Walker Bush has been paid by Carlyle for speeches at events sponsored by the merchant bank. . . . Carlyle's spokesman did not return calls seeking information about the firm's relationship with the Bushes. It is known, however, that the ex-president joined up with Baker, Carlucci, and Darman on a more formal basis in early 1998 when he became a "senior adviser" to Carlyle Asia Partners (a fund set up to by distressed businesses in the Far East). >From The Hartford Courant, 10/21/99: Top Politicians Linked to Pension Fund Deals, by Jon Lender, Mike McIntire and Matthew Daly: . . . (Connecticut) State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier shone the light Wednesday on seldom-seen machinations that have put millions into the pockets of well-connected "finders" in state pension investment deals -- and some of the state's best-known politicians were caught in the glare. . . . Nappier, responding to the scandal surrounding her now-disgraced predecessor, Paul J. Silvester, released a list of those who have received finder's fees and other compensation in treasurer's office deals since 1991. . . . One firm that has given Nappier an incomplete response is the Carlyle Group -- which has figured prominently in the Silvester scandal. . . . Silvester invested $50 million in pension funds with Carlyle, which has been a client of Wayne Berman , a Washington-based consultant and major fund-raiser for Texas Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign. . . . Berman gave Silvester a job with his new business consulting firm, Park Strategies, after his term ended. . . . See Paul J. Silvester; Crossroads Group; George W. Bush Central Pacific Bank - This Hawaii bank is controlled by Japan's Sumitomo Bank . From Pacific Business News, October 13, 1997: Central Pacific Bank is leading a group of 10 Taiwanese bankers to provide an $85 million construction loan for a Nauru Tower sister project. . . . This is the first substantial loan involving a Taiwan consortium and the largest since the Japanese-investment craze ended earlier this decade. . . . The loan is for Nau ru Phosphate Royalties Development (Honolulu) Inc.'s construction of Hawa'iki Tower residential condominium near Ala Moana Center. . . . Central Pacific Bank, the fourth-largest bank in Hawaii with $1.4 billion in assets, is the co-lead lender for the loan. The other co-lead lender is International Commercial Bank of China. . . . A second Hawaii organization, Hawaii Carpenter's Financial Security Fund, and a Mainland investor, The Union Labor Life Insurance Co., are also part of the loan agreement. . . . Central Pacific Bank was introduced about a year ago to the Taiwanese bankers through an ally, Mellon Mortgage Co. of California, a firm with $14 billion in assets and relationships with lenders worldwide . . . Mellon Mortgage recommended the Taiwan banks because at the time, Japan banks were in the midst of dealing with the burden of their failing real estate investments . . . Nauru Trust was created in 1968 to administer certain trust funds for the citizens of the Republic of Nauru, a small phosphate-rich South Pacific. The funds placed in the trust are primarily from a portion of the royalties payable to the republic for phosphate mining on the island. . . See: Sumitomo Bank; Nauru; Mellon Bank. Chubb Corporation - Chubb is a holding company whose subsidiaries are engaged in two industries: property & casualty insurance and real estate. The second largest institutional investor in Chubb is Putnam Investment Management, a subsidiary of the world's largest insurance broker, Marsh & McLennan. The third largest institutional investor in Chubb is Citigroup, which was formed through the mega-merger of Citicorp and Travelers Insurance Company. Citigroup is co-chaired by Robert Ruben, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary and former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs. A leading institutional owner of Goldman Sachs is Hawaii's wealthy Bishop Estate. The broker for Bishop Estate is Marsh & McLennan. Marsh & McLennan placed the estate's Directors & Officers Liability insurance policy in Federal Insurance Company, a Chubb subsidiary. >From the RICO lawsuit: Harmon v. Federal Insurance Co, et al.: Defendant Feder al Insurance Company, Inc. (Federal), a member of The Chubb Group, conducts business in the United States and was, at all times, registered with the Insurance Commissioner, State of Hawaii, as an admitted foreign insurance company. Federal conducts business through insurance brokers as well as through licensed general agents of the company. In Hawaii, one of Federal's licensed general agents is Marsh & McLennan, Inc. (M&M). . . . On or about October 27, 1995, Plaintiff, in his capacity as Risk/Insurance & Safety Manager for Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KSBE), caused Federal, through its agent M&M, to bind coverages under an Association Liability Insurance policy. . . . Plaintiff alleges that the failure of Federa l, and its agent, M&M, to provide defense coverage to Harmon in Civil No. 97-0512-02 constitutes mail fraud, wire fraud, misrepresentation and fraudulent inducement to purchase this insurance. . . . As detailed in Plaintiff's complaint, there was collusion among the Defendants, the primary purpose of which was to increase their profits through the awarding of non-bid insurance contracts to Federal and its agent, M&M. Profits were further enhanced by Federal through reduction in their claims payments by means of fraudulently "back-dating" an exclusion endorsement in their Association Liability Policy in order to wrongfully deny defense coverages to Plaintiff . . . Federal further engaged in misrepresentations, deceptions, delays, and continual denials of Plaintiff's legitimate claims, and refused to respond to Plaintiff's numerous good-faith offers to negotiate an out-of-court settlement. These wrongful acts constitute extortion, and extortion by color of official right. . . Citigroup - In March, 1998, Citicorp and Travelers Group pioneered the merger of the banking and insurance industries with the announcement of a $74 billion merger that ranks as the largest transaction in the history of the financial services industry. At the time of the merger, Citicorp was the second-largest bank in the U.S. with assets of almost $311 billion and more than 3,200 offices in 100 countries. Travelers, after completing the acquisition of Salomon Inc. (Salomon Smith Barney) was the largest U.S.-based insurance company with $387 billion in assets at year-end 1997. Combined assets of Citigroup total nearly $700 billion. Wall Street loved the deal! The merger announcement propelled the DJIA above 9,000 in April 1998. Travelers closed up about 18% at $73, while Citicorp shares stormed up almost 27% to $182 upon announcement of the news. Afterwards, however, both stocks went south, with Citicorp reaching a low of around $83 and Travelers dropping to $37 in September, 1998 -- around the time the merger was formally approved. The first week of October, 1998 saw the new Citigroup stock drop to around $33. In the merger arrangement, Citicorp merged with Travelers, and Travelers applied to the Fed for permission to become a bank holding company. Under regulations in effect at the time of the merger, Citigroup would be allowed to continue in its existing lines of business for two years, after which it could apply for three one-year extensions -- at which point Citigroup would be restricted from the insurance underwriting business. "One flew east; one flew west; and one flew over the cuckoo's nest." When Citigroup was formed, it was dually-headed by Citicorp CEO John Reed and Travelers CEO Sanford Weill. Shortly after Robert Rubin resigned as U.S. Treasury Secretary in 1999, he joined Citigroup as a third head . On 11/09/99 Senator Carl Levin, on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a statement resulting from hearings on Private Banking and Money Laundering: . . . Thirteen years ago, with the passage of the first money laundering statute, Congress made clear its desire not to allow U.S. banks to function as conduits for dirty money. This subcommittee, through a series of hearings and reports in the 1980s on money laundering and off-shore secrecy jurisdictions, contributed significantly to the enactment of that law. Money laundering is now a federal crime and our banks and financial institutions are required by law to establish and implement anti-money laundering programs. . . . Since that time the world has experienced an enormous growth in the accumulation of wealth by individuals around the globe, and wealthy individuals have turned in growing numbers to a category of banking called "private banking" as the mechanism for managing their money. . . . Raymond Baker, a Guest Scholar in Economic Studies at Brookings and a witness at tomorrow's hearing, estimates that $500 billion to $1 trillion of international criminal proceeds and hundreds of millions of dollars from tax evasion are moved internationally and deposited into bank accounts annually. He estimates that half of this money comes to the United States. . . . Private banking is a very competitive and very profitable business . . . Private bankers are marketers and promoters who are expected to attract wealthy clients to the bank. Once a person becomes a client of a private bank, the bank's primary goal is to service that client, and servicing a client almost always means using services that are also the tools of money laundering -- secret trusts, offshore accounts, secret name accounts, and shell companies called private investment corporations. . . . Th ese private investment corporations or PICs are designed for the purpose of holding -- and hiding -- one person's assets. . . . The nominal officers, trustees, and shareholders of these shell corporations are, in turn, often shell corporations controlled by the private bank. The PIC then becomes the holder of the various bank and investment accounts, and the ownership if the private bank's client is buried in the records of so-called secrecy jurisdictions, such as the Cayman Islands. Private banks keep pre-packaged PICs "on-the-shelf" awaiting activation when a private bank client wants one. . . . There are shells within shells within shells -- like Russian Matryoshka Dolls -- which in the end can become impenetrable to legal process. . . . Private bankers specialize in secrecy. . . . Look at this brochure for Citiban k's private bank on their international trust services. . . . it lists the attractiveness of secrecy jurisdictions this way: "The Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Jersey & Switzerland: The best of all worlds." . . . One advantage it lists is this one: "PIC assets are registered in the name of the PIC and your ownership of the PIC need not appear in any public registry." . . . American banks aren't allowed to maintain secret accounts in the U.S., so U.S. private bankers establish secret accounts and secret corporations in countries that do allow them. Then they manage those accounts from their offices in the U.S. In short, American banks help wealthy customers do abroad what the customer and the bank can't do within the boundaries of the United States. . . . Today we are looking at the private bank of Citibank. It is the largest bank in the United States, and it has one of the largest private bank operations. It has the most extensive global presence of all U.S. banks, and it has a rogues' gallery of private bank clients. Citibank has been private banker to: * Raul Salinas, brother to the former President of Mexico; now in prison in Mexico for murder and under investigation in Mexico for illicit enrichment; * Asif ali Zardari, husband to the former Prime Minister of Pakistan; now in prison in Pakistan for kickbacks and under indictment in Switzerland for money laundering; * Omar Bongo, President of Gabon; subject of a French criminal investigation into bribery; * sons of General Sani Abacha, former military leader of Nigeria; one of whom is now in prison in Nigeria on charges of murder and under investigation in Switzerland and Nigeria for money laundering; * Jaime Lusinchi, former President of Venezuela; charged with misappropriation of government funds; * two daughters of Radon Suharto, former President of Indonesia who has been alleged to have looted billions of dollars from Indonesia; and, it appears, * General Albert Stroessner, former President of Paraguay and notorious for decades for a dictorship based on terror and profiteering. And these are just the clients we know . . . Today we're going to look at some of these cases in greater detail to learn how these individuals became clients of Citibank, what effort Citibank made to implement its due diligence and ascertain the source of the client's wealth, and what Citibank did to help disguise the clients' accounts. . . . America can't have it both ways. We can't condemn corruption abroad, be it officials taking bribes or looting their treasuries, and then tolerate American banks making fortunes off that corruption. . . . The Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the State Department, and the General Accounting Office all have concluded that private banking is vulnerable to money laundering. . . . Private banking has a legitimate function, but it has too often been used to manage dirty money. We must end the use of private banking by the criminals and the corrupt. . . . See also: Bank of New York; Corning Group; Goldman Sachs; Robert Rubin; Bishop Estate. Columbia/HCA - Columbia/HCA, together with its subsidiaries, operates hospitals and related health care entities. As of 6/99, they operated 204 hospitals and 81 outpatient surgery centers. >From the internet posting Columbia/HCA; Corporate Imbalance Sheet: Columbia/HCA -- Wall Street Health Care * $216,000 - Amount of PAC money Columbia/HCA's Good Government Fund contributed in Florida in 1994, making it Florida's largest PAC * 24 - Columbia/HCA lobbyists employed to repeal 1992 Florida state legislation requiring the corporation to disclose its physician-investors. * 6 - Number of lobbyists Columbia/HCA shares with the tobacco industry in three southern states. * $19.9 billion - Revenue in 1996. * 18 - Hospitals closed since 1994 * 2,000 - Layoffs and positions eliminated since 1995. * $70,000 - Total fines paid for two separate patient "dumping" violations in Florida, including one for $55,000 (the highest penalty ever paid by a hospital). * $19 million - Money that would go into pockets of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Ohio's board members and an outside council if Columbia/HCA deal goes through. * $116 million - Tax breaks over 10 years for Columbia/HCA to move its headquarters from Kentucky to Tennessee. * $30,000 - Amount Florida Senator Genny Brown-Waite received as a consultant to Columbia/HCA while serving on the Senate Health Care Committee. * 30% - Hospitals in Florida owned by Columbia/HCA. * 4 - Attorneys General who have sued to block deals involving Columbia/HCA. * $25,000 - Fine for failing to have enough nurses on duty to ensure patient safety at Columbia Women's Hospital in Indianapolis. * $3.5 billion - Amount Columbia/HCA has said it is prepared to spend to set up a network in the Northeast. * 3 - Days notice Columbia/HCA gave town Destin, Florida before it closed the hospital in 1994. * $1.1 billion - Net worth of Columbia/HCA Vice-Chair Thomas Frist, who made the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. * $13.9 million - Columbia/HCA stock held in 1995 by US Senator Bill Frist (TN), brother of Thomas Frist. * 20% - Profit goal per hospital. * $40 million - Estimated cost of Columbia/HCA's recent ad campaign to build its image as a national brand name. * $87 million - Amount of taxes Columbia/HCA owed in partial settlement with the IRS. * $600 million - Amount of taxes IRS says Columbia/HCA still owes. >From Crime in a White-Collar World, posted on the web by the FBI, Salt Lake City: White-Collar crimes cost Americans billions of dollars annually and frequently go unreported. . .The FBI does not take fraud lightly. The Salt Lake City Division maintains close working relationships with Banks, Insurance Companies, Brokerage Firms and other financial institutions to ensure that they are free from fraud, both from within and outside of the company. . . . Recently, the Salt Lake City Division spearheaded the investigation of the Columbia HCA network of hospitals and healthcare providers. As a result of this operation, many key players, including a few high-level officials of Columbia, are under federal indictment for Medicare fraud. . . . >From BLB&G Columbia/HCA web posting: . . . Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, acting for the benefit of the New York State Common Retirement Fund and the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and 10 other institutional investors and individual plaintiffs, filed this derivative action on behalf of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp against members of the Columbia Board of Directors and former senior executives of the Company. This derivative action seeks to hold the defendants responsible for subjecting Columbia to the largest health care fraud investigation in history, extensive nationwide litigation and potential massive fines and penalties. . . . As a result of the new federal health reform legislation known as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA"), health care fraud was designated a federal criminal offense. All of Columbia's hospitals are currently certified as providers under Medicare . . . Medicaid . . . and Champus . . . On March 19, 1997, officials from the FBI, IRS, and HHS executed search warrants on Columbia's offices in El Paso, Texas, as part of a long-term, on-going investigation into allegations of potential health care fraud. A fourth federal agency, the DOD's Criminal Investigation Service later joined in the investigation. The federal investigations uncovered illegal billing practices, illegal referrals, and illegal acquisition practices. By the middle of the summer the agents raided 35 additional facilities in six more states: Tennessee, Florida, Utah, Oklahoma, Georgia and North Carolina . . . In late July, 1997, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted three Columbia executives, two from Florida and one from the corporate office in Tennessee, on five counts including charging the executives with conspiracy to defraud the government by falsifying cost reports used for reimbursements by Medicare and Champus. . . . In addition to Columbia's systematic violations of the SSA, the HIPPA, the FCA, the antitrust laws, as well as other federal and state laws, the complaint alleges that certain of Columbia's senior level officials sold their shares of Columbia's stock to the unsuspecting public with full knowledge that public disclosure of the investigations would have adverse consequences to Columbia's publicly traded stock prices. . . . On 08/14/97, CNNfn reported: For Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., things are going from bad to worse: This time, the new chief executive and six other officials stand accused of illegal insider trading. . . . A lawsuit filed late Wednesday by New York State Comptroller Carl McCall accuses newly named chairman Thomas Frist of selling 3.7 million shares of Columbia stock in 1996 and 1997 for $138 million. McCall filed the suit on behalf of the New York State Retirement Fund, which owns 2.4 million shares of Columbia stock. . . . Before Columbia and HCA merged, George W. Bush supporter Richard Rainwater put in about $125,000 in Columbia and $15 million in HCA. On 11/17/97 the Columbia/HCA board approved an internal operating reorganization plan and Gold man, Sachs & Co. assisted the company in its evaluation of restructuring alternatives. . . . Hawaii's giant charitable trust, Bishop Estate, became a major investor in Columbia/HCA. Posted by Nurse Week/Health Week on 05/10/99: Fraud trial begins for four Columbia/HCA executives, by Jane Erwin: Several years after its investigation started, the government is trying four executives of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. On charges they filed false healthcare claims in an attempt to cheat the government out of $2.8 million. . . . The case, being heard in a Tampa, Fla., federal court, is the first to reach trial in the FBI's largest healthcare investigation ever. . . This trial is part of a larger fraud case against Columbia. That investigation has led to raids on Columbia facilities in several states and a management shakeup. The company also is facing a number of lawsuits, including seven whistle-blower fraud suits. . . [A Catbird Musing: Remember Clinton's earlier failed Health Care initiatives? Well, beware my chicks, the lame duck is back pushing new legislation. Hmmmmm . . . Better to build the wealth of health-care providers and insurance companies with, my dear?] Committee of 300 - From Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Committee of 300 consists of certain individuals, specialists in their own fields, including cultus diabolicus, mind altering drugs, and specialists in murder by poison; intelligence; banking; and every facet of commercial activity. . . Banks large and small in the thousands are in the Committee of 300 network, including Banca Commerciale d'Italia, Banco Privata, Banco Ambrosiano, the Netherlands Bank, Barclays Bank, Banco del Colombia, Banco de Ibero-America. Of special interest is Banca del la Svizzeria Italiana (BSI) -- since it handles flight capital investments to and from the U.S. -- primarily in dollars and U.S. bonds -- located and isolated in "neutral" Lugano, the flight capital center for the Venetian Black Nobility. Lugano is not in Italy or in Switzerland, and is a kind of a twilight zone for shady flight capital operations. George Ball, who owns a large block of stock in BSI, is a prominent "insider" and the bank's U.S. representative. . . . The Oppenheimers of South Africa are much bigger "heavy-weights" than the Rockefellers. For instance, in 1981 Harry Oppenheimer, chairman of the giant Anglo American Corporation that controls gold and diamond mining, sales and distribution in the world, stated that he was about to launch into the North American banking market. Oppenheimer promptly invested $10 billion in a specially created vehicle for the purpose of buying into big banks in the U.S., among which was Citicorp. Oppenheimer's investment vehicle was called Minorco, which set up shop in Bermuda, a British royal family preserve. On the board of Minorco was to be found Walter Wriston of Citicorp and Robert Clare, its chief counsel. . . . Insurance companies play a key role in the business of the Committee of 300. . . . Some of the members of the Committee of 300 listed by Dr. John Coleman include: Rank Organization, Xerox Corporation, ITT, IBM, RCA, CBA, NBC, BBC and CBC in communications; Raytheon, Textron, Bendix, Atlantic Richfield, Brit ish Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Marine Midland Bank, Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Leob, General Electric, Westinghouse Corporation, United Fruit Company, and a great many more. . . . A network of Wall Street banks and brokerage houses takes care of the stock market for the Committee, and priminent among these are Blyth, Eastman Dillon, the Morgan groups, Lazard Freres and Kuhn Loeb Rhodes. Nothing happens on Wall Street that is not controlled by the Bank of England, whose instructions are relayed through the Morgan groups and then put into action through key brokerage houses whose top executives are ultimately responsible for carrying Committee directives. . . . Before it overstepped the limits laid down by Morgan Guarantee, Drexel Burnham Lambert was a favorite of the Committee of 300. In 1981 almost every major brokerage house on Wall Street had sold out to the Committee, Phibro merging with Solomo n Brothers. Phibro is the business arm of the Oppenheimers of Anglo American Corporation. . . In the immediate post-WWII period, one of the most common methods used by Resorts International and other drug related companies to clean money was by courier service to a money laundering bank. Now all that has changed. Only the small fry still use such a risky method. The "big fish" conduit their money via the CHIPS system, an acronym for Clearing House International Payments System, run by a Burroughs computer system centered at the New York Clearing House. Twelve of the largest banks use this system. One of them is the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Another is Credit Suisse, that oh so respectable paragon of virtue in banking -- until the lid is lifted. Combined with the SWIFT system based in Virginia, dirty drug money becomes invisible. Only wanton carelessness results in the FBI getting lucky now and then, if and when it is told not the look the other way. . . .Committee of 300 corporations, banks, and insurance companies operate under the unified command covering every conceivable matter of strategy and cohesive action. The Committee is the ONLY organized power hierarchy in the world transcending all governments and individuals, however powerful and secure they may feel themselves to be. This covers finance, defense matters and political parties of all colors and types. . . . Must Read: Dr. John Coleman's Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300. Commodity Futures Trading Commission - From: The Buying of the President (1996 ed): . . . (Phil) Gramm has also been criticized for mixing government business and campaign politics by using his Senate office staff to work on campaigns. . . . At least two different aides to Senator Gramm have written memos about how Gramm's wife, Wendy...should be used for his reelection bid. . . . Gramm's Senate staff controlled her activities and schedules in Texas. That is particularly interesting in light of the powerful position she held in Washington as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As the nation's leading regulator of futures contracts for all agricultural commodities, Wendy Gramm was under tight ethical constraints as to the degree and nature of her personal daily interaction with agribusiness interests. The sensitivity of her situation, however, apparently eluded Hensarling, who suggested that Wendy Gramm "should be scheduled into various private meetings with ag leadership types and general business types, in hopes of strengthening the senator's financial base, as well as his agricultural constituency." . . . In other words, the chairwoman of the powerful federal regulatory agency overseeing agriculture commodities futures trading would be helping her U.S. senator husband raise campaign funds from the corporations and individuals she regulated. . . . The CFTC oversees federal regulation of the nation's fourteen commodities and futures exchanges. At those exchanges, contracts to buy and sell a seemingly endless variety of commodities are traded: oil and gas, soybeans, cattle, pork belies, corn, precious metals, cocoa, lumber, cranberries, and sugar, to name but a few. The regulatory duties of the CFTC are aimed largely at ensuring fairness and stability at the nation's commodities exchanges. . . . One week after Bill Clinton won the presidential election it became clear that Wendy Gramm would be leaving the politically appointed CFTC post. On November 16, 1992, nine energy companies wrote to the commission seeking to exempt energy derivative contracts, a business valued at $5 TRILLION a year, from federal regulation. . . . In response to the energy companies' request, Wendy Gramm set in motion the process that led to those energy derivative contracts, and other exotic financial transactions, being exempted from regulation. . . . A Center for Public Integrity investigation shows that of the nine companies that requested the exemption, seven had donated to Phil Gramm campaigns through PACs, company officers, or employees. . . . Cumulatively, Gramm's campaigns had received $157,250 from the people who were asking his wife to exempt energy derivatives and the other transactions from regulation. . . . During Wendy Gramm's tenure with the commodities commission, Phil Gramm accepted$38,500 in commodity honoraria, according to his actual disclosure records. . . . At the same time she was heading the commodities commission, he was on the Senate Banking committee. That means that Phil Gramm, too, had regulatory jurisdiction and oversight regarding commodities. On July 24, 1990, Phil Gramm voted to kill an amendment that would have lowered the sugar price support from eighteen cents a pound to sixteen cents a pound. That was a potential conflict of interest because Gramm's disclosure show that at the time the couple owned between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in a sugar company named Castle and Cooke. . . . Coral Reinsurance - From: The Strange Clinton - Rubin - Insurance Industry Connection. Posted on the internet 6/13/97: . . . As American Deposit Corp. learned the hard way . . . strong ties exist between Clinton, Secretary of Treasury Robert Rubin and the insurance industry. Insurance industry representatives secretly approached the IRS to issue damaging proposed regulations to the Retirement CD and the Treasury Department pressured the IRS to acquiesce. Some say that campaign fund contributions were at the source of this action. . . . But was this the first time Clinton, Rubin and the insurance industry acted together for a dubious project? Apparently not. A strange and convoluted story begins in Arkansas in 1987. In that year Americ an International Group, Inc., headed by Maurice Greenburg, founded an offshore reinsurance company in Barbados. For several years, AIG denied being affiliated with Coral Reinsurance, as it was named. But that is another strange aspect of the story not directly related to the unfolding of the financial story. . . . While Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, he founded the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, a government agency empowered to issue industrial bonds. The ADFA came to the attention of the Arkansas Committee, a group investigating rumors of drug trafficking out of the Mena, Arkansas airport. Observing the adage, "follow the money," they were lead to the ADFA. And the ADFA had some strange dealings. . . . The ADFA borrowed $5 million from the Chicago branch of Sanwa Bank. It then purchased slightly over $5 million in stock of Coral Reinsurance, the Barbados insurance company founded by AIG. Coral then deposited the $5 million, along with $55 million in other investors' stock purchase funds, in Sanwa Bank. The net result was the bank loaned the money and got it all back in days. . . . This strange deal was the scheme on Goldman Sachs, headed at the time by Rober t Rubin. Goldman also provided guarantees to ADFA, such a put agreement should ADFA not be permitted to own the stock. (It is against the Arkansas Constitution for the government to own stock in corporations.) . . . Some reporters draw inferences from several facts: Barbados has lax banking regulations and tight corporate secrecy laws preventing outsiders from learning corporate ownership; and when ADFA was set up, the legislation prohibited the state auditors from examining the agency. >From The Washington Weekly, Mar. 17, 1997: THE BARBADOS CONNECTION: CORAL REINSURANCE -- After Reps. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala) and Henry Bonilla (R-Texas) voted to extend Most-Favored-Nation trade status for China last year, they received an invitation from the China Government to tour major cities in Red China. And who paid for their trip? Not only the Chinese Government, but also American International Group, with money laundered through the National Committee on United States-China Relations and the Freeman Foundation, reported the newspaper Roll Call last week. . . . American International Group is headquartered in Barbados and operates Coral Reinsurance. Where have we heard that name before? Oh yes! In Arkansas. In 1986 the notorious Arkansas Development Finance Authority borrowed $5,000,000 from a Japanese bank's Chicago branch as part of a $60,000,000 deal to purchase stock in Coral Reinsurance. The deal was brokered by Goldman Sachs, whose head Robert Rubin is now Treasury Secretary. On the board of directors of AIG is one Lloyd Benson, former Treasury Secretary. . . . Corning Group - From Conspirators' Hierarchy: . . . As part of Rank's United States operation, no other single company has been more successful for Rank than the Corning Group, owners of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the New York Life Insurance Company. Committee of 300 members, Amory Houghton and his brother James Houghton, have long served the British Crown through the above named insurance companies, and Corning Glass, Dow Corning and Cornin g International. Both sit on the board of IBM and Citicorp. James Houghton is a director of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, a director of the J. Pierpont Morgan Library, a stronghold of the RIIA and the CFR, and he is also a director of CBS. . . (The Catbird's Movie Review: The Insider - The Catbird gives it ... 5 eagles - a must see you must see!) . . . Also on the Corning Glass board sits the Bishop of the Archdiocese of the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church of Boston. All this gives the group its much-vaunted air of respectability, which insurance company executive's must carry, and as we shall see, in addition to James Houghton, Keith Funston and John Harper, both on Corning's board, run the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. . . . The MASSIVE gridding and interfacing of just this one single unit of the Committee of 300 will give us a good indication of the vast power at the disposal of the conspirators' hierarchy, before which all knees are bowed, including the knee of the President of the United States, whomever that happens to be. . . . What is important to note is how this American Company, one of HUNDREDS, is interfaced with British intelligence, with Canada, the Far East and South Africa, not to mention its gridding of corporate officials and directors reaching into every aspect of business and politics in the United States. . . ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! 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