CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

54 CAPITALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL
That’s all the statements meant: Transfer all the dirty money you can; just
don’t carry it on your person!
Riggs Bank
For years U.S. and European bankers have tried to convince me and others
that handling dirty money is in the past: We don’t cater to corrupt officials,
the institution’s anti–money laundering safeguards are very effective, our
reputation is our most valuable asset. Okay, bring all this reassuring talk
right up to 2004, to the capital of the United States and its venerable Riggs
National Bank.
Founded in 1836, Riggs catered to the elite of Washington, serving 17
presidents including Abraham Lincoln, generals and admirals including
Sherman and Grant from the Civil War and MacArthur and Nimitz from
World War II, and 95 percent of the embassies and foreign missions located
in the greater metropolitan area. It regarded itself as “the most important
bank in the most important city in the world.”
At the request of Senator Carl Levin, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations launched an examination in 2003 into money
laundering at Riggs. The report it released in 2004 plus a supplement in
2005 are the most damning documents produced on any financial institution
since the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was
turned inside out in the early 1990s.
Riggs had few scruples about the kind of money it accepted. It graciously
serviced the wealth of a murderous dictator, Augusto Pinochet of Chile; a
world-class thief, Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea; and Saudi Arabian
money that was suspected of ending up in the hands of terrorists. “Serviced” is
an understatement; Riggs groveled before some of the dirtiest money on Earth.
Pinochet. As the Senate report says, “Mr. Pinochet has been accused of involvement
with human rights abuses, torture, assassinations, death squads,
drug trafficking, arms sales, and corruption . . .” 5 Riggs took deposits from
Pinochet as early as 1979, and then in the mid-1990s, using its own Bahamian
trust company, established two offshore shell corporations, Ashburton Company
and Althrop Investment Company. Riggs also issued up to nine certificates
of deposit (CDs), each for a million dollars or more for Ashburton and