American Bank Hid Pinochet's Assets

Shortly after Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998 all the support he got from the Pinochet "Foundation" among other money launderers sources made me wish I could find a group of forensic accountants to track his assets, which were ordered frozen under the arrest warrant issued by Judge Balthazar Garzon.

Well, sometimes wishes come true and sometimes they come true in the most serendipitious ways. A Senate investigation of Riggs Bank in Washington, DC disclosed that the bank:

• Helped Pinochet set up phony offshore companies.

• Opened accounts in their names and altered names on the accounts to conceal his control of them.

• Transferred $1.6 million of his funds from London to the United States.

• Conducted transactions through Riggs' own accounts to hide Pinochet's involvement in some cash transactions.

• Hid the existence of his accounts from comptroller's office examiners for two years and initially resisted the regulators' requests for information.

Some of the lengths to which Riggs Bank went were truly audacious:

In 1996 and '98, Riggs helped Pinochet set up two offshore shell corporations in the Bahamas, Ashburton Co. Ltd. and Althorp Investment Co., the report said. Neither company had employees nor physical offices, but Riggs nevertheless allowed Pinochet to deposit his money in the companies' names.

In a 1998 ''client profile'' demanded by U.S. regulators, Riggs never identified Pinochet as Ashburton's beneficial owner, stating that the owner's name was ''kept in vault.'' The profile said the customer behind Ashburton was a client with an estimated annual income of up to $200,000, and an estimated personal net worth of $50 million to $100 million, it said.

The Senate report said that in late December 2000 or early January 2001, after the British newspaper The Observer reported Pinochet had more than $1 million in Riggs, the bank altered the names on a personal Pinochet account, changing ''Augusto Pinochet Ugarte and Lucia Hiriart de Pinochet'' to "L.Hiriart and/or A. Ugarte.''

'By changing the official account names in this manner, Riggs ensured that any manual or electronic search for the name `Pinochet' would not identify any accounts at the bank,'' the Senate report said. "In fact, Riggs appeared to take affirmative steps to hide the Pinochet relationship from bank examiners.''

Entonces, mi general, tengo una pregunta para usted: ¿De dónde este dinero vino? Well I have some ideas. Let's go back to the scandal that embroiled your son some 11 years ago:

Even Pinochet's family members appear untouchable in Chile. In the early 1990's, government auditors were investigating Pinochet's son, Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, in a $7 million corruption case involving military-run businesses. In May 1993, citing discontent over issues including this investigation, the army carried out a threateningly public military exercise in Santiago, the national capital. The then-government subsequently signed an agreement giving the army some power to monitor the Pinochet investigation. Under intense military pressure, the government of President Eduardo Frei was obliged to order the investigation closed in July 1995. Frei cited "national interest" as the reason for doing so.

That could certainly be one of the dots to be connected. So we have a man with the following attributes:

He was fully aware of the human rights abuses committed by his subordinates

His secret police committed acts of terrorism on three continents

He protected a bizarre cult led by an alleged pedophile

He was a major figure in Operation Condor, a transnational operation developed by military dictators to kill their enemies (perceived and real) including a plot to kill a US congressman

He hid assets in the millions of dollars with no clear explanation as to how he got it.

Anyone still want to defend him? You know who should be really angry about this: Chile's military. They should be outraged that Pinochet and his family got rich and no one knows how.

Comments

[Roxanne]

I read somewhere, and now I don't remember where, that Riggs was also holding some Bin Laden assets, as well as assets from other nefarious Saudis.

[cub]

And there is some Bush connection, I seem to remember reading somewhere. Or perhaps there once was. Seems a relative owned it, ran it, whatever.