BCCI/Bank of America case reaches shock agreement

[seemslikeadream]

As the BCCI liquidator’s case against the Bank of England rumbles on, a surprise settlement has been reached in its parallel case, BCCI’s massive claim against Bank of America.
In terms of scale, amount of legal fees, and some allegations, the Bank of America case mirrors the case against the Bank of England.

...

Revelations of the settlement coincide with the first anniversary of the launch of the case against Bank of England, which is accused by BCCI liquidator Deloitte & Touche of “knowingly or recklessly” failing in its supervision of BCCI.

Lawyers gave a mixed response to the impact of the settlement on the Bank of England trial. However, one insider said: “There could be psychological impact for anyone who knows the terms of settlement.” A Deloitte source did not expect it to have any impact. Terms of the settlement are being kept confidential.

Bank of America was accused by the liquidator of knowingly participating in fraudulent trading being carried out by the collapsed Luxembourg-registered bank.

...

Bank of America’s lawyer, David Allen, a litigation partner at Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, declined to comment.
more
http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=113648&d=122&h=24&f=46

[Hard Attack]

1. Don't Worry, this is nothing to worry about because

Don't Worry, this is nothing to worry about because it will not make it to main stream media and no one will be the wiser.

Isn't Bank of America Sueing Citibank for their illegal activity regarding Enron?

Isn't Rudy Guiliani's law firm defending Merril Lynch for Fraud?

I mean, this is what I mean, no one knows, no one worries, and we continue to worry about the more important issues like award ceremonies for movie stars.

Don't Worry, Be Medicated :)

[Hard Attack]

3. Good Post though, thanks for bringing to everyones attention.!

[KurtNYC]

7. Tyco and Worldcom also below the MSM radar this week

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldcom/story/0,12167,1391949,00.html

Corporate crime moves back to centre stage in the US this week when two of the most infamous cases of recent years reach court.

In one of the most anticipated trials stemming from the scandals that struck corporate America in the wake of the dotcom collapse, Bernard Ebbers, the former WorldCom chief executive, is facing allegations that he orchestrated a massive accounting fraud.

[blm]

2. BCCI/BankofAmerica case was supposed to go to trial last June. I KNEW

they were keeping it out of court to prevent it from becoming a story in this country. BCCI has dirty Bush deeds throughout. He and his cronies set up a dirty financial system to cover for their dirty dealing with drug lords and arms dealers, as well as the financiers of international terrorism.

All the secrets of 9-11 and the US Iraq policy are rooted in BCCI. Bush's Harken deal was part of the BCCI scandal.

Bush couldn't afford for the American people and the American media to remember that it was John Kerry who investigated and exposed BCCI and closed down the terrorists' bank.

If only the media did its job for a change, instead of being led by the nose at the whim of their corporate masters.

[seemslikeadream]

4. N.J. investigates company over alleged terror ties

...

State officials say they have no proof of the accusations against Investcorp, an $8.6 billion private equity firm based in Bahrain, the island kingdom in the Persian Gulf. But they've decided the stories deserve special scrutiny, especially after Investcorp asked about sidestepping financial disclosure laws that cover New Jersey's waste industry.

...

The trash business is no stranger to shady dealings, of course. What's politely called "waste management" in New Jersey has a history of ties to organized crime, although law enforcement has mostly squeezed the mob out of the market. Now, a new chapter has added a cast straight out of a spy novel, from Saudi billionaires to arms-dealing bankers to a self-styled terrorism guru from France.
State officials acknowledge that most of what they've heard about Investcorp comes from "Forbidden Truth," a controversial 2002 book that alleges murky ties between Middle Eastern oil barons and terror groups like al-Qaida. They also acknowledge they were tipped off, at least in part, by a rival bidder for the transfer station, although they won't say who.

...

Investcorp's top shareholders include some of the Arab world's more prominent figures, including a former Saudi oil minister, an ambassador for the United Arab Emirates and a personal adviser to the emir of Kuwait. The firm was founded in 1982 by Nemir Kirdar, an Iraqi native whose acquaintances include Britain's Prince Charles and former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. Under Kirdar, a former Chase Manhattan Bank executive, Investcorp has focused on relatively quick turnarounds - snapping up under-performing companies, reviving them and selling in five years or so.

...

Fader said he had found troubling claims about Investcorp simply by surfing the Internet, but he and McNamara each said their starting point was "Forbidden Truth." The book about Islamic terrorism was co-written by Jean-Charles Brisard, a self-described expert on terrorist financing who has testified before Congress. Brisard, according to his book, has advised the French government and French conglomerate Vivendi Universal. He is also lead investigator for a Virginia law firm representing 9/11 families in a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia and other purported backers of Osama bin Laden.
The book claims Investcorp's top shareholders - most of them Persian Gulf businessmen - have ties to charities that support terror groups and violence.

...

Banker of terror?

The BCCI directors included Khalid bin Mahfouz, founder of Saudi Arabia's top private bank and one of the world's wealthiest men. This year, Bin Mahfouz was No. 159 in Forbes magazine's annual ranking of billionaires, with a net worth of $3 billion.
Brisard calls him "the banker of terror" for his alleged ties to Islamic charities that have supported terrorists. He claims Bin Mahfouz controls a quarter of Investcorp's stock through a business associate, Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, an Investcorp director.

...

The document, dubbed the Golden Chain by Bin Laden backers, lists 20 wealthy Muslim businessmen who allegedly supported Islamic rebels against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Anti-Soviet warriors like Bin Laden were then a popular cause among Saudis, as well as for the U.S. government. Bin Mahfouz's Web site says he gave $270,000 to the fighters in the 1980s.

more
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MDYmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY2MzI2NTQmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXky

[tlcandie]

5. I guess Waste Management's mobsters picked up and moved

to Florida. :cry: This is our one and only trash picker-upper.

[cthrumatrix]

10. where in the hell is our media on this ...?

[Octafish]

13. BCCI connects straight on through 9-11.

Gee. Could this be why Bush has to wear a defribilator?

This is for the BFEE Fact Book:

BCCI Backgrounder

The largest transnational criminal enterprise ever discovered, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International was a bank set up by a Pakistani mystic, backed by Gulf Oil petro-billions and its deposits stolen and used for arch-criminality.

Fueled by all its oil money, legitimate small depositors, and laundered drug billions, BCCI did Big Time business with the world’s biggest crooks and gangster governments. Robert Gates, Poppy Bush's DCI, called it the "Bank of Crooks and Criminals International" and laughed.

BCCI laundered money for drug smugglers and gun merchants. BCCI moved funds around the world for the KGB, the CIA, and terrorists of the right like Ollie North and left like Abu Nidhal. BCCI helped fund and arm the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden.

BCCI money was used to bribe and blackmail politicians worldwide, both liberal Democrat but especially conservative Republican. Worst of all, money from BCCI was used to build Pakistan's H-bomb, apparently with the full knowledge of then-president George Herbert Walker Bush.

In the early 1990s, then-private citizen George Walker Bush, son of the president, benefited financially from BCCI. The bank helped fund at least one of his failed oil exploration ventures.

W’s Texas Air National Guard friend, James R Bath, was reported to be a director of BCCI. Bath, who was kicked off the Texas ANG flight line, along with his fellow officer Bush Jr, also was involved with BCCI through the bin Laden and bin Mahfouz families.

BCCI was protected by politicians the world over, including members of both parties in the United States. The record shows BCCI bought influence at the highest levels of the US Government, establishing a secret United States presence — First American Bankshares in Washington DC — with the help Clark Clifford and those close to Jimmy Carter on the Democratic side.

BCCI did even BIGGER Business with the Repukes, using the services of Henry Kissinger and his crowd — and wherever there's a Kissinger, a Bush won't be far behind. Of course, president George HW Bush did all he could to bury the BCCI Affair. It was personal, after all, it involving his sons, family and closest friends and business associates all the way from the Middle East to Texas.

What America needed to know BEFORE Nov. 2, 2004: As a Freshman, Senator John Kerry tried to do something about it. Seeing how Kerry didn't bring BCCI up during the fucking debates when Bush brought up Pakistani nuke father AQ Khan, perhaps DU can help get the word out.

— Octafish


9-11: The BCCI Connection

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=658476


The Kerry/Brown BCCI report in 2 pdf files, ready for print-out

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1568810


BCCI class action begins January 13th, London, UK


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=977792


George W Bush Connection to the BCCI Scandal?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=157573


Kissinger & BCCI spells BUSH & 9-11

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=377323


Guess who ties ENRON to BCCI?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=7548&forum=DCForumID70&archive=

BCCI redux? bank failure in CA

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=35668&forum=DCForumID60&archive=


Call to Octafish: We need massive linkage on BCCI and IranContra.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2118878

[madrchsod]

6. and who busted the bank????

was it JOHN KERRY? i think it was..no wonder they hate him.

[blm]

8. No wonder they couldn't AFFORD to let him be in power.

He would have opened up the BCCI files to public scrutiny, and THEN the public would have a better understanding of what really happened on 9-11 and Bush's cover up foreign policy actions.

It would have shown that the Bush family is loyal only to their international financier cronies. The House of Saud, the House of Bush, the King of Spain, and Bush cronies in China.

All hail WalMart and cheap labor and keep those wars coming while we count the money.

[Wilms]

9. Check. n/t

[Octafish]

15. How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank

Follow the Money

How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank

By David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin

Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.

All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.

More than a decade later, Kerry is his party's nominee for president, and terrorist financing is anything but a back-burner issue. The Bush campaign has settled on a new strategy for attacking Kerry: Portray him as a do-nothing senator who's weak on fighting terrorism. "After 19 years in the Senate, he's had thousands of votes, but few signature achievements," President Bush charged recently at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh; spin that's been echoed by Bush's surrogates, conservative pundits, and mainstream reporters alike, and by a steady barrage of campaign ads suggesting that the one thing Kerry did do in Congress was prove he knew nothing about terrorism. Ridiculing the senator for not mentioning al Qaeda in his 1997 book on terrorism, one ad asks: "How can John Kerry win a war if he doesn't know the enemy?"

SNIP...

But legislation is only one facet of a senator's record. As the BCCI investigation shows, Kerry developed a very different record of accomplishment--one often as vital, if not more so, than passage of bills. Kerry's probe didn't create any popular new governmental programs, reform the tax code, or eliminate bureaucratic waste and fraud. Instead, he shrewdly used the Senate's oversight powers to address the threat of terrorism well before it was in vogue, and dismantled a key terrorist weapon. In the process, observers saw a senator with tremendous fortitude, and a willingness to put the public good ahead of his own career. Those qualities might be hard to communicate to voters via one-line sound bites, but they would surely aid Kerry as president in his attempts to battle the threat of terrorism.

From drug lords to lobbyists

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html

My question: With a resume filled with just this -- the guy should be President. Where the heck was his communications staff on all this?

[Octafish]

11. Bin Laden's Money Flow Leads back to Midland, Texas

Here's why the crazy monkey is so scared. The facts show the terrorists' money is the same as Bush's money. And they all banked at BCCI.

Tracking bin Laden's Money Flow 

leads back to Midland, Texas

by Wayne Madsen
In these Times, 12 November 2001   
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG),  globalresearch.ca,   28  February 2002
 
On September 24, President George W. Bush appeared at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce a crackdown on the financial networks of terrorists and those who support them. "U.S. banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts," Bush declared. "And U.S. citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them."

But the president, who is now enjoying an astounding 92 percent approval rating, hasn't always practiced what he is now preaching: Bush's own businesses were once tied to financial figures in Saudi Arabia who currently support bin Laden.

In 1979, Bush's first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $ 50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto.

In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $ 10 billion in the '80s in what has been called the "largest bank fraud in world financial history" by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the '80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI's frontman in Houston's Main Bank.

CONTINUED...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD202B.html

[bobthedrummer]

12. Pennies on the dollar now, these pigs are going for all they can get.

:grr:

[Octafish]

14. BCCI was more than just another BFEE Bust-Out

... like the nationfull of busted S&Ls, ENRON or WorldCom. BCCI was the gang's way of keeping tabs on where ALL the money flows. These puking sick turds are moving the world's dope, arming the world's dictators and war lords,looting the world's treasuries and laundering the proceeds.

DU! Let's work to get them what they deserve:



Is that Chertoff, just behind Jebthro?

How the Bushes made their bones:

The Family That Preys Together

From Issue No. 41, Summer, 1992
by Jack Colhoun

GEORGE JR.'S BCCI CONNECTION "This is an incredible deal, unbelievable for this small company," energy analyst Charles Strain told Forbes magazine, describing the oil production sharing agreement the Harken Energy Corporation signed in January 1990 with Bahrain.

Under the terms of the deal, Harken was given the exclusive right to explore for gas and oil off the shores of the Gulf island nation. If gas or oil were found in waters near two of the world's largest gas and oil fields, Harken would have exclusive marketing and transportation rights for the energy resources. Truly an "incredible deal" for a company that had never drilled an offshore well.

Strain failed to point out, however, the one fact that puts the Harken deal in focus: George Bush, Jr., the eldest son of George and Barbara Bush of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, is a member of Harken's board of directors, a consultant, and a stockholder in the Texas-based company. In light of this connection, the deal makes more sense. The involvement of Junior-George Walker Bush's childhood nickname-with Harken is a walking conflict of interest. His relationship to President Bush, rather than any business acumen, made him a valuable asset for Harken, the Republican Party benefactors, Middle East oil sheikhs and covert operators who played a part in Harken's Bahrain deal.

In fact, Junior's track record as an oilman is pretty dismal. He began his career in Midland, Texas, in the mid-1970s when he founded Arbusto Energy, Inc. When oil prices dropped in the early 1980s, Arbusto fell upon hard times. Junior was only rescued from business failure when his company was purchased by Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation, a small oil firm owned by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. As part of the September 1984 deal, Bush became Spectrum 7's president and was given a 13.6 percent share in the company's stock. Oil prices stayed low and within two years, Spectrum 7 was in trouble.

SNIP...

Junior's value to Harken soon became apparent when the company needed an infusion of cash in the spring of 1987. Junior and other Harken officials met with Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc., a large investment bank in Little Rock, Arkansas (Stephens made a $100,000 contribution to the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and gave another $100,000 to the Bush dinner committee in 1990.)

CONTINUED...

http://mediafilter.org/caq/BushFamilyPreys.html

[emad]

17. Which one's Unka Jonathan?

There used to be a pic in Poppy's autobiography but it's out of print here...

[Octafish]

18. The full-face figure on the far left.

It'll be nice seeing him in the hoosegow.



His work there would be the first honest thing he's done in his life.

[blm]

19. No giving up here, Octafish.

The truth will not change.

[emad]

16. Shaikh Zayed's death late last year may have led to a deal

being done on this one.

Expect more news from the UK later this week on the London class action where Margaret Thatcher is due to be subpoenaed to give evidence, along with John Major and ex-lawlord Lord Bingham.