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A bank of crooks and criminals: Robert Gates

BCCI ran a secret network to fund Pak, Libyan bid for N-arms ?
LONDON. July 26 : The Bank of Credit and Commerce International ran a secret worldwide cash-transmission network to fund a Joint effort by Argentina. Libya and Pakistan to acquire nuclear arms, the Guardian reported Friday, says AP.
The liberal British newspaper said Its information was based on sources Inside and outside the bank and interviews with dissident Pakistanis in exile. It did not name any of them.
BCCI operations in dozens of countries were closed July 5 after the Bank of England received what It described as evidence of huge fraud.
'It is likely that many of the black holes in BCCI's accounts totaling 10 billion dollars so far. and rising — can be put down to transactions connected with the nuclear bomb project.' the Guardian reported. It said the network operated for more than a decade to provide huge sums for a series of attempts to buy nuclear bomb components, adding that some of those attempts were successful.
It said BCCI also arranged air freight, shipping and insurance for the components and provided agents of the secret consortium with operating money and legal counsel if they were arrested and faced criminal charges. It Mid agents were arrested tn the Netherlands tn 1983 but gave no details.
It claimed that a friendship between the bank's founder. Pakistani financier Agha Hassan Abedi. and the late Gen. Zia (Ul-Haq). Pakistan's long-time military strongman, made the bank an obvious choice to service agents of the consortium.
The Guardian also on Friday quoted unnamed Intelligence sources as saying BCCI was used as a conduit for payments to nearly 500 Britons on the payroll of the U 3 central Intelligence Agency.
It Mid the payments were made over 10 years to two BCCI branches in London.
The sources said the Britons included people In government and politics, business. academia, science, and the media.
On Thursday, the Guardian reported that Kuwait had deposited 60 million Dollars in BCCI for the Abu Nldal terrorist group.
The newspaper quoted what it said was a confidential French secret service document. dated February 1988. that said the Kuwaiti Embassy in London paid funds into Abu Ntdal s account In 1987.
On Thursday, Pakistan •Finance Minister Sartaj Aziz ordered an investigation into allegations that the BCCI acted as a conduit for covert US aid to the Muslim resistance tn Afghanistan. He stressed that his government had "absolutely no proof of any wrongdoing!
Banking regulators worldwide charge BCCI with widespread criminal and fraudulent activity. The BCCI shut down operations in dozens of countries on July 5 after the Bank of England received what It described as evidence of a huge fraud.
AFI’ adds: Robert Gates, the man Upped to head the CIA, knew some years ago about the Illegal activities of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). according to current and former government officials.
Former U S Customs Commissioner Wllltan Von Raab said Gates, then Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), called BCCI "the bank of crooks and criminals" during a 1988 conversation.
Von Raab Mid Gates had given him a report five or six pages long on BCCI's owners and activities in response to his request for Information on the bank, which recently became the center of a worldwide fraud and drug-trafficking scandal after losing some 15 billion dollars.
The report detailed BCCI's establishment In 1972 by a Pakistani banker to manage burgeoning oil revenues in the Arab states and Its conversion after oil prices fell.
"It converted to an all-purpose bank, but particularly illicit purposes". Von Raab quoted Gates report as saying.
According to law enforcement sources, the CIA channelled money through BCCI accounts to aid guerillas in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and other countries during the 1980s.