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Bank of Credit and Commerce International (view source)
Revision as of 04:01, November 7, 2016
, 04:01, November 7, 2016→Stephens Inc and the Riadys'
This union came about just as the [[Mena airport|Mena, Arkansas]], drug-and-arms trade was creating a vast local demand for money-laundering services. At the Asian end, with Mochtar Riady, Stephens purchased Seng Heng Bank in Macao, the "Oriental Las Vegas", where gambling is the primary source of government revenue. Stephens' Systematics supplied software to the Banco Nacional Ultramarino, the cashier and treasury bank of the Macao government and the bank that issues the local [[currency]]. Macao is located less than 40 miles from [[Hong Kong]], the center for [[heroin]] trade.
This union came about just as the [[Mena airport|Mena, Arkansas]], drug-and-arms trade was creating a vast local demand for money-laundering services. At the Asian end, with Mochtar Riady, Stephens purchased Seng Heng Bank in Macao, the "Oriental Las Vegas", where gambling is the primary source of government revenue. Stephens' Systematics supplied software to the Banco Nacional Ultramarino, the cashier and treasury bank of the Macao government and the bank that issues the local [[currency]]. Macao is located less than 40 miles from [[Hong Kong]], the center for [[heroin]] trade.
Stephens' principal motive in bringing BCCI to America was apparently to connect up his own financial institutions to a global system of money laundering—not only First American Bank, but those in Little Rock also. To avoid the type of [[SEC]] scrutiny involved in the Financial General takeover, [[Webster Hubbell]] was employed to draw up the charter for the [[Arkansas Development Finance Authority]] (ADFA). The structure for the laundry was then in place.
Stephens' principal motive in bringing BCCI to America was to connect up his own financial institutions to a global system of money laundering—not only First American Bank, but those in Little Rock also. To avoid the type of [[SEC]] scrutiny involved in the Financial General takeover, [[Webster Hubbell]] was employed to draw up the charter for the [[Arkansas Development Finance Authority]] (ADFA). The structure for the laundry was then in place.
====Money laundering for Mena====
One form of Stephens' laundry worked through front companies set up by bond broker [[Don Lasater]]. These companies would deposit cash in banks such as Stephens' Worthen Bank, which would not fill out reporting forms. In return for this service, the companies would be obligated to buy bonds issued by the ADFA, and underwritten by Stephens' investment bank Stephens Inc. Stephens would thus be compensated for the laundering service in the form of an investment banking fee.
The money from the bond issue, meanwhile, would go back to the same front companies. That is, in effect the companies bought their own bonds and paid Stephens a fee for the service.
The participation of the [[ADFA]], a state government institution, eliminated [[SEC]] scrutiny. ADFA formally issued and "guaranteed" the bonds, and thus collected a fee in the process. Some of these fees were translated into "loans" to the political friends of Governor of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton, now President of the United States.
At other times ADFA was itself the core of the laundry. At the end of December 1988, for example, the ADFA deposited $50 million in Fuji Bank in the Cayman Islands. Fuji Bank subsequently purchased the industrial development loan of POM, Inc., a parking meter and arms production company owned by Seth Ward, Webster Hubbell's father-in-law. Hubbell was also POM's corporate attorney.
====Harken Energy====
====Harken Energy====