Letters to Augusto Pinochet From Officials at Riggs Bank

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As quoted in a report by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations:
Monday, March 21, 2005; Page E09


On February 14, 1996, Chairman Joe L. Allbritton wrote:

Dear General Pinochet:

I would like to express my profound thanks to you for according me and my associates such a magnificent reception at the Calvary School in Quillota on my visit to Chile. As a horse enthusiast, your fine young calvary officers, their horses and the superb performance they put on was excellent. It was indeed a personal pleasure to spend the day with you in Quillota and to have an opportunity to personally convey our appreciation for the longstanding relationship between the Chilean Armed Forces and the Riggs Bank. We attach great importance to our relationship with you and the Chilean Military and look forward to expanding our cooperation in the future.

Chile is clearly a very impressive country with an excellent future thanks to you and the policies and reforms you instituted. As I expressed to you, I will be only too pleased to be of assistance to you and your country in anyway I can in Washington, D.C.

I would like to thank you for the superb cufflinks you presented to me and please know that you would be most welcome to visit my wife Barby and me at our house in Middleburg, Virginia where we raise our thoroughbred race horses.

Sincerely . . .


MoreMoreMore:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52567-2005Mar20.html

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1. Chilean Armed Forces and the Riggs Bank

On November 10, 1997, Riggs President Timothy C. Coughlin wrote:

Dear General Pinochet:

Your gracious reception of the delegation from Riggs Bank during my Chairman's recent visit to Chile is much appreciated . . .

Riggs is privileged to serve Chile's banking requirements, and we will do everything with our power to promote economic trade and military alliance between our two countries. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52567-2005Mar20_2.html

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2. Passports used by Augusto Pinochet to open secret bank accounts

SECRET PINOCHET PORTFOLIO:
FORMER DICTATOR'S CORRUPTION SCANDAL BROADENS

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 149

March 15 , 2005

The Case Against Pinochet
Ex-Dictator Indicted for Condor Crimes

Lifting of Pinochet's Immunity Renews Focus on Operation Condor
Documents Indicated 1976 Terror Attack in Washington Might Have Been Prevented

Chile and the United States
Declassified documents related to the military coup of September 11, 1973




Washington, D.C., March 15, 2005 - Washington D.C.: The National Security Archive tonight posted key documents released on March 15 by the Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs showing conclusively that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had used multiple aliases and false identification to maintain over 125 secret bank accounts at the Riggs National Bank and eight other financial institutions in the United States. In a review of banking records, Senate investigators found ten false names used by Pinochet to disguise his accounts, among them Daniel Lopez, A.P. Ugarte and Jose Pinochet. Records obtained from the Riggs Bank and Citibank showed that Pinochet presented falsified passports under the names of Augusto Ugarte and Jose Ramon Ugarte for account identification.

In their investigation into money laundering, foreign corruption and inadequate enforcement of banking rules to fight terrorism, the staff of Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) has obtained thousands of internal banking records, among them confidential memoranda, emails, accounting reports, and even private letters from Riggs officials to General Pinochet. Many of these documents are cited in their "Staff Report on U.S. accounts used by Augusto Pinochet" released today (the Archive posted the executive summary; click here to read the full report). Under the Freedom of Information Act, the National Security Archive has requested the declassification of these documents from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). But the OCC, which is implicated in the Pinochet financial scandal for its failure to monitor his illicit transactions at Riggs, has refused to release any of the documentation, even though the Senate Subcommittee has already published hundreds of pages of banking records related to Pinochet's accounts.

The new evidence promises to further erode Gen. Pinochet's legal and political standing in Chile where the former dictator faces charges of corruption and tax evasion, as well as homicide and terrorism. "This is the final nail in the coffiin of Pinochet's legacy," said Peter Kornbluh, the Archive's Chile specialist who hailed the work of Senate investigators in uncovering dramatic documentation of financial wrongdoing. "Not since the IT&T papers were revealed in 1972 has there been a corporate scandal of this magnitude relating to Chile," he said.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB149/

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3. Reports last week citing the accounts Pinochet held mentioned

Coutts Bank (USA).

In 1988 the Manager of the Cavendish Square branch of Coutts Bank plc, located in the Harley Street medical district of central London, Mr Graham Harper, was sent on unconditional 'compassionate' leave after an unexpected visit from SO13 Special Branch cops to the bank.

They were investigating the disappearance of a wealthy customer's £3 million from an account held at the branch, following reports that a Provisional IRA gang member posing as an account holder had forged a signature on paperwork and authorised the transfer of this cash abroad to nominee accounts held in other names.

Interpol eventually traced the funds via a network of offshore accounts in the Channels Islands to a branch of Coutts USA.

The Coutts manager eventually testified in a theft/moneylaundering court case in the Old Bailey and named various members of Robert Maxwell's family as being implicated in the £3million illicit transfer.

Harper eventually took early retirement after suffering a severe nervous breakdown.

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