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Adding on to post 63:

Union Banque Privee and the 'Swiss connection'

Another member of the board of Soros's Quantum Fund is the head of one of
the most controversial Swiss private banks, Edgar de Picciotto, who has been
called "one of the cleverest bankers in Geneva"---and is one of the most
scandal-tainted. De Picciotto, from an old Portuguese Jewish trading family,
who was born in Lebanon, is head of the Geneva private bank CBI-TDB Union
Bancaire Privee, a major player in the gold and offshore hedge funds
business. Hedge funds have been identified by international police agencies
as the fastest-growing outlet for illegal money laundering today.

De Picciotto is a longtime friend and business associate of banker Edmond
Safra, also born in Lebanon, whose family came from Aleppo, Syria, and who
now controls the Republic Bank of New York. Republic Bank has been
identified in U.S. investigations into Russian organized crime, as the bank
involved in transferring billions of U.S. Federal Reserve notes from New
York to organized crime-controlled Moscow banks, on behalf of Russian
organized crime figures. Safra is under investigation by U.S. and Swiss
authorities for laundering Turkish and Columbian drug money. In 1990,
Safra's Trade Development Bank (TDB) of Geneva was merged with de
Picciotto's CBI to create the CBI-TDB Union Banque Privee. The details of
the merger are shrouded in secrecy to this day. As part of the deal, de
Picciotto became a board member of American Express Bank (Switzerland) SA of
Geneva, and two American Express Bank of New York executives sit on the
board of de Picciotto's Union Banque Privee. Safra had sold his Trade
Development Bank to American Express, Inc. in the 1980s. Henry Kissinger
sits on the board of American Express, Inc., which has repeatedly been
implicated in international money-laundering scandals.

De Picciotto's start as a Geneva banker came from Nicholas Baring of the
London Barings Bank, who tapped de Picciotto to run the bank's secret Swiss
bank business. Barings has for centuries been private banker to the British
royal family, and since the bank's collapse in March 1995, has been
overhauled by the Dutch ING Bank, which is reported to be a major
money-laundering institution.

De Picciotto is also a longtime business partner of Venetian businessman
Carlo De Benedetti, who recently was forced to resign as head of Olivetti
Corp. Both persons sit on the board of the Societe Financiere de Geneve
investment holding company in Geneva. De Benedetti is under investigation in
Italy for suspicion of triggering the collapse of Italy's Banco Ambrosiano
in the early 1980s.The head of that bank, Roberto Calvi, was later found
hanging from the London Blackfriar's Bridge, in what police believe was a
masonic ritual murder.

De Picciotto and his Union Banque Privee have been implicated in numerous
drug and illegal money-laundering operations. In November 1994, U.S. federal
agents arrested a senior official of de Picciotto's Geneva bank,
Jean-Jacques Handali, along with two other UBP officials, on charges of
leading a multimillion-dollar drug-money-laundering ring. According to the
U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, Handali and Union Banque Privee were the
"Swiss connection" in an international drug-money-laundering ring tied to
Colombian and Turkish cocaine and heroin organizations. A close business and
political associate of de Picciotto is a mysterious arm dealer, Helmut
Raiser, who is linked in business dealings with reputed Russian organized
crime kingpin Grigori Luchansky, who controls the Russian and Swiss holding
company Nordex Group.

Another director of Soros's Quantum Fund is Isodoro Albertini, owner of the
Milan stock brokerage firm Albertini and Co. Beat Notz of the Geneva
Banque Worms is another private banker on the board of Soros's Quantum Fund,
as is Alberto Foglia, who is chief of the Lugano, Switzerland Banca del
Ceresio. Lugano, just across the Swiss border from Milan, is notorious as
the financial secret bank haven for Italian organized crime families,
including the heroin mafia behind the 1980s "Pizza Connection" case. The
Banca del Ceresio has been one of the secret Swiss banks identified in the
recent Italian political corruption scandals as the repository of bribe
funds of several Italian politicians now in prison.