[kcvl]

2002 election cycle • 2000 election cycle • 1998 election cycle
New York
2001-2002 TOP SOFT MONEY DONORS

Rank
Organization
Total
to Dems
to Repubs

1 Loral Spacecom $1,380,250 $1,380,250 $0
2 Philip Morris $1,222,500 $120,000 $1,102,500
3 Service Employees International Union $1,199,666 $1,199,666 $0
4 Goldman Sachs $610,385 $600,000 $10,385
5 De Shaw & Co $599,296 $599,296 $0
6 Welsh, Carson et al $587,500 $0 $587,500
7 Pepsico Inc $521,350 $65,000 $456,350
8 American International Group $510,000 $265,000 $245,000
9 Milberg, Weiss et al $420,000 $420,000 $0
10 Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corp $375,000 $375,000 $0
11 Citigroup Inc $336,080 $325,500 $10,580
12 New York Life Insurance $307,000 $210,000 $97,000
13 Interpublic Group of Companies $300,000 $0 $300,000
13 Tiger Management $300,000 $0 $300,000
15 Kohlberg, Kravis et al $275,000 $0 $275,000

[My Favorite Headache]

Looks like Drudge has been reading this thread all day long...he is just breaking news with this. Gimmie a break. FR was way ahead of him and the rest of the sites and networks. We rule...they decide.

[jumpstartme]

Good job, but you guys are just scratching the surface. The criminal enterprise that was Clinton/Rubin goes much deeper. It goes to money laundering and drugs. That's what it was always all about. Citigroup hired Rubin for a reason. See the following article and note: if nothing REAL happened to Citigroup as a result of the below Senate inquiry, sadly, nothing will happen to them now. They pay too much protection money. If you want to do a real investigation, look into Citigroup and money laundering...

Citigroup Targeted by New Money-Laundering Rules on Shell Banks

Posted by : Bloomberg; October 26, 2001
on : lundi 29 octobre 2001 à 08:59

Citigroup Inc.'s practice of maintaining relationships with offshore shell banks in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and elsewhere will have to end under the anti-money-laundering law enacted by Congress yesterday.

The law prohibits U.S. banks from opening correspondent accounts for banks with no offices and no parent bank overseen by a bank regulator. Citigroup, the world's largest financial services company, has said it permits business with a shell bank if its parent is a financial institution, not necessarily a bank.

Of the 10 largest U.S. banks, eight do not allow correspondent relationships with offshore shell banks. One, FleetBoston Financial Corp., did not return phone calls.

``If you have a `bank' that has no physical presence anywhere in the world, it shouldn't be able to establish a correspondent account in an American bank,'' Sen. Paul Sarbanes, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview. ``We think the shell bank is just a vehicle made for abuse.''

There are no reliable figures for money held by shell banks. Offshore banks, including shell banks, are licensed in 60 jurisdictions and hold an estimated $5 trillion worldwide.

When U.S. Justice Department investigators sent $7.7 million through an offshore shell bank's Citigroup account as part of a 1998 money-laundering probe, they found a total of $1.8 billion had passed through the account over six years.

Senate Inquiry

Banks ``should not open an account with an offshore shell bank unless there is a parent bank involved,'' said John Shockey, a retired special assistant with the Comptroller of the Currency, where he investigated about 500 offshore shell banks. ``I have never known an offshore shell bank owned and operated by individuals to ever engage in legitimate commercial banking.''

An inquiry completed this year by the staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found illegal funds were funneled from shell banks through correspondent accounts of banks such as Citigroup, Bank of America Corp. and First Union Corp., now known as Wachovia. All the banks denied wrongdoing.

In response to a question about the company's policy on offshore shell banks, Citibank spokeswoman Christina Pretto referred to testimony by Carlos Fedrigotti, president of Citibank Argentina, from a congressional hearing in March.

``Citibank has strived to limit its target market to the most reputable and financially robust institutions,'' Fedrigotti said. ``For this reason, Citibank avoids doing business with offshore banks that are not affiliated with well-established onshore parent financial institutions.''

Banks' Policies

Of the top 10 U.S. banks by assets Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, said its policy is to decline accounts for offshore shell banks.

Wachovia spokeswoman Mary Eshet said the bank will open a correspondent account for an offshore shell bank only ``if the parent is a reputable bank.''

Fleet Boston did not provide information; the other six banks said they either had a policy of not opening accounts for offshore shell banks or that they would do so only if it was the subsidiary of an onshore bank.

The impetus for the legislation came from the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington. It gives authorities new tools to track and freeze suspect funds. Banks also will have to obtain more detailed information about their clients, and more closely scrutinize domestic and international transactions.

Terror Attacks

``Money laundering is used to hide the assets that terrorist groups use to fund their operations in the same way that drug lords and organized crime organizations launder their money to give it a patina of legitimacy,'' said Stuart Eizenstat, undersecretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration and lead coordinator for money-laundering efforts.

In a case investigated by Treasury, the Justice Department and the Customs Service, two units of an Argentine brokerage, including an offshore shell bank with a correspondent account at Citigroup, were used to transfer at least $11.75 million in cash from U.S. drug-enforcement agents investigating Mexico's Juarez drug cartel. In six years, $1.8 billion moved through that account, the investigation found.

The parent brokerage was regulated only by Argentine securities regulators, not banking inspectors.

Citigroup executives have said in congressional testimony that the bank has opened accounts for offshore shell banks only in cases where it already does business with a regulated parent company, such as a brokerage.

``The problem is, you don't regulate a brokerage like you regulate a bank,'' said Shockey. ``The risks are different.''

The legislation also requires banks to report on the source of funds in private bank accounts opened by non-U.S. citizens, and gives the Treasury Secretary the authority to declare a bank, jurisdiction or country a ``primary money laundering concern,'' requiring U.S. banks to gather more information about their overseas partners.