Vapid ORANGE ALERT comes from GW Bush--Riggs Bank

WACKENHUT & SODEXHO & RAYTHEON

The guys at Wackenhut and Sodexho who build the prisons:
Sodexhohttp://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/sodexho/sodexho.htm
Wackenhuthttp://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/450/450p15.htm

Yes.I heard the pitch after the NPR morning news, "this hour brought
to you by RAYTHEON, making us safer for a better tomorrow."

Your link below to Wackenhut and Sodexho commercialized global prisons
network and their stock on the market is chilling.

All of us need to fear GW and his hitmen who have been raining death
on the sands of the middle east, along with Butcher Sharon.

ken

arc_of_the_kovenant@yahoo.com (Ark of the Covenant is Mine) wrote in message news:<4ea3fe28.0406211457.307ead94@posting.google.com...

So we all basically know now that 9-11 was an inside deal done by
our own native hooligans in positions of power.

Who will be able to forestall their next heinous act to win the
November elections under a false call to patriotism?


gerald_t_ford@hotmail.com (Gerald Ford) wrote in message news:<d79d9537.0406071616.3bc0e510@posting.google.com...

---WATCH FOR THE .. ...

... "BIG SURPRISE"[already in Masonic circles called "the event"]

OF OCT 2004 THAT WILL "SWING" THE U.S. PREZ ELECTION [MUCH LIKE THE
FAKED COLONEL BECKWITH FAILED RESCUE MISSION IN IRAN LONG AGO THAT
LOST CARTER HIS REELECTION.IN SWOOSHED B-ACTOR RONNIE REAGAN, HIS
MOVIES WILL OUTLIVE HIS DEEDS AS A PRESIDENT.

American Elections Nov. 2004 ---

... here is the real poop ...and scoop ...

THE BIG SURPRISE [AKA THE BIG EVENT] PRE-PLANNED FOR OCTOBER 2004

What exactly will be the BIG EVENT or the BIG SURPRISE of Oct. 2004
planned secretly by the social engineers who played the Oliver North
card during/preceeding Gulf War I and got away with it and who also
implanted Ronnie Reagan the B-actor in the White House like an
embedded cochlear device [and making Jimmy Carter look less than
noble, poor soul?]

I hope the counter-forces "splatter" this devious and illegal and
immoral deployment already called "THE BIG EVENT OF OCT. 2004"

Such fraud would be worse than the moral and court system debacle of the
fixed 2000 presidential elections.Will those "ho's" stop at nothing?
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/timeline.html

mariecocco@hotmail.com (Marie Cocco) wrote in message news:<22443bc0.0405291224.7a02a918@posting.google.com...

The question should be, what did WACKENHUT and SODEXHO prison
conglomerates put in the water of Florida [i.e. rigged water supplies
-- as in RIGGS BANK, rigged elections] and Texas [prison scandals that
need an African American Solzenhizen author in the trenches to
publicize to the global community] and Iraq [McDonaldization of troops
via exploitation of the Reservist Units and willy nilly validation of
much better paid philistine 'contractors' and hired killers for Coots
& Boots, Blackwater Securities, Halliburton, KROLL SECURITY, KROLL
SERVICES, Halliburton, Carlyle Group, Wackenhut, Sodex-the-Ho, et al
-- they truly are making the people so demented, who were affected by
their food supply "treatments", to go so far out as for our contract
and part time underpaid Reserve weekend soldiers and Lariam
psychotized career soldiers ...

... to homosexually rape Muslim civilians [men and women] in Iraq, and
for Floridian drones to rig the presidential elections in Florida last
"Diebold" fraud cycle.We are speaking about a family of lying and
radio controlled automatons like the Bush family, out there in Texas
[have you ever noticed that whenever GW speaks he is listening to a
radio feed embedded into his brain as if he has a cochlear implant,
and simply repeating what he hears in the radio
transmissions from Central Control?].Watch and see for yourself
the next time Bush speaks on TV and you will clearly see!!

WACKENHUT & SODEXHO & RAYTHEON

The guys at Wackenhut and Sodexho who build the prisons:
Sodexhohttp://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/sodexho/sodexho.htm
Wackenhuthttp://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/450/450p15.htm

Yes.I heard the pitch after the NPR morning news, "this hour brought
to you by RAYTHEON, making us safer for a better tomorrow."

Your link below to Wackenhut and Sodexho commercialized global prisons
network and their stock on the market is chilling.

June 8th is an early morningtransit of Venus across the sun
as earth is in the same alignment, something that will happen only two
more times in the next 120 years or so.

Many secret projects have been going on with satellites since the
1970s.Photon mapping and global illumination are hologram programs
that use a large array of satellites and lasers and mirrors, etc, that
will fit in with the true usages of HAARP.Keep up the watch!

1996
Riggs builds upon its reputation in embassy banking in Washington and
extends its banking services to non-U.S. embassies in London for the
first time.

While on an economic development mission to Bosnia and Croatia, Paul
Cushman III, head of the International Division, dies in a plane crash
with U.S. Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown.

1997
Riggs & Company is formed, bringing together the services of RIMCO and
the Riggs Financial Services Group. The subsequent purchase of

J. Bush & Co.,

Incorporated as well as alliances with life insurance agents and
brokers and Peat Marwick (KPMG) enable Riggs to bring a comprehensive
range of financial services to its clients.

1999 --U.S. Treasury Department selects Riggs Bank to redesign and
manage the CA$HLINK cash management system, the largest deposit and
cash reporting system in the world.

2000
Riggs & Co. International opened two new offices - one in London and
the other in Jersey (Channel Islands)- with a customer-built
state-of-the-art information technology platform that provides
customers with sophisticated, integrated information on their banking
arrangements and investment portfolios.

Riggs Bank N.A.

Riggs Bank N.A., also called Riggs National Bank, "which provides
banking services to most of Washington's foreign embassies and to
American consulates worldwide," has been "swept up in controversy.
Federal law enforcement officials, Congressional investigators and
banking regulators are scouring Riggs accounts in a wide-ranging
investigation revolving around the netherworlds of terrorist
financing, money laundering and the seamier geopolitics of Big Oil,"
according to Timothy O'Brien's April 11, 2004, New York Times expose.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an investigative arm of the
Treasury Department, and the Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency, a regulatory arm of the same agency, each imposed $25
million penalties against Riggs, but the bank will be allowed to pay
them concurrently.

The consent order stated that Riggs failed to report suspect
transactions involving the withdrawal of tens of millions of dollars
in cash and international drafts from accounts controlled by the Saudi
Arabian Embassy and by Saudi Arabian officials. Accounts controlled by
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United
States, have been scrutinized in the investigation, according to
federal investigators involved in the inquiry.

Margie Burns, in the February 4, 2003, Prince George's Journal
(Maryland), reported "Bush-Linked Company Handled Security for the
WTC, Dulles and United."

"Speaking of the Watergate," she wrote, "Riggs National Bank, where
Saudi Princess Al-Faisal had her 'Saudi money trail' bank account, has
as one of its executives Jonathan J. Bush," an uncle to President
George W. Bush. "The public has not learned whether Riggs - which
services 95 percent of Washington's foreign embassies - will be
turning over records relating to Saudi finance."

Benjamin Riggs (M)
b. circa 1773
Pedigree

Benjamin Riggs was born circa 1773.1 He was the son of Phineas
Riggs [Wa49] and Mary Stout.1 Benjamin Riggs married Elizabeth Combs
on 23 October 1796 at Middlesex, Connecticut, USA.2,3

[S727] Unknown author, Genealogy of the Riggs Family, With a number of
Cognate Branches descended from the Original Edward through Female
Lines and many biographical Outlines, 25, "Benjamin, b. about 1773, m.
Elizabeth Combs; settled in Wayne County, N.Y.".
[S506] William Nelson, NJ Marriage Records, 1665-1800, 637, Middlesex
County Clerk's Marriage Records, "Riggs, Benjamin, and Elizabeth
Combs......1796 Oct. 23".
[S727] Unknown author, Genealogy of the Riggs Family, With a number of
Cognate Branches descended from the Original Edward through Female
Lines and many biographical Outlines, 25.



mariecocco@hotmail.com (Marie Cocco) wrote in message news:<22443bc0.0405291224.7a02a918@posting.google.com...

The question should be, what did WACKENHUT and SODEXHO prison
conglomerates put in the water of Florida [i.e. rigged water supplies
-- as in RIGGS BANK, rigged elections] and Texas [prison scandals that
need an African American Solzenhetzen author in the trenches to
publicize to the global community] and Iraq [McDonaldization of troops
via exploitation of the Reservist Units and willy nilly validation of
much better paid philistine 'contractors' and hired killers for Coots
& Boots, Blackwater Securities, Halliburton, KROLL SECURITY, KROLL
SERVICES, Halliburton, Carlyle Group, Wackenhut, Sodex-the-Ho, et al
-- they truly are making the people so demented, who were affected by
their food supply "treatments", to go so far out as for our contract
and part time underpaid Reserve weekend soldiers and Lariam
psychotized career soldiers ...

... to homosexually rape Muslim civilians [men and women] in Iraq, and
for Floridian drones to rig the presidential elections in Florida last
"Diebold" fraud cycle.We are speaking about a family of lying and
radio controlled automatons like the Bush family, out there in Texas
[have you ever noticed that whenever GW speaks he is listening to a
radio feed embedded into his brain as if he has a cochlear implant,
and simply repeating what he hears in the radio
transmissions from Central Control?].Watch and see for yourself
the next time Bush speaks on TV and you will clearly see!!

WACKENHUT & SODEXHO & RAYTHEON

The guys at Wackenhut and Sodexho who build the prisons:
Sodexhohttp://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/sodexho/sodexho.htm
Wackenhuthttp://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/450/450p15.htm

Yes.I heard the pitch after the NPR morning news, "this hour brought
to you by RAYTHEON, making us safer for a better tomorrow."

Your link below to Wackenhut and Sodexho commercialized global prisons
network and their stock on the market is chilling.

June 8th is a transit of Venus across the sun as earth is in the same
alignment, something that will happen only two more times in the next
120 years or so.

Many secret projects have been going on with satellites since the
1970s.Photon mapping and global illumination are hologram programs
that use a large array of satellites and lasers and mirrors, etc, that
will fit in with the true usages of HAARP.Keep up the watch!


HAARP AND THE SHUTTLE
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/haarpmicrowaves/haarp_conspiracy.html
HUNTSVILLE is BACK and ready to bring on Armaggedon!!

http://www.itworld.com/Man/2687/040330intelsettles/pfindex.html
E-SYSTEMS under contract with CIA -- just like the
Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, NC,

The Wackenhut top gun guy is former US Attorney General [1979-81],

Benjamin Civiletti, involved in the IranContra scandals and BCCI
ho-down too.Riggs Bank will be the next STARR ATTRACTION !!!!!!!!

==============

At Riggs Bank, a Tangled Path Led to Scandal

July 19, 2004 The New York Times

By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN


WASHINGTON, July 18 - Riggs Bank, which for years billed
itself as "the most important bank in the most important
city in the world," now finds itself the most scrutinized
bank in the most unforgiving city in the world.

The Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has
concluded that Riggs executives and bank regulators, even
after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, failed to monitor
suspicious financial transactions involving hundreds of
millions of dollars.

A report it released last week in connection with a hearing
on the bank's operations gives a detailed picture of events
that snowballed into a financial scandal and appear to have
ended the venerable bank's independence. On Friday, the
parent of Riggs announced that PNC Financial Services of
Pittsburgh had agreed to buy it for $779 million. Still,
Riggs, and those who ran it, face more regulatory,
Congressional and law enforcement investigations.

The controversy that has shaken Riggs has sent tremors
through the industry. Regulators acknowledge that, despite
the impetus provided by the terrorist attacks, there are
holes in their ability to analyze and prevent possible
abuses of the nation's financial system.

To seal those holes, the federal government is considering
overhauling the way it polices the activities of banks.
Such changes might involve investing a single agency with
greater authority to enforce laws against money laundering
and terrorist financing, according to regulators and
Congressional leaders. At present, a hodgepodge of agencies
that do not share information or coordinate activities
effectively are charged with overseeing banks.

"9/11 changed my world and changed our world in the
regulatory agencies, just like it changed the world of
every American," said Daniel P. Stipano, deputy chief
counsel at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency,
Riggs's lead regulator. "What happened with Riggs is
unacceptable. It cannot be repeated."

In the hearing, Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota
Republican who is chairman of the investigative
subcommittee, pointed out Riggs executives' own
responsibility for preventing abuses. "Freedom always
implies a corresponding responsibility to respect the rules
that society imposes on the market," he said. "Top
officials did not always justify their freedom from
aggressive oversight with a willingness to respect and
implement their social duties."

The scrutiny of the bank involves accounts it held for Gen.
Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, and for the
Saudi Arabian Embassy. It comes at a time when several new
books and the documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" have put a
spotlight on the kingdom's ties to the Bush administration.
The sources of about $700 million in cash and investment
accounts at Riggs Bank owned by the African nation of
Equatorial Guinea or some of its leaders are also being
examined, at a time when American companies have been
courting that oil-rich nation to secure petroleum sources
outside the Middle East.

The Chilean Congress, reacting to disclosures about General
Pinochet's accounts at Riggs, said that on Tuesday it would
consider establishing a commission to determine if the
accounts contained looted government money. In August, the
Chilean Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether
General Pinochet, who is 88 and said to be in poor health,
must stand trial on charges stemming from a wave of murders
and disappearances that swept across the southern cone of
South America in the 1970's and 1980's.

Riggs and its senior executives have for months denied any
wrongdoing, although one former executive is the subject of
a grand jury inquiry. Riggs and its executives now face the
possibility of criminal charges. Spokesmen for the Saudi
Arabian Embassy have also denied wrongdoing; the Equatorial
Guinean Embassy has repeatedly declined to comment. People
close to General Pinochet, including his son, have told
news services in Chile that he has never had secret bank
accounts and that money in the Riggs accounts may be
donations from supporters sponsoring his legal defense.

Nonetheless, the actions of everyone associated with the
Riggs scandal have set in motion a reappraisal of the
guardians of the American financial system.

"Despite all the money laundering laws that Congress has
passed, the structural defects are so bad that there's no
one implementing them," said Charles Intriago, publisher of
Money Laundering Alert, a newsletter. The United States is
"on the brink of trying to fix a financial regulatory
system that's in a state of great disrepair."

A Dictator's Cash

At a meeting with regulators at the
headquarters of Riggs Bank two years ago, Barbara B.
Allbritton, a Riggs board member, was offended that the
bank had to end its relationship with a valued client,
General Pinochet, according to the report and testimony at
the Senate hearing.

Mrs. Allbritton, who had a board seat by virtue of her
marriage to Joe L. Allbritton, Riggs's former chief
executive and single largest shareholder, did not mince her
words.

"Why did the Pinochet accounts have to be closed?" she
asked, according to testimony in the Senate hearing on
Thursday by Lester J. Miller, a federal regulator who
monitored Riggs accounts and attended the meeting with her.


Bank regulators, who stumbled across the Pinochet funds
during a Riggs review in early 2002, could have given Mrs.
Allbritton compelling reasons for closing the accounts.
Even at a time when the general was detained on charges of
human rights abuses and his assets had been frozen by court
orders, Riggs helped him disguise millions of dollars in
suspect funds and wire the money worldwide, the Senate
report says.

"In 1994, top Riggs officials traveled to Chile and asked
General Pinochet, a notorious military leader accused of
involvement with death squads, corruption, arms sales and
drug trafficking, if he would like to open an account at
Riggs Bank here in Washington," Senator Carl Levin, a
Michigan Democrat, observed in the hearing. "Mr. Pinochet
said yes."

Mr. Allbritton, who secured a controlling stake in Riggs in
1981, coveted the bank's international cachet and made
regular business trips abroad, including to Chile. Raymond
M. Lund, a former Riggs executive who opened General
Pinochet's accounts at the bank in the mid-1990's, said in
Senate testimony that Mr. Allbritton had a "professional
business relationship" with the dictator. Carol Thompson,
who oversaw Riggs's Latin American business, told Senate
investigators that she occasionally briefed Mr. Allbritton
directly on General Pinochet's finances. The Allbrittons
have not responded to interview requests.

While General Pinochet's accounts at Riggs may have gone
unnoticed by United States regulators until 2002, they were
not a secret to the rest of the world. The Associated Press
wrote about them as early as 1999, when judicial
proceedings began in Spain against General Pinochet. On
Dec. 10, 2000, The Observer, a British paper, also
mentioned them in connection with possible drug
trafficking. Senate records show that the Riggs accounts
held $4 million to $8 million from 1994 to 2002.

When regulators asked Riggs in 2000 for a list of its
accounts controlled by political figures, the roster
provided by the bank did not include General Pinochet's
name. Shortly after The Observer article was published, the
bank - in a move that it acknowledged last week was
improper - changed the name on accounts of the general and
his wife from "Augusto Pinochet Ugarte & Lucia Hiriart de
Pinochet" to "L. Hiriart &/or A. Ugarte," ensuring that
searches for Riggs accounts named "Pinochet" would draw a
blank.

General Pinochet was arrested in Chile in early 2001,
causing Riggs officers and its board to review whether it
was proper to maintain his accounts. The accounts remained
open, and the general's arrest was later overshadowed in
the news by the terrorist attacks in the United States.

Regulators began vetting American banks more thoroughly
after Sept. 11. During a review of Riggs's international
operations in April 2002, examiners with the Comptroller of
the Currency came across the Pinochet accounts. Overtaxed
to complete the international review and a subsequent
review of terrorist financing, regulators notified Riggs
that they would return in June for a closer look.

On April 8, 2002, Riggs sent $500,000 in cashiers' checks
to the general. Later analyses by Senate investigators
indicated he cashed them to pay personal expenses. Sometime
between the spring and summer of 2002, according to the
Senate report and testimony last week, Riggs tried to
withhold information about the Pinochet accounts from
regulators and then, rather than freeze the accounts as is
customary, closed them and returned the money to General
Pinochet.

Although Mr. Lund said last week that Riggs executives had
documented the source of the general's wealth, Senate
investigators say the bank never made any sincere effort to
do so, as required by law. Moreover, regulators never
considered fining Riggs in 2002 or referring the Pinochet
accounts to law enforcement officials, according to Senate
records and testimony. The comptroller's lead Riggs
examiner at the time, R. Ashley Lee, took an executive
position at Riggs later that year.

Mr. Lee said last week that he never made any effort to
water down regulatory oversight of Riggs. Senator Levin
said that his committee's evidence suggested otherwise and
that he planned to ask the Justice Department to
investigate.

The Saudi Funds

By October 2002, when Mrs. Allbritton voiced her resentment
to regulators about losing General Pinochet's business,
another problem was about to engulf Riggs. In November,
Newsweek magazine reported that the Federal Bureau of
Investigation was examining Saudi Arabian Embassy accounts
at the bank in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

The F.B.I. investigation, focusing on accounts controlled
by the wife of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's
longtime ambassador to the United States, was news to
regulators. Once again, as the Senate report showed,
outside forces were making them examine Riggs more closely
and Riggs executives were proving to be, at best,
indifferent gatekeepers.

Although the F.B.I. told The New York Times in late 2002
that it had no evidence that money from Prince Bandar's
wife went to the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks
- a conclusion that the 9/11 commission also reached last
month - news reports prompted regulators to scrutinize
Prince Bandar's transactions at Riggs. The F.B.I. briefed
them on the Saudi funds in December 2002, and bank
regulators told Riggs a month later that they would examine
the accounts.

What regulators expected to be a one-month examination
lasted five months as regulators uncovered improprieties in
some of 150 Saudi accounts at Riggs. Under law, banks are
required to vet the background of their customers, report
outsized movements of cash and alert regulators when any
banking activities are suspicious. Regulators and members
of Congress said Riggs frequently failed to carry out these
duties, and the Saudi accounts were no exception.

Last week's Senate report said that the Saudi accounts were
"equally troubling" as other accounts at Riggs that have
come under scrutiny, but noted that a more thorough
Congressional examination of the Saudi accounts was under
way at the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

Federal investigators and people close to Riggs said
regulators had concluded that Riggs inadequately monitored
the destinations and uses of large amounts of cash, often
more than $1 million at a time, in the Saudi accounts. Many
of these transactions involved Prince Bandar personally,
these people said.

A member of Saudi Arabia's diplomatic corps said in a
recent interview that the prince often made up large
shortfalls in the embassy's budget out of his own pocket,
which could account for some of the heavy cash movements
through the Riggs accounts. Spokesmen for the Saudi embassy
have said that the F.B.I. told the embassy that there were
no concerns that its Riggs accounts involved money
laundering or terrorist financing.

Cease and Desist

Problems with the Saudi accounts led regulators to issue a
rare and public cease-and-desist order against Riggs early
last year, requiring it to clean up its practices or face
further penalties. But unexplained transactions continued
to flow through the Saudi accounts late last year, and
Prince Bandar refused to provide information about them to
Riggs, according to people with direct knowledge of the
discussions.

Last March, the same month regulators told the bank it
would receive a heavy fine, Riggs said it had closed all
Saudi accounts. Minutes of a Riggs meeting on April 7 noted
that Prince Bandar had recently requested "$2 million in
cash for traveling expenses," a request the bank denied.

"Prince Bandar then asked that Riggs wire $2 million to
another bank, which was done," the minutes said, adding
that the bank notified regulators about the transaction. In
May, regulators fined Riggs $25 million for failing to
adequately monitor suspicious activities, the largest such
penalty ever imposed on an American bank.

Suitcases of Cash

When regulators began scouring the
Saudi accounts in January 2003, yet another media report
raised questions about the bank's behavior. The Los Angeles
Times reported suspicious activities in Riggs accounts
controlled by the government of Equatorial Guinea, and a
questionable relationship between a Riggs executive and
that country's leader, sparking another regulatory
examination of the bank's intersection with a dictator.

Simon Kareri, a Kenyan who oversaw the Equatorial Guinean
money at Riggs, liked to serve his bank's clients the
old-fashioned way, according to the Senate report: he
carried large amounts of money around in suitcases.

The report said that Mr. Kareri, who is the subject of a
grand jury investigation, packed up to $3 million in
shrink-wrapped bills obtained from Equatorial Guinean
leaders into suitcases and walked them through Riggs's
front door. Riggs, according to the Senate report, never
made any effort to inquire about the source of the money,
as it is required to do by law, even though the money was
openly tabulated by high-speed counting machines inside the
bank.

Three investigators with direct knowledge of the
transactions said officials were looking into accusations
that Mr. Kareri took bank money for his own use. Riggs
fired him earlier this year. His lawyer has declined to
comment. Mr. Kareri asserted his right against
self-incrimination and declined to answer questions during
last week's Senate hearing. But Mr. Kareri was not the only
one at Riggs wooing the Equatorial Guineans.

Oil Money From Africa

Although the country's dictator,
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago, had a long record of amply
documented human rights abuses, he also presided over a
wildly lucrative oil boom that Western companies coveted.
Riggs began dealing with him in 1995, and by this year the
country had become the bank's largest client, with accounts
of $700 million. In turn, Mr. Obiang became a lunch guest
at Riggs.

Shortly after one lunch, on May 17, 2001, Robert L.
Allbritton, who is Mr. Allbritton's son and chief executive
of Riggs National Corporation; the Riggs Bank president and
chief executive, Lawrence I. Hebert; and Mr. Kareri all
signed a letter to Mr. Obiang. The letter said that Riggs
could help Mr. Obiang "reinforce your reputation for
prudent leadership" and asked him "how best we can serve
you."

According to federal investigators and the Senate report,
that service mirrored what the bank provided General
Pinochet: massive, no-questions-asked transfers of cash
into offshore shell corporations that Riggs created.

Some of the millions of dollars that went into Mr. Obiang's
personal accounts came from oil funds established to
benefit Equatorial Guineans, according to the Senate
report. Last week, Senator Levin noted charges of
corruption and abuses against Mr. Obiang and berated
Riggs's relationship with the dictator as "abominable."

Mr. Hebert had a different view.

"It's prudent on any
bank's part to try to meet the people. They had a lot of
money in the account," he testified. "I wanted to hear this
fellow talk about his country, talk about what he was
trying to do with all this wealth."

A number of American oil companies, especially Exxon Mobil,
Amerada Hess and Marathon Oil, had numerous outside
business ventures and other financial relationships with
Mr. Obiang and his government, in addition to the
companies' oil pursuits in the country. Executives from the
companies testified last week. Senate records of Riggs
accounts show large payments by American oil companies into
accounts of Equatorial Guinean officials and their
relatives, sometimes in increments as high as $250,000.

Oil industry executives at last week's hearings said that
they had gone to great lengths to have honest business
relationships in Equatorial Guinea and had not knowingly
engaged in corrupt practices.

By the time news reports spurred bank regulators in early
2003 to examine Riggs's involvement with the country,
regulators were already consumed by their examination of
the Saudi accounts. Nearly a year would pass before they
were able to investigate the Equatorial Guinean accounts in
any detail. As late as last December, according to the
Senate report, Joe L. Allbritton continued to tell
regulators that "the bank had no intention of closing the
E.G. accounts."

Matters soon escalated beyond Mr. Allbritton's control.
Shortly after he dug in his heels, the accounts were
closed. Not long after that, Riggs was fined and then, last
week, was sold.

======

Riggs National to be Acquired by PNC Financial

July 17, 2004
By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN


WASHINGTON, July 16 - PNC Financial Services, the
Pittsburgh bank, said Friday that it would acquire the
venerable and beleaguered Riggs National Corporation for
$779 million in stock and cash. The deal ends Riggs's
independence, but does not fully put to rest all the
problems engulfing the bank.

Riggs, which is based here, is mired in investigations of
possible money laundering and terrorist financing through
Saudi Arabian and Equatorial Guinean accounts at the bank.
The sale comes after a scathing Senate report released late
Wednesday that portrays Riggs as a willing facilitator of
possibly illicit financial deals involving a corrupt,
brutal regime in the oil-rich Equatorial Guinea as well as
years of shady interactions with Chile's former dictator,
Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

While the sale is fairly small by standard valuations, it
is significant because the scandal enveloping Riggs has
been watched with great apprehension by other banks wary
that it will force regulators to police the industry much
more strictly.

A Senate hearing Thursday on Riggs's problems was attended
by an overflow crowd that included banking lobbyists,
senior regulators, current and former Riggs executives,
public relations specialists, oil industry executives and
journalists.

The problems at Riggs have exposed a federal regulatory
apparatus that Congressional critics say is loosely
coordinated and recalcitrant about dealing forcefully with
serious international money-laundering problems that have
plagued American banks for at least the last decade.

Money-laundering scandals involving Citigroup, the Bank of
New York and other leading companies were swept under the
rug by regulators and bankers anxious for quiet
resolutions, and the Riggs sale appears to be in keeping
with that tradition, critics say. Regulators have already
acknowledged lapses in their oversight of Riggs.

"I was amused by the comment of the PNC people on the
conference call today that regulators, and I'm
paraphrasing, were more than thrilled by this sale - they
were doing cartwheels," said Gary B. Townsend, a banking
analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey.

Two people close to the sale negotiations, one a member of
the regulatory community and another who advised one of the
banks, said that regulators did not force Riggs to made a
deal with PNC.

"Regulators never said you've got to sell the bank, but the
Riggs board saw a very high mountain to climb in terms of
dealing with all the regulatory demands," the adviser said.
"And PNC came in with a very high price that made it easy
to consider a sale."

Riggs, with assets of $6 billion, is a midsize institution
whose value lies in an underdeveloped branch banking
network concentrated in metropolitan Washington. Its
high-profile international and embassy operations were
loosely monitored and barely profitable. PNC, with assets
of $74 billion, is concentrated in the Midwest and the
East.

"Riggs's strong banking franchise gives us an excellent
platform on which to build in the extremely appealing
metropolitan Washington marketplace," said James E. Rohr,
PNC's chairman and chief executive.

PNC would be responsible for paying the legal bills of
anyone at Riggs charged in a civil lawsuit related to the
current investigation, but not for paying any civil fines.
Corporate laws preclude PNC from paying the legal bills of
anyone at Riggs charged with a crime.

PNC executives said that they expected the regulatory
problems at Riggs to be wrapped up before the transaction's
closing date, which was scheduled for early next year. PNC
deployed 90 people to scour operations at Riggs and consult
with regulators before a deal was struck and they said in a
conference call Friday that they were not anticipating any
surprises. The sale contract includes a "material
regulatory impairment clause" that allows PNC to back out
should unforeseen problems arise.

In May, regulators fined Riggs National's subsidiary, Riggs
Bank, $25 million for failing to comply adequately with
anti-money-laundering practices. Regulators also issued a
cease-and-desist order that limited the bank's operational
autonomy and forced it to comply with more onerous
regulatory procedures.

Except for Simon P. Kareri, a former Riggs executive who is
the subject of a grand jury investigation, none of Riggs's
officers, managers or directors have faced regulatory
penalties or legal action, and the bank has denied any
wrongdoing. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal
investigation of activity in Riggs's accounts.

"What has been swept under the rug for years is criminal
activity," said Charles Intriago, publisher of Money
Laundering Alert, a newsletter. "Banking regulators have
been asleep at the switch and I'm worried that the Justice
Department is going to be their bunkmates."

A Riggs sale had been opposed by Joe L. Allbritton, the
bank's former chief executive whose family owns a
controlling block of Riggs shares. The Allbrittons declined
to respond to an interview request, but banking analysts
and others said that the weight of scandal and the
regulatory efficacy of a sale finally forced the family's
hand.

"The regulators didn't force the sale but they didn't
discourage it either and in fact encouraged Riggs to be
realistic about their options," said the member of the
regulatory community. "It's worth remembering that Joe
Allbritton is somebody who was dead-set against ever doing
anything like this."

PNC said it would pay Riggs investors $24.25 a share, a
modest premium to its closing price of $22.67 on Thursday.
Riggs stock, which closed Friday at $22.72, is trading at
its highest since late 1998. Analysts say the performance
of the stock shows how long Riggs was dragged down by inept
management and heavy spending- including operating a
Gulfstream jet that Mr. Allbritton used frequently for
personal travel - before this year's scandal made the bank
a takeover target.

"Riggs shareholders, after many years of suffering, have
been somewhat rewarded given the current condition of the
company," said Gerard S. Cassidy, a banking analyst with
RBC Capital Markets. PNC is paying a rich price for Riggs
given the fractured nature of the bank's operation, but
PNC's stock was down only slightly Friday afternoon on
heavy volume. The shares closed today at $50.56, off about
1.3 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/business