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@ -30,15 +30,17 @@ Jonathan Beaty is an American journalist who, with [[S. C. Gwynne]], wrote the *
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### "The Dirtiest Bank of All"
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The archived copy of the article on the Time website carries the byline "TIME Staff" and the date July 29, 1991.[^3]
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The article carried the byline "Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne/New York" and a deck describing "How B.C.C.I. and its black network became a financial supermarket for crooks and spies" and "how the U.S. is trying to cover up its role." It opened with two unnamed sources. A former senior officer of the bank said: "I could tell you what you want to know, but I must worry about my wife and family," adding that "they could be killed." A Manhattan investigator said: "We better not talk about this over the phone. We've found some bugs in offices that haven't been put there by law enforcement."[^1]
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The story called BCCI "the $20 billion rogue empire that regulators in 62 countries shut down early this month," and stated that "From interviews with sources close to B.C.C.I., TIME has pieced together a portrait of a clandestine division of the bank called the 'black network,'" which it described as a 1,500-employee unit "operating primarily out of the bank's offices in [[Karachi]], [[Pakistan]]," that used "sophisticated spy equipment and techniques, along with bribery, extortion, kidnapping and even, by some accounts, murder." It reported, citing its own earlier reporting that month, that the [[National Security Council]] had used BCCI "to funnel money for the Iran-contra deals" and that the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] "maintained accounts in B.C.C.I. for covert operations," and that investigators had said the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] kept "a slush-fund account" at the bank.[^1]
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A self-described former operative, given the pseudonym "Mustafa," told the magazine: "I was recruited by the black network in the early 1980s." He described training in Pakistan and an operation of April 1989 in which crates from a Colombian container ship were unloaded at Karachi and flown out aboard an unmarked 707 to [[Czechoslovakia]] and then to the [[United States]], supervised by an American the operatives believed to be a CIA agent. The article quoted the Manhattan district attorney, [[Robert Morgenthau]]: "We have had no cooperation from the Justice Department since we first asked for records in March 1990. In fact they are impeding our investigation, and Justice Department representatives are asking witnesses not to cooperate with us." It also stated that the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s main probe of BCCI was "being handled by a sole Assistant U.S. Attorney in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]], who has recently been assigned another major case," and that "one of B.C.C.I.'s Washington representatives distributed millions of dollars in payoffs to U.S. officials during the past decade."[^1][^3]
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A self-described former operative, given the pseudonym "Mustafa," told the magazine: "I was recruited by the black network in the early 1980s." He described training in Pakistan and an operation of April 1989 in which crates from a Colombian container ship were unloaded at Karachi and flown out aboard an unmarked 707 to [[Czechoslovakia]] and then to the [[United States]], supervised by an American the operatives believed to be a CIA agent. The article quoted the Manhattan district attorney, [[Robert Morgenthau]]: "We have had no cooperation from the Justice Department since we first asked for records in March 1990. In fact they are impeding our investigation, and Justice Department representatives are asking witnesses not to cooperate with us." It also stated that the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s main probe of BCCI was "being handled by a sole Assistant U.S. Attorney in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]], who has recently been assigned another major case," and that "one of B.C.C.I.'s Washington representatives distributed millions of dollars in payoffs to U.S. officials during the past decade."[^1][^4]
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### The Senate Response
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The report of Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]] to the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] addressed the story directly, dating it "a Time magazine cover-story on BCCI on August 15, 1991." The report stated that "None of the BCCI officers interviewed by the Senate claimed to have knowledge of a 'black network' of intelligence operatives, arms dealers, drug traffickers, burglars, or assassins employed by BCCI," and that "They declared, to a person, that they did not believe such a network existed at the bank," though several suggested that a smaller team "carrying out Abedi's most secret missions" could have existed.[^4] The former United States Attorney in Miami, [[Dexter Lehtinen]], whose request to bring BCCI-related indictments in Miami was held back by the Justice Department until November 1991, told the subcommittee, implying that the reversal was the result of Congressional and media pressure: "There had been significant, Time Magazine and New York Times articles, very critical of the Department."[^5] See [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report]].
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The report of Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]] to the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] addressed the story directly, dating it "a Time magazine cover-story on BCCI on August 15, 1991." The archived article is dated July 29, 1991.[^3] The report stated that "None of the BCCI officers interviewed by the Senate claimed to have knowledge of a 'black network' of intelligence operatives, arms dealers, drug traffickers, burglars, or assassins employed by BCCI," and that "They declared, to a person, that they did not believe such a network existed at the bank," though several suggested that a smaller team "carrying out Abedi's most secret missions" could have existed.[^5] The former United States Attorney in Miami, [[Dexter Lehtinen]], whose request to bring BCCI-related indictments in Miami was held back by the Justice Department until November 1991, told the subcommittee, implying that the reversal was the result of Congressional and media pressure: "There had been significant, Time Magazine and New York Times articles, very critical of the Department."[^6] See [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report]].
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### The Outlaw Bank
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@ -48,6 +50,7 @@ The report of Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]] to the [[Senate Foreign
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[^1]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne. "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All," *Time,* July 29, 1991. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,973481,00.html ; archive copy https://time.com/archive/6718229/b-c-c-i-the-dirtiest-bank-of-all/
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[^2]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI.* New York: Random House, 1993. Internet Archive catalogue record, identifier outlawbank00jona. https://archive.org/details/outlawbank00jona
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[^3]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne. "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All," *Time,* July 29, 1991, p. 8 of the online edition. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,973481-8,00.html
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[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 4, "BCCI's Criminality." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
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[^5]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the US Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm
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[^3]: "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All," *Time*, July 29, 1991. Archive copy, time.com/archive/6718229, byline "TIME Staff." https://time.com/archive/6718229/b-c-c-i-the-dirtiest-bank-of-all/
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[^4]: Beaty, Jonathan, and S. C. Gwynne. "B.C.C.I.: The Dirtiest Bank of All," *Time,* July 29, 1991, p. 8 of the online edition. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,973481-8,00.html
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[^5]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 4, "BCCI's Criminality." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
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[^6]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the US Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm
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