---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
  - Person
  - BCCI
  - Banker
  - CIA
summary: "Commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service during the C-Chase investigation of BCCI, whose agents recommended a RICO case against the bank that the Justice Department did not approve."
relations:
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[U.S. Customs]]"
    role: "commissioner"
    fn: 6
---

William von Raab was the [[U.S. Customs]] Commissioner.[^1]

He was involved in the [[Hashemi sting]] operation, which was designed to entrap individuals connected with [[Israel|Israeli]] intelligence arms sales to [[Iran]].[^2]

Von Raab, along with [[Rudolph Giuliani]], gave joint TV interviews on April 22, 1986, announcing the arrest of a "huge ring of terrorists" and "Merchants of Death" who were supposedly about to sell arms worth a billion dollars to Iran. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] claims that von Raab and his associates had created the crime themselves.[^2]

### Role in BCCI Scandal

Von Raab headed the agency during the Tampa money-laundering investigations involving the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]].[^1] He stated that the [[C-Chase]] sting operation, which led to the arrest of several BCCI bankers, was the most important money-laundering case in history.[^3]

After BCCI's Tampa conviction, von Raab thought the case was "enormously meaningful" and announced it publicly. He was told by his superiors to dampen his public enthusiasm.[^4] He later testified before the [[John Kerry|Kerry]] subcommittee that the [[Department of Justice]] had denied knowledge of the [[Ali Mirza]] tapes, which contained crucial information about BCCI's activities.[^5]

### RICO

The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate Report]] recorded that "by March, 1988, high level Customs officials were reporting to Commissioner Von Raab that several BCCI officials were indictable under RICO." A Customs memorandum of April 6, 1988, stated the view of the [[United States]] Attorney's office in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]] that "probative evidence exists to establish corporate criminality against BCCI as an institution," a recommendation repeated on May 10, 1988. In the fall of 1988, "for reasons that were never explained to the Customs agents," the Justice Department did not approve a RICO prosecution, and the case was brought on narrower money-laundering charges. The report named von Raab among the critics of the department's handling of BCCI.[^6]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 11.
[^2]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^3]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 25.
[^4]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 389.
[^5]: Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. *The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI*. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 54.
[^6]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the U.S. Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm