A Shocking View Inside Pinochet's Secret Prison Camps

Wiki: Michael Townley

Michael Townley (born December 5, 1942 in Waterloo, Iowa) is an American professional assassin currently living under terms of the US federal witness protection program. An operative of the Chilean secret police, known as the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), Townley confessed, was convicted, and served 62 months in prison in the United States for the 1976 Washington, D.C., assassination of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the United States.[1] As part of his plea bargain, Townley received immunity from further prosecution; he was not extradited to Argentina to stand trial for the 1974 assassination of Chilean general Carlos Prats and his wife.[1]

In 1993 Townley was also convicted, in absentia, by an Italian court for carrying out the 1975 Rome murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton.[2] Townley worked in producing chemical weapons for Chilean dictator General Pinochet's use against political opponents along with Colonel Gerardo Huber[3] and the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos.[4]...

1974 assassination of Carlos Prats[edit source | edit]
According to head of DINA Manuel Contreras, Townley returned to Chile at the end of 1973, working for the CIA, with the intent of receiving from the "Highest National Authority, in agreement with what had already been planned by the CIA ... the order to act in direct, personal and exclusive form, without intermediaries, against General Prats in Buenos Aires".[5][page needed] Prats and his wife were killed with a car bomb in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1974. Contreras also said that Townley traveled with a false passport provided by the CIA under the name of Kenneth Enyart.[5][page needed] Contreras stated Townley was aided by CIA agents, as well as Argentine and Chilean agents, and paramilitary groups such as the Triple A and the Grupo Milicias. Contreras said he thought the CIA planned the assassination because it feared Prats would try to overthrow Pinochet's dictatorship with the help of the Argentine Army, thus leading to a war between Chile and Argentina which would constitute "a difficult problem for the United States in the Cold War era".[6]

1975 Bernardo Leighton assassination attempt[edit source | edit]
He was convicted and sentenced in absentia in Italy to 15 years of jail, due to his role as an intermediary between the Chilean DINA and Italian neo-fascists.[7]

Michael Townley also stated that Enrique Arancibia had traveled to California in the autumn of 1977 on banking business for ALFA, alias Stefano Delle Chiaie.[8] Enrique Arancibia is a former DINA agent who resided in unofficial exile in Buenos Aires after the assassination of Chilean Army Chief of Staff René Schneider on October 25, 1970. Arancibia was arrested by Argentine intelligence officers shortly after the extradition of Townley to the US and charged with espionage.[9]...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Townley

Uncovering Pinochet's Secret Death Camps

Wiki: Riggs Bank

Riggs Bank was a Washington, D.C.-based commercial bank with branches located in the surrounding metropolitan area and offices around the world. For most of its history, it was the largest bank in the nation's capital. Riggs had been controlled by theAlbritton family since the 1980s, but they lost control after various corporate scandals and management problems. On May 16, 2005, the bank merged with PNC Financial Services...

...In the mid-1970s members of the Saudi royal family set up covert accounts at the Riggs Bank in Washington amounting to tens of millions of dollars; this money was used by the so-called "Safari Club" to run intelligence operations at a time when American intelligence was paralyzed by investigations in the aftermath of Watergate.[6]

A Saudi named Omar al-Bayoumi housed and opened bank accounts for two of the 9/11 hijackers. About two weeks after the assistance began, al-Bayoumi's wife began receiving monthly payments totaling tens of thousands of dollars from Princess Haifa bint Faisal, the wife of Saudi ambassador and Bush family confidant, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, through a Riggs bank account. [1] (Jonathan Bush, uncle of President George W. Bush, was an executive at Riggs Bank during this period.)...

...Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile, had been widely accused since 1973 of corruption, illegal arms sales, and torture. In 1994, Riggs officials invited Pinochet to open an account at Riggs Bank. Pinochet was arrested in 1998 in Britain for possible extradition to Spain, and his accounts were ordered frozen by court orders. A recentU.S. Senate report has revealed that Riggs executives helped Pinochet disguise millions of dollars. By using shell companies and hiding accounts from federal regulators, Riggs illegally allowed Pinochet to retain access to much of his fortune.[7]...

...In July 2004, the US Senate published an investigation into Riggs Bank, into which most of Equatorial Guinea's oil revenues were paid until recently. This showed that accounts based at the embassy to the United States of Equatorial Guinea were allowed to make large withdrawals without properly notifying federal authorities. At least $35 million were siphoned off by long-time dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, his family and senior officials of his regime. Simon Kareri, the Riggs employee in charge of the Equatorial Guinea and other accounts, stands accused of money-laundering in separate charges. As the account manager, it is alleged that he established a fake holding company in his wife's name, and diverted funds into this account....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riggs_Bank

Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International