Word: abacha
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...often pocket most of the money. Case in point: Nigeria, which has exported over $320 billion-worth of high-grade crude over the past 30 years but has little to show for it beyond some decaying freeways and sports stadiums. One of Nigeria's last military rulers, General Sani Abacha, whose death in 1998 led to a return to democratic rule, is believed to have stolen more than $4 billion. Just last week a leaked imf report found that $4 billion has disappeared from Angola's budget over the past five years. In Chad, the government spent $4.5 million...
Though the Nigerian dictator had also funneled some funds through Britain, the Financial Services Authority there published its Abacha findings without identifying the banks. But the Swiss named every institution it investigated and gave specific details in each case. It was all part of the policy of banking commission director Daniel Zuberbuehler that Swiss bankers dub naming and shaming. The commission's reasoning: "The fact in itself that significant funds from the entourage of the former Abacha regime were deposited in Swiss bank accounts is extremely regrettable and damaging to the reputation of Switzerland's financial sector...
...country's second-largest bank, Credit Suisse, got the biggest public slap. Together with two subsidiaries, Bank Hofmann and Bank Leu, Credit Suisse accepted funds totaling $214 million from two of Abacha's sons and failed to check if its customers were prominent political figures, the banking commission said. The other three major offenders were UBP Union Bancaire Privée and the Swiss subsidiaries of France's Crédit Agricole Indosuez and Germany?s M.M. Warburg...
...time Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, was given a pat on the back for its compliance with Swiss regulations. However, in February of this year, UBS made a startling admission. As part of its ongoing internal control procedures, the bank said, it had stumbled upon a business relationship with Abacha's sons that dated back to 1996. A British citizen resident in London, who was a long-standing and reputable client, introduced to the bank a company in which he and two Nigerian partners held interests. The British citizen, who wasn't further identified, insisted the partners had no political...
...honesty and forthrightness, it chided the bank for inadequate diligence and ordered an audit to ensure that internal procedures were up to scratch. According to the banking commission's report, published in July, two searches carried out by UBS between 1999 and 2001 failed to detect the Abacha connection because the bank didn?t have all the names and aliases of the dictator's entourage. A third search failed because the bank was updating its record keeping from paper to an electronic system...