Thread: U.S. Goes Easy on U.S. Bank Manager Accused of Hiding Drug $

U.S. Goes Easy on U.S. Bank Manager Once Accused of Hiding Drug $$$

A Tale of Two Fugitives: Life on the Run Works Out for BCCI Official, but Not Roman Polanski

By BRIAN ROSS, VIC WALTER, RHONDA SCHWARTZ and RICHARD ESPOSITO

Oct. 28, 2009

For Roman Polanski, life as a fugitive has led to the worst of times.

Why is Roman Polanski in a Swedish jail while crooked banker Saad Shafi is free?For the manager of a major Los Angeles bank, however, life as a fugitive had led to the best of times including a California home, a big bank job and U.S. citizenship.

Saad Shafi fled the country for Pakistan in 1988 after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he and other executives at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI, helped Colombia drug bosses and Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega hide millions in drug money.

Polanski pleaded guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year old girl and fled the country in 1978 prior to sentencing.

By 2005, he had been granted U.S. citizenship and gone back to work in the American banking industry.

ABC News found Shafi working as the manager of the Los Angeles branch of Habib American bank, an FDIC insured institution chartered and headquartered in New York.

"He is not a fit person to run a bank," said Jack Blum, who investigated BCCI for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Banks should be run by people of good moral character."

In a brief interview, to be broadcast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson, Shafi confirmed he was the same man indicted by the grand jury and labeled a fugitive for 11 years.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-dismis ... id=8931066

How was he awarded citizenship after being convicted? Did he lie on his app.? Is his citizenship status being revoked and he going to jail? If not, why the hell not?

Originally Posted by miguelina

How was he awarded citizenship after being convicted? Did he lie on his app.? Is his citizenship status being revoked and he going to jail? If not, why the hell not?

He wasn't "CONVICTED". He was "INDICTED". As far as I can tell right now he never went to trial. I'm still looking in to it.

This was just exposed by he MSM today so nothing has been done about it yet. He isn't going to jail yet because he hasn't been CONVICTED yet.

Bank Is Charged by U.S. With Money-Laundering

By JEFFREY SCHMALZ, Special to the New York Times
Published: Wednesday, October 12, 1988

The Federal Government charged today that an international bank holding company had conspired with cocaine dealers to launder millions of dollars in illegal drug money in a network that reached from the United States to Europe to the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia.

Federal officials said 85 people in seven United States cities had been named in indictments in the case, nine of them executives of the bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International S.A, and its holding company, BCCI Holdings.

The officials said that BCCI, a Luxembourg-based concern with assets of more than $20 billion and offices in more than 70 countries, was the first financial institution to be indicted for laundering money. Previous cases have involved officials of banks but not the banks themselves.

The indictments came after a two-year undercover operation in which Customs Service agents posed as experts on money laundering, acting as intermediaries to transfer $14 million between drug dealers and the bank. Eleven of those indicted were arrested Saturday night after coming to Tampa for what they thought was going to be the wedding of two friends. They had even received engraved invitations to the festivities.

''We invite you to be with us as we begin our new life together,'' the invitations read. But the friends had, in fact, been among the undercover agents involved in the case for two years. The 11 were seized as they entered what they had expected to be a bachelor party before the wedding.
Among the 85 indicted were Akbar A. Bilgrami, director of BCCI's Latin American division; Saad Shafi, manager of its Nassau, Bahamas, operation, and Nazir Chinoy, regional manager for Europe and Africa. A Miami-based lawyer for BCCI, David Patrick Roe, said the bank wanted to study the indictments a day or so before commenting. He added, however, that ''the bank has at all times attempted to conduct itself in a manner consistent with United States laws, rules and regulations.''

Asked if that amounted to a denial of the charges, Mr. Roe said: ''I'm not saying we admit or deny. Please don't put denial or anything like that in our statement.''

Although only BCCI was named in the case, Customs officials said they did not believe it was uncommon for banks to launder money for drug dealers - that is, to find ways to disguise the flow of cash to make it more difficult to link to criminal activities. The officials clearly hope the indictment of an entire institution will be a strong deterrent.

The Commissioner of the United States Customs Service, William Von Raab, used strong terms in speaking of banks and drug trafficking, saying at one point, ''For some international banks, their sleaze factor is higher than their interest rates.''

In an hourlong news conference in Tampa that included representatives of the Customs Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Attorney's office and the Internal Revenue Service, officials painted a portrait of a drug cartel based in the third world - in Medellin, Colombia - but drawing on the ingenuity of the banking capitals of the United States and Europe and transmitting millions of dollars between continents by wire, computer and facsimile machine.

Custom officials said they began their undercover plan - called Operation C-Chase, formally meaning ''currency chase'' but more informally used to refer to C-note, for a $100 bill - in July 1986, when they portrayed themselves as professional money launderers after hearing on the street that BCCI would launder money. The indictments say they worked primarily with representatives of the Medellin cartel, finding ways to camouflage the proceeds of cocaine sales in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia. Many of the 85 indicted, not all of whom were Americans, were seized in some of those areas on drug trafficking, not money-laundering, charges. Certificates of Deposit Bought
According to the indictments, after receiving the money from the undercover agents, BCCI shifted it by wire to branches in France, Panama, Uruguay, the Bahamas, Luxembourg and Britain, where it was used to purchase certificates of deposit.

Bank officials, the indictments allege, then created loans at other branches and permitted the drug traffickers to withdraw the funds. Officials said the bank repaid the loans with the funds in the certificates of deposit.

The point of the maneuvering, the court papers charge, was to keep the money shifting from country to country and account to account to make it difficult to trace. About $14 million was laundered by BCCI during the undercover operation, Customs officials said. Further Charges Possible

The officials said a total of $32 million had been laundered but they did not account for the remaining $18 million. They said further charges against other individuals might be brought. Asked if they thought the bank had been involved in laundering much more money than that involved in the undercover operation, Federal officials refused to comment.

At first, the undercover agents were supposed to be the only experts on money-laundering, Mr. Von Raab said, with the banks merely serving as the agent. But by the end of the undercover operation, he added, ''the bankers were even suggesting a better way.''

After making the route through certificates of deposit and loans, according to the indictments, most of the laundered money was deposited in bank accounts here in Tampa, where BCCI had checks already pre-signed by members of the Medellin cartel. That is why most of the indictments were issued in Tampa.

The bank, officials said, then moved the checks through banks in various countries - including the United States, Panama and Colombia - to get the money ultimately back to the Colombian drug chieftains.

Several times, Federal officials emphasized that some of the money had traveled through banks in Panama. Noriega Dealings Cited
During Congressional hearings on Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the Panamanian leader indicted but never tried in the United States on drug-smuggling charges, it was disclosed that there were Noriega dealings with the Bank of Credit and Commerce branch in Panama. Asked if there was a Noriega link in any way to the latest case here, Mr. Von Raab said: ''This is not a one-day story. We're going to be looking at many, many elements.''

Money laundering is punishable by a maximum term of 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 or twice the value of the property laundered, whichever is greater. BCCI, as an institution, officials said, would face a maximum fine of $28 million.

Early today a Federal judge issued an order preventing the bank from engaging in any major transactions, but later the order was modified and BCCI said it was able to continue operations normally. Funds for Iran Purchase

Today's charges do not mark the first time the bank has been accused of secretive dealings. In 1986, in the middle of the Iran-contra affair, Adnan M. Khashoggi, the Saudi businessman and arms dealer, used the Monte Carlo office of the Bank of Credit and Commerce to transfer $12 million to an arms dealer for the purchase of weapons for Iran.

The bank, which maintains close ties to former Saudi officials, is ranked by American Banker, an industry journal, as the 327th largest in the world, with deposits in 1987 of $7.25 billion. The bank, which primarily serves corporations and big investors, has offices in the United States in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Miami, Tampa and Boca Raton.

The holding company was formed under the laws of Luxembourg, whose regulation and supervision of banks are less restrictive than in other European countries.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/12/busin ... ering.html

Brian Ross Questions Saad Shafi - ABC News VIDEO

10/28/2009

Former Fugitive-Turned-Bank Manager Dodges Questions from ABC News.

abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8937494

U.S. Dismisses Charges Against LA Bank Manager Once Accused of Money Laundering . . .

But for the manager of a major Los Angeles bank, Saad Shafi, . . . 1988 after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he and other executives at the . . .

abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us...charges-la.../Story?id... - Similar