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Saudi Money at Riggs Probed

Riggs officials also confirmed yesterday that they had fired a senior vice president at their Dupont Circle branch in connection with a separate inquiry into the bank´s dealings with Equatorial Guinea.



A federal grand jury is investigating the bank´s business with Equatorial Guinea, as well as the former Riggs official who managed that account, according to the sources who have been briefed on the matter. The Wall Street Journal reported the grand jury inquiry Wednesday.

Riggs said that in January it fired Simon Kareri, who managed the bank´s Caribbean and West African diplomatic business, after confronting him with questions about alterations in a check from the son of Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the sources said. Bank officials also had questions about whether the check was a gift to Kareri, which would violate Riggs rules, the sources said. Kareri could not be reached and his lawyer did not return calls seeking comment.

The bank referred the matter to the FBI and then began an audit of five years of transactions in a large governmental account of Equatorial Guinea -- a deposit account with a balance of between $300 million and $400 million that was funded by payments from Exxon Mobil Corp. as part of that company´s contract to extract oil from Equatorial Guinea. Riggs officials found about a dozen checks drawn on the account to offshore companies that could not be verified, according to sources who have been briefed on the matter.

David B. Caruso, a former Secret Service agent whom Riggs hired in June to be its director of compliance and security, met with Obiang in his suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown on Feb. 23, according to the sources. When Obiang and his staff declined to answer questions about the nature of the transactions, the sources said, Riggs terminated the business relationship and asked officials to immediately withdraw $360 million in governmental and personal accounts. According to securities filing by Riggs, those deposits amounted to 8 percent of the bank´s total deposits.

A source close to the Equatorial Guinean government confirmed that the country has been forced to move the account that contained its oil revenue outside the United States. The source also said no official of the government has been contacted by the FBI or any other law enforcement agency relating to its dealings with Riggs.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Russ Roberts said that in the past its payments to the country had been made to a Riggs account. Roberts said Exxon Mobil has not been contacted or subpoenaed by the FBI regarding the Riggs matter.

The inquiries into the banking relationships at Riggs have opened bank officials up to possible regulatory sanctions, according to Riggs´s most recent annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For instance, directors and officers could be fined if it is found that a ”failure to supervise” allowed improper behavior by a client or employee to go on unchecked.



Fuente: The Washington Post

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