WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- The directors of Riggs Bank allegedly did not question the bank's relationship with Augusto Pinochet despite huge cash withdrawals by the Chilean dictator.
The bank board remained silent even after regulators sent an internal memorandum in October 2002 listing $1.9 million in suspicious cash withdrawals by Pinochet, whom Spain had accused of genocide, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Quoting sources who had seen minutes and transcripts of the board meeting, no internal procedures were changed and the board took no action, the report said.
The directors of the Washington-based bank, much like their counterparts at the bank's holding company, deferred to the management team picked by the bank's chief shareholder, Joe L. Allbritton, the report said.
In the next 18 months, Riggs was accused of extensive money-laundering, fined $25 million and forced into a merger.
Allbritton ran Riggs for 20 years until 2001 and helped court Pinochet as a client, the Post said.
Riggs also provided banking for the dictator of Equatorial Guinea and with embassies from countries designated as "non-cooperative" with international anti-money-laundering efforts, it said.
