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Riggs Bank faces fines in Saudi fund probe
US bank regulators could levy fines this week against Riggs Bank for failing to report millions of dollars in transactions with the embassy of Saudi Arabia, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. Riggs Chairman Robert Allbritton and other bank officials have been notified that they could be individually sanctioned. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and three congressional panels are probing Riggsâ role over the last 20 years as chief banker for the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington. Investigators are trying to determine if Riggs helped Saudi account holders launder money, which could have been used for illegal activities including drug smuggling or terror activities, the paper said.Commenting in the article, Riggs said it has cooperated with federal investigators. The Allbritton family declined to comment for the article. âNeither the investigative agencies nor the regulatory agencies have ever informed Riggs that such accounts were used for illegal purposes,â Riggs said in a statement in the article. Riggs stopped doing business with the embassy in March, the article said. Investigators with the FBI and other federal agencies are trying to determine if the embassy used charity donations to funnel money to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, the article said. Before 2003 Riggs rarely filed suspicious-activity reports with law-enforcement agencies and was lax in monitoring fund movements, the article said. Posted by: Fred 2004-04-18 |
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