Funny money
Washington Monthly, July-August, 2004 by Charles Peters
Riggs Bank, a Washington institution for ages--its flagship branch is actually depicted on the $10 bill--was recently fined $25 million for failing to report suspicious transactions in the accounts of the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea. It seems that possible violations of rules against money laundering by Riggs had been discovered as early as 1997. Why then did the government take seven years to act? Your guess is as good as mine, but you may be interested to know that the comptroller of the currency's examiner-in-charge from 1998-2002 became a vice president of Riggs when he left the government.
Doesn't this remind you of the woman who became a Boeing executive after leaving her job at the Air Force, where she had awarded Boeing an unusually lucrative contract?
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