Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet had 125 secret bank accounts holding cash, stocks and bonds in the US, allowing him to move at least US$13 million, the US Senate reported on Tuesday.
"New information shows that the web of Pinochet accounts in the US was far more extensive, went on far longer and involved more banks than was previously disclosed," Senator Carl Levin said.
In June, the Senate revealed that Pinochet had accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington, which may have held as much as US$8 million.
The Senate investigations subcommittee announced on Tuesday that Pinochet had 28 accounts at Riggs and 97 elsewhere: Citigroup, Banco de Chile, Espiritu Santo in Florida, Banco Atlantico, Bank of America and at Coutts and Co, owned by Banco Santander since 2003.
Pinochet, 89, rose to power after a coup toppled elected Socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973 and ruled with an iron fist until 1990.
Pinochet and his supporters have claimed that he was a selfless military man who saved Chile from a Socialist president.
"Through lax due diligence or worse, too many banks allowed a notorious public figure, Augusto Pinochet, to build a secret web of US accounts using offshore corporations, deceptive account names and third-party conduits to hide his role in moving millions of dollars across international lines," Levin said in a statement.
Pinochet and members of his family are known to have deposited between US$4 million and US$8 million at Riggs Bank in Washington.
Judge Sergio Munoz, in charge of the investigation in Santiago, found that Pinochet and his wife, Lucia Hiriart, had salted away US$15.9 million in various bank accounts, most of them in the US.
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