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.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS