Castle Bank & Trust (Bahamas)
The Castle Bank & Trust was a bank in the Bahamas , which generally became known for their dubious businesses and business contacts.
history
The bank was founded in the 1960s by Paul Helliwell and Burton Kanter. It was soon linked to tax evasion , money laundering , drug dealing, etc.
Apparently the American secret service CIA also used the bank to finance operations, e.g. B. for operations against Cuba and Fidel Castro ; the Andros Island of the Bahamas was considered a base for anti-Castro activities.
The bank had numerous clients from wealthy businessmen; Celebrities through to bullies and gangsters .
In the early 1970s, the US tax authority, the IRS, started an investigation against the bank under the name "Operation Tradewinds". The IRS managed to photograph a list of bank customers when a Miami bank executive was dining with an IRS agent. This success motivated the IRS to conduct further investigations under the code name “Project Haven” against persons who could be identified on the list.
However, these investigations were later discontinued due to the influence of the CIA. In 1977 the bank collapsed. In this way lost u. a. John Fogerty and other members of the Creedence Clearwater Revival musical group took substantial chunks of her fortune. Celebrities like Tony Curtis and Hugh Hefner were also affected; Mobsters like Moe Dalitz , Morris Kleinman and Samuel A. Tucker had to forego their deposits. The CIA switched to the Nugan Hand Bank for its activities .
literature
- Alan A. Block: Masters of Paradise: Organized Crime and the Internal Revenue Service in The Bahamas ; ISBN 1-56000-971-3
- Alfred W. McCoy: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. New York: Harpers and Row, Publishers Inc. 1991; ISBN 1-55652-483-8
- Jonathan Kwitny: The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA. New York: WW Norton 1987; ISBN 0-393-33665-4
- Penny Lernoux: In Banks We Trust. Anchor Press / Doubleday 1984; ISBN 0-385-18329-1