Well-heeled Saddam has global stash

GENEVA — If Saddam Hussein is indeed orchestrating an anti-American guerrilla campaign from a hideout somewhere in Iraq, he can count on the billions of dollars he stashed away all over the world to finance his hit-and-run operations.

The latest evidence of the fugitive Iraqi ruler’s ability to return to power by covering the costs of the requisite arms acquisitions and operational outlays is the discovery of a cache of gold bars in a Swiss metallurgic firm — $5 million worth ready for meltdown.

It has been “frozen” by Switzerland’s government and the executives of Metalor who are reported to have engaged in illicit business dealings with Saddam’s half brother and finance chief, Barzan e-Tikriti. Several Metalor executives are being questioned by the Swiss police and Mr. e-Tikriti is under interrogation in Baghdad, where he surrendered to the U.S. military authorities.

Swiss law enforcement officials were not able to act against Mr. e-Tikriti during the two decades in which he ran Saddam’s financial network from this international banking center because simultaneously he enjoyed diplomatic immunity as Iraq’s chief delegate to the United Nation’s local headquarters.

According to Nicolas Giannakopoulos, head of Organized Crime Observatory (OCO), Saddam is a multibillionaire whose worldwide financial grid trades in gold, diamonds and drugs, and has links to important Russian and U.S. companies. The OCO is an independent Geneva-based investigative group specializing in dubious banking and money-laundering operations.

Saddam’s funds not only have been deposited in Swiss banks but also in banks and off-shore companies in Liechtenstein, Panama and the Bahamas, among other countries, Mr. Giannakopoulos said. The money derived from Iraq’s prewar and pre-sanctions oil revenues, 5 percent of which was skimmed off the top by Saddam for his personal fortune throughout the 1980s and to the extent that Iraq could dodge the U.N.-sponsored embargo, during the 1990s as well.

Mr. e-Tikriti funneled it to banks here and abroad — which either did not ask any questions, which is the Swiss way of doing business, or did not divulge whatever sensitive information they were able to deduce or gather.

At the Banca del Gottardo’s branch in the Bahamas, for example, the money was reportedly kept in Account Number 70531, known as the Satan Account, according to an article published in the Sunday Times in April.

Money was never deposited anywhere in Saddam’s name. According to the article, the account was said to have been managed for Saddam by Elio Borrodori, 75, a Swiss attorney who was employed by him for 10 years. Banca del Gottardo issued a news release in Nassau categorically denying the Sunday Times report.

The OCO’s attorney, Francois Membrez, contends that Saddam’s financial agents in Switzerland operate “beyond the limits of Swiss laws,” implying that it is virtually impossible to indict them in this country’s courts.

“Our judicial authorities cannot deal with this,” he said. “They are not authorized under our constitution to handle such problems as criminal cases.”

Mr. Membrez said legal proceedings cannot be initiated “unless it can be proved that the funds discovered in Switzerland are the result of criminal activities, such as corruption, theft, violation of legal obligations.”

“In this case, investigations for money laundering could be opened against Saddam’s financial agents as well as against the Swiss banks and Swiss agents where funds are discovered.”

This was borne out in a statement by Hansjurg Mark Wiedmer of the Swiss attorney general’s office. He confirmed that Swiss law enforcement personnel are invetigating the activities of Islamic and other banks suspected of funding Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization, but not Saddam Hussein’s financial activities here.

Story Continues →