Trouble in the Tri-Border Region
By Douglas Farah
Last week the New York Post reported that Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau had shut down a "massive terror-finance pipeline in which a whopping $3 billon in profits from drug deals and other crimes flowed through a major New York bank to Middle East fanatics." Turns out, according to senior government officials, the bank is the Bank of America. Morgenthau is pursuing possible penalties, but it is not at all clear the bank did anything knowingly wrong. No criminal charges have been filed.
What is clear, however, is that an account in the bank recieved billions of dollars in deposits an unregulated exchange house doing business in South America's Tri-border Area, the relativly lawless region around Iguazu Falls where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet. The money was flowing through New York to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the West Bank. Enough to make one sit up and take notice.
Several law enforcement and intelligence services are struggling to get a real handle on what goes on in the Tri-border Area. My full blog is here.
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