BCCI delivered $60,000 in cash to Washington for Panananian dictator Manuel Noriega in June 1986. Bank papers show the money came two days before Noriega arrived in the U.S. for visits with William Casey, Oliver North and others. Noriega’s attorneys won’t comment. But a lawyer close to the inquiry says: “It’s hard to imagine that $60,000 was just walking-around money.”
Lawyers for Panama’s government say Noriega in 1988 moved some $23 million into Capcom Financial Services, a London-based currency-trading company run by former BCCI exec Syed Ziauddin Ali Akbar, arrested in Calais last week. Panama’s lawyers say it is unclear whether Akbar had been keeping the money for the jailed Panamanian leader-or himself.
The Feds only say “no comment” about Nazir Chinoy, the most senior BCCI official in federal custody. Extradited from Britain in April, Chinoy could be cooperating with a grand jury.
