5/1/2023 0 Comments World finance login![]() The bank was involved with a number of prominent Floridians, such as Walter Sterling Surrey, a stockholder in, director of, and lawyer for, WFC Corp. The Cisalpine Bank* seems to have also been laundering heroin profits through the Nugan Hand Bank for the Grey Wolves. was 100% owned by the WFC Group, which itself was owned by Cartaya to the amount of 24.7% another 23.3% was held by "Neo-Floridian Development Company"- of NFDC, 54.4% was held by Cartaya, again.Ī considerable proportion of the money was funneled through a bank in the Bahamas called the Cisalpine Bank*, and from thence to the Vatican Bank to Swiss numbered accounts this bank was owned by Vatican Bank manager Archbishop Paul Marcinkus and notorious dirty Italian banker Roberto Calvi. Ĭartaya used the bank as the centerpiece of an elaborate corporate labyrinth, through which the funds and bad loans (to Cartaya and his associates) were filtered and "laundered". Simultaneously, overdrafts at the National Bank of South Florida (controlled by WFC after a large payment of cash for equity) prompted an investigation by bank examiners. The investigation ruined WFC Corp, and it closed in 1980. Somewhat ironically, the law enforcement personnel literally stumbled onto lead, when, during an investigation of a pest-control service called King Spray Service suspected of drug smuggling, two agents of the Dade County Public Safety Office (which, under Donald Skelton, led the investigation until the Justice Department took over) were searching through the company's garbage, in which they found financial records of WFC, recording very large transfers of funds between the bank and the company, along with small amounts of marijuana. WFC came to national attention when an investigation in 1976 by the District Attorney of Dade County, Florida, (along with four other governmental agencies besides the Dade County Public Safety Office, the FBI, the IRS, the DEA, and the Comptroller of the Currency all participated in the joint investigation) revealed that the WFC held the dubious distinction of being the longest running (and largest) launderer of money for Colombian cocaine smugglers the investigation proceeded for approximately two years. Cartaya nonetheless escaped the UAE, using documents brought him by a fellow Cuban. Cartaya went to the UAE, apparently to try to explain the missing money, and the authorities confiscated his passport. It was plagued by the same problems as Unibank, and was shut down May 1977. On the plane were also that Vice President, Cartaya, and Cartaya's wife.Īnother bank had been started in the United Arab Emirates's Sheikdom of Ajman, with the collaboration of the Ajman government. Aboard was thousands of dollars in cash, strapped to a woman associated with WFC's Vice President. This incident was the reason for the Comptroller's later involvement in the investigation that broke open the WFA scandal.Īlso in 1976, US Customs agents intercepted a private plane inbound from Panama. In 1976, the Comptroller of the Currency forced Cartaya out of his control of the Pan American Bank of Hiateah in Florida – US$2 million had gone missing due to bad overdrafts and uncollected funds. ![]() Unibank would not be the only bank begun by WFC principals to collapse with great financial loss. In 1977, the banking commissioner of Panama seized Unibank he had little choice since Unibank was a debtor to the National Bank of Panama, and already US$10 million had been lost. Unibank was rather successful-by 1976 it had affiliates worldwide and about US$50 million in deposit. Stakes were also held initially by two Latin American banks. Louis, First National Bank of Louisville, and Midatlantic Banks of West Orange, N. Most of the equity was held by WFC, but a total of 24% (8% each) was held by three American banks-a subsidiary of Mercantile Trust Company of St. It received with unusual swiftness Panama's most liberal banking license, a Class One license. ![]() ![]() Two years before, in 1973, WFC founded Unibank (Union de Bancos SA), a Panamanian bank. In 1975, WFC was designated an "exclusive official agent by the Colombian Government for a loan of US$100 million, the largest in the nation's history." The WFC Group was a shell company owned entirely by Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya it owned a large proportion of WFC and served to also mask Cartaya's controlling interest in it and other corporations. Hernandez-Cartaya hoped to utilize his wide-ranging contacts in the Latin American political and economic world to tap the growing market between American lenders and Latin American borrowers made possible by the 1969 Edge Act. With the formation of WFC, former associates said, Mr. The corporation was founded in 1971 by the Cuban expatriate banker Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya, after he finished serving a Cuban sentence for his participation in The Bay of Pigs Invasion.
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