Monday, November 08, 2004
Yahoo! News - Terror Financing Fines Fall After 9/11
excerpt [WASHINGTON - Despite the Bush administration's pledge to battle terrorist financing, the government's average penalty against companies doing business with countries listed as terrorist-sponsoring states fell sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks, an Associated Press analysis of federal records shows.
The average penalty for a company doing business with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan or Libya dropped nearly threefold, from more than $50,000 in the five years before the 2001 attacks to about $18,700 afterward, according to a computer-assisted analysis of federal records.
Nineteen executives or directors of companies fined by OFAC for dealing with state sponsors of terrorism were top campaign fund-raisers for Bush.
One example is Joseph J. Grano Jr., chairman of the federal Homeland Security Advisory Council, which the president created by executive order and whose members he selected. Grano formerly headed the U.S. subsidiary of the Swiss bank UBS AG. It paid more than $100 million in fines for trading U.S. currency to Iran and other nations and for transferring funds to Iraq during Saddam's rule.
excerpt [WASHINGTON - Despite the Bush administration's pledge to battle terrorist financing, the government's average penalty against companies doing business with countries listed as terrorist-sponsoring states fell sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks, an Associated Press analysis of federal records shows.
The average penalty for a company doing business with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan or Libya dropped nearly threefold, from more than $50,000 in the five years before the 2001 attacks to about $18,700 afterward, according to a computer-assisted analysis of federal records.
Nineteen executives or directors of companies fined by OFAC for dealing with state sponsors of terrorism were top campaign fund-raisers for Bush.
One example is Joseph J. Grano Jr., chairman of the federal Homeland Security Advisory Council, which the president created by executive order and whose members he selected. Grano formerly headed the U.S. subsidiary of the Swiss bank UBS AG. It paid more than $100 million in fines for trading U.S. currency to Iran and other nations and for transferring funds to Iraq during Saddam's rule.
