Suicide of BCCI Journalist

by Loring Wirbel

Suicide of BCCI Journalist<br> Investigative Report<br> Aug 17, 1991

An investigative journalist by the name of Casalero was found dead Saturday, August 10, 1991 in West Virgina. His death was reportedby the local cops as a suicide.

Casalero was in WV to interview someone said to have evidence linking the Reagan administration directly with the seamier part of the BCCI scandal that has to do with the bank's involvement in the Iran/Contra Affair.

Friends and relatives report that Casalero was not prone to suicide; unfortunately, his remains were embalmed prior to a medical examiner's investigation, which was demanded by the reporter's family sometime after Sunday.

BANK OF CROOKS AND CRIMINALS?

To Andrew Lang and others at Christic: Is anyone in your organization urging an investigative committee over the murder of Anson Ng Wong in Guatemala? Ng Wong was a Financial Times reporter who was investigating BCCI ties to three Guatemalan generals. The Guatemala City police claim it is a criminal, not a political murder. Also, is anyone working with anti-nuclear organizations over BCCI's ties to the Pakistani efforts to acquire nuclear weapons technology? Gen. Inam ul-Haq was arrested in Frankfurt in July, charged with arranging BCCI accounts for the Pakistani ISI agency, on behalf of then-president and dictator Zia ul-Haq. Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is asking for an investigation, but the current conservative Islamic government in Pakistan is in favor of both the nuclear weapons program and the BCCI. It's time to coordinate more anti-BCCI action!

Loring Wirbel

BCCI Coverage

Freedom of Information Act or no Freedom of Information Act, the reporting on BCCI has been atrocious. Journalists have no excuse for missing this one, since they had the information lying in front of them for months. Most newspapers have been as lax as the Justice Department.

Before the July 5 raids, virtually the only U.S. reporting on Clark Clifford's role in First Bancshares, and "wasn't it a shame that grand old Clark was caught up in such a sleazy operation?" Frederick Kempe's book on Noriega talked a little bit about BCCI in late 1990. In the first weeks after the global raids, however, the best reporting by far has been in the Lon Financial Times. The New York Times has been the first to break a few stories for the U.S., such as the CIA in BCCI (July 13), Abu Nidal banking at BCCI (July 15), Alan Garcia's alleged accounts at BCCI, and the Peru connection (July 25) the U.N. losing $500 million in BCCI funds (July 26). Time magazine did the most famous overview in the July 29 issue `The World's Sleaziest Bank,' in which the "black network" that supposedly acted as enforcer, drug runner, etc. was described in very loose terms. This section was necessaryily pretty weak on details, but a good beginning. The Wall Street Journal's coverage has been spotty, focusing primarily on the bank's borrowers' complaints of the shutdown. WASJ on July 8 gives a good simple chronology of BCCI (pg. 4), and one article on Pakistan (July 12) tells why so many Third Worlders think the raid is an "imperialist plot" against what they perceive as a Third World Bank.

Other than that, U.S. press has been atrocious on BCCI. Ted Koppel did an OK Nightline on this a few nights ago, but the lack of understanding of this story in the U.S. astonishes me. Loring Wirbel "I've got two arms and legs that flip-flop, flip-flo.."

David Thomas