Barbados and Price Waterhouse were both mentioned in this book, The organized criminal activities of the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI), by David Whitby, Alan (1931 - 1999).

I pulled together a couple of quotes from the book, and added one from Wikipedia. On the left is the BCCI logo. Here is what Wikipedia had to say about this international bank:

Investigators in the U.S. and the UK revealed that BCCI had been “set up deliberately to avoid centralized regulatory review, and operated extensively in bank secrecy jurisdictions. Its affairs were extraordinarily complex. Its officers were sophisticated international bankers whose apparent objective was to keep their affairs secret, to commit fraud on a massive scale, and to avoid detection.” BCCI organized its own intelligence network, diplomatic corps and shipping & trading companies.

The Barbados branch of Price Waterhouse was also involved with this bank. It is reported that two partners of Price Waterhouse Barbados received loans from BCCI! PriceWaterhouse merged with Coopers and Lybrand in 1989 to form PriceWaterhouseCoopers (logo below).

Here is page 105:

and page 34:

 

PwC Faulted for BCCI Audits

 Problems in Barbados, problems in the UK. Quote from: Stephen Taub  - CFO.com | US, April 20, 2006

PricewaterhouseCoopers has been ordered to pay nearly £1 million ($1.78 million) in fines and costs by the Joint Disciplinary Scheme (JDS), Britain’s accountancy watchdog, for its work on three audits of Bank of Credit and Commerce International in the late 1980s, according to Accountancy Age.

BCCI, which collapsed in 1991 under a debt load of some $1.6 billion — the world’s largest banking scandal at the time — was also infamous as the subject of U.S. and U.K. probes into money laundering, drug trafficking, and arms dealing.

Questions from Keltruth Corp.

I have a few questions to ask:

  • Who were the partners of Price Waterhouse in Barbados in 1986 and 1987?
  • Was this news reported in the local media?
  • Were the two partners that accepted loans reprimanded?
  • Did the two  Price Waterhouse partners who took the loans become partners in PwC?
  • Do the current partners of the PwC operation in Barbados hold the view that accepting loans from companies that you are auditing is an acceptable practice?

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