Talk:Nugan Hand Bank

message: *I started on cleaning up some of the article's style.
*I also changed some of the links for relevancy.
*I also renamed the 'scandal' heading. There is quite a bit more to do.
Was this the name of the bank? Probably stupid question. Vague recollection of other official name.Fred 13:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Found the Royal Commission and the existence of a 3rd government inquiry: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A150582b.htm LamontCranston (talk) 07:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Open discussion:

message: Robert Wilson is mentioned in the article and is Wikipedia-linked to the Robert Wilson disambiguation page, but it is not clear which Robert is intended. This should probably be cleared up.
But, internet search turns up (also) Edwin Wilson, who is also involved here somehow. (Just how requires more understanding than I have now.)
See
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/lofiversion/index.php/t7369.html (Edwin) and
http://wolfwhistle.the-eleven.com/archives/stories/BCCI1.html (Robert)
SalineBrain (talk) 06:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wilson - disambiguation required - twice 

message: Which facts precisely are in issue? If I don't get an answer I think it's fair to look at removing the tag.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There are 2 citations. Unfortunately the list of references was added without providing citations to the text. However, I think the text is reasonably accurate. There is speculation but that was a definite part of the notoriety of the bank. And yes a lot of it is bizarre, but that doesn't make it a load of "conspiracy theories". This actually happened.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Factual Accuracy 

message: "Fake beards have played supporting roles in several notable international incidents. When Australia's Nugan Hand Bank collapsed in 1980, amid accusations of having trafficked drugs to support American intelligence operations, one of the institution's founders was allegedly smuggled out of the country in a fake beard."
http://www.slate.com/id/2245034/ --Gwern  (contribs) 21:04 18 February 2010 (GMT)
Allegedly.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: 2 RSs report it. Are you elevating your own opinions over what Slate and the book say? --Gwern  (contribs) 13:24 22 February 2010 (GMT)
I think I was just echoing your comment - "allegedly"...--Jack Upland (talk) 10:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spycraft 

message: External links are not for linking to anonymous posts on a BBS, or to wikimir, which has now become a japanese dating website.  Everything goes except for the interview with McCoy. Rgr09 (talk) 12:37, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad external Links 

message: Several of the sources used in the article are not RS.  The catalogue for the Lombardi exhibition is fine for Lombardi, but not for the subjects in Lombardi's works. Its not used in the article anyway. (Did someone really pay US$500 to read this book for information on Nugan Hand??)  Jiggens 2004 is a self-published book.  These are generally not acceptable. Jiggens 2008 is acceptable, since this is his thesis, accepted by QUT.  Stich 2010 is published by Silverpeak, emphatically not an RS publisher. Stich is a prolific writer of conspiracy oriented books, which scrupulously avoid any type of annotation. Big no on that one. Rgr09 (talk) 09:39, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Part of the problem is that mainstream sources largely ignore this scandal. It would be good to know what the Royal Commission actually concluded.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with sources 

message: There was an external link to a webpage that had an interview with Alfred McCoy; this page is apparently no longer on line.  There is a copy of the page on the wayback machine, but I don't think it's worth linking to.  The interview is quite old, from 1991 with Paul DeRienzo, who describes himself as "a progressive broadcaster and teacher." The interview has McCoy claiming things that apparently never made it into his books, such as Thomas Clines "exfiltrating" Hand from Australia.  This claim is not in the 1991 or 2003 editions of McCoy's books. Better to just use the books, where McCoy was willing to put his claims in print, and sometimes gives sources. Note also that the article references the 1991 version of McCoy's book; since the book was significantly revised in 2003, it would probably be a good idea to check and make sure the passages cited from it are still there. Rgr09 (talk) 04:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: McCoy interview and McCoy's books

message: The article originally stated that "An Australian investigation, the 'Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking', compiled a report on the Nugan Hand bank in 1983. It determined that, above and beyond the revelations of the Royal Commission, Nugan Hand had acted as a CIA front to finance a war in Laos by laundering drug money." It gives the source for this as the article by Jonathan Kwitny in Mother Jones magazine listed in the article's footnotes.  
This statement has multiple errors.  First, the Kwitny article does not say this. Second, the chronology is wrong here. The Commonwealth-New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking produced a four volume report on Nugan Hand in 1983.  The Royal Commission of Inquiry on Nugan Hand sat from 1983 to 1985 and its final report was released in November 1985.  To say that the Task Force determined anything "above and beyond the revelations of the Royal Commission" is therefore impossible.  Third, the Task Force report did NOT say that "Nugan Hand had acted as a CIA front to finance a war in Laos by laundering drug money." This statement is simply false. I have deleted it, but it is depressing to note that this passage was added in 2006, and sat here, untouched, until 2015. I have also flipped the two paragraphs in question, so that the Royal Commission of Inquiry comes after the Joint Task Force report. Rgr09 (talk) 10:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the main problem is that this is a forgotten story - which was why I created the article ten years ago. Thank you for correcting this.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:29, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for getting the article started. It's a fascinating story that is well worth an article.  I will probably have a couple of more additions over the next week, let me know if you spot any problems. Rgr09 (talk) 15:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 1: Misattribution 

message: Related to the same problem discussed above, the article originally stated:
  An Australian investigation, the 'Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking', released a report on Nugan Hand in 1983 stating that the bank's Chiang Mai branch participated in the covert sale of an electronic spy ship to Iran and weapons shipments to Angola.
Kwitny's article in Mother Jones is again cited for this claim, but this is same problem mentioned above. The Commonwealth-New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking did not make these claims, and the Mother Jones article by Kwitny does not say that the Task Force did. I've deleted this sentence.
Directly following this, the article also originally stated:
  American investigative reporter Jonathan Kwitny claims that the evidence implies that Ferdinand Marcos was removing money from the Philippines, some of which was in gold, through Nugan Hand, and that a portion of this money, a "commission", was then used to fund CIA activity, like that in Laos.
The article cited pages 37 and 186 of Kwitny's book, but the book does not say anything anywhere about a "commission" taken by Nugan Hand to fund CIA activity, so I deleted that. About President Marcos the book says:
  It's been widely rumored that President and Mrs. Marcos, and others in the family,used Nugan Hand to ship out of the Philippines some of the gold and cash they were stealing from the country's economy. But the Rocka records, which surfaced in connection with his visit to Sydney, are the only ones to have turned up.
"the evidence implies" and "it's been widely rumored" are not the same thing. I see no point in filling the article up with quotes from various people saying 'it was rumored', so I've deleted the comments about Marcos. Kwitny DOES say there was evidence that the Rockas had accounts with Nugan Hand, so I've left that in. Rgr09 (talk) 13:02, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 2: Claims incorrectly sourced to Kwitny 

message: The article originally stated:
  Admiral Yates and his fellow senior officers who were involved with Nugan Hand have not responded to Australian requests to testify about the bank.
This is contradicted by Kwitny (p. 157), who notes that Yates testified before the Stewart Royal Commission of Inquiry in 1984. "Fellow senior officers" implies others refused to testify when asked or summoned, but I can't find mention of this in Kwitny or the news reports I've looked at; except for Michael Hand, of course.
The article also originally stated:
  Concerns over the bank's questionable accounting processes began to circulate by the late 1970s as investors attending annual general meetings were prevented from asking questions by the bank.
I can find no mention in Kwitny or anywhere else that the bank ever held annual general meetings. Rgr09 (talk) 02:51, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Later note: this confuses the Nugan-Hand Bank, run by Frank Nugan, and the Nugan Group, a fruit distribution company started by Frank's father Alf, and run by Frank's older brother Ken.  A group of dissident stockholders at the Nugan Group wanted to take over the company, and the Nugan brothers resorted to defensive tactics that involved them in major legal problems. This had nothing to do with the bank. Rgr09 (talk) 04:30, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 3: Unsourced claims 

message: The article originally contained the following paragraph:
  Authors Alfred W. McCoy and Sterling and Peggy Seagrave claim that Nugan Hand was totally CIA controlled (via Paul Helliwell), seeing it as part of a series of CIA-controlled banks, preceded by Castle Bank & Trust and succeeded by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).  They further assert that the bank was just small stepping stone for the CIA in laundering capital that started during World War II and continues on.
I've deleted the whole paragraph.  First, Helliwell died in 1976; this makes it impossible for him to have anything to do with the bank for its last 4 years of existence. Second, Kwitny (1987), my current main source for this article, does discuss Helliwell and Castle Bank, but never once claims that Helliwell was involved with Nugan Hand.  As far as I can tell, Helliwell's name did not come up in any of the investigations in Australia.  No one claims that he ever met or knew anyone officer of the bank: Nugan, Hand, Yates, Houghton, or whoever. Going on to the sources cited in the paragraph, McCoy 1991 discusses Helliwell as the 'black hand' behind Castle Bank, which he claims was a 'predecessor' for Nugan Hand. He is extremely vague on this, but certainly never says that Helliwell 'controlled' Nugan Hand. In the 2003 revision of McCoy's book, Nugan Hand is dropped completely: not one mention.  Seagrave's account more or less follows the 1991 McCoy claim. Here is what he says on this:
  When Castle Bank became notorious, it was folded and superseded by one in Australia, called Nugan-Hand Bank, which had a board packed with retired intelligence officials and Pentagon brass, with CIA director William Colby as its legal counsel. When Nugan-Hand collapsed, following several murders, BCCI moved into the picture.
Thus Seagrave does not claim that the CIA controlled Nugan-Hand through Helliwell either (nor does he ever say who was murdered). There being no source for the Helliwell claim, the paragraph should not stay.  The whole idea of Nugan-Hand as a successor to Castle Bank, or as a predecessor to BCCI, is basically a fringe claim; none of the investigations into Nugan-Hand or BCCI even mention this, much less support it. Rgr09 (talk) 04:12, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: And the CIA did not exist in WW2. Not a very reliable claim.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:51, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 4: References to Paul Helliwell 

message: It doesn't seem that the Australian authorities gave a definitive reason for not extraditing Hand in 1991. The legal reasons given are speculation by the journalist. The journalist also says the lack of interest is "astonishing". Perhaps we should just say that "Australian authorities did not pursue an extradition".--Jack Upland (talk) 06:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I had trouble with the article. Apparently the reporter couldn't squeeze a quote out of anyone. I agree that some of the reasons not to go after Hand are the reporter's speculations, but the five year limit to charge is a fact.  Seems the reporter called everyone he could think of to ask if they would try to extradite, so it is certainly true that no one, state or federal, chose to pursue Hand in 1991, or after either.  Feel free to edit as needed, I'm not Australian, so I'm a little concerned about errors in usage or terms (is state and federal right?) Rgr09 (talk) 10:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, your terminology is right. The five year limitations applies to company law, not to the criminal charges. I don't think he's right about conspiracy charges. Clearly, your co-conspirator might be dead or missing - that doesn't mean you can't be charged. The "astonishing" quote is a quote from the journalist himself. Taken together with the accompanying article, it sounds like the journalist agreed with a "conspiracy theory" angle - which is fair enough too. But I'll try to edit it to make it neutral and factual.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:22, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extradition of Hand 

message: Finally found a source for the results of the Stewart Commission.  Stewart firmly rejected the claims on the CIA, arms-financing, and drug-smuggling.  Kwitny is harshly critical of Stewart's conclusions in his last chapter; I will add this to the section on the investigation in the next revision. I would like to describe the investigation history more clearly, unfortunately my source, Kwitny's book, doesn't present this coherently. It's hard to get a chronological picture of anything from Kwitny, who simply runs back and forth from one CIA scandal to another. Rgr09 (talk) 07:00, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand what you're trying to do, but I don't really like the revised lead. The bank's claim to fame is its collapse and the sensational claims. That's why I put that in the first sentence.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:31, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps I've put too much detail into the lead. I don't mind sensational, but would prefer more specific wording for sure. Give me a day to ponder and adjust it. If it still doesn't work for you, let's see if we can find a medium. Rgr09 (talk) 11:15, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks OK.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:52, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

text: I would be very interested in reading all of the official reports, but have not been able to find any of these, either on-line or in libraries. It is possible to ask for scans of documents which are on deposit at NLA, but it is not cheap, and the reports altogether would come to as much as a thousand pages. Let me know if you know where I can get hold of these on-line or in the US. Rgr09 (talk) 04:29, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm... I'll let you know if I find anything. Hansard is online for when the final report of the Stewart Commission was tabled in Federal Parliament on 27 November 1985. Unfortunately, they don't include the report itself. But there is a summary of the findings, and the Opposition attacks the government for suggesting the CIA was involved. I don't know if that helps at all.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:13, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I could access the report myself here in Australia if there were any specific questions to be answered.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:50, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revised lead 

message: The article originally stated:
  In April 1983 a Perth businessman, Murray Quartermaine, testified to the Stewart Royal Commission on drugs that Hand was living in Pretoria, South Africa under the name of "Hahn".  Quartermaine also told The Age that he had evidence that questioned that Nugan's death was a suicide.
The final report of the Stewart Commission cites no evidence that Hand ever visited South Africa after leaving Australia, and affirmed the original coroner's verdict that Nugan committed suicide. I have therefore removed this paragraph.  Jonathan Kwitny, writing in his book on the Nugan Hand scandal, mentions only the claim that Hand came to the United States after fleeing Australia.  The Eye magazine story cited below claimed that by the early 1990s Hand was in the United States, basing its story on the passport renewal of Hand's wife. Rgr09 (talk) 03:58, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quartermaine 

message: I have got hold of a new source: Don Stewart's memoirs, Recollections of an Unreasonable Man. I think it's reasonable to quote some passages to clarify what he actually said. 
:It really was open slather; during this period [1967-?] drug use and trafficking, particularly in heroin, burgeoned. I have no doubt that Houghton, Nugan and Hand played a big part in this. [p 165].
:Former senior United States military personnel of high rank, including admirals and generals with no banking experience, were being employed in an effort to show that Nugan Hand had US connections, even to the CIA, which was probably not the case. Certainly there was no real evidence that it did. [pp 166-167]
:Years later when, despite our best efforts, we at the Royal Commission did not have enough hard admissible evidence against him to recommend criminal charges (due largely to poor record keeping and the destruction of documents when the feathers hit the fan after Frank Nugan's death) Bernie [Houghton] had the gall to announce that he had been 'cleared' by the Stewart Royal Commission. He hadn't been cleared, far from it, but the Nugan Hand mob was good at twisting the facts to suit themselves. [p 170]
:There is no evidence of wrongdoing or bad faith against Admiral Yates or any other former US military person employed by Nugan Hand. William Colby, a former director of the CIA, gave evidence before me in Washington to the effect that he had been sought out as a lawyer well versed in American law to give advice to the Nugan Hand group. His evidence was that he gave such advice and that's all he did. I have no reason to disbelieve him. He had been sought out to lend credibility to Nugan's and Hand's efforts to make people think they were close to power in the United States. In fact this was not the case. [pp 171-172].
I think this puts the conclusions of the Royal Commission in somewhat of a different light.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:10, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Stewart says that Yates made extensive background checks before joining the bank. And I guess he didn't have any banking experience. But you would think that he and the others would wonder what was going on. Colby was different as he was only giving legal advice (apparently). I don't see what having these people involved achieved for Nugan and Hand. But that is Stewart's explanation.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:04, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

text: I don't think Stewart's memoirs contradict the Commission's conclusions, but I will definitely try to get hold of those, so we have it first hand. What Yates did was ask around – Stewart gives details. I don't think that Dowd and Walker's comments are particularly significant. As quoted above, Colby claimed that he was only giving advice. Lawyers give advice to criminals all the time. If this is all he did, he would only know what he'd been told.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:57, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

text: The memoirs only have a short chapter on the bank, and I have quoted the key parts above. I don't understand what you mean by "omitted". The comments in his memoirs are reflections on the topic decades after the Commission concluded.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:21, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  New source: Stewart's memoirs 

message: I have now had a look at the final report. I can confirm that the media reports cited here are accurate. Unfortunately, there is no summary of the findings which is easy to cite. The conclusion deals with criminal charges, and most of it is omitted to avoid prejudicing criminal trials. I have made a copy of the section dealing with the CIA for future reference.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:06, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stewart Commission Report 

message: Back in 2007, I added the following to the article:
:Australian trucking magnate Peter Abeles was also connected with the bank.
This was back in the days when we were scrambling to get sourced information to add to the article. While I don't doubt this information is true, it is very vague and it doesn't seem notable in retrospect. Abeles isn't mentioned by Butt. I suggest removing it.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:28, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peter Abeles 

message: There is no justification for having this separate section as the same allegations are dealt with under "Investigations". The information given is often not neutral and sometimes incoherent.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Allegations of CIA involvement?