Shell game : a true story of banking, spies, lies, politics--and the arming of Saddam Hussein

Only hours after Iraq's surrender ended the Persian Gulf War on February 27, 1991, federal officials swarmed the suburban home of an Atlanta banker. They handcuffed and arrested him on 347 felony charges - enough to send him to prison for some nine hundred years. Christopher Drogoul, the handsome and personable manager of the Atlanta branch of Italy's government-owned Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, was painted as an evil mastermind. The United States government charged Drogoul with secretly and illegally funneling more than $4 billion to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The official line portrayed Drogoul as a high-tech con man, carrying out a prodigious fraud to feed his own greed and duping his Italian bosses, U.S. regulatory agencies, and Washington itself. But was Christopher Drogoul a brilliant manipulator or merely a pawn in a game run by much more powerful players? Written in the style of Den of Thieves and Liar's Poker, this book tells the incredible story of a small Atlanta bank that loaned over $5.5 billion to Iraq during the 1980s--money that was used to buy arms, decimate Iran, develop chemical and nuclear weapons, take over Kuwait, bomb Israel, and kill American soldiers during the Gulf War. Photos. Focuses on an Atlanta bank that loaned billions to Iraq during the 1980s--money Iraq used by buy arms, develop weapons, destroy Iran, take over Kuwait, bomb Israel, and kill Americans in the Gulf War In 1991, the manager of the Atlanta branch of the Italian bank BNL was charged with illegally funneling more than $4 billion to Iraq