From the Guardian: Enron & NatWest Bankers

[biscotti]

The bankers, the big deal and the taint of scandal

The Enron affair should be over by now. But in its explosive final act - the extradition of the NatWest Three to America - one witness has died, and a political storm has arisen over the state of British-US relations since 9/11. Jamie Doward and Paul Harris in Houston report

Sunday July 16, 2006
The Observer

snip:
Just how much risk was confirmed in a private assessment by an RBS credit manager, written in March 2000, the month the bank bought NatWest. 'The scale of financial period manipulation is exceedingly worrying,' the credit manager writes. 'I don't yet understand it, nor am I sure that anyone in the bank does.'

It was to prove a prescient observation. Dazzled by Enron's pyrotechnic promises of risk-free returns, many involved with the energy company suspended their critical faculties until it was far too late.

The strippers in 'Treasures' on Houston's Westheimer Road don't do such a good trade these days. Rewind six years, though, and business was booming. It was at Treasures that Enron bosses and their bankers would go to live it up after days spent inventing ever more complex ways of moving money around.

The hard-partying ethos was attractive to the British bankers working for Greenwich NatWest, which enjoyed an exceptionally close relationship with Enron. Their employer was considered by the energy trader to be a 'Tier 1' bank - one of a small group given preferential status because of the amount of business it did with the firm.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1821659,00.html

[Demeter]

1. It Won't Be Over Until the Fat Boy Sings

get Rove to finger the BFEE and throw all the crooks in jail. Especially Cheney.