Citigroup, Bank of America and seven other banks enabled former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet and members of his family build a sprawling secret network of accounts to conceal his wealth, US Senate investigators charge in a new report.

　　One of the institutions, Washington-based Riggs Bank, had a relationship with Pinochet that was far more extensive and long-standing than previously believed, the report finds.

　　The banks allowed Pinochet to use phony account names, offshore accounts and other deceptions to hide an estimated US$13 million or more from US examiners and international prosecutors seeking to seize his assets, according to the report by the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs investigative subcommittee.

　　Some banks, including Riggs and Citigroup, had a relationship with Pinochet and his family going back 24 or 25 years, the investigators found. The accounts have since been closed. The investigators said all the banks cooperated with their inquiry.

　　The investigators' findings raise questions about the oversight of the banks by federal regulators, who already have been faulted for failed supervision of Riggs's operations in the face of repeated lapses.

　　The findings illuminate "another chapter in a very tawdry episode in American banking," Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the subcommittee's senior Democrat, said on Tuesday.

　　Riggs pleaded guilty in January to a criminal felony charge of failing to report suspicious transactions to authorities, including those in Pinochet's accounts, and has agreed to pay the US government US$41 million in civil and criminal fines.

　　The handling of Pinochet's accounts by Riggs managers came to light last July after an earlier, yearlong investigation by the Senate investigative panel. It found that managers at the Washington institution, working with Pinochet from 1994 to 2002, set up phony offshore companies to hide his assets.

　　Citigroup opened 63 accounts and CDs for Pinochet and 19 for family members, arranged wire transfers, set up offshore companies and made large loans for Pinochet and his relatives, according to the report. In addition, it said, Citigroup provided some Pinochet family members with accounts, CDs and credit lines in Argentina, the Bahamas, Britain, Chile and Switzerland.

　　(The Associated Press)