THE NUGAN HAND BANK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100370007-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2007
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: September 22, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100370007-8
-RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
CBS Evening News STATION WDVM TV
CBS Network
September 22, 1982 7:00 PM CITY Washington, DC
The Nugan Hand Bank
BOB SCHIEFFER: In recent years there've been charges
from time to time that the CIA has involved itself in illegal
activities. Some of the most bizarre to date involve a bank in
Australia known as Nugan Hand. And tonight Gary Shepard has a
report.
GARY SHEPARD: When the Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney, Aus-
tralia collapsed in 1980, it appeared at first glance to be just
another bank failure. But after Australian authorities began
taking a closer look, they discovered a tangled web of intrigue
with all the elements of a best-selling spy novel: a mysterious
death, the body later dug up from its grave; illegal currency
transactions; big-time drug operations; and the Central Intelli-
gence Agency.
NEIL EVANS: We were to become the paymasters for the
CIA around the world. In other words, we were putting ourselves
in the position to disperse funds for the CIA to whoever they
would direct them.
SHEPARD: Former bank executive Neil Evans, given
immunity from prosecution, agreed to talk about the Nugan Hand
operation on Australian television. From his account and others,
the bank had its genesis during the Vietnam war. Four of the
original stockholders were Americans who listed their addresses
as Air America, Army Post Office, San Francisco. Air America was
the CIA airline in Indochina, hauling men and supplies on clan-
destine missions, and, according to former CIA agents, even drugs
out of the so-called Golden Triangle, where the borders of Burma,
Laos and Thailand converge.
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 or Approved For Release 2007/05/21 : CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100370007-8
Nugan Hand sent Neil Evans to the Thai city of Chiengmai,
the commercial center of the drug trade. He claims the CIA made
millions and used the money to finance some of its secret
projects.
EVANS: The idea was that money would be deposited with
the Nugan Hand Bank by the CIA through various channels, and also
that the Nugan Hand Bank would be the repository for funds coming
in from various CIA enterprises, namely drugs in Thailand, mari-
juana in particular, and that the bank, the Nugan Hand Bank, would
then be responsible for re-routing that money to an account in
America, a New York bank.
SHEPARD: Nugan Hand was not your ordinary bank. There
were secret numbered accounts, and hardly any of its top people
were bankers. Many were American civilians and former high-
ranking military officers with ties to U. S. intelligence. When
they found the body of Australian businessman Frank Nugan, the
bank's chairman, shot to death a few months before the bank went
under, they discovered in his pocket the business card of this
man, William Colby, former Director of the CIA.
Nugan's partner was Michael Hand, an American Green
Beret, who served two tours in Vietnam, one of them for the
Central Intelligence Agency. He disappeared a short while after
the bank collapsed and is now believed to be dead.
Australian newspapers reported the connection between
Nugan Hand and the U. S. Navy's super-secret intelligence
unit, known as Task Force 157. Among its top agents, CIA man
Edwin Wilson, now under indictment for selling arms and explo-
sives to Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. And a man named Patrie
Loomis has also been implicated. He was the apparent CIA Nugan
Hand go-between. It was Loomis who helped Wilson recruit a team
of Green Berets to train terrorists in Libya.
The Nugan Hand affair has caused an uproar in Australia,
where authorities are trying to find out what involvement the
bank might have had in the 1975 downfall of the Labour Party
government. Meanwhile, investigators on three continents are
attempting to trace $50 million missing from the accounts of
depositors, including many Americans. Here in this country, the
CIA denies any involvement with drug operations in Indochina, the
Nugan Hand Bank itself, or the deaths of the two men who ran it.
Gary Shepard, CBS News, Los Angeles.
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-010708000100370007-8