The Warka Factor
In early March there was an article about the theft of 1.1 billion dollars from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in 2004-2005. The article mentioned one particular private Iraqi bank that had a hand in the theft of Iraq’s MoD funds. The private Iraqi Bank had cashed and transferred the funds to a bank abroad for a total of 497 million dollars.
Al-Warka Bank is the private Banking institution involved with the stealing of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense funds and along with the state run Iraqi Rafidain Bank.
This raises a lot of questions about Al-Warka Bank, if their involved with stealing funds from one of the Iraqi government ministries then what other questionable activities are they also involved in. It would make you wonder especially if you have any business dealings and or deposit accounts with Al-Warka Bank.
Agencies that could and possibly are looking into the theft of the MoD missing funds are Iraq Stock Commission (ISC), Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), Public Integrity Commission, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Finance, Government Accounting Office (GAO), Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).
From the Article.
Documents obtained during an official Iraqi investigation and seen by The Sunday Times suggest otherwise.An investigators’ audit of the ministry during Shaalan’s tenure found that $1.7 billion went into its account at the Rafidain Bank in Baghdad before vanishing into a Jordanian account.
Two cheques drawn on the Ministry of Defence account, one for $149m and the other for $348m — were among transfers totalling $1.126 billion to al-Warka, a small private bank in Baghdad. The money was then deposited at the Housing Bank in Amman.