The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA

by Jonathan Kwinty and Jonathan Kwitny

Book Overview

Jonathan Kwitny, hailed as the John le Carre of non-fiction crime, is one of America's top investigative journalists. In this explosive expose he reveals the most mysterious collection of spies ever caught in a single scandal. Kwitny is host of The Kwitny Report, seen weekly on 200 PBS TV affiliates.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671666371
• ISBN13: 9780671666378
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

The "Company" and the bank.

This book is an expose' into the Nugan Hand international bank and it's connections to the CIA. Jonathan Kwitny is a top-notch investigative journalist and he doesn't disappoint with "The Crimes of Patriots". Among the topics in the book: The origin of the "French Connection". Fraudulent enterprises such as Ocean Shores. The CIA's involvement in the overthrow of Australian Prime Minister Whitlam. A shared office building and secretary used by both Nugan Hand and the D.E.A. The work C.I.A. agents did for Muammar Qaddafi. Mr. Kwitny cites the work of Alfred McCoy on the "the Golden Triangle" and international heroin trade. He also covers money laundering operations, particularly for drug traffickers. Nugan Hand had to ba a C.I.A. asset! The author has frequent footnotes documenting the sources for specific information. The cast of characters includes some famous intelligence operatives, high ranking military officers, con artists, Air America pilots, and just about any other type of people you would expect in a best seller spy novel. But "The Crimes of Patriots" is nonfiction and very well done at that!

While you were looking at El Salvador . . .

If the press was doing ots jobs, then Ronald Reagan would not have been able to appear in public during his Iran-Contra period without also being bombarded with cries of "What about Nugan Hand!" The Nugan Hand scandal appears to be the biggest, dirtiest scandal to reach the upper levels of American government since Watergate. The suicide of Nugan and the flight of Hand occurred in Australia, but the scandal had all-American origins. If Australian authorities and reporter Jonathan Kwitny are right, then the coverup, which continues, involves at least the Defense and State departments, the CIA, the FBI, the Commerce Department and the National Security Council. Such a coverup must reach at least into the president's Cabinet. First a word about Kwitny, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. No investigative reporter in America is more highly regarded by other reporters, dating back to his exposes of the corrupt Teamsters Union Central States pension fund in the early '70s. Frank Nugan was an Australian shyster. Mike Hand is an American, an ex-Green Beret decorated for heroism in Vietnam, later a CIA spook. Starting in 1973, the men set up a bank and a number of other financial companies, eventually opening offices around the world, though East Asia was their happy hunting ground. Nugan Hand Bank may have been set up to launder and over up CIA money transfers; the Caribbean banks that performed that service folded about the time Nugan Hand Bank was set up. It is not proper to be too definite about Nugan Hand. Because of incompetence by Australian investigators, many of its records were spirited away after Frank Nugan's death in 1980. (Kwitny says, "For an American, used to FBI efficiency, it is hard to imagine cops so spineless that they let criminal suspects carry evidence away right under their noses, while waiting for permission to examine it." That was written before Oliver North's testimony in the Iran-Contra scandal. Americans would have less trouble imagining such a thing now. 2007 update: This review was published in 1988. Kwitny's naivety seems quaint in the 21st century.) "This isn't a book for people who must have their mysteries solved," Kwitny warns. No, it is only a book for those who need to have their eyes opened. It is possible to say definitely that Nugan Hand laundered money and moved cash between countries where it is illegal to export cash. Many of their clients were trying to hide money from tax collectors -- for Australians, Nugan Hand usually charged 22 percent for this service. Nugan Hand also was definitely, though ineffectually, trying to work illegal arms deals, and it probably was involved in a large-scale opium/heroin scheme in Burma. Certainly, most of its prominent employees were con men, brothel keepers, dope and money smugglers, disbarred lawyers and other sleazy types. Its other top employees and consultants were retired generals of the U.S. Army and admirals of the U.S. Navy and former officials of the CIA, inclu

Very fine Kwitney book about Drugs, Nuganhand Bank and US Govt high up corruption

This book ties in nicely with Bo Gritz, Stan Montieth, Rodney Stich, Fletch Prouty and Tom Valentine works on the same type subject matter. Also check out Terry Redd's Compromised which gores both Clinton and the Bush, the Presidencila Elder. Highly recommended.

YOU BE THE JUDGE

On the advice of a friend who knows one of the "Cast Of Characters" (a "Yank In The Bank"), I ordered a used copy of this long out of print book. What an eye opener. It's amazing what a group of "former" senior military officers and spooks can get up to when allowed to run amok overseas. You name it and they got away with it. Even though some of the principals are dead, nobody has been held accountable for the myriad of crimes that have occurred abroad. With the lack of support rendered by the U.S. government (especially the F.B.I.), it makes one wonder how "former" some of these players really were. It's also amazing how many of these same people reared their ugly heads years later during "Iran-Contra". Read the book and then decide for yourself.

How the U.S. brought down Australia's government in 1975

As an Australian I was both surprised and gratified that an American journalist should want to trace the extraordinary history of the Nugan Hand Bank's Australian operations. This great document decribes the most cut-throat, heroin dealing, crime syndicate ever to have sullied our shores, and all under the covert auspices of the C.I.A. Kwitny's research is exhaustive and his even handed way of presenting his findings is exemplary of fine journalism. The implications hatched in this veritable can of worms will have net-sleuths busy for years tracing the myriad references to the numerous associates of Nugan Hand who vanished into the night only to surface again in the Irangate scandal. Essential reading for anyone trying to come to terms with the scourge of heroin, the world arms trade and those members of the U.S.'s covert agencies that spread misery in their own and other countries...Read it if you dare!