Editing American International Group (AIG) (section)

===From Whitney Webb's book, One Nation Under Blackmail===
"...the Agency (CIA) had assigned Groves such tasks as organizing coups, funding political parties, and cleaning dirty money. Money flowed into the Castle Bank not only from International Diversified but also from a host of underworld figures, including Moe Dalitz, the racketeer who became known as "Mr. Las Vegas," and Morris Kleinman, and Samuel A. Tucker, who operated the gambling syndicate in Ohio and the Desert Inn in Las Vegas.

Castle Bank & Trust was joined at the hip to Mercantile Bank and Trust, another CIA operation that was set up in the Bahamas by Helliwell. Castle owned a large block of stock in Mercantile, and vice versa, and both became principal depositors in each other's operation. In addition, the banks shared most of the same directors. Money flowed back and forth in a bewildering array of transactions that included International Diversified. Mercantile and Castle interlocked with Underwriters Bank, Ltd., another firm that Helliwell created in the Bahamas. The majority shareholder of this firm was the American insurance conglomerate American International Underwriters Corp.

(AIUC), which was established as part of the insurance empire headed by former OSS agent C. V. Starr, and evolved into the giant multinational AIG (American International Group). AIUC, according to Peter Dale Scott, author of The American War Machine, "was an insurance conglomerate with suspected ties to the CIA in Southeast Asia." 

In 1976, Mercantile was closed by the Bahamian Government after investors discovered that the bank's holdings were worthless. This came as a surprise to the shareholders since Price Waterhouse, the prestigious accounting firm, had certified a few months before the collapse that Mercantile possessed $25.1 billion in assets. Unfortunately, these assets were alleged "loans" given to unidentified individuals. The money vanished into the agency's black hole."