Editing American International Group (AIG) (section)

==Involvement in Intelligence Networks and Military Operations==
===Operation Gladio===
Operation Gladio was a NATO-CIA initiative to create “stay-behind” networks in Europe to resist a potential Soviet invasion. These networks, active from the 1950s to the 1990s, involved clandestine armies trained by U.S. and British special forces, often linked to right-wing extremists and former fascists. Paul L. Williams argues that AIG’s offshore financial networks, particularly through Underwriters Bank Limited, provided initial funding for Gladio units, using proceeds from smuggled SS morphine and counterfeit British banknotes.  While direct evidence tying AIG to Gladio’s operations is limited, its financial infrastructure, including offshore banks and reinsurance companies, aligned with the CIA’s need for untraceable funds.
===Operation Condor===
Operation Condor, formalized in 1975, was a U.S.-backed campaign of political repression by South American dictatorships to eliminate opponents through assassinations, torture, and disappearances. AIG’s alleged ties to Condor are primarily through its reinsurance operations and financial networks in the region, particularly in Argentina and Chile.

The most notable connection is AIG’s creation of Coral Reinsurance Company in Barbados, detailed in One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb. Coral, set up in the 1980s with Goldman Sachs’ assistance, was controlled by AIG but obscured through proxies like the Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA) and Chicago property magnate Samuel Zell. Coral’s purpose was to offload AIG’s financial risks, but its offshore structure and ties to intelligence-linked figures like Jackson Stephens, who facilitated ADFA’s involvement, suggest it served as a conduit for covert funds. Stephens’ connections to the CIA and his role in financing Contra operations in Nicaragua further implicate AIG’s network in Condor-era activities.

Declassified CIA documents confirm U.S. awareness of Condor’s precursor activities by 1974, with the agency supplying communications gear to regimes like Pinochet’s Chile. Manuel Contreras, head of Chile’s DINA and a paid CIA asset from 1974 to 1977, was central to Condor’s operations, including the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. While AIG is not directly named in these documents, its financial presence in South America, through subsidiaries like National Union Fire and Home Insurance, which insured firms linked to Condor regimes, raises questions about its role in laundering funds for these operations.