The Anti-Money Laundering Iconoclast
Ever hear of William Cowper Brann, AKA Brann the Iconoclast?
In the 1890’s, when men were men and journalists had to carry six-shooters, Brann was an irascible, unstoppable journalist out of Waco, TX whose pen may have been mightier than the sword — but ultimately not a bullet.
The master of the witty reposte, Brann famously wrote, “Too many people presume that they are full of the grace of God when they’re only bilious.” And also this: “Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players to lose.”
Time Magazine wrote of Brann back in 1958:
“Editor William Cowper Brann grew so bitter about sham and injustice that he longed for “a language whose words are coals of juniper-wood, whose sentences are woven with a warp of aspics’ fangs and woof of fire.” The language came so naturally that in three years of publishing in Waco, then a town of 25,000, he built a phenomenal worldwide circulation of 120,000 for his one-man monthly Iconoclast. It also tore Waco into feuding factions, got Brann himself kidnapped, beaten and almost lynched, caned and horsewhipped at pistol point, and finally shot to death.”
If you’re in banking, then you already know the modern day iconoclast — Charlie Intriago, the publisher of the Money Laundering Alert. Intriago, like Brann, is a witty white knight who tilts against the forces of corruption while handing out MoneyLaundering.com-branded bars of soap etched with “Keeping you clean since 1989.”
Originally only covering the South Florida money laundering operations of South American drug lords, Intriago’s empire expanded across the globe after 9/11 spurred international interest in stopping terrorist funding. His publishing, conferences and anti-money laundering training operations were recently purchased by Fortent, maker of compliance and risk software. According to the Miami Herald, Fortent “has woven a portfolio of providers of high-end consulting, technology and information services to banking clients like JPMorganChase and Wachovia. The goal is to guide them through the often-treacherous regulatory waters that can swirl around money laundering issues.”
Back in the 1990’s, Intriago broke the story on the worst financial scandal in history and beat the mainstream media to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal. And the Columbia Journalism Review tells of a previous coup on “how the U.S. intelligence agencies were using sophisticated electronic monitoring devices to watch how General Manuel Noriega was providing money-laundering services to the Colombia drug cartels.”
Intriago is also a big believer in striking a balance between privacy and security. In a 2002 interview after the passing of the USA Patriot Act, he commented on the new investigative authority of the federal government, “One has to pray that those powers are used responsibly.”
If not, Charlie Intriago will be the one to tell us about it.
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