The true extent of the United Nations Oil-For-Food scam is just beginning to be seen; now comes news that German companies were also involved in the kickback schemes: Corruption: UN Probes German Companies in Oil for Food Scandal. (Hat tip: madawaskan.)

German companies are also involved in the kickback scandal looming over the oil for food program. United Nations investigators recently requested exports files on 50 German firms from the Foreign Ministry.

APSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein’s affection for the Swiss financial metropolis Geneva had a long-running history and tradition. Many times over the past decades, Iraq’s former dictator used the fancy and glitzy banking hub on the shores of Lake Geneva as a hiding place for his illegally earned billions. In the late 1980s, Saddam even sent his half-brother to Switzerland, ordering him to protect the money personally.

Bankers in the city along the Rhone River did brisk business with Saddam, even during the United Nations embargo. Saddam’s followers secretly demanded their piece of the pie: those “pieces” were shares of inflated bills issued to corporations planning to supply goods to Baghdad as part of the oil-for-food program. As one of several channels, one account held at the tony Geneva private bank Safdie could be used to transfer these kickbacks.

The wheeling and dealing that took place between industry and the toppled Saddam clan has been under investigation since late 2003, when a high-profile commission started examining the matter. Paul Volcker, former head of the United States Federal Reserve Bank, South African judge Paul Goldstone and Swiss criminal law professor Mark Pieth are currently trying to find out how massive amounts of money could disappear through the Saddam regime’s dark channels, even as the UN closely monitored the Iraqi dictator.

UPDATE at 4/28/05 8:41:31 am:

For more on this ever-widening scandal see Claudia Rosett’s latest: Rohrabacher To Probe Role Of French Bank.

Next up in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is a trip down the money trail, by way of the French bank tapped by the United Nations - in cahoots with Saddam Hussein - to handle the main escrow account of the graft-laden U.N. program. Tomorrow, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing delving into some of the oil-for-food banking details. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican of California who will lead the hearing, expects that with some of the material due to be disclosed, “heads will turn.”