The Bank of Bermuda is expected to be named today in a United States Senate staff report which is looking into money laundering, according to the chief report investigator.

Rob Roach, counsel and chief investigator of the report called: "Correspondent Banking: A Gateway to Money Laundering'', will present his findings to a Senate committee today.

When asked if there were any Bermuda banks included in the investigation, he said: "Bank of Bermuda is all over the place.'' The report was compiled by the minority staff of the US Senate Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations and is expected to include a look at Bank of Bermuda and its links with Bruce Rappaport.

Mr. Rappaport is a former Bermuda resident and Mr. Roach said he is believed to have been the bank's largest private client at one time.

Mr. Roach said: "Rappaport was a Bank of Bermuda customer and he was a huge client and I have heard that he was the biggest private client in the late 70s and early 80s.'' Mr. Rappaport is a Swiss oil trader and financier with strong Russian ties who held an eight percent stake in The Bank of New York in the mid 1980s. His relationship with this bank is under scrutiny by US federal authorities who are on the trail of $7 billion allegedly laundered through this bank.

There are no signs that Mr. Rappaport and his role at the bank are tied to the money laundering scheme that funneled the billions from Russia from 1995 to 1999 through three companies which held accounts at Bank of New York.

The scheme was used largely to help Russian businesses avoid customs duties and taxes, but US authorities say the system was also used to launder the proceeds of criminal activity.

Mr. Rappaport denied knowing any of the parties involved last summer, but does have extensive ties with Russia, where he serves as Antigua's ambassador.

Mr. Rappaport is now an Antiguan resident. The Washington Post last week reported that Rayburn Hesse, a former State Department official, said he believes Mr. Rappaport at one time helped Russians seeking to move money to offshore havens in the Caribbean. The newspaper reported he allegedly gave letters of introduction and business cards to Russian entrepreneurs to give to Caribbean bankers.

In this week's hearings the Senate investigation is expected to unveil information about Mr. Rappaport's own Antiguan bank -- the Swiss American Bank -- allegedly laundering money from drugs and illegal arms, financial fraud and Internet gambling.

The Bank of Bermuda yesterday said they could not say whether Mr. Rappaport was still a client of the bank due to customer confidentiality.

The Senate staff group presented the first part of this series of investigations into banking and money laundering on February 5 this year and said that the dirty money flowing into US banks was huge.

Banks named in this report are J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp. It said in many cases the banks themselves were unaware of the nature or the background of their own clients because "most US banks do not have adequate anti-money laundering safeguards in place to screen and monitor such banks and this problem is longstanding, widespread and ongoing.'' Own your own bank for $10,000: Page 27