THE BLOOD BANKERS, James S. Henry

James S. Henry
The Blood Bankers
Tales from the Global Underground Economy
Introduction by Senator Bill Bradley

Globalization's dark side has devastated developing countries, according to an investigative journalist and financial expert who spent more than a decade tracking down the world's most intimate and shocking financial secrets.

In this rigorously-researched book, James S. Henry follows the trail of an extraordinary puzzle: What has become of the more than $2.7 trillion of debt, aid, and investment dollars that was made available to the developing world since the 1970s? And why — despite all this capital — is so much of the developing world still locked in poverty?

Henry raises the curtain on just how leading international banks have created and fueled the new high-growth global markets for dirty debt, capital flight, money laundering, tax evasion, corruption, illicit weapons traffic, and other new transnational forms of dubious economic activity.

The key players? They are not, as is often assumed, just shady Third World banks in dodgy offshore tax havens. Instead, they include many of the world's most prestigious financial institutions, based in New York, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Geneva. Not only has their behavior been egregious and often even flatly illegal, but it also has been tolerated and encouraged, Henry reports, by leading First World government institutions, like the U.S. Treasury, the IMF, and the World Bank.

And the victims? All of us. Third World countries suffer when, in the name of "development," billions of dollars ends up being diverted to wasteful projects, payoffs, and offshore bank accounts. But Henry argues First World countries also pay a hefty price tag in the form of increased requirements for homeland security and military might, as more and more countries descend into the ranks of the "Fourth World" — failed states that foster transnational corruption, drug running, arms traffic, and terrorism.

Startling and comprehensive in its scope, The Blood Bankers provides an original, first-hand account of decades of unscrupulous financial behavior in the Philippines, Brazil, Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Mexico. It also sheds new light on the financial roots of the current crises in Iraq and the Middle East. Most importantly, the book spells out the foundations for new international economic polices that go beyond current strategies by encouraging accelerated global debt relief and the reform of the global "haven banking" system.

James Henry's investigative research has taken him to more than fifty developing countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, Guatemala, Namibia, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, the Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. The fruits of his investigative work have already been instrumental in producing evidence that assisted in the conviction of General Manual Noriega; the recovery of assets stolen by General Alfredo Stroessner's brutal regime in Paraguay; the exposure of a leading cocaine trafficking ring in Brazil; and the identification of the role by loans to the Philippines Central Bank in enriching Ferdinand Marcos. He has testified on these matters before the U.S. Senate, and lectured widely on the problems of development, money laundering and tax evasion.

To all these problems he has brought a unique combination of skills and values — financial, legal, and economics know-how; investigative reporting; on-the-ground access to many of the key players; and a profound concern that the continuing global development crisis be solved once and for all.

An attorney, former chief economist for McKinsey & Co., and vice president for strategy for IBM/Lotus, James S. Henry is also an investigative journalist who has written for many publications, including The New Republic, New York Times, Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, and many other magazines and newspapers. One of the original "Nader Raiders," he is founder and managing director of the Sag Harbor Group (www.sagharbor.com), a strategy consulting firm with a special focus on technology strategy and business development. He has managed projects on a wide variety of competitive strategy issues for many global companies, including AT&T, GE, GM, IBM/ Lotus, Merrill Lynch, and the Samsung Group. He also serves as an advisor and board member of Peoplink.org, a nonprofit that focuses on bringing the benefits of e-commerce to developing countries, and an advisor to Ashoka, a "reverse Peace Corps" that sponsors more than 1500 fellows working on social and environmental issues in 30 developing countries. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, a member of the New York Bar, and received a master's degree in economics from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

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