Ernest Backes (1946, Trier, Germany) was #3 of compensation chamber Clearstream (formerly Cedel), in charge of relations with clients, and was fired in May 1983. According to himself, he was "fired because (he) knew too much about the Ambrosiano scandal." Banco Ambrosiano collapsed in 1982, but the scandal wasn't yet public when Ernest Backes was dismissed. 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Trier (French: Trèves, Spanish: Treveris, Italian: Treviri) is Germanys oldest city. ... Compensation has several different meanings as indicated below. ... Clearstream Banking S.A. (CB) is the clearing division of Deutsche Börse, based in Luxembourg. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Banco Ambrosiano (which was closely related to the Vatican Bank) was an Italian bank which collapsed spectacularly in 1982. ...

Ernest Backes was the primary whistleblower in Revelation$, the book he co-authored with Denis Robert and which in 2001 caused the Clearstream scandal. In 1971, he was hired by Cedel, set up in 1970 by a consortium of 66 international banks. With Gérard Soisson, Cedel's manager, he helped design and install Cedel’s computerized accounting system in the 1970s. A whistleblower is an employee, former employee, or member of an organization who reports misconduct to people or entities that have the power to take corrective action. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... Consortium is a word that comes from the Latin consortium meaning association or society, from the word consors meaning owner of means or comrade. ... Accountancy (British English) or accounting (American English) is the process of maintaining, auditing, and processing financial information for business purposes. ...

In 1975, according to Lucy Komisar, "several big Italian and German banks wanted to centralize their accounting and didn't want other members of Cedel to send transfers through their numerous individual branches. The Cedel council of administration - its board of directors - authorized banks with multiple subsidiaries not to put all their accounts on the lists. Backes and Gérard Soisson, then Cedel's general manager, set up a system of non-published accounts". 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Lucy Komisar is an investigative journalist. ...

By 1980, Backes had become Cedel's #3, in charge of relations with clients, but he was fired in May 1983, allegedly because he "knew too much about the Ambrosiano scandal". Two months after his dismissal, Gérard Soisson was found dead in Corsica. And Soisson was the one to authorize each non-published account, "which would be known only by some insiders, including the auditors and members of the council of administration". "With Soisson out of the way, there was nothing to stop the abuse of the system, writes Lucy Komisar, explaining Ernest Backes' revelations. Whereas Soisson had refused numerous requests to open non-published accounts (from such institutions as Chase Manhattan in New York, the Chemical Bank of London and numerous subsidiaries of Citibank), Cedel opened hundreds of non-published accounts in total irregularity - especially after the arrival of CEO André Lussi in 1990. No longer were they just sub-accounts of officially listed accounts, Backes charges. Some were for banks that weren't subsidiaries or even official members of Cedel." An audit is an evaluation of an organization, system, process, or product. ... The Chase Manhattan Bank was formed by the merger of the Chase National Bank and the Bank of the Manhattan Company in 1955. ... The Chemical Banking Corporation was a bank holding company formed as parent of Chemical Bank, which had been founded in 1824. ... A subsidiary is a corporation controlled by another. ... Citibank was founded in 1812 as City Bank of New York. ... Chief executive officer of Clearstream, André Lussi resigned in December 2001 following the scandal brought up by the publication of Denis Robert and Ernest Backes book, Revelation$, which described a double system of accounts, one of whom was non-published. ... This article is about the year. ...

This system of unpublished accounts is alleged to make it possible to launder large amounts of money and to have been used by a variety of banks, among them the Russian Bank Menatep, the French Credit Lyonnais, and Osama Ben Laden's Bahrain International Bank. Allegations were made that money from the Taiwan frigates French scandal transited by Clearstream, as did the money from Elf. Money laundering is the practice of engaging in financial transactions in order to conceal the identity, source and destination of the money in question. ... Bank Menatep was a privately owned bank created by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. ... Crédit Lyonnais is a French bank. ... Elf logo Elf Aquitaine is a former French oil company merged with TotalFina to form TotalFinaElf. ...

See also

• Clearstream for a more complete description of the scandal revealed by Ernest Backes and Denis Robert.