The Bank was accused by the United States of having links to Islamist terror organizations, alleging that it was a major source of funds for the operations of Osama bin Laden and his associates.
[4] Another co-founder was François Genoud, one of the key managers of Nazi assets after the second world war[5] who later attained notoriety as the publisher of Joseph Goebbels' diaries.
[7] In 2001, authorities in the Bahamas cancelled Al Taqwa's bank license there due to its involvements in finance of Islamic terror organizations using new laws designed to crack down on money laundering.
[10] The communique stated that Al Taqwa Bank used secret accounts, convoluted real estate transactions, and other financial methods of obscuring the flow of money to funnel cash directly to organizations that would use the funds for terrorist attacks.
However, in 2002 the semi-secret intergovernmental letters were obtained by an American lawyer involved in a class-action suit against supposed terrorist financiers and subsequently entered into the public record.