Bruce Rappaport

Baruch "Bruce" Rappaport (February 15, 1922 – January 8, 2010) was an international banker and financier. He was born in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine to Russian-Jewish emigre parents.

Bruce Rappaport was involved in banking, industry, and politics on the island of Antigua.

In April 1983, Rappaport formed Swiss American Bank Ltd., later renamed Global Bank of Commerce, Ltd., and became the first licensed bank in Antigua governed by the International Business Corporations (IBC) Act of 1982 .

The company was later sued by the United States for failure to release forfeited funds from one of its account holders. The lawsuit stemmed from a plea agreement with John E. Fitzgerald, who admitted to laundering $7,000,000 through numerous shell corporations and eventually deposited the funds in Swiss American Bank. Swiss American Bank, instead of returning the money to the United States Government, paid $5 million to the government of Antigua and Barbuda and deposited $880,000 into a bank account held at the Bank of Bermuda. Lester Bird, the former Prime Minister of Antigua, later told the US government, "We can't get you the records, they were destroyed in the hurricane".

On March 1, 2006, the government of Antigua and Barbuda brought legal action against its former prime minister Lester Bird, Bruce Rappaport, and other defendants. The lawsuit contended that Swiss American Bank, Bruce Rappaport, and others misappropriated over $41,000,000. In a US Embassy cable released by entitled, "Former Antiguan Diplomat Expresses Views On U.S.-caricom Relations", the lawsuit, Bruce Rappaport, and others, are mentioned in the statements of Sir Ronald Sanders. The cable states,

In 1980, a Rappaport controlled company by the name of National Petroleum Ltd purchased 440,000 shares of the West Indies Oil Company (WIOC) for $6,000,000 from the country of Antigua. The deal was negotiated by the former prime minister of Antigua, Lester Bird.

On May 30, 2010, the government of Antigua and Barbuda, using a $68 million loan from the Venezuelan firm, PDVSA, repurchased all of the shares to WOIC from National Petroleum Ltd

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