-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
Isn't this stuff getting tiring?
--
A.C. Szul
http://www.erols.com/mack97
"There is no truth, only fictions woven by power to justify itself." --
Bruce Thornton, "Plagues Of The Mind"
----- Original Message -----
From: DIG alfred webre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2000 04:48 PM
Subject: [CTRL] G.W. Bush Uses Drug Smuggler's Plane - II of II
> -Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
> </A> -Cui Bono?-
>
> The CIA Gets Busted --Yet Again
>
> The circle was completed with the discovery that "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot,"
> as well as several other planes used by Barry Seal, was in reality owned
> by the same company revealed in 1998 bankruptcy proceedings to have
> owned the notorious CIA airline Southern Air Transport (SAT).
>
> Congressional and public records from the era establish Southern Air as
> a legendary CIA proprietary - second only to Air America - and as being
> connected to Secord, Singluab, Rodriguez, Casey and George H.W. Bush.
> Among its long list of dubious "achievements," Southern Air had owned
> the C123 used by Seal in the Nicaragua sting operation which made Barry
> Seal famous. That same aircraft was later shot down over Nicaragua in
> 1986 and the lone survivor Eugene Hasenfus was captured alive by
> Sandinista soldiers.. That is what started the Iran-Contra scandal to
> begin with. No one knew--or admitted knowing--just who owned Southern
> Air Transport back in 1986, although government officials all swore up
> and down that it wasn't the CIA.
>
> Southern Air's ownership by Greyhound Leasing, which became the entity
> called Finova, was only disclosed after no one was looking, when SAT
> went into bankruptcy in 1998. This is the first time the holding
> company, Finova, has been revealed for what it clearly is, an Agency
> front, set up in Arizona and headquartered in Canada to escape American
> financial disclosure requirements.
>
> Suddenly, on June 14, 1984, after passage of the second Boland Amendment
> and the consolidation of Contra operations under Oliver North the plane
> was sold twice in one day. According to journalist, producer and author
> Dan Hopsicker, "This was at a period in time when Barry knew he was on
> the way out." The plane went first to a mysterious Morgan B. Mitchell of
> Vale, Oregon, and then to Chevrolet Dealer Merrill Bean of Ogden Utah.
> Bean, curiously, gave the Dover, Delaware address of the "Prentis Hall
> [sic] Corporation" on his FAA registration. Students of the CIA have
> long been aware of the Agency's affinity for hiding its assets in
> Delaware shell corporations. But, to be fair, many other companies do so
> for reasons of convenience. In an interview Bean stated that he had
> incorporated in Delaware as a legal necessity because of the needs of
> his investors. "Delaware is a very convenient place for many kinds of
> corporations to incorporate and many large corporations and
> multi-nationals do so," Bean told FTW. "Because other companies I was in
> partnership with were incorporated there I chose to do so also. It was
> much easier that way and it was a requirement of the partners who were
> investing." However, Delaware officials in the Secretary of State's
> office said that Bean's company, Prentis Hall [not Prentice Hall], does
> not exist. And in the FAA records connected to Bean's ownership of
> "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot" we find yet another unexplained gap in FAA records.
> Whenever major mechanical repairs are made on an aircraft, the involved
> mechanic is required to complete an FAA Form 337. In December 1989, FAA
> certified mechanic Irvin Strayer installed some routine de-icing
> equipment on the plane. The mechanic, reviewing what should have been
> original ownership documents, listed the owner as United Insurance of
> Ogden Utah. Nowhere in FAA title paperwork does United Insurance appear
> as an owner. And a spokesman for the Utah State Department of Insurance
> told FTW that there had never been a United Insurance licensed to do
> business in the state.
>
> "It was an insurance company that a group of car dealers had formed to
> handle title and financing and other insurance for car sales," said
> Bean. "I bought the other guys out of the airplane and had some repairs
> done before I sold to Corporate Wings." Someone should have told the
> FAA. Or perhaps someone changed the FAA's records. Stranger things have
> happened. Bean does not recall if he changed the records to reflect this
> or not.
>
>
>
> A Likely Suspect
>
> In what will become a long litany of links between Barry Seal's
> activities and the financial fraud of the 1980's, Merrill Bean was also
> involved in what The Salt Lake City Tribune called "the worst financial
> disaster in Utah since the Great Depression." That disaster was the en
> masse 1980s failure of Utah thrifts -- hybrid financial institutions
> that offered high interest rates and consumer loans -- and the collapse
> of the insurance fund that was supposed to protect their deposits.
> Because Utah's thrifts were heavily underinsured, the actions of Bean's
> thrift, Western Heritage Thrift and Loan, left a trail of broken hearts,
> and broken people.
>
> "We had just moved to Utah from California two years ago," 58-year old
> Irene Culver told The Salt Lake City Tribune in 1986. "My husband Kent
> was an aircraft mechanic but he has Parkinson's Disease. We put half our
> savings in there [Western Heritage] and bought a little fixer-upper with
> the other half. When the State closed everything, I thought, 'I suppose
> we're lucky.' My Social Security should start in four years. We were
> going to put a new roof on and install a gas furnace because the
> electricity's expensive. Now we can't do it, so we've got half the house
> closed off." Bean told FTW, "I was Director of that failed thrift. I
> came aboard when it was almost going under. And I poured some money into
> it to try to save it and it didn't happen. I was hoping that my $75,000
> that I put into it would help revive it." While admitting that he was on
> the Board of Directors of Western Heritage, Bean stated emphatically
> that he was not "a Honcho." FTW wonders how an obviously savvy
> businessman who owns several aircraft and car dealerships believed that
> $75,000 would turn around a failing savings and loan. In "The Mafia, The
> CIA and George Bush," Texas journalist Pete Brewton documented how much
> of the S&L scandal was connected to Iran-Contra operations and illegal
> covert operations of the CIA. In many of those schemes a $75,000 or
> similar "buy-in" might have secured the mighty a seat at a
> highly-lucrative but completely criminal feeding frenzy.
>
>
>
> Disappearing' Money
>
> Following the "paper trail" of Barry Seal's King Air 200 revealed
> connections to some other unsavory perpetrators of the major financial
> frauds that -- like the S&L scandal -- marred the 1980s. Greyhound
> Leasing, or "Greycas" for short, was at the center of a huge and
> seemingly inexplicable financial fraud that, like the half-trillion
> dollar S&L scandal, no one seemed too concerned about unraveling. The
> corporation was openly and eventually very publicly looted. Afterwards,
> company management pretended to be "baffled" as to how it could have
> happened. It went down like this:
> Greycas Inc. and another Greyhound unit, Greyhound Leasing & Financial
> Corp., were bilked of over $ 75 million by one Sheldon Player, a former
> Vernal, Utah, resident assumed to be in the machine and oilfield
> equipment sales business, who gained the money through fraudulently
> obtained loans from Greyhound. Greycas then devised an elaborate
> cover-up scheme to prevent disclosure of details about the loss. This
> episode began at the beginning of the 1980's with one $ 600,000 loan.
> Player and his companies would sell Greycas heavy machine tools, lease
> them back and then pretend to sublease the expensive devices to
> end-users. In most cases the machines, which were collateral for the
> loans, were non-existent. By 1984, Player had borrowed nearly $ 8
> million from Greyhound in the same scheme. That year he asked for $ 40
> million in new loans to continue his transactions. A total of $23.5
> million had been disbursed by the time the company first got suspicious
> and confronted Player. He was told the company wanted to inspect the
> machinery that it was supposed to have owned. Remember, this was a
> company owned by the CIA front Finova. Player resisted, leading some
> company executives to wonder about the "integrity of the transactions
> with Player." Then, incredibly, despite the company's doubts about
> Player's credibility and integrity, and in spite of Greycas' inability
> to make inspections of the equipment, the company lent Player another $
> 24 million. In the ensuing months lucky Sheldon Player drew $66 million
> on the credit line authorized by the company. This was an Iran-Contra
> bust-out.
>
>
>
> Nice Work if You Can Get It
>
> Anyone who has ever borrowed money for a car or home must admire the
> chutzpah of Sheldon Player, whom the business press took to calling an
> "admitted con artist." Yet Player had no history of financial fraud that
> we could discover before this, which took place at the same time that
>
> officers of a Swiss-based subsidiary were defrauding Greycas of another
> $120 million, in a purportedly unrelated scandal that sent shock waves
> from Athens to Phoenix. "Many borrowers failed to make even the initial
> monthly payment,'' court documents state. The company's accountants
> wrote that "fraudulent and dishonest acts . . . resulted directly in a
> loss of $119,684,598." Not so, said the company's hapless General
> Counsel, who responded, weakly, that the loss has been reduced to a mere
> $72 million. The fraud included checks written as bribes on napkins in
> Swiss restaurants and then set afire... the reported possibility that
> one of the participants was blackmailing other participants and some
> mighty upset shareholders who filed lawsuits in Phoenix urging the
> Greyhound board to take legal action against top officials. The
> troubling question that puzzled business reporters never were able to
> answer was this: Why were they giving money away down at Greyhound
> during the 1980's?
>
>
>
> Being Connected Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry
>
> The disposition of the resulting criminal trial of Sheldon Player is an
> illustration of the maxim that in George Bush's America, "Being
> connected means never having to say you're sorry." When Sheldon Player
> was sentenced, he received a five-year sentence. Yup. Five years -- one
> year for each $13 million he stole. This is clearly a deal that, if
> offered to regular Americans--as opposed to the CIA-related kind who
> killed Barry Seal --would have people lining up around the Phoenix
> Federal Courthouse to sign up. After receiving this draconian sentence
> Mr. Player was given additional time to settle personal affairs before
> entering prison. No one can say American justice is not compassionate.
> And prison, for Mr. Player, consisted of the Lompoc Camp, a
> minimum-security facility known as one of 10 to 12 "country club"
> institutions in operation around the nation, according to Dick Murray,
> community programs manager for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Phoenix.
> Former Greycas official Robert Bertrand, who apparently covered up for
> Player's fraud, lucky fellow, never went to prison. Instead he resigned
> his position at Greyhound in 1986, and was soon appointed the new
> President and Chief Executive Officer of Finalco Inc. [Sounds like
> Finova doesn't it?], an equipment finance and brokerage company which
> just happens to be based in McLean, Virginia, the home of the CIA.
>
>
> (Back?) Into the Hands of the Guvnah
>
> Merrill Bean, the Utah Chevy dealer who acquired "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot" in
> 1984 sold the plane in May of 1990 to Corporate Wings of Salt Lake City.
> Two days later Corporate Wings sold it to Gantt Aviation of Georgetown,
> Texas, which a month later sold it to the State of Texas Aircraft Pool
> where it resides today. Johnny Gantt, President of Gantt Aviation told
> FTW that he probably knew that the State of Texas had a bid out when he
> acquired "Zero-Eight-Foxtrot". At the time the Governor of Texas was
> Bill Clements and George "W", a good friend, was owner of the Texas
> Rangers. A genial Gantt explained that he had probably been aware that
> the State was "putting out a bid" for a King Air and scooped up the
> plane. Press clipping show that Gantt Aviation is a large dealership
> with a long history of providing planes to the State of Texas. It was a
> done deal within weeks and Zero-Eight-Foxtrot found the home where it
> lives happily today. At the beginning of this article we outlined
> briefly how a tail number in Barry Seal's papers started this
> investigation. It actually began when author Terry Reed announced at a
> Los Angeles public gathering in July, 1999 that a video tape might
> surface during the 2000 Presidential campaign "showing George W and Jeb
> arriving at Tamiami Airport in 1985 to pick up two kilos of cocaine for
> a party. Said Reed, "They flew in on a King Air 200." Subsequent
> statements made by Barry Seal and recorded in Reed's 1995 book
> Compromised recount how Seal bragged about how he had video of "the Bush
> boys" doing coke. Other witnesses located by both writers of this story,
> who were in relevant official positions in 1985, have confirmed that the
> described Tamiami sting took place. All, in fear for their lives, have
> refused to go on the record. Does George "W" use Zero-Eight-Foxtrot?
> According to Jerry Daniels, Executive Director of the Texas State
> Aircraft Pooling Board, "He used to fly on that airplane all the time.
> He stopped when he became a Presidential candidate because the State
> won't let you fly its aircraft for political purposes." But FTW learned
> that if and when Dubyah is back in the state and on state business, he
> probably will because Dubyah is a licensed pilot and Zero-Eight-Foxtrot
> is one of his favorites though he doesn't get to pilot much any more.
> Said one savvy Pol of George W, "The last thing we need in this country
> is another President with lingering drug scandals in his past--and maybe
> present."
>
> Copyright 1999, From The Wilderness. No portion of this article may be
> reproduced, resold or reprinted without express written permission.
>
>
> Daniel Hopsicker is the producer of a business news television show
> airing internationally on NBC called Global Business 2000. That is, he
> was the Producer until Dan produced a 2-hour special on the CIA and
> drugs, Mena, Arkansas and Barry Seal called "The Secret Heartbeat of
> America." Dan was told by his biggest friend in Hollywood, "Your show
> will not air while Clinton is President." When a subsequent attack in
> broad daylight on Wilshire Boulevard outside the Federal Building in Los
> Angeles confirmed his friend's judgment and prediction, Mr. Hopsicker
> began work on a book called "Barry and 'the boys," due to be finished by
> the end of 1999.
>
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
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