-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Today's Lesson From The Laundrymen by Jeffrey Robinson When [John] Mitchell and [Maurice] Stans squeezed American Airlines for $100,000, George Spater, then chairman and chief executive of the airline, was faced with the dilemma of how to divert corporate funds that were otherwise accountable. He arranged to have a Lebanese company called Amarco submit a fraudulent invoice as commission on parts sold to Middle East Airlines. American Airlines paid the invoice and Amarco deposited the money in Switzerland, then wired it to their account in New York. There, Amarco's agent withdrew $100,000 in cash and handed it to Spater, who turned it over to Mitchell and Stans. Braniff Airlines, also hit by the duo, laundered their beneficence through Panama. The airline's regional vice president for Latin America collected $40,000 by instructing the company's man in Panama City to raise a false invoice from a local company for "goods and services." To cover the shortfall, they sold blank tickets for cash. Stans next turned to the oil industry. Ashland Oil's chairman, Orin Atkins, obliged with money funneled from a subsidiary in Gabon. Gulf Oil laundered its $100,000 gift to Nixon through a subsidiary in the Bahamas. ===== Money Laundering Geneva Blocks Accounts in Russian Laundering Probe Mabetex renovated Kremlin buildings GENEVA, Sep 1, 1999 -- (Reuters) A Geneva investigating magistrate said on Tuesday he had blocked bank accounts as part of an inquiry into money-laundering allegations linked to Swiss-based construction firm Mabetex, which renovated Kremlin buildings. "I have frozen accounts in connection with (the) Mabetex (inquiry)," Daniel Devaud told Reuters in response to an query. "I cannot say how many accounts or how much money is involved as the investigation is covered by judicial secrecy." Devaud did not make clear whether the accounts were directly held by Mabetex or just associated with the investigation. "I blocked the accounts after the Geneva prosecutor informed me he had opened an inquiry on suspicion of money-laundering," the magistrate said. "That was in early July." The head of Mabetex, Behgjet Pacolli, said none of his company's accounts had been seized and reiterated that his firm had done nothing wrong. "No accounts from Mabetex have been frozen. None of my private accounts or those of Mabetex have been frozen," he told Reuters. "Our business is very clean. It is not my problem." He said Mabetex, which is based in the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino, had no accounts in Geneva except for a "very old consortium account". Devaud gave no details but said he had taken the action after Geneva's chief prosecutor Bernard Bertossa had opened an inquiry into alleged money laundering. Bertossa's office said he was not available for comment on Tuesday but the Geneva daily Le Temps said he was looking into accounts held by a total of 24 Russian nationals. Devaud declined to confirm a report in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera newspaper that one of the frozen accounts was used by Pavel Borodin, who runs the Moscow office responsible for the Kremlin's vast real estate holdings. Borodin has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Le Temps quoted him as saying he had no Swiss accounts. "The provocations are purely political, initiated in Moscow and aimed against President Yeltsin," Borodin said in July when Swiss prosecutors first said they had asked banks to check on accounts held by Russians, allegedly including Borodin. The Kremlin last week strongly denied separate allegations that President Yeltsin and his family may have benefited from money or facilities provided by Mabetex in Switzerland. The issue has blown up as Russian politicians are preparing for a campaign for elections for parliament in December and for the presidency in mid-2000, when Yeltsin must step down. Banking regulators in the United States and Europe are investigating separate allegations that billions of dollars of Russian money may have been laundered through Bank of New York. In Berne, a senior Russian investigator into allegations of official corruption in Moscow began a second day of talks with Swiss federal authorities. Officials said investigator Nikolai Volkov was not scheduled to go anywhere else in Switzerland and would be returning to Moscow on Friday. Russia Today, September 2, 1999 Barbecued Children DOJ Sends US Marshals to Impound Waco Evidence at FBI Gramm: "The attorney general should step down." WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal marshals impounded previously undisclosed FBI evidence Wednesday in the 1993 Branch Davidian assault and Attorney General Janet Reno inched closer to ordering an independent inquiry into the escalating tear-gas controversy. The marshals took custody of infrared tapes recorded during the early morning of April 19 when FBI agents lobbed incendiary tear gas canisters at a concrete bunker adjacent to the Davidians' compound near Waco, Texas, an FBI source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hours later, the wooden compound erupted into flames. Cult leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died during the inferno. Justice Department officials dispatched the marshals to the FBI building less than a block away after the FBI informed them it had uncovered in its files additional information about the tear gas. Department sources said Reno and her top aides were angered at the latest turn of events. Just a week ago, the FBI was forced to recant six years of denials that it had used incendiary tear gas during the final hours of the 51-day siege. That belated admission prompted a furor on Capitol Hill, where congressional Republicans are readying hearings this fall. A frustrated Reno also ordered an investigation to determine why combustible tear gas was used against her orders. A list of several candidates -- none of them working for Justice or the FBI -- to head the Reno-ordered probe has been compiled and some of them have been contacted, a Justice source said Wednesday. But no final determination had been made, the source added. The new evidence, found in the offices of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team in Quantico, Va., was turned up as part of FBI Director Louis Freeh's mandate that all files be searched for relevant information in advance of the investigation, the FBI source said. The Hostage Rescue Team was in charge of the FBI's operation during the siege and the final tear-gas assault. After the evidence was found, it was transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington, where the marshals took possession. ``Earlier this afternoon, senior main Justice Department officials learned from the FBI that the FBI had found additional materials in its possession regarding the shooting of military CS gas rounds on the morning of April 19,'' said Justice spokesman Myron Marlin. The Justice officials ``immediately directed the United States Marshals Service to take possession and inventory the materials,'' Marlin added. The FBI concurred, said bureau spokesman John Collingwood. ``We are anxious to identify and preserve for outside review and congressional oversight anything that may bear on the firing of the military gas rounds,'' Collingwood said. ``In the end, the only way we can completely restore our credibility is to identify every scrap of information we have and immediately turn it over to whomever is doing the review.'' Reno, who is out of the country on official business through Thursday, has yet to make an official determination regarding the investigation. But it appears increasingly likely that she will order an independent inquiry, sidestepping the investigative resources of the FBI. Joining a chorus of voices on and off Capitol Hill, the White House has made clear its preference for an independent investigation, a White House official said Wednesday. ``We would support a thorough and independent look at this,'' said the official, who asked not to be identified. Freeh, who wants to head off any perception of conflict of interest, earlier this week indicated support for an inquiry free of involvement from the FBI or the Justice Department. Justice sources described Reno as leaning strongly in favor of an independent investigation and forgoing the use of a team of 40 FBI agents that had been assembled to re-interview all of the participants in the FBI operation. The government's conclusion that the 1993 fire was set by Davidian cult members has long been doubted by conspiracy theorists and others who allege the government engaged in a widespread cover-up. The FBI and Reno have said there is no evidence to suggest the blaze was set by the incendiary tear gas canisters. After insisting that only non-flammable devices were used, the FBI said last week that a ``very limited number'' of combustible canisters were lobbed at a concrete bunker 40 yards from the compound a few hours before the fire erupted. The House Judiciary Committee is drafting legislation to establish a congressional commission to investigate the matter -- a step that in Chairman Henry Hyde's view could avoid the partisanship exhibited during earlier Waco hearings. The House Government Reform Committee, which is already planning hearings, will issue subpoenas Thursday to the White House, Justice and Defense Departments, the FBI and Texas Rangers seeking documents and other Waco-related information, said spokesman Mark Corallo. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, on Wednesday became the one of the first members of Congress to urge Reno to resign over the Waco controversy. ``I think the attorney general should step down,'' Gramm said. ``This is another example of where she has either lied to the American people or allowed the American people to be lied to.'' Associated Press, September 1, 1999 East Timor Independence Pro-Indonesians Go on Killing Rampage in East Timor No respect for Washington Post reporter DILI, East Timor - Pro-Indonesian militiamen armed with automatic rifles, pistols and machetes attacked a neighborhood around the United Nations headquarters here Wednesday, shooting, burning houses and sending hundreds of panic-stricken residents - along with three dozen foreign journalists - scrambling over the walls of the UN compound for safety. At least one person was confirmed dead in the melee, and a television crew filmed a man on the ground being hacked for several minutes by a half-dozen militiamen with machetes. At one point, some youths in the largely pro-independence neighborhood armed themselves with rocks and crude firebombs made of bottles filled with nails. But they were no match for the well-armed militias firing automatic weapons. About 200 people, many of them women and children, packed into a building at the UN compound, where they recited prayers and sang Roman Catholic hymns. The siege lasted for more than 90 minutes before Indonesian police, who are supposed to be providing security in East Timor, arrived and retook control of the streets. Armed Indonesian police officers normally guard the UN compound, but only three were on hand when the shooting began. When reinforcements arrived an hour and a half later, they also clashed with the militias, firing automatic weapons to chase them away. The United Nations has its own police on the ground in Timor, but they are unarmed and are meant to act only as advisers to the Indonesian police. Journalists were also targeted. An Australian reporter was threatened with a rifle and escaped by jumping into a pond and hiding, submerged, until he was rescued by a policeman on a motorcycle. A Washington Post reporter was hit on the back with the blunt side of a machete, and was able to run and hide inside a parked van before being able to clamber over the UN wall to safety. The militia violence Wednesday, and the inability, or unwillingness, of the police to contain it, is likely to bring renewed calls for the United Nations to send an armed peacekeeping force to East Timor, something the Indonesian government has consistently opposed. Although the UN compound was never directly attacked, the shooting and burning just outside the gates appeared to be a brazen show of force by the militias, just three days after a UN-sponsored referendum. The vote is expected to go heavily for East Timorese independence, which the militia groups, with backing from the Indonesian Army, violently oppose. The result of the referendum is expected to be announced within days. Since the largely peaceful voting Monday, there have been signs that the UN-sponsored process, designed to bring an end to the long-running dispute over East Timor's status, was starting to unravel. The armed militias have reappeared on the streets, setting up roadblocks and harassing passing vehicles. They killed one UN local staff member, and two others were missing and believed dead. And the pro-Indonesian political factions have boycotted UN talks aimed at fostering reconciliation among the two warring camps. The pro-Jakarta side has said it might reject the final results of the referendum, which could plunge the country into full-scale civil war. Although the vast majority of Timorese are believed to support independence after 24 years of Indonesian military occupation, the anti-independence militias are well-armed and are known to have backing from hard-line elements of the Indonesian military. Fearing a slide into anarchy, Timorese scrambled to find a way out of the territory Wednesday night, crowding onto the dock looking for space on the next passenger ship out. Eurico Guterres, who commands the Aitarak, or ''Thorn,'' militia, has said his men will block any Timorese trying to flee, as a way to force the ''political elite'' who voted for independence to stay and suffer the consequences of what he predicted would be civil war. In another show of force, Mr. Guterres led his militiamen on Wednesday at the head of a huge funeral cortege that snaked through the city to a cemetery for the funeral of a member said to have been killed by pro-independence forces last weekend. The funeral became a militia rally of sorts, with several hundred militiamen, in their characteristic black T-shirts and berets, standing at attention and then saluting as the body of the victim was lowered into the ground and covered with dirt. The calls for an international peacekeeping force escalated Wednesday, even before the afternoon attack outside UN headquarters. The British charity organization Oxfam said in a statement that the post-vote militia violence showed ''some kind of peacekeeping force is needed now, not after hundreds more have been killed in the retribution that will follow a vote for independence.'' It added that ''the international community that encouraged this process so far'' must not abandon the Timorese people to the militia. The Australia East Timor International Volunteers Project, a coalition of aid groups that sent observers here for the referendum, in a statement called for ''the immediate deployment of an armed international peace enforcement or peacekeeping mission under the auspices of the United Nations.'' Just before the vote, a U.S. congressional delegation led by Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, also called for an international peacekeeping force to be deployed urgently to end the militia violence. Some Timorese activists joined in the calls for international intervention. ''What we need is a peacekeeping force,'' said Aniceto Gutteres Lopes, a human rights lawyer and director of the Legal Aid, Human Rights and Justice Foundation. ''I feel that is the only way it can be resolved.'' ''The situation is getting worse,'' he said. ''The militias are in control of the towns, and there's no guarantee the police will take care of it.'' The Indonesian Army, ''whether or not they win the referendum, must save face,'' Mr. Lopes said. ''That is why they may not accept the result.'' He added: ''We're afraid the militias now fear they are going to lose. Is the army going to be responsible for the situation here?'' The Associated Press, September 2, 1999 On the Campaign Trail "Hello, Mr. President, you scumbag." Hillary sandwich: two slices of white bread stuffed with baloney "HELLO Mr President, you scumbag," said a well-dressed man in his fifties as he shook Bill Clinton's hand yesterday morning. The President kept on smiling and moved on quickly to the next outstretched palm. He and the First Lady had come into the enchanting lakeside town of Skaneateles to buy chocolate before heading off to a museum devoted to a local women's rights activist. Hillary Clinton had chosen the outing. These are days of sweet torture for the President. To satisfy his wife's ambitions to be a senator, he is spending five days of his holiday in a staunchly Republican town in up-state New York, with not a celebrity in sight, no Kennedys with whom to sail, no movie stars to with whom to dine, just a lot of affluent, conservative Americans who despise him. Even the golf courses are not up to much. For her, this holiday is another step in her bid to be a senator. For him, it is his turn to gaze on adoringly and the beginning of the long, slow swansong that will play from now until he leaves the White House in 2001. While he often dresses casually, Mrs Clinton never wears anything but the trouser suits she began wearing soon after her husband confessed to his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The last time a president came to Skaneateles, it was Gen de Gaulle, who whizzed through in his motorcade en route to the Montreal World Fair. The Clintons are staying with new friends, Tom and Cathy McDonald, in their modern lakeside home. They had been looking for a suitable holiday spot in New York State and settled on the Finger Lakes at the suggestion of Terry McAuliffe, President Clinton's chief fund-raiser. The town is small and picture perfect with white, wooden houses draped with American flags along the edges of a flat, blue lake, specked with small sailing boats. It is smart, conservative, proud and largely Clinton-phobic. Johnny Angels, the town's sandwich shop, has a Hillary special this week: "Two slices of bread stuffed with baloney." At Doug's Fry Shop, a sign warns the Clintons against coming in. Other stores are more welcoming. As the Vermont Green Mountain Speciality Store, where the Clintons stopped to buy their chocolates, the owner Kay Dinardo said the President and his wife "were really friendly. They are great people." Outside, however, a small gaggle of protesters held up black signs saying "dump Bill's wife". Earlier in the week, Mr Clinton showed why it is probably best if he does not accompany his wife too often as she campaigns: he is simply much better at it than she. The London Telegraph, September 2, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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 credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
