-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today's Lesson From The Laundreymen by Jeffrey Robinson The so-called "South African method" is a brazen approach concocted by a Johannesburg businessman who beat currency export controls by faking a badly sprained ankle. Booked on a flight to London, he asked the airline to supply a wheelchair to help him get to the gate because he had a cast on his leg. Departure scrutiny in those days was very strict, and on the day of his flight an anonymous call came into South African customs warning them that a man with a cast on his leg was using it to smuggle a large sum of money out of the country. When he wheeled up to the Customs and Immigration checkpoint, he was stopped. Officers opened his baggage, went through it, found nothing, then announced they wanted to search him. He refused. They insisted. He demanded he be permitted to call his attorney. Senior officials were summoned and the argument continued. By the time his lawyer arrived, the man's flight had taken off without him. The man threatened to sue. His lawyer managed to calm him down and explain that the officers were acting well within their rights. Protesting to the very end, the fellow had no choice but to sit there while his cast was sawn off. It was empty. Now the man raised hell. He started calling everyone he knew in government. Red-faced apologies, though plentiful, were inadequate. He ordered his lawyer to file law suits against the government and the airlines for allowing this to happen. He said he not only wanted retribution, w cast plastered over his ankel--and cash packed firmly inside--Customs and Immigration officials personally helped him onto the plane. ===== Barbecued Children Special Operations Command at Waco We told the Secretary of Defense. We told the Join Chiefs of Staff. WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's elite Special Operations Command sent observers to the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas more than a month before the final assault on the compound, suggesting that military commandos had a far longer and closer involvement in the disastrous 1993 operation than previously divulged, according to declassified Government documents. The documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also show for the first time that officials at the highest levels of the Defense Department, including Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were briefed by the Special Operations Command about the events near Waco. The command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, oversees the military's most secretive commando squads, including the Army's Delta Force and the Navy Seals, and the documents suggest that the command was monitoring the situation virtually from the start of the 51-day siege. The command's spokesmen did not return calls for comment on the documents. The exact relationship between the military and law-enforcement agencies in the planning of the raid on April 19, 1993, which ended in the fiery destruction of the compound and the deaths of about 80 people, has long been a mystery. It is expected to be a topic of Congressional hearings this fall into the siege, especially given the new disclosure that possibly incendiary military-issue tear-gas canisters were fired near the compound. Congressional officials say they want to know where the canisters came from, and who gave approval for their use. Clinton Administration officials, aware of the severe legal restrictions on the use of American troops in the United States, have long said that the military's role in the siege was purely advisory to law-enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The heavily censored documents do not show that the military took an active part in the siege and F.B.I. officials have long acknowledged that the military assisted the law enforcement agency. Today, John Collingwood, an F.B.I. spokesman said "The Department of Defense played no operational role at Waco." A report issued last month by the General Accounting Office, the accounting arm of Congress, which examined the military's role in Waco, did not contradict the F.B.I. account, but did find that the military had provided about $1 million in equipment, supplies and electronic surveillance gear to the F.B.I. and the A.T.F., which had launched an ill-fated arrest raid on the compound in February 1993. Although Administration officials have previously acknowledged that three soldiers assigned to Delta Force were at the cult compound on the day of the fiery raid as observers, the documents show that the first Special Operations monitors actually went there more than a month earlier, and that their findings were reported to Washington and to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The documents were provided to The New York Times by the National Security News Agency, a nonprofit research group in Washington that has often unearthed Government documents and other information embarrassing to the Pentagon. In a report to the Joint Chiefs and the F.B.I. in Washington that was dated March 2, 1993, commanders of the Special Operations Command said they had carried out "observation of operations in Waco, Tex." The one-page document was heavily edited by military censors but appears to outline the deteriorating situation found by the monitors at the site near Waco, where the Davidians had barricaded themselves in their compound. The siege began on Feb. 28, when agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms conducted a failed raid on the compound, resulting in a firefight in which four Federal officers and two of the cult members were killed. The report is stamped "secret specat," or special category, which would have limited its distribution to a select group of Government officials with security clearances. The identity of the monitors sent to Texas and their ranks were not revealed. In a report dated March 30, nearly three weeks before the final assault on the compound, the Special Operations Command responded to an "F.B.I. request for assistance" at the site. The exact nature of the request is not clear in the heavily censored copy of the document that was released by the Defense Department. But the request clearly was important because the report prepared by the Special Operations Command was forwarded to the highest levels of the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Aspin, and to the Joint Chiefs, then led by Gen. Colin Powell. Federal law-enforcement agencies at the compound requested help from the Pentagon, including heavy weapons and military training, almost immediately after the raid on Feb. 28. Over the next weeks, the F.B.I. was provided with military helicopters, tanks, armored personnel carriers and weapons. The New York Times, September 5, 1999 Financial Scams Financier Martin Frankel Captured Who is next? Maurice Greenberg of AIG, maybe? Martin R. Frankel, the Connecticut money manager suspected of defrauding insurance companies of hundreds of millions of dollars before fleeing overseas, has been captured and is now in Federal custody, an official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Saturday. The circumstances of his capture were unclear Saturday evening, as F.B.I. officials withheld details of his arrest. But the official confirmed that Frankel had been arrested four months to the day after fleeing his Greenwich, Conn., mansion for Italy, where he relied on business associates, a cache of diamonds and a streak of good luck to stay a step ahead of law enforcement officials. It seemed likely that Frankel had been apprehended while on the run. When reached early Saturday evening, Hugh F. Keefe, a lawyer who represents Frankel, said he was unaware that his client had been apprehended When asked if Frankel might have turned himself in as part of a negotiated deal, Keefe laughed. The Connecticut lawyer added that he had spoken to a Federal prosecutor in the case as recently as Saturday morning. "He asked me if Frankel was still alive," Keefe said. "I have a feeling he knew more than he was letting on." The arrest appeared to mark a concluding chapter in what authorities have described as one of America's largest and most bizarre cases of insurance fraud. For eight years, Frankel, Federal law enforcement officials and prosecutors charged, lived a sybaritic life on the money he claimed to be managing for a string of Southern insurance companies. His operation grew to depend on scores of other people, including prominent lawyers, insurance industry executives, private detectives, a coterie of women, and priests with ties to the Vatican, all of whom say that they were innocent dupes of a man that they thought was a brilliant speculator in stocks and bonds. If official accounts are accurate, Frankel, 44, also had remarkable success in fooling state insurance regulators. His strategy was to buy small, troubled insurance companies through intermediaries, then manage the sometimes considerable investment assets those companies held against future policy claims. For years Frankel claimed to be earning returns that were well above industry norms, but he was not exposed as a fraud until after he fled the country, leaving behind smoldering documents in one of his several houses in Greenwich, a wealthy enclave outside New York City. A native of Toledo, Ohio, Frankel first ran afoul of financial regulators in the early 1990's, when a small investment fund he ran generated steep losses for retirees who entrusted their savings to Frankel. After an investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission reached an out-of-court settlement with Frankel in early 1992. He agreed to a lifetime ban from the securities business. Even before that agreement was final, however, Frankel had begun a new operation in Tennessee. Using the names of several friends and acquaintances in Ohio, Frankel set up a Tennessee trust and began buying insurance companies, first in Tennessee and later in Mississippi, Missouri and Oklahoma. He also moved his base of operations to Greenwich. He rented and later bought a multimillion-dollar, four-acre estate on Lake Avenue, surrounding the area with elaborate security. He later rented other upscale homes in the area, using one as his office and another to house some of the women he recruited through the Internet and help-wanted ads as personal assistants and full-time companions. By early 1998, Frankel began to fear that insurance regulators would sooner or later catch on, he told friends and associates. It was then that he apparently decided to rapidly expand his insurance holdings in hopes of growing big enough and involving enough well-known people that authorities would consider his business unassailable. He hired many insurance consultants and retained several prominent law firms, including Robert Strauss and his well-known firm, Akin, Gump. Frankel persuaded a high-level retired priest at the Vatican to back a charity that Frankel used as a holding company for his insurance assets. Friends and associates said Frankel also sought help from people with long criminal records, all in a pell-mell effort to expand his holdings. Though he tried to buy new insurance companies in Colorado, Washington, Nicaragua and Britain, his expansion program failed. By spring of this year, insurance regulators were asking pointed questions about his investment strategy and about the structure of his companies. Frankel, who liberally used aliases and disguised his control of companies, was not suspected of a crime. But by late April he prepared to flee the country. Like his operation, his flight to safety abroad was highly disorganized. A last-minute purchase of diamonds turned into a fiasco when Frankel decided to leave early and security officers fought over control of some diamonds that remained behind. He also proved to be a novice at international intrigue, growing depressed on the run and several times coming close to exposure after making mistakes. He spent time on the run with at least two women who had worked for him, and flew a third to join him when those two grew bored and homesick. Frankel spent most of his exile in Italy. But by July scattered reports had him traveling in France and later Brazil. The New York Times, September 5, 1999 Land of Mochtar Riady East Timor Votes for Freedom But Abraham Lincoln intervenes to "preserve the union". EAST TIMOR made history yesterday by voting to become a free nation and end 24 years of Indonesian rule, only for the violence that has plagued its past to flare again and threaten its future. The United Nations mission in the territory, which organised a referendum last week on self determination and is mandated to oversee the transition to independence, faced an immediate challenge to its mandate when an American officer was wounded by a gunshot to the stomach after militiamen ambushed his car and opened fire in Liquica, a town 30 miles from Dili. He was taken to Dili and then on to Darwin in Northern Australia, in a serious condition. Four East Timorese UN staff have been murdered since the vote on Monday, after months of violence towards suspected supporters of independence. Within hours of the 9am announcement of the result, pro-Indonesian militias rampaged through several towns burning houses and firing wildly, forcing the evacuation of 103 UN staff to the capital, where the journalists' hotel was shot at in the afternoon. With the militias bent on forcing all foreigners to leave, the case for a UN security force may soon become irresistible. A majority of nearly 80 per cent of 451,792 voters opted for independence rather than autonomy within Indonesia and Xanana Guzmao, the separatist leader under house arrest in Jakarta, said August 30 would be "remembered eternally as the day of national liberation." Yesterday the government announced he would be freed on Wednesday, after serving nearly seven years of a 20-year prison sentence, and flown immediately to Dili, 1,200 miles east of Jakarta, to seek reconciliation among the region's warring factions. He called on the UN to take immediate steps to send a peace-keeping force to East Timor. Several hundred refugees sought shelter in the compound of the house of Bishop Carlos Belo, the spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Laureate, fearing reprisals. One woman, who asked not to be named, said: "I walked here this morning with three nephews because we were so afraid. I heard the news on the radio and I feel happy, but we can't show our happiness." >From mid-morning, there was shooting outside the UN compound, where hundreds of staff were holed up. Militiamen made three attacks on the Hotel Mahkota, where most of the international press is staying, in full view of around 30 armed soldiers and police supposedly protecting the building. A gunman arriving from around the corner on a motorcycle first menaced guests standing outside with a home-made pistol, and soon returned, smashing the glass of the front door with an iron bar. In the early afternoon, two shots from home-made weapons were fired into the lobby and one at the roof, sending reporters scattering. If confirmation were needed that sections of the army back the militias, the main perpetrator, a gunman with a mane of frizzy hair under a brown beret, was patted on the back by an army officer as he walked away from firing at the hotel. After a brief conference in the shade of a tree, he sped off. Given that a UN force would take months to arrange, the only hope for a swift end to the violence is that the militias will be called off by those elements of the armed forces that created them in their determination not to relinquish what Indonesia called its 27th province, but which the rest of the world considered a colony. The London Telegraph, September 5, 1999 Scumbag Politicians Hey, Terry! Can I Get a House, Too? The Clintons celebrate a welfare Christmas. PRESIDENT Clinton was engulfed in a fresh financial controversy yesterday over the mortgage arrangements for the $1.7 million (£1.1 million) house which will provide the base for his wife's Senate election challenge. The Clintons, who have legal debts of more than £3 million, were able to buy the 11-room colonial-style house in Chappaqua, north of New York city, only after the President's chief fund-raiser, Terry McAuliffe, personally secured the £840,000 loan. Mr McAuliffe, 42, who rose to prominence raising cash for President Jimmy Carter's 1980 re-election campaign, is seen by many as the personification of the campaign finance system, which critics say is in danger of corrupting United States politics. Although the financier has never been the target of any criminal inquiry, several of his business dealings have come under legal scrutiny. Pressure groups seeking higher ethical standards in public office pounced on the Clintons' arrangement yesterday, referring to Mr McAuliffe as the US First Family's "First Friend". Chuck Lewis, of the Centre for Public Integrity, said the deal meant Mr McAuliffe had become the Clintons' "personal financial backer". He added: "I've never seen a president so personally dependent financially on one person." Ellen Miller, of Public Campaign, said: "Probably no one has more and longer tentacles into the worlds of money and politics than Terry McAuliffe. It's an unhealthy relationship for anyone to have to the President and the First Lady." A spokesman for Democracy 21 said: "It's dangerous." The Clintons' mortgage, which is on an interest-only basis and which must be repaid in full after five years, comes from a bank with which three Clinton administration aides or friends have ties. Although the interest rate will be adjustable, it is currently expected to be set at 6.52 per cent when it is fixed for the first six months on November 1, the closing date for the purchase. Monthly payments will be £4,500, which can be offset against tax. Under the unusual arrangement made with the bank, Bankers' Trust Private Banking, Mr McAuliffe will deposit the full amount he is guaranteeing for the lifetime of the mortgage. By doing so, say mortgage experts, he enables the Clintons to avoid having to endure the full financial scrutiny of the bank. If the Clintons default on the mortgage, the bank will seize Mr McAuliffe's cash. Otherwise he will receive it back, with interest, when the mortgage is repaid. The deal is set up in such a way that, under US government rules, Mr McAuliffe's loan does not constitute a gift. Vernon Jordan, a Washington lawyer and another close friend, is one of three people connected to Mr Clinton with links to the bank, although it is not known whether he played any part in setting up the loan. He is a former director. The bank's current vice-chairman and its former chief executive both previously held junior positions within the administration. A White House spokesman dismissed the criticism, saying: "Terry McAuliffe is a close friend of the President and he's happy to be of some help here." Meanwhile in Chappaqua, Westchester County, there were murmurings of discontent at the prospect of the 11,200-strong community facing large bills for the extra policing required to deal with the traffic and parking problems caused by the Clinton entourage and sightseers. The town supervisor, Clinton Smith, said: "We'd have no qualms about suggesting that it should be the responsibility of the federal government." The London Telegraph, September 5, 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! 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