[kcvl]

Mr. Maugein, a billionaire with close ties to Jacques Chirac, is a longtime associate of the trader and former fugitive Marc Rich, who fled to Europe in 1983 to avoid answering charges of racketeering, illegal trading and dodging a tax-bill of $48 million. (Mr. Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton in his final hours in the White House). Mr. Maugein was also a close contact of Tariq Aziz, with whom he met regularly. He is the non-executive chairman of Soco International Plc., a publicly listed London-based petroleum exploration/production company, which goes into markets the majors tend to skip -- Mongolia, Vietnam, North Korea, Libya and Yemen.

Messrs. Maugein and Rui de Sousa acquired their interest in Soco through an entity called Torobex, whose shares were held by Tobex Holdings Ltd. According to Al Mada, Mr. Maugein allegedly received 25 million barrels of Iraqi crude allocations. Mr. de Sousa is also on the allocation list, down for 11 million barrels.

[Barlowmaker]

There are two other opportunities for theft and fraud not considered here. The first fraud is to divert some inventory from the authorized Program stock ready for sale and smuggle it to corrupt neighbor states. Pump 10 barrels, smuggle three to Syria and 7 to the Program for sale.

The second scam is that after the oil was sold, and the proceeds available for "Food and Humanitarian Investment" ... the Program empowered SADDAM to choose the products, suppliers, pricing, delivery verification and distribution to Iraqis of the "purchased" products. That's another money laundering and kickback Nirvana. He held all the power over $billion purchasing authority. It would be interesting to see how a $725,000 purchase order to France for 250,000 loaves of "Rye Bread" evolved into a $500,000 cash in advance delivery from Russia via North Korea of 2500 "Rocket Propelled Granades".

Well, at least we can trust the International Atomic Energy Agency to watch the Russian deployment of Iran's new Nuclear Reactor like a hawk. DOH! No chance of payoffs and bribes there.

[texas booster]

which goes into markets the majors tend to skip -- Mongolia, Vietnam, North Korea, Libya and Yemen.

Where's my list of the most corrupt countries in the world? Let's see...

Vietnam ... check.
Lybia ... check.
North Korea ... double check.
Mongolia ... don't know
Yemen ... check.

This guy and Mr Rich certainly have a special set of "friends", don't they?

[MamaLucci]

This is all gonna eventually lead to Clinton, isn't it.
There is NO WAY that billions of dollars were being skimmed
from the Oil for Food Program, and BJ wasn't gettin a piece of the action.