Posted on 12/24/2004 7:30:20 AM PST by flitton
A UN-ordered probe into Iraq oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the 60 billion dollar (£31.4 billion) program, a
top investigator said.
Some front companies that dealt with Saddam have been liquidated or have hidden ownership, complicating the search for evidence of financial improprieties, said Swiss criminal lawyer Mark Pieth.
He’s one of three commission members leading the probe headed by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.
Major oil trading companies and individuals – from American businessmen to French, Chinese and Russian politicians – are suspected of benefiting from lucrative Iraqi oil contracts that involved kickbacks, according to the independent panel’s initial findings.
Those who profited may have been able to hide behind a web of fiction by making transactions through ghost firms that exist mostly on paper, Pieth said.
Switzerland and Liechtenstein are among countries whose lax regulations and traditions of discretion in business and banking make them attractive for trading companies.
Front companies registered in other tax havens – such as Cyprus, Jordan, Panama, Curacao in the Caribbean, and Jersey in the Channel Islands off the UK – also feature in the oil-for-food investigation.
Volcker’s independent commission was set up this year at the request of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate the program. Pieth is the second commissioner and the third is South African Richard Goldstone, who prosecuted Yugoslav war crimes.
What singles Switzerland out from other countries involved in the oil-for-food affair – including Britain, France, Russia and the US – is that it has already taken action.
In October Switzerland fined a company for paying kickbacks to secure Iraqi oil contracts. Under Switzerland’s confidentiality policies, the Geneva-based company has not been identified publicly.
The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, which imposed the fine, intends to investigate the Iraqi dealings of several more trading firms, said spokesman Othmar Wyss.
The names of several Swiss firms have appeared on lists of companies receiving Iraqi oil, among them the country’s largest commodity trader, Glencore International, according to the Volcker investigation.
Geneva-based Taurus Petroleum, which is owned by a Swedish parent company, has become the first company to begin oil trading with Iraq after the fall of Saddam’s regime.
Taurus denied paying bribes to any Iraqi officials and said it had not done business under the UN program, although its name has appeared in unofficial reports on oil-for-food.
Pieth said that more companies around the world will certainly be fined after the Volcker investigation ends. A preliminary report on findings is expected to be released in January, but the probe isn’t expected to be finished until well into 2005.
“We’re not going to do diplomatic soft talk,” Pieth said. “If there’s something to be said, we are going to name these people involved.”
I imagine the NY Times and CBS will be going all out to investigate this, just as soon as this whole Rumsfeld scandal is put to rest.
I think there are some high-level American politicians with dirty fingerprints.
Those fines had BETTER go to the Iraqi people.
True, but BCCI scandal was similar in that 'ghost' organizations were part of the scheme, and even though it took a long time, the scum at the bottom was eventually uncovered. In fact, one person involved in that scandal has been linked to the Oil for Food Dollars game. That'd be Marc Rich of Clinton pardon fame. I'd even speculate that a certain tea-sipping CIA husband has his greedy hand in both as well.
Read this; it's interesting: The BCCI Affair
1. BCCI CONSTITUTED INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CRIME ON A MASSIVE AND GLOBAL SCALE.
2. BCCI SYSTEMATICALLY BRIBED WORLD LEADERS AND POLITICAL FIGURES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
...
4. THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MISHANDLED ITS INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF BCCI, AND ITS RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES CONCERNING BCCI.
...
7. THE CIA DEVELOPED IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON BCCI, AND INADVERTENTLY FAILED TO PROVIDE IT TO THOSE WHO COULD USE IT.
THE CIA AND FORMER CIA OFFICIALS HAD A FAR WIDER RANGE OF CONTACTS AND LINKS TO BCCI AND BCCI SHAREHOLDERS, OFFICERS, AND CUSTOMERS, THAN HAS BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE CIA.
Interesting because that may have something to do with this
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1304541/posts
which I couldn't quite work out at the time.
A wicked web of deceit, isn't it? Why, oh why, do people sell their souls for the love of power and money?! Perhaps a better question would be 'Why, oh why, do people ELECT and agree to APPOINTMENTS OF people who sell their souls for the love of power and money?!'
I thought Soros had a hand in this, as well.
4. Correction. They did not "mishandle" anything. They never do. It was a deliberate obstruction disguised as incompetence. This pattern of corruption is quite prevalent whenever the light of truth shines in the direction of the power elite.
Oh, I definitely agree. Whomever wrote the synopsis of the BCCI investigation was probably being PC. Old habits, you know.
That's the key...eh...keysguy. :-) The key to what makes democracy so important. The difference between free countries that have established fair justice systems and balanced government instead of a World Court with communist/socialist/Islamic dictators at the helm.
It's also the key to my perhaps idealistic view that America's good will triumph over the evil of world criminals. I mean, if Anne Frank can see the spark of hope in humanity during one of history's darkest times, surely I can.
I hope they all get fried. No matter their country of origin.
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