Posted on 03/21/2007 10:18:24 AM PDT by doug from upland
Cuban Coffee Caper --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1422368/posts
It was a very good thing to rip off Fidel for 8.7 mil. Unfortunately, Carter was the president at the time. Peter should have been awarded a Medal of Freedom instead of being prosecuted. More of the Carter legacy.
Please hit the ping list. Thanks.
Peter's friend Frank Sturgis is an American hero. Not only did he try to have Castro whacked about 10 times, he discovered a plot in Angola about six Libyans coming to the U.S. to assassinate President Reagan. He alerted the Justice Department and may well have saved the Gipper's life.
After the Cuban Coffee Caper, Castro sent a hitman who almost got Peter in a parking lot of a restaurant in Miami.
Thanks much, Doug!
How'd you meet this guy?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1803424/posts
The $5 billion lawsuit by the newly reconstituted Stan Lee Media is going to help shine the light on Paul v Clinton. The Hillary sick-o-fants in the media have protected her and refused to write about her four false FEC reports and the Clinton role in destroying SLM. They cannot hide it forever.
I was asked by a filmmaker friend to be involved in a video about Hillary. We flew to North Carolina, met Peter, and I started the research on the project. A half hour intro version of the documentary should be ready for cable TV and DVD sales shortly. We hope that short film can fund a longer version. This story must be told to enough people before the primaries. If Hillary takes the California primary, she will not be able to be stopped.
Thanks for the Sturgis photos. Someone really does need to tell his story.
(Nation section of TIME MAGAZINE, 2-12-79)
THE CUBAN COFFEE CAPER
How Castro paid $8.7 million and got not a single cupful
As Cuba’s ruler for the past 20 years, Fidel Castro obviously wasn’t born yesterday. He has triumphed over attempted invasions, coups and assassinations. He has felt confident enough to send troops to Africa to stir up trouble. Yet he has now been taken, in a huge swindle brought off by a group of men accused of selling Cuba a cargo of nonexistent coffee. The ruse, involving transactions from Canada to the Caribbean, ultimately collapsed, but not before Cuba was relieved of about $8.7 million—perhaps the worst sting the Cuban dictator has ever suffered.
The Cuban government, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the FBI, and the U.S. Justice Department’s Strike Force are all involved in the attempt to untangle the swindle. Authorities have arrested one man, a West German commodities broker named Karl Fessler, charged three more, and are seeking others.
In an attempt to support Castro’s faltering economy, the Soviet Union has been buying much of the coffee Cuba grows at a price higher than on the world market. In fact, Cuba has even been accused in some anti-Castro quarters of mixing imported coffee with home-grown and then selling the spurious blend to the Russians. Be that as it may, Cuba does import cheaper coffee for domestic consumption.
Knowing the Cubans’ need for coffee, Karl Fessler, a jet-hoping high roller, is said to have made them an attractive offer in late 1977. According to the Cuban government, Fessler told its trade representatives that he would sell them 3,000 metric tons of “Barahona,” a choice Arabic blend grown in the Dominican Republic, at a bargain price. Reportedly, Fessler and some cohorts produced all the documents attesting to the availability of the coffee, and the deal was clinched last October on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. The Cubans agreed to a price of $1.39 a lb. vs. $1.54 on the world market. In a later meeting, the Cubans asked if they could inspect the coffee. No need for that. Fessler assured them. Everything was fine.
Except that not a single coffee bean existed. Companies were set up in the Caribbean and an aging freighter of Panamanian registry was bought for $700,000. The culprits proceeded to payoff anybody who might hinder the swindle. The Justice Department estimates that hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid out.
The ship with the coffee was launched near Santo Domingo last November. The plan was to sink it en route to Havana. The gang expected to collect twice: once from the duped Cubans, a second time from the company that insured the ship. When the freighter was at sea, Fessler and a confederate are said to have marched into the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto. All sorts of papers were shown verifying that the coffee was on its way: a telex from the ship’s captain, complete invoices, bills of lading, inspection receipts. Following the instructions of Cuba’s brokers, the bank promptly disbursed the $8l7 million as Fessler directed.
Then came a hitch. Someone had apparently neglected to bribe a port official in Santo Domingo: he retaliated by refusing to let the crew that had been hired to scuttle the ship to board the vessel. So the freighter had put out to sea with its original crew, who were unaware of the plot. En route, they evidently realized that something was wrong. They sailed into Puerto Limon, Coast Rica, and left the ship. At first, when the coffee failed to arrive on time, Cuba’s representatives were not alarmed. They received a telex explaining that the freighter had been delayed at sea because of mechanical problems. Finally, the brokers involved in the deal decided to check. They flew to Costa Rica and found the freighter empty.
By then the swindlers were long gone. Fessler showed up in Miami, where he went on a spending spree. He bought a $17,000 Cadillac and $70,000 in jewelry, made a down payment on a Key Largo condominium, invested $850,000 n securities, and moved into a Coral Gables hotel suite. Fessler lived so openly, it seems, because he though he had not committed a crime liable to prosecution in the U.S. He also did not figure that Canadians would press so vigorously for his extradition. FBI agents, who had been tipped off by the outraged Cuban brokers, arrested Fessler in December. On him they found $40,000 in cash, travelers checks and around-the-world air tickets. Fessler is the only one of the gang who has been arrested. He was charged with fraud. The others remain at large. So does most of the money. Last week FBI agents and Canadian Mounties island-hopped around the Caribbean looking for the funds, which were laundered in a series of bank-account transfers. “They did everything to make it vanish,” says Martin Raskin, an attorney for the Justice Department Strike Force.
Even if the money is found, Castro may not get it. In an extraordinary action, Cuba’s Banco Nacional filed a suit in Dade County Circuit Court against Fessler for the return of the money. But by doing so Cuba has made itself vulnerable to lawsuits from property owners whose assets were seized when Castro took power. In addition, the U.S. Treasury has tied up the roughly $1 million recovered on the grounds that the Americans involved in the scheme violated the Trading with the Enemy Act.
If the Cubans do not get their money, they are determined to get Fessler. Currently jailed in Dade County without bail, he intends to fight extradition to Canada. His attorney, Samuel Bare, who calls his client “strictly a broker, a dupe in the whole thing,” fears that if Fessler is extradited to Canada, he might somehow wind up in Cuba. In that case, says Bare, “he would be looking at a firing squad.” Even so, the Justice Department dropped the fraud charges against Fessler in January, to clear the way for extradition hearings this month. Meanwhile, Castro’s agents, who have no great respect for due process, are said to be on the prowl for him and the others. Says a source close to the investigation in Miami: “Everyone in this thing is in jeopardy of his life.” That is a high price to pay, even for coffee.
Good pictures and information...thanks for posting it.
MIDI - COPA CABANA -- http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Cape/7917/oldies.html
His name was Peter...no friend of Castro
One day some spooks were at his door...he asked what they were there for
An operation...they thought he'd like it
They told him it was very slick...disappearing coffee trick
They said, "What do you say...we need your help today"
Peter thought it was quite intriguing...he was on his way
Fidel Castro, down in Havana
When he found out, he went bananas
Fidel Castro, relieved of money
Somehow he didn't think it was so funny
Fidel Castro...got taken good
The phantom cargo needed a freighter
They purchased an old one that sucks...just 800,000 bucks
The deal's in motion out on the ocean
The plan was going very well, but it soon would go to hell
They failed to bribe one guy...and the plan went awry
When they couldn't scuttle the freighter, then down came the sky
Fidel Castro, down in Havana
When he found out, he went bananas
Fidel Castro, relieved of money
Somehow he didn't think it was so funny
Fidel Castro...got taken good
(musical break)
Fidel exploded...he lost a bundle
He didn't get his coffee beans...and you should have heard him scream
"Who did this to me? Who would dare screw me?
I'll get the guy who pulled this off...at me the whole world has scoffed
I want the bastard shot...get the best men we've got"
But in a parking lot by the airport, Peter foiled the plot
Fidel Castro, down in Havana
When he found out, he went bananas
Fidel Castro, relieved of money
Somehow he didn't think it was so funny
Fidel Castro...got taken good...got taken good
Bill Clinton is shown with Peter Paul, California governor Gray Davis and fundraiser Aaron Tonken in front of Air Force One on September 22, following a meeting at which Clinton assured Paul that he intended to go through with their business plans after leaving the White House.
Three days after the gala, which raised a million dollars for Hillary, Howard Wolfson publicly disavowed Peter Paul and claimed they would take no money from him. After all, they were shocked that he had a felony background from his days two decades previous in Miami. They didn't know. In her declaration, Hillary denies knowing anything about her impeached husband's agreement to join SLM. I guess that Peter was just kind of able to wander out to Air Force One to be the first to greet him when he deplaned. Hmmm, and Bill also had a nice video for him. Explain that, David Kendall, you lying weasel.
He may be repentant, but dealing with the devil has consequences.
He said "Tell Michael it was only business," just before they killed him.
"What a Great Post" BUMP!
Oh, really? It has consequences? He's paid them. Perhaps we should focus on the prize instead of lectures ---- KEEPING THE WITCH OUT OF THE OVAL OFFICE!
Not my only objective Doug, that is how we got Arnold, and proposed health insurance for illegals.
I like Fred, but I like Hunter better, lets let him have a run at it before we are herded into the cattle car, like we were with GW.
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