You would think one of his passports would be pulled:
Why Russian Mafia Boss Still Allowed To Travel On Israeli Passportwww.topica.com
| May 6, 2002 | Gordon Thomas
Posted on 5/13/02 by Ivan the TerribleSubstantial sums of hard currency provided to Saddam Hussein from the sale of Iraqi oil allowed under United Nations sanctions have been laundered through banks around the world by a Russian Mafiya boss described in an MI5 report as "one of the world's top criminals."
Despite that, Israel continues to allow Semyon Yukovich Mogilevich to travel openly on one of its passports. Even more remarkable, the MI5 description was reinforced by an investigation by Mossad. Its report concluded that Mogilevich is a "major criminal - but has taken great care to commit no crime against Israel."
His supply of arms to Iraq has come from the former Soviet Unions vast stockpile of weapons. . .
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The New York Post
September 5, 1999, Sunday
Pg. 058
THE RUSSIAN MONEY SCANDAL
First, Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers gave an interview in which he said the Clinton administration opposes any further International Monetary Fund loans to Russia without adequate safeguards and accounting. Hours later, the White House insisted that the administration hasn't reached a decision on whether to support new IMF loans. Then Summers' spokeswoman said flatly that the U.S. opposes any delay in new loans. Welcome to the wonderful world of Bill Clinton's Russia policy. The White House is scrambling, and with good reason - mounting reports indicate that billions in foreign-loan payments were siphoned off by top Russian political officials and laundered through western banks.
Like the Chinese nuclear-espionage scandal, the question here is what did the Clinton administration - and most particularly in this case, its point man on Russia, Vice President Al Gore - know, and how did it respond.
The IMF has sent more than $20 billion to Russia since 1992 in an effort to ease the former Soviet Union's transformation from communism. Last year, the agency froze its bailout of the crumbling Russian economy after Moscow devalued the ruble, defaulted on its foreign payments and fired a team of economic reformers.
Now, with the ever-changing Russian government ostensibly committed to a series of economic reforms, the IMF is set to release an additional $640 million as part of a $4.5-billion loan package.
But the reports of widespread embezzlement and money laundering - some of it said to be traceable to Russian President Boris Yeltsin's immediate family - have prompted calls for a closer look at the Clinton policy of aggressive economic assistance to strengthen Yeltsin's political hand.
Ironically, the real tipoff may have come from Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the architect of Clinton's Russia policy. "We have been aware from the beginning that crime and corruption are a huge prob-lem in Russia and a huge obstacle to Russian reform," Talbott recently told Newsweek in urging the West to "calm down."
By all accounts, Talbott is entirely correct - except that new reports suggest strongly that Clinton and Gore tried to keep a lid on the stunning extent of government fiscal corruption. Which means Talbott was himself involved. Which means his reassurance isn't very reassuring.
The New York Times reports that Gore was shown a CIA report in 1995 detailing the personal corruption of the vice president's Russian counterpart, Viktor Chernomyrdin. According to the Times, Gore "rejected their report - a move that [CIA analysts] said had led them to understand that Gore was not interested in further information on the topic."
David Ignatius, writing in The Washington [Com] Post, quotes a former government official as saying that evidence of Chernomyrdin's personal corruption "was all laid out for Gore and he didn't to hear it. Our government knew damn well what was happening." Indeed, adds Ignatius, "the CIA reported extensively during the Clinton years on the pervasive corruption surrounding the Yeltsin government, but the administration nonetheless chose to embrace Yeltsin and his crew."
In 1993, for example, the CIA and FBI began monitoring the activities of mobster Grigori Loutchansky, whom they'd linked to a money-laundering scheme. Yet who should show up shaking hands with President Clinton at a fund-raiser later that year? Loutchansky, of course.
It's unrealistic to expect Russia to effect an overnight transition from communism. But by deliberately closing its eyes to evidence of widespread high-level corruption, the administration has, in effect, soured the Russian people on the benefits of capitalism and democracy.
The House Banking Committee will hold hearings on the Russian corruption scandal later this month. Here's hoping the American people start getting some answers.
Three months later, Edmond Safra was dead.