Posted on 12/29/2011 11:17:13 PM PST by neverdem
‘Fast and Furious’ Linked to Immunity Deal Between U.S. and Sinaloa Cartel, Trafficking Defendant Alleges in Court Papers
A Mexican drug trafficker awaiting trial in a Chicago federal court claims that the notorious Sinaloa cartel received weapons from "Operation Fast and Furious" under an alleged immunity agreement that the U.S. government made with cartel leaders, in exchange for information on rival gangs.
The defendant in a trafficking case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Vicente Jesus Zambada-Niebla, also claims the immunity deal allowed the criminal cartel to "continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs" into the United States.
He wants the U.S. government to provide documents relating to the botched gun running sting operation along the southwest border, arguing that it would benefit his defense.
Operation Fast and Furious, which began in September 2009, saw the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives supervise the sale of guns to straw purchasers with the intent of tracing the guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations and prosecuting their members. The ATF allowed about 2,000 guns to be sold in this manner.
The operation came under congressional scrutiny after it was linked to the December 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry at the hands of Mexican bandits.
An investigative report, spearheaded by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), found that most of the weapons provided to Mexican criminals under the operation were going to the Sinaloa cartel, arguably one of the world's largest drug trafficking organizations.
In a court pleading filed last July, Zambada-Niebla made the claims about an immunity deal.
"Mr. Zambada-Niebla believes that the documentation that he requests will confirm that the weapons received by Sinaloa Cartel members and its leaders in Operation 'Fast & Furious' were provided under the agreement entered into between the United States government and [a Mexican lawyer] on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel that is the subject of his defense...," it said.
"Mr. Zambada-Niebla believes that the documentation will also provide evidence showing that the United States government has a policy and pattern of providing benefits, including immunity, to cartel leaders, including the Sinaloa Cartel and their members, who are willing to provide information against rival drug cartels."
The defendant argued that he is protected from federal prosecution for trafficking drugs into the U.S. between 2004 and 2009 under an alleged immunity deal struck between the U.S. government and Sinaloa leaders.
According to court documents, Zambada-Niebla claims that the immunity deal provided the cartel's leadership with "carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States" in exchange for information on rival drug cartels.
U.S. prosecutors deny the existence of such an immunity deal between the U.S. government and the cartel.
Nevertheless, the U.S. government last September filed a motion to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act, which is aimed at assuring that national security information stemming from criminal cases – such as details associated with CIA operations – are not leaked to the public during court proceedings.
In a court pleading filed in September, U.S. prosecutors claimed that Zambada-Niebla's allegations about Fast and Furious have no merit.
"Defendant requests all information in the possession of the U.S. government related to an ATF investigation referred to as 'Fast and Furious'..." it said. "Defendants request related to Fast and Furious... and other unrelated matters are gratuitous and wholly unrelated to any legitimate discovery issues in this case."
Zambada-Niebla, who was arrested in Mexico in March 2009 and extradited to the U.S. eleven months later, is accused of smuggling tons of cocaine and heroin into the U.S.
He claims he was working on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, court documents show.
The defendant's pleading highlighted a July 2011 letter sent by Issa and Grassley to Attorney General Eric Holder, "suggesting that multiple United States agencies were employing as informants members of Mexican drug organizations."
"The evidence seems to indicate that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that tax payers' dollars in the form of informant payments, may have financed those engaging in such activities," the pleading added.
Your comment reminded me of this quote by the whistleblower Martin Woods in the article in post 126. I don't think I quoted it in #126. I should have. Woods has extensive knowledge about operations in London:
"New York and London," says Woods, "have become the world's two biggest laundries of criminal and drug money, and offshore tax havens. Not the Cayman Islands, not the Isle of Man or Jersey. The big laundering is right through the City of London and Wall Street.
How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs
Great post Maggie IIRC Liz has background on non-profit organizations and their illegal activities. Maybe she can give us some insight on the groups he has been involved in.
Small things are often overlooked when friendship is involved. Just ask the all Rat city counsel in our community who were all voted out because they trust an individual or embezzled hundred of thousands.
“HMMMMmmm Steel was in Chicago and London”
He had London connections with GS (lived there) and then did that short stint at Barclays.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barclays Bank, 2005–06
From June 1, 2005 to October 11, 2006, Steel served on the board of directors of Barclays Plc.[4]
In 2005 he helped settle a conflict between Barclays’ commercial and investment divisions over who would serve a newly purchased South African bank.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson later said of Steel: “He’s very good at smoothing over conflicts; and when there’s tensions, bringing the temperature down.”[5] Wikipedia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This position seems a little odd to me. Given the timing in the chronology, I am suspicious there was more to it.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Goldman_Sachs
Exposing foreign institutions to subprime risk
Goldman Sachs used offshore tax havens, often in the form of secret deals run through the Cayman Islands, to sell its mortgage-backed securities to institutions worldwide, including European and Asian banks. In at least one such offering, as documented in a September 26, 2006 investment circular, Goldman Sachs pitched supposedly high-grade bonds backed by residential, commercial, and student loans, but the ratings of many of the mortgage securities hid their true risks and, in some cases, Goldman’s descriptions exaggerated their quality. The September 2006 offering, one of billions of dollars worth of such deals in 2006 and 2007, was made at a time when Goldman Sachs began to disengage from the subprime market. “One bond analyst who reviewed the 2006 Cayman deal dismissed it in a report to clients as ‘a not so cleverly disguised way for Goldman Sachs & Co. to unload its unwanted exposures to the subprime real estate market onto foreign investors.’”[25]
...
In his 2009 book, Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves, Andrew Sorkin reports that same week Paulson was trying to convince Goldman to buy Wachovia.
Jim Wilkinson, Paulson’s chief of staff, realized that such a deal would be a public-relations nightmare at the worst possible time—just as they were trying to pass TARP. “Hank, if you do this, you’ll get killed,” Wilkinson frantically told his boss. “It would be f*cking crazy.” Paulson, he said, would lose credibility; he would be accused of lining the pockets of his friends at Goldman; the “Government Sachs” conspiracy theories would flourish.[117]
Throughout this time, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, formerly a Goldman Sachs chief executive was aided in his administration of the Treasury Department by numerous advisers who also had personal ties to Goldman Sachs.[118]
...
Political appointees and figures
Robert Rubin, Former United States Treasury Secretary
John Corzine, Governor of New Jersey
Henry Paulson, Chief Executive, U.S. Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush
Robert Zoellick - United States Trade Representative (2001-2005), Deputy Secretary of State (2005-2006), World Bank President. 2007-
Reuben Jeffery III, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs (2007-)
Joshua Bolten, Bush’s chief of staff during the bailout
Mark Patterson, Obama’s Treasury chief of staff, former Goldman lobbyist
Ed Liddy, whom Paulson put in charge of bailed out insurance giant AIG, the former Goldman director
Neel Kashkari, Head of TARP
Gene Sperling, Deputy Dept of Treasury
Gary Genzler, CFTC Chair
Robert D. Hormats, Dept of State Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs (2009 -)
Phil Murphy, Democratic Party’s national finance chairman, represents the United States in Berlin [14]
Other notable Goldman alums: [13]
George Herbert Walker IV - member of the Bush family and current managing director at Neuberger Berman
Robert Steel - Chairman and President, Wachovia.
Jim Cramer, MSNBC Commentator
Michael Cohrs, Head of Global Banking at Deutsche Bank
Mark Carney, Current Governor of the Bank of Canada [92][93]
Malcolm Turnbull, Australian politician, currently the federal leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
John Thain,former Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch, and former chairman of the NYSE.
Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy twice (1996-1998 and 2006-2008) and President of the European Commission (1999-2004)[94]
Mario Draghi, governor of the Bank of Italy (2006- )[94]
Massimo Tononi, Italian deputy treasury chief (2006-2008)[94]
Former Goldman Sachs Employees Hired by the Obama Administration
Mark Patterson: former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, currently Treasury chief of staff; [119]
Gary Gensler: former Goldman partner, currently chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. [120]
Gene Sperling: former Goldman consultant earning $887,727 from the bank in 2008, currently Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. [121]
Diana Farrell: former Goldman employee, currently deputy director of the White House’s National Economic Council. [122]
Former Goldman Sachs Employees Hired by the Bush Administration
Joshua Bolten: former Goldman Sachs executive, Chief of Staff to President Bush.[123]
Henry Paulson: former Goldman Sachs CEO, appointed Treasury Secretary in 2006 on Bolten’s recommendation.[124]
Neel T. Kashkari: former Goldman Sachs investment banker, hired as Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability in 2006, headed the Office of Financial Stability during the financial crisis and given responsibility for TARP.[125]
Reuben Jeffrey: previously Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, worked for 18 years at Goldman Sachs, hired by Kashkari in 2008 as interim chief investment officer for TARP. [126] [127]
Dan Jester: former Goldman Sachs strategic officer, hired on contract to advise Henry Paulson during the crisis, advised on AIG, GSEs, TARP and other bailouts. [128]
Steve Shafran: former Goldman Sachs trader in Asian private equity, hired by Paulson to handle student loan and money market issues.[129]
Kendrick R. Wilson III: former Goldman Sachs executive, enlisted as unpaid adviser to canvass banks on reaction to Treasury initiatives during crisis.[130]
Edward C. Forst: former Goldman Sachs chief administrator, hired as advisor to Paulson during the crisis, became head of Goldman Sachs asset management division in 2010.[131] [132]
Robert K. Steel: former Goldman Sachs vice chairman, hired by Paulson Undersecretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance in 2006. [133]
Ed Liddy: former Goldman Sachs director, appointed by Paulson as CEO of AIG.[134]
Former Goldman Sachs Employees Hired by the Clinton Administration
Robert E. Rubin: former co-partner of Goldman Sachs, where he worked for twenty six years. Appointed by Clinton in 1993 to be first director of the National Economic and then appointed as Treasury Secretary, a post he held from 1995 to 1999. [135]
Former Government Officials Hired by Goldman Sachs
Richard Gephardt: Goldman Sachs lobbyist, former House Democrat Leader. [136]
Harold Ford Sr.: Goldman Sachs lobbyist, former Representative, (D-Tenn.). [137]
Steve Elmendorf: Goldman Sachs lobbyist, former deputy campaign manager for John Kerry and aide to Richard Gephardt. [138]
Kenneth Duberstein: Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Reagan White House chief of staff. [139]
Eric Ueland: Goldman Sachs lobbyist, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) chief of staff.[140]
Robert Zoellick: hired by Goldman Sachs as managing director in 2006, former US Trade Representative 2001 – 2005, Deputy of the US State State Department 2005 – 2006, , n became World Bank President in 2007. [141]
Goldman Sachs Connections with the Federal Reserve
William C. Dudley: former Goldman Sachs partner and managing director, hired by then President of the New York Fed Timothy Geithner to work at the New York Fed in 2007, became New York Fed’s President in 2009. [142]
Stephen Friedman: former Goldman Sachs chairman, appointed to the New York Fed in the category reserved for representatives of the public, chaired New York Fed, chaired President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Resigned from New York Fed in 2009 due to controversial purchase of Goldman Sachs shares. [143]
Gerald Corrigan: currently Goldman Sachs managing director, former CEO and President of the New York Fed from 1985 to 1993. [144] [145]
Other notable Goldman connections
South African officials
Prior to South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, Goldman Sachs trained ANC economists. Of those Goldman Sachs trained, Tito Mboweni became South Africa’s Reserve Bank Governor. On his retirement from the Bank Mboweni was hired by Goldman Sachs as an advisor. Lesetja Kganyagom, another Goldman Sachs trainee, is the director-general of the National Treasury. [146]
http://www.charlierose.com/download/transcript/10674
ANDREW SORKIN: You know, the fascinating part about Hank Paulson was
that he did see this coming. And, you know, the book starts the day after
Bear Stearns is sold to J.P. Morgan for $2 a share. I was on your program
and we talked about it.
And it becomes an inflection point for the rest of the story. And
there’s a very important meeting that happens about two weeks after that
transaction takes place where Hank is having his morning meeting with his
staff at 8:30 in the morning, everybody’s arrayed around the room, and he
says “Lehman Brothers may be insolvent, too.”
And that is really a moment where you realize, OK, you can start to
see how the dominos are going to play out. And that’s really how the book
is structured. You’re just watching the dominos go.
And he spends the next six months to his credit to some degree trying
to save Lehman Brothers in ways that we as the public at least never
appreciated.
CHARLIE ROSE: For example?
ANDREW SORKIN: He is — for example, behind the scenes he is calling
his friend Warren Buffett and saying, “Warren, you should think about
making an investment in Lehman Brothers.”
In fact, there’s a whole sequence over a weekend in March — this is
March of 2008. This isn’t over the summer, this isn’t a month or a week
before they went under. This is in March where they’re trying to get this
deal done.
He ends up directing one of his colleagues, Bob Steele, who later
leaves treasury to go to Wachovia, Bob Steele...
CHARLIE ROSE: He was formally with Goldman Sachs.
ANDREW SORKIN: Formerly of Goldman Sachs as well, and we can talk
about the Goldman Sachs in connection in a second. But Bob Steele was
making calls to Bob Diamond, the CEO of Barclays, to try to buy Lehman
Brothers not in September of 2008, but in April.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23788612/Break-the-Glass-Plan-for-the-US-Treasury-Dept-by-Neel-Kashkari
The Confidential “Break the Glass” Plan was written by the Treasury Department on April 15, 2008, five months before the near economic ..
Remember seeing a drug route from Afganistan to US years back....Can’t remember if South Africa was on it. But don’t they have a fairly open banking system? An entry point from Asia to Europe?
I see a pattern ...
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2006/06/22/Barclays-buys-Wachovia-unit-for-469M/UPI-69751151006554/
Barclays buys Wachovia unit for $469M
Published: June 22, 2006 at 4:02 PM
NEW YORK, June 22 (UPI) — Barclays Bank PLC is paying $469 million to Wachovia Corp. to buy the U.S. mortgage servicing business of HomEq Servicing Corp.
(snip).
It also said it sees the deal as an opportunity to “grow our existing U.S. mortgage securitization franchise.”
“Antoin Rezko’s money man and “close friend” is London based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi who is one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the corporate, banking, political and real estate world. It is Nadhmi Auchi who funded Antoin Rezko.”
Auchi funded BhO's house in Chicago...etc etc etc
IIRC Cayman Islands is where CLintons were reported to have their hidden accounts.
Can we tie Auchi/Obama into Barclays?
Steel:
Kennedy School, 2004–06
From February 2004 to September 2006, Steel was a senior fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[21]
Auchi:
He was also Vice-Chair of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from 1996 and 2000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.isgp.eu/introduction.htm
At the time of the Oil-for-Food scandal it turned out that Nadhmi Auchi’s General Mediterranean Holdings
had a majority share in BNP Paribas (34), the bank that handled all of the Iraqi loans and has subsidiaries all over the Middle-East. Auchi is a member of Le Cercle and is up to his ears involved in illegal arms trafficking, British Intelligence, and the British throne itself. Look for his bio in the membership list of Le Cercle.
SOme information but some BS from:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2145736
Information on Wikileaks that we can’t get to.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1373433/posts
“One investor in all three regions, billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, is widely regarded as a corrupt supporter of Saddam Hussein’s regime who got his money from doing deals, especially illegal arms transfers for Saddam,” states the report.
Auchi is a central figure in the U.N. oil-for-food program where both U.S. Congress and a special U.N. investigation are looking into massive corruption and a missing $10 billion.
Auchi is no ordinary man but a member of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle. Auchi was tried alongside Saddam Hussein for his involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate an Iraqi prime minister in the 1950s. Auchi used money from military contracts in Iraq to establish close political, business and banking contacts in Britain and Luxembourg.
“His first business coup was to broker a deal to sell Italian frigates to the Iraqi defense ministry, for which he received millions of dollars in commission. The deal to buy the ships and other military equipment from the Italian naval shipyards, Catiri Navali Riunit, sparked an Italian parliamentary investigation into alleged bribes. Investigators discovered that a Panamanian company owned by Auchi, the Dowal Corporation, was used to funnel alleged illegal payments,” noted the May 2004 Defense Department report.
Auchi’s relationship with the British government is already under fire, with the billionaire having collected several prominent politicians as directors of his vast European empire of holdings.
LOL! The day has finally dawned when a .gov mouthpiece (aka federal prosecutor) opens his yap, and nobody believes him...
“I wonder how many in our government are on the cartels payroll? Just too much easy money floating around.”
Too much money via other sources to take money from this.
Now turning a blind eye is another story.
Patrick Fitzgerald killed all my trust in Fed prosecutors with his Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby investigation/prosecution. Fitzgerald should be spending the rest of his life in prison for what he did.
“I see a pattern...”
then, a little over three months later, he goes to the Treasury Dept as Under-Secretary
Thanks for posting that Jim Cramer/Steel episode.
I had forgotten about that, but I had watched those programs and distinctly remember Cramer was humiliated. Stunned, in fact, that he had been so taken. Cramer is at least smart enough to listen for all the fudge words, and He trusted Steel to convey an accurate picture (or, at the very least, not to break the law).
My post 137:
In January 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating claims Steel made about the future of the bank before it started talks about a potential merger.
AND, from your post,
On September 29, 2008, during a segment of Mad Money on CNBC, Jim Cramer discussed the Wachovia call he made on September 15, 2008[44][45]. Wachovia CEO Bob Steel told Mad Money viewers that out of $500 billion in loans on the bank’s books, only $10 billion were bad. Just two weeks later, Citigroup bought Wachovia for a highly discounted price, because the actual total was $42 billion, and the FDIC was about to seize Wachovia.
“On March 9, 2009, on Mad Money,[51]... Cramer mentioned, “Look, I was taken in, the guy pantsed me. I made a mistake. The SEC is investigating Steel’s appearance on the show for truthfulness, though. I made a mistake, but they’re investigating him to see if he lied. Bigger issue. Sometimes you just get had.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So....the investigation on Steel didn’t begin til Jan 2009. What happened to that investigation?
Like I said, Steel has a canny ability to skirt trouble and keep a squeaky clean “image.”
Wachovia, Wells Fargo, and the Taxpayer-Funded “Stealth” Bailout
Steel departed from Treasury just before the Wall Street meltdown, then took the helm at Wachovia. As Wachovia was failing, “the FDIC wanted to put the company through receivership—shutting it down and wiping out its shareholders. But Steel’s buddies at Treasury and the Fed intervened, and instead of closing Wachovia, they arranged a merger with Wells Fargo at $7 a share—saving Steel himself $7 million.”[1] Wells Fargo accepted $25 Billion in taxpayer-funded TARP bailout dollars, and Steel sat on Wells Fargo’s board until July 2010.
CBS Evening News on Wachovia’s “Stealth” Bailout
In February 2009, CBS Evening News made the following report:[5]
Troubled Wachovia has been bought out by Wells Fargo for $12.7 billion, creating the nation’s second-largest bank in terms of deposits. But it might not have happened without the generous support of the federal government and your tax dollars.
Here’s how. Last fall, in the span of just six days, Wells Fargo flip-flopped: first rejecting then accepting a deal to buy Wachovia.
What changed so drastically in less than a week? Two things.
First, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson quietly issued a document revising the tax code, giving enormous benefits to some banks that buy other banks. For Wells Fargo, it could be worth up to $25 billion.
Then, Congress passed the giant bailout that would provide $25 billion in direct funds to Wells Fargo.
The very same day the bailout passed, Wells Fargo announced the surprise turnaround to investors: It would buy Wachovia after all.
On a call, Richard Kovacevich, the chairman of Wells Fargo, said: “This is of course a very exciting moment in the long history of Wachovia and Wells Fargo.”
Wells Fargo became one of nine banks to receive bailout money and quickly close deals with other banks. The takeovers are so politically dicey that a Wells Fargo executive assured Congress his company did not use bailout funds to buy Wachovia.
“We completed our own capital raise to assure that we have the appropriate levels of capital to complete that transaction,” said Jon Campbell, the CEO of the Minnesota region of Wells Fargo bank.
But nobody from Wells Fargo would explain how that squares with their press release from two weeks earlier. It says money raised by issuing stock and “the capital investment from the government” - that’s the taxpayer bailout - “will enable us to finance the Wachovia acquisition.”
Does Barack Obama Sing the Tiger Song?
How many have heard of Nadhmi Auchi? Why are we not hearing more about him? Nadhmi Auchi was born in 1937. He is an Iraqi born British-resident and Britain's 22nd wealthiest individual.
Nadhmi Auchi co-conspired with fellow Baathist Saddam Hussein in 1959 to assassinate then Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim. Rezko and Obama are both financially connected to him.
MSNBC reports that Nadhmi Auchi had helped Orascom (which owns Djezzy GSM), owned by Onsi Sawiris, gain a contract to set-up mobile phone networks in post-Saddam's Iraq.
As per Orascom's annual report, page 65, Huawei Technologies is listed as a subsidiary of Orascom.
NATO code-named Huawei network's “Tiger Song”.
The Huawei network was used to shoot down allied aircraft flying patrol over the Iraqi skies.
The network was installed in violation of an U.N. embargo. Worse still, the air defense network was paid for by the corrupt oil-for-food program which sent cash to Huawei that was intended to feed starving Iraqi children.
So why would Barack Hussein Obama know anything about a "Tiger Song"? The Times Online UK reported in February 2008:
Excerpt:
Court papers describe Mr Rezko as a close friend of Mr Auchi, although Mr Auchi disputes this. The two are involved in a large Chicago land development together. But it is unclear how long the two men have known each other or whether they were linked before the 2003 Iraq war. Neither side would discuss their relationship.
The Times has, however, discovered state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to Mr Obama’s fundraiser in May 2005.
Fintrade’s directors include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr Auchi’s wife.
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