Twelfth Bough

i run my own damn think tank

Archive for category Oligarchs

while you were out

Jan 30

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Angola, Clinton, Corruption & Crime, France, Identities, Minerals, Money Laundering, Nigeria, Oil, Oligarchs, Terrorism | No Comments

Joint Statement on Nigeria by the US and the EU, January 30, 2010

We express our deep regret at the recent violence and tragic loss of lives in Jos, and extend our sympathies to the bereaved and injured.

We urge all parties to exercise restraint and seek peaceful means to resolve differences between religious and ethnic groups in Nigeria.

We call on the federal government to ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice and to support interethnic and interfaith dialogue.
Nigeria is one of the most important countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a member of the UN Security Council, a global oil producer, a leader in ECOWAS, a major peacekeeping contributing country, and a stabilizing force in West Africa. Nigeria’s stability and democracy carry great significance beyond its immediate borders.We therefore extend our support to the people of Nigeria during the current period of uncertainty, caused by President Yar’Adua’s illness. We extend our best wishes to the president and his family, and join the Nigerian people in wishing him a full recovery.
Nigeria has expressed its resolve to adhere to constitutional processes during this difficult time. We commend that determination to address the current situation through appropriate democratic institutions. Nigeria’s continued commitment and adherence to its democratic norms and values are key to addressing the many challenges it faces, including electoral reform, post-amnesty programs in the Niger Delta, economic development, inter-faith discord and transparency. The gubernatorial elections in Anambra on 6 February will be a milestone in the journey towards electoral reform and a signal of Nigeria’s commitment to the principles of democracy.
We are committed to continue working with Nigeria on the internal issues it faces while working together as partners on the global stage.

Signed: US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton; British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband; French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner; EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, London, United Kingdom

Translation: You are going down. Make it look believable. Kiss kiss hug hug, your friends at the NWO. Our motto: One big happy family!

^^^^^^^

First let’s review what our esteemed leaders cite as the CAUSE of Nigeria’s problems: Yar’Adua’s illness.

As reported in The Guardian on January 8, 2010, Nigeria’s president has literally been missing for 45 days (now 68 days). Allegedly he went to Saudi Arabia for treatment of a health problem, without telling anyone, and he hasn’t been heard from since. Just up and left, he did. His absence has paralyzed the Nigerian government at a time of severe crisis. A constitutional crisis at the worst possible time, dragging on interminably. Nobody seems to have any power to unstick the problem.

How convenient is that? I suggest that it is exceedingly convenient for some people — who you might guess would be the sorts of people who like chaos and instability — while being impossibly inconvenient for Nigerians.

After all, Nigeria is a critically important country in West Africa, and West Africa is a critically important component in various contrived narratives driving our world to the brink of destruction. One need only look at the joint US and UN statement to realize that if Nigeria falls apart politically, it becomes a blow-up doll for the NWO mind-fuckers. That is why Hillary and friends very properly encourage the Nigerians to cross every democratic t and dot every democratic i, and color within the lines at all times please (rule of law rule of law), while they hope and pray for Yar’Adua’s “full recovery.” Surely they have also heard that:

President Umaru Yar’Adua is seriously brain damaged, is not able to recognise anyone, including his wife Turai, and can no longer perform the functions of the office of the president, according to multiple sources who have spoken to NEXT on Sunday.

That was two weeks ago. For all we know he may not even be alive.

But nobody wants to talk about that. They might loosen the log-jam. And the log-jam happens to be useful because it breeds chaos.

^^^^^^^

Yesterday in Nigeria, a militant group called MEND called off a truce with the paralyzed Nigerian government. I guess that was to be expected, given the log-jam.

The main militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta called off its cease-fire with the government Saturday morning, dealing a potential death blow to a presidential amnesty program aimed at ending violence that has crippled production in the West African nation.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta issued a statement saying it would no longer abide by the unconditional Oct. 25 cease-fire President Umaru Yar’Adua had negotiated with the group. The militants warned oil producers with pipelines and personnel working in the creeks and swamps of the Delta that it would wage an “an all-out onslaught” against them.

The MEND “warns all oil companies to halt operations as any operational installation attacked will be burnt to the ground,” the statement read. “Oil companies are responsible for the safety and welfare of their workers and will bear the guilt should any harm come upon their staff in the event of an attack.”

The group added: “Nothing will be spared.”

Militants in the Niger Delta have attacked pipelines, kidnapped petroleum company employees and fought government troops since January 2006. They demand that the federal government send more oil-industry funds to Nigeria’s southern region, which remains poor despite five decades of oil production.

In response, Shell has decided to sell off some assets in the Niger Delta. Chevron announced that 20,000 barrels of oil per day had been shut in due to sabotage threats.

According to Reuters:

The rebel group [MEND] was severely weakened after its senior leaders and thousands of others accepted clemency and disarmed under a presidential amnesty which ended last October. It is unclear who is now running the group.

Candidates include:

Ateke Tom: A former gang leader in Rivers State in the eastern Niger Delta for around a decade, Ateke Tom set up the Niger Delta Vigilante (NDV), one of several groups to enjoy strong backing from politicians who used them to help rig elections….Security sources say he was also heavily involved in oil bunkering, a lucrative trade in industrial quantities of stolen crude smuggled onto the international market.

Farah Dagogo: Also based in Rivers state, Dagogo started out as a top commander loyal to former militant leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, whose Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force turned over thousands of weapons in return for amnesty in 2004.

Government Tompolo: He was responsible in particular for attacks on Chevron and thought to be a major oil bunkerer. Security forces used helicopters and gunboats to attack his camps around Warri, capital of Delta state, last May.

Well, it was awfully good of those chaps to give such clear and menacing warnings so that the oil company people can get out of the way. Let’s give credit where credit is due. I mean, *some* terrorists would just go right in there and start firing away, bombing wedding parties and marketplaces, and killing a bunch of innocent people. You know what I’m saying?

All the same, Something Must Be Done.

^^^^^^^

Actually, there was a peculiar incident last week in the Niger Delta. (map from wikipedia, click to enlarge)

A helicopter flying from Bonny to Port Harcourt crashed on Tuesday afternoon at Isiokpo, near Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, killing all four persons aboard….The zonal coordinator of the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Emenike Umesi, said the four occupants comprised two pilots and two engineers, said to be of Lieutenant Commander Rank.

The NEMA chief, in charge of the south-south zone, said the aircraft took off from Bonny, which is home to the Liquefied Natural Gas plant….Security agents at the accident scene however said naval personnel recovered “some vital documents” at the scene.

Vital documents?

Addressing journalists on the incident, Naval spokesperson, Commodore David Nabaida, said the names and identities of four dead naval officers were the Pilot of the Helicopter, Lt Commodore Ahmed Tijani Yusuf with official number NNL/2071; Co-Pilot, Lt Commodore Ahmadu Yahaya; Lt Commodore Mailafia Ibrahim, who is the Base Intelligence Officer, Delta and Seaman Illiya Uyuhili, the aircraft’s technician.

…He said the aircraft was on a routine patrol, to investigate a case of illegal bunkering around Akasa and had left from its Warri base and after carrying out its surveillance, was to go to Port Harcourt Airport to refuel before returning to its base but crashed a few kilometers to the airport.

Asked whether there was any connection of the crash with the remnant of militants still operating in the creeks, Nabaida said: “Absolutely not; as I told you, we were at the site of the aircraft accident, the President’s amnesty programme has been working, beside, there is nothing that shows that the crash is connected with anything militancy”.

Riiight. So even though two of the three possible suspected candidates who might be running MEND have been involved in oil bunkering in the past, there’s absolutely no reason to suspect that a naval helicopter investigating oil bunkering would be shot down by said militants, a couple of days before they called off their truce no less.

^^^^^^^

In February 2007, National Geographic published a piece about the Niger Delta.

Nigeria had all the makings of an uplifting tale: poor African nation blessed with enormous sudden wealth. Visions of prosperity rose with the same force as the oil that first gushed from the Niger Delta’s marshy ground in 1956….
Everything looked possible—but everything went wrong.

Dense, garbage-heaped slums stretch for miles. Choking black smoke from an open-air slaughterhouse rolls over housetops. Streets are cratered with potholes and ruts. Vicious gangs roam school grounds. Peddlers and beggars rush up to vehicles stalled in gas lines. This is Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil hub, capital of Rivers state, smack-dab in the middle of oil reserves bigger than the United States’ and Mexico’s combined. Port Harcourt should gleam; instead, it rots.

Beyond the city, within the labyrinth of creeks, rivers, and pipeline channels that vein the delta—one of the world’s largest wetlands—exists a netherworld. Villages and towns cling to the banks, little more than heaps of mud-walled huts and rusty shacks. Groups of hungry, half-naked children and sullen, idle adults wander dirt paths. There is no electricity, no clean water, no medicine, no schools. Fishing nets hang dry; dugout canoes sit unused on muddy banks. Decades of oil spills, acid rain from gas flares, and the stripping away of mangroves for pipelines have killed off fish.

Nigeria has been subverted by the very thing that gave it promise—oil, which accounts for 95 percent of the country’s export earnings and 80 percent of its revenue.

…The sense of relentless crisis has deepened since last year, when a secretive group of armed, hooded rebels operating under the name of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, intensified attacks on oil platforms and pumping stations, most operated by Shell Nigeria.

…With each disruption, the daily price of oil on the world market climbed. According to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, escalating violence in a region teeming with angry, frustrated people is creating a “militant time bomb.”
…Isaac Asume Osuoka, director of Social Action, Nigeria, believes that callousness toward the people of the delta stems from their economic irrelevance. “With all the oil money coming in, the state doesn’t need taxes from people. Rather than being a resource for the state, the people are impediments. There is no incentive anymore for the government to build schools or hospitals.”I can say this,” Osuoka said firmly. “Nigeria was a much better place without oil.”

Well, that’s just it. The poor people happen to be in the way, from the perspective of the very important people who would like to go about extracting Nigeria’s natural resources in peace and quiet, thank you very much.

No one can deny the sheer technological achievement of building an infrastructure to extract oil from a waterlogged equatorial forest. Intense swampy heat, nearly impenetrable mangrove thickets, swarming insects, and torrential downpours bedevil operations to this day. But mastering the physical environment has proved almost simple compared with dealing with the social and cultural landscape. The oil firms entered a region splintered by ethnic rivalries.

Ahh, yes, the impossible to please poor people and their interminable “ethnic rivalries.” That’s always a good justification. That way when the oil companies go in there to take over the natural resources and make life next to impossible for people who lived off the land, without providing any consolation prizes like electricity or clean water or schools or medicine, those damn poor people are bound to get all uppity and start causing trouble. Happens every time.

Who could have predicted??

“After 50 years, the oil companies are still searching for a way to operate successfully with communities,” says Antony Goldman, a London-based risk consultant. The delta is littered with failed projects started by oil companies and government agencies—water tanks without operating pumps, clinics with no medicine, schools with no teachers or books, fishponds with no fish. “The companies didn’t consult with villagers,” says Michael Watts, director of the African Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. “They basically handed out cash to chiefs. It wasn’t effective at all.”

A fifty fucking years learning curve? How about they know exactly what they’re doing. How about they do this on purpose. It’s a critical part of the business model to make the land inhospitable so that the people die or leave. The People Are In The Way. OK? That’s what’s going on. And everybody involved knows it. That’s why Hillary Clinton had to complain about all the corruption in Nigeria just this last week. It’s UNBELIEVABLE she says, making sure to mention patsy underpants. Yes, those corrupt Africans. Where do they get off?

^^^^^^^

Well, it’s like this. Those corrupt African leaders hook up with corrupt leaders from The West. One big happy family. Even Lev Leviev.

1. Former Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo came under fire for selecting Yar’Adua, knowing him to be sickly. He vehemently denied this. Perish the thought.

2. But, last May US investigators asserted that Obasanjo and others took millions of dollars in bribes from American and European contractors, including Halliburton, to allow the companies to build a liquid natural gas plant in Bonny. This scandal goes back years and ensnares various countries and Important People of The West.

3. Another of the accused in that very scandal, Sani Abacha, has been fighting Swiss authorities for ten years over an estimated three billion dollars misappropriated from Nigeria and stashed in Swiss bank accounts. The money laundering case has dragged on for so long with the help of people in London and elsewhere (see time line here). The Swiss authorities ordered $350 million to be returned to Nigeria last week. An unnamed person in Monaco has been charged.

4. France would like to invest in Imo state (look at the map), to help Nigeria branch out from their dependence on oil and gas. More like a twig than a branch…

5. Nigeria and Angola vie for top petroleum producer spot, and Angola has been able to pull ahead in 2009 due to the violence in Nigeria. Lucky break for the Angola investors.

6. Angola hydrocarbon sector investors: Lev Leviev, China, India…

7. To insure that all these deals will go along smoothly, Angola’s parliament prepares to expand the powers of the president, making him head of state, head of government, and head of the armed forces. The new constitution eliminates the position of prime minister and adds a vice president. VPs are always very useful. And the president may serve two five year terms. All of which contrasts markedly from the situation in Nigeria.

So it looks like Nigeria will be violently dismantled and reassembled somewhere down the road, after the “militants” take over the place and wreck havoc, and tie into some drug smuggling or terrorist operations against The People of The West, justifying some military intervention or something.

And Angola will go on to a brighter future, perhaps marred by the occasional terrorist incident but otherwise firmly in the grip of a sponsored dictatorship.

That’s how it goes in the big happy family.

excitement always follows lev leviev

Jan 28

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Banks, China, India, Israel, Minerals, Oil, Oligarchs | No Comments

1. Lev Leviev tied to Chinese intelligence, business interests in Angola — Sonagol

The suspicions were spelled out in a report recently compiled by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 2000 in order to “monitor, investigate and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.” The report noted, among other things, that the group of Chinese corporations has business ties with Israeli businessman and diamond magnate Lev Leviev.

Us ing the group, Chinese intelligence acquires oil and energy companies and other important assets in countries in Africa, Latin American, Southeast Asia, as well as in the United States. In this way it promotes Chinese national interests, increases its influence and guarantees the supply of raw materials - first and foremost oil - necessary for its economy.

…The Chinese companies are assisted in some of their international activities by the Angolan government, a rising economic power in Africa, and particularly its national oil company Sonangol. The report mentions three international businessmen connected to the Angolan-Chinese cooperation, with the help of a company called China-Sonangol, which is registered in Hong Kong. China-Sonangol is part of the 88 Queensway Group.

…One is Helder Battaglia, a Portuguese businessman with close ties to Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, as well as Chavez and Kirchner. Battaglia has varied investments in Angola, Congo and Latin America. The second is Pierre Falcone, a French businessman who was Arcadi Gaydamak’s partner, and together with Gaydamak was involved in supplying arms to the tune of about $800 million to Angola in the 1990s. Falcone, Gaydamak and others were recently convicted in a French court for illegal arms trade conducted in the ’90s. In recent years, Falcone moved the main center of his business to Beijing, and has become the person who opens Angola’s doors to China (for huge fees). Gaydamak is not mentioned at all in the report; it is known that he is at odds with Falcone and the two are embroiled in legal proceedings over the profits of the arms deal.

The third businessman mentioned in the American report is Lev Leviev, who was Gaydamak’s partner and who according to the report continues to have a strong standing in Angola, where he has mines, diamond polishing plants and a diamond trade company.

more @ haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1145688.html

2. India, Angola agree to cooperation for hydrocarbon sector — there’s Sonagol again

Luanda (Angola), Jan 27: India and Angola on Wednesday said that the two countries will enter into Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide an overarching framework for cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector.

…During the meeting a MoU was signed between ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) and the National Oil Company of Angola namely, Sonangol, for cooperation in the exploration sector.

OVL, which is partnering Sonangol in their South Pars acreage in Iran, offered to enter joint venture operations in the existing deep-water blocks of Sonangol.

more @ newkerala.com

3. China-based Singapore firms rapidly collapsing amidst debt and fraud — time to buy some cheap assets?

Since late 2007, a spate of so-called S-chips - mainland companies listed on the Singapore exchange - have borrowed money then failed to repay the debts, with some becoming mired in fraud scandals….Not surprisingly, global investment banks have been involved in pushing the S-chips’ debt onto investors.

banks involved include Deutsche, Morgan Stanley.  - ed.

read more @ businessinsider


rich and famous

Jan 5

Posted by A. Peasant in 9-11, CIA, Kuwait, Oligarchs, Putin, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand | No Comments

1. dying to escape: the desperation of Kuwait’s abused maids

KUWAIT: Thirteen suicides of migrant workers were documented in Kuwait in November 2009 alone by Migrant Rights, an international organization for migrant workers. According to the Migrant Rights webpage, not a week goes by in Kuwait without a report about a maid setting herself on fire, hanging herself, drinking detergent, or mysteriously ‘falling’ from a roof or balcony.

…Elena, who sustained multiple bone fractures, in her hands, hips and legs in the fall, is scheduled to undergo a major operation today. Her sponsors, meanwhile, turned up at the hospital not out of concern for her, but to tell her that they had filed a case against her for attempted suicide and for stealing valuables, although the few goods that Elena has are inside her suitcase - which they packed and brought to the hospital with them for her.

My sponsor gave the bag to me; it’s in my [hospital] locker right now, but I haven’t opened it yet,” Elena said. “My madam told me that I took valuable things from their house and that she has filed a case with the police against me. I’m not worried because I don’t do such things. There is a [security] camera inside their house anyway, so how could I steal valuables?

read more @ kuwait times

2. Johnson and Johnson heiress dead at 30 from suspected drug overdose

The heiress to one of the world’s largest business empires has died of a suspected drugs overdose aged just 30. Casey Johnson, whose family founded the £110 billion Johnson and Johnson pharmaceuticals giant, was found dead at her Los Angeles home.

…’It appears to be a natural death. There’s no evidence of foul play. A toxicology report from the coroner’s office will proceed next,’ she said…Ms Johnson was known to have a history of drug abuse, and reports in the US say she may have been dead for a number of days before her body was found.

3. CIA reportedly ordered murder of 911 suspect in Hamburg
A CIA assassination team reportedly targeted a Syrian-German man living in Hamburg after he was connected to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. According to the latest edition of Vanity Fair magazine, the US spy agency wanted to liquidate Mamoun Darkazanli, who is thought to have been a financier for the Islamist terror network Al-Qaida. Intelligence officials in Washington even farmed out the hit to a squad of contract killers, but the deed was never carried out.

“The CIA team supposedly went in ‘dark,’ meaning they did not notify their own station – much less the German government – of their presence,” the magazine wrote in article about Erik Prince, the founder of the notorious security firm Blackwater. “They then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down.”

read more @ the local

4. Saudi envoy to see Thai PM — prolly wants the family jewels back

Saudi charge d’affaires to Thailand Nabil Hussein Ashri will pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva at Government House next Monday to ask about progress made in the investigation of the disappearance of Saudi businessmen Mohammad al-Ruwaili, acting government spokesman Panithan Wattanayagorn said on Tuesday.

Mr Panithan said the meeting between the Saudi envoy and Mr Abhisit was a good sign that Thai-Saudi relations might be about to improve because much progress has been made in the investigation into the disappearance of al-Ruwaili, a relative of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.

read more @ bangkok post

5. Boris Berezovsky deep in hot water - docs seized in Brazil being sent to Russia

Minister Celso de Mello, of the Supreme Court, confirmed the decision that authorized federal courts to deliver justice to Russia which are documents and equipment of Boris Abramovich Berezovsky seized in Brazil in 2006. A partner of Media Sports Investment (MSI) in the Sport Club Corinthians Paulista 2004 to 2007, Boris Berezovsky is accused of the crimes of money laundering and conspiracy in Brazil which is also being investigated in Russia.

Boris Berezovsky’s defense attorney filed a Habeas Corpus in the Supreme Court to try to prevent the delivery of the documents and computers seized from the businessman to Russian authorities. The order to deliver the documents and equipment came from Judge Fausto de Sanctis, of the 6th Federal Vara of São Paulo, at the behest of the Prosecutor of the Russian Federation.

read more @ pravda


6. October 2007: Berezovsky is arch-rival of Roman Abramovich, who lately has been very complimentary of Putin kiss kiss hug hug

It was a modern-day clash of the Titans - two of the richest men in the world locking horns in a bitter row over their huge egos and even bigger fortunes. Shoppers in London’s exclusive Sloane Street watched in amazement as Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and his deadliest business rival Boris Berezovsky played out a scene more reminiscent of a gangster movie.

Berezovsky, a one-time business partner of Abramovich in three major Russian companies, had been trying for six months to serve a £5 billion writ on him - and yesterday he finally got his chance. Flanked by three bodyguards, Berezovsky - who was granted political asylum in Britain four years ago after fleeing Russia in the face of embezzlement charges - had been shopping in the designer store Dolce & Gabbana. And as he was leaving, he spotted his sworn enemy in the Hermes store two doors away. Berezovsky, 61, immediately ordered one of his burly bodyguards to fetch the writ from his £300,000 Maybach limousine parked nearby. But as he tried to enter the shop with the document, his path was blocked by Abramovich’s three SAS-trained security men. As a scuffle ensued between the two sets of rival bodyguards, Berezovsky forced open the door and barged his way in to confront an ashen-faced Abramovich.

turning the screws in Colorado

Dec 15

Posted by A. Peasant in Corruption & Crime, Iraq, Minerals, Oil, Oligarchs, Russia | No Comments

Several companies did very well in the latest Iraq oil auction, especially Russia and China. American companies…not so much.

A Petronas-Shell alliance got the highly coveted Majnoon (reserves of more than 12 billion barrels, projected output of 1.8 million bpd), near the Iranian border. Russia’s Lukoil (85%), with junior partner Statoil (15%), got phase 2 of the immense West Qurna (located 65 kilometers northwest of Basra; about 12 billion barrels of reserves; projected production of 1.8 million bpd) - which in theory it had already bagged under Saddam Hussein. When Lukoil was stripped of its contract by Saddam, it blamed US-instigated United Nations sanctions, while Saddam blamed Lukoil itself.

…What the early 2010s will definitely see is the rise of a relatively wealthy, Shi’ite-controlled Iraq friendly with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Essentially, Shi’ite Islam on the rise. The US-friendly autocracies and dictatorships in the Gulf will cry again, “It’s the return of the Shi’ite crescent!” United States think-tanks may be tempted to define Maliki as the new Saddam. The only difference is that by then, Cheney and company will be safely ensconced in the dustbin of history.

So, you know, people can debate whether the new power configuration in Iraq is an accident, but power configurations don’t happen by accident. They might look like accidents, but that means accidentally on purpose, in order to gas up the tank on the Hegelian Mindfuck Endless Conflict for Fun and Profit bus for another World Tour.

And so what if Dick Cheney doesn’t like it? That doesn’t mean somebody else isn’t loving it and planning to make a bloody fortune. These people are cut-throats and Dick had his turn, he’s out of power, and he can try as he might to throw his weight around still or maybe he should just go be his cold-blooded retired reptile self back in Wyoming and enjoy, if that’s the word, whatever life he has left, laying around on a stone wall or something, while his enemies fuck with the people of the world. Like I said, they take turns and his turn ended.

Speaking of people making bloody fortunes…this Lukoil might be worth watching as it connects back to some other topics of interest like oligarchs, diamonds, and Colorado. Yup! More Intersecting Circles. I’m sure Lev Leviev must be around here someplace…

Jul 23, 2009 (MENA News from Al-Bawaba via COMTEX) — Court documents and testimony, presented recently in the Colorado District Court in Denver, expose substantial new evidence that LUKoil has operated a significant business in the state.

The new evidence, secret until now, stretches back for ten years, and shows a flow of cash every month from an alleged front company in Colorado to a LUKoil company in Israel.

The evidence reinforces the likelihood that LUKoil and its Russian subsidiary, Arkhangelskgeoldobycha (AGD), will be ordered to face trial on charges of defrauding Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) of its rights to develop the Grib diamond mine project.

In addition to its stake in the future Grib diamond mine project, ADC’s biggest current asset is its US lawsuit against LUKoil. This claims recovery of $30 million in investment, $400 million in ADC’s share of profits, and another $800 million in potential profits.

The newly disclosed evidence appears in a transcript of court proceedings on May 12; the transcript was made available after diamond giant De Beers attempted to halt the court case, and put ADC into bankruptcy.

Jonathan Oppenheimer and Gareth Penny have been asked to explain why they appear determined to stop the legal proceedings against LUKoil and AGD, now that, according to the latest evidence, they are close to a judicial order to commence trial. They refuse to respond.

The new evidence was presented to District Judge Anne Mansfield by ADC’s lawyer, Bruce Marks, a specialist on Russian racketeering. Marks presented the judge with invoices, and claimed that since 1998 until the present, LUKoil has been using a local company called DS Engineering to bill thousands of dollars every month for engineering and other services performed for LUKoil.

DS Engineering, Marks said, was “nothing more than a pass-through account.” Cash was moved in both directions, he added - from Colorado to Moscow, and from Moscow to Colorado. Documents for one month, October 2001, showed $32,000 in cash invoiced and paid by LUKoil for running a variety of business operations in Colorado.

LUKoil’s attorney, Frederick Baumann, told the judge in the hearing “there is no contact whatsoever between the facts of the plaintiff s claims and the State of Colorado.”

Judge Mansfield disagreed. On May 12, she overruled LUKoil’s objections, and ordered that “LUKOIL shall produce all information and documents responsive to all ADC s interrogatories and requests for production

If the judge had dismissed ADC’s application, the court case would have had little chance of succeeding. However, the May 12 orders apply serious pressure on LUKoil either to disclose, and risk trial on the substance of ADC’s charges; or else to negotiate a settlement on ADC’s terms. This in turn has renewed the pressure on diamond giant De Beers to call off its attempt to liquidate ADC.

Well, to get serious (ahem), the oligarchs in question are Vagit Alekperov and Alisher Usmanov, as explained here this week by John Helmer.

Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) has re-emerged from a bankruptcy proceeding initiated earlier this year by De Beers, to launch new charges in the Colorado state court against Russian oil company LUKoil, and well-known Russian oligarchs, Vagit Alekperov (lead bearer) and Alisher Usmanov (2nd bearer).

ADC is now being directed by a group of minority stakeholders, led by US attorney Bruce Marks; former board director, Clive Hartz; and the Firebird Global Master Fund of New York, with a stake of about 18%. De Beers owns 56% of ADC’s shares.
The new filing was lodged in the Denver city and county court for Colorado on November 24. It charges LUKoil, one of Russia’s largest oil companies, with racketeering, fraud, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy. Set out in detail is an alleged scheme by which LUKoil used Colorado, local companies, and at least a dozen Colorado employees to smuggle large sums of cash into Russia. The scheme has been revealed in order to buttress ADC’s claims that the Colorado court has jurisdiction over LUKoil to try the 11-year diamond mine case.

The new court papers charge that from March 1999 until now LUKoil has used a Colorado front company, DS Engineering, as “the fulcrum of illegal cash smuggling schemes in which the Lukoil Colorado Employees carried cash from Colorado to Russia, in amounts averaging $40,000 per month, totaling over $6 million.
…In other words, DS Engineering paid millions of dollars to Lukoil Israel which it then billed Lukoil Israel for reimbursement. Upon information and belief, this “circle” of monies paid to Lukoil Israel for “services” was wired to a different bank account from which DS Engineering received payment from Lukoil Israel and may constitute some type of fraud. Upon information and belief, Lukoil Israel never provided DS Engineering any invoices or billings which provided any substantive description of the services purportedly provided for the more than $3 million which DS Engineering wired out to Lukoil Israel from its bank account in Colorado.”

…the Cash Smuggling Schemes involved over 25 Lukoil Colorado Employees making over 1,000 separate trips over a ten year period smuggling over $6 million.

Et cetera.

But, for the record, Lukoil does tie back to Lev Leviev. (Doesn’t everything?) Lukoil owned one of the two diamond suppliers that Leviev needed to secure for his consolidated diamond business.

12/07: Israeli entrepreneur Lev Leviev is planning to consolidate his Russian diamond interests, creating a vertically integrated mining, manufacturing, and retailing group which will be offered for public shareholding subscription. According to Leviev’s Moscow representative, Valery Morozov, the assets to be combined include the small alluvial mining concern, Uralalmaz; Ruis Diamonds, Leviev’s Moscow manufacturing plant; Kama Kristall, a smaller cutting plant in Perm; and the Moscow jewellery plant. …It is clearly in Leviev’s interest to assure his rough supplies by taking equity stakes in new Sakha mines, or in one of the two diamond projects in Arkhangelsk region - Lomonosov controlled by Alrosa, or Verkhotina controlled by LUKoil. He has made moves in each of these directions, and courted some well-known Russian asset raiders.

What does it mean? Damned if I know. Just noticing I guess. But if I were to venture a guess, and I’m not saying I am, it looks like some more interference with the oligarch business model.

these guys get around

Nov 10

Posted by A. Peasant in Identities, Israel, Mossad, Oligarchs, Russia | No Comments

This is what a double agent spy looks like (it’s the short one).

credit & caption:

Mindaugas Kulbis / The Associated Press

Kalmanovich watching his Spartak team play in a 2006 Euroleauge match.

MOSCOW — Shabtai Kalmanovich, a patron of the arts and sports, a wealthy businessman and a double agent who worked for the KGB and Israel’s Shin Bet, was laid to rest at a cemetery in Petakh Tikva, near Tel Aviv, on Thursday.

Kalmanovich, 60, was gunned down in central Moscow last Monday in an apparent contract hit that authorities said might be connected to a debt deal gone bad or an ongoing gangster turf war.

Laid to rest in Israel. I guess that puts to rest any confusion about his true loyalties.

A sports promoter, a show business producer and a spy for Soviet intelligence, [???] Kalmanovich had the reputation of a smooth operator and was a friend to many people, from comedians to politicians.

…Unknown gunmen opened fire on Kalmanovich’s Mercedes from a passing silver Lada on Monday on Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya. Kalmanovich, who was heading to a business meeting, was hit 10 times and died on the spot.

…Law enforcement officials said the death might be linked to a gangland war that broke out after notorious gangster Vyacheslav Ivankov died last month of injuries sustained in a July shooting. Kalmanovich was a friend of Ivankov and supported his attempts to dominate rival gangs, national media reported this week.

“I want you to know that I am proud and always will be proud of being your daughter,” his daughter, Liat, said in her eulogy, Israel’s Ynetnews agency reported. “You did not put me to shame. You were a spirited Jew and an ardent Zionist.”

…In 1988, he was arrested in Israel on charges of spying for the Soviet Union and spent five years in prison. Kalmanovich repeatedly said in interviews that he was not ashamed of working for Soviet intelligence but that he had been “brainwashed” by Soviet propaganda into offering his services.

…Kalmanovich returned to Russia in 1993 after receiving a pardon from Israeli President Chaim Herzog on medical reasons. [brainwashing fixed and reversed?! time to atone?? - ed.]

…Together with Kobzon and show producer Alexander Dostman, Kalmanovich founded the now-defunct Liat-Natali entertainment group, which organized concerts featuring foreign stars. Kalmanovich brought to Moscow top performers like Michael Jackson, Tom Jones, Liza Minnelli and the Gipsy Kings.

Kalmanovich said he made most of his money in South Africa, where he had befriended Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope, the ruler of Bophuthatswana, a black homeland that apartheid-era South Africa recognized as a sovereign nation but the rest of the world viewed as a puppet state.

…The Russian Basketball Federation — whose board includes Russian Technologies head Sergei Chemezov and Federal Customs Service chief Andrei Belyaninov, both former KGB officers — praised Kalmanovich on its web site as the person “connected with the recent successes of female basketball.”

Now about his friend Ivankov:

Vyacheslav Ivankov — aka “Little Japanese” — was leaving the Thai Elephant in Moscow in July when a sniper shot him three times in the stomach. The 69-year-old Russian Mafia boss spent months in the hospital before succumbing to his wounds last week. …Police believe he was murdered for trying to settle a beef between two warring Moscow crime factions.

During his career, Ivankov specialized in gun-running, racketeering, drug trafficking and extortion, both in Russia and the U.S. He spent 11 years in a Russian prison on a robbery conviction in 1980. A year after he was released in 1991, he moved to America — but didn’t end his criminal ways…Police say he preyed upon fellow Russian immigrants in the Brighton Beach section of New York, and helped divvy up the U.S. into autonomous turfs to avoid conflict.

…Police believe he died after trying to settle a dispute between rival factions run by Tariel Oniani and Aslan Usoyan. Ivankov supposedly backed Usoyan, which left Oniani inclined to shoot someone.

Preying upon his fellow Russian immigrants? I guess his loyalties rested elsewhere (cough).

OK, moving on. This is the guy left standing so far in this gangter war: Tariel Oniani. (links removed, click through for links and full details)

By “Hollander” (Hollander is the nickname of a poster to the Mobbed Up forum)
Posted on March 6, 2009 Copyright © www.gangstersinc.nl

In July last year Russian police used a dramatic helicopter raid to detain dozens of reputed crime bosses known as “thieves-in-law,” gathered on a yacht at a reservoir outside Moscow. ..Most of the more than three dozen suspected gang leaders detained in the raid were later released because of a lack of evidence. Among those detained, according to media reports, was Tariel Oniani, an ethnic Georgian with a reputation as one of the most powerful crime bosses in the Soviet Union.

Some speculated that Tariel Oniani, had organized the meeting to discuss a conflict with a rival crime boss, Aslan Usoyan. … Usoyan gathered his supporters, including Vyacheslav Ivankov, known as Yaponchik, for a May 2 meeting in Krasnodar, newspaper Kommersant reported. …Authorities have accused them [the 'thieves-in-law'] of ordering contract killings and carrying out kidnappings and innumerable financial crimes.

…An influential “thief-in-law” in the Moscow of the 1980s, he moved to Paris in the 1990s and later to Spain, when criminal charges were brought against him in France. He ran a construction business on the Mediterranean coast, apparently employing an illegal Georgian work force and investing in real estate for money-laundering purposes. After the police failed to arrest Oniani in Spain in the summer of 2005, an international warrant was issued against him. The Spanish police undertook a large-scale operation but he managed to escape. They conducted some 50 searches in Barcelona, Alicante, and at the resorts of Marbella and Torremolinos where offices of Tariel Oniani’s companies were situated. In September of 2005, hardly three months after the operation, intelligence services were alerted that Oriani had issued an order to assassinate the ones in charge of the investigation, the judge and the public prosecutor. (Some background information on the Spanish angle here. - ed.)

Months later, in May, Oniani’s business partner Zakhar Knyazevich Kalashov, the man considered to be the leader of the Russian mafia in Spain, was arrested in Dubai. Knyazevich well known as Shakro Junior arrived on the Costa Blanca at the end of the 1990s, then later spent time on the Costa del Sol and in Cataluña. The criminals had established a network of bars and restaurant chains on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, and also trafficked luxury cars to launder money from criminal activities in the former Soviet Union. Knyazevich who was brought back onto Spanish soil on board a military aircraft, fled Spain, when 28 members of his organisation were arrested, and 800 bank accounts were frozen. Several international arrest warrants have been issued for the man linked to killings and drug trafficking. In november 2006 Spanish police arrested nine other gang members including Ukrainian national Oleg Vorontsov, a former advisor to ex-president Boris Yeltsin, who led the crime ring after the arrest of Knyazevich.

…In the last 15 years the thieves-in-law have spread around the world, from Moscow to Madrid to Berlin and Brooklyn. They are involved in everything from petty theft to billion-dollar money laundering schemes, while also acting as unofficial jurists among conflicting Russian criminal factions. When the Soviet Union fell, they emerged from the broken country’s peripheries to exploit the legal chaos. By all accounts, they infiltrated the top political and economic circles.

NoooooH!

intersecting circles

Nov 4

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Corruption & Crime, Israel, Minerals, Oligarchs, Putin, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand | No Comments

Bearing in mind yesterday’s post about Dmitry Karlik, the Russian immigrant who murdered a family of six that lived across from the Chabad Lubavitch shul in Rishon Letzion, Israel, a case which has “rocked the entire nation” of Israel although good luck finding any news about it, and which is now under the personal jurisdiction of Benjamin Netanyahu and Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch…..

I am going to show you some other things in the news. I don’t know if these things are connected. I’m just showing them to you. Circles intersect. Big circles, little circles. They intersect and if you keep looking you can start to see patterns and people in the intersecting circles.

First some background on Chabad Lubavitch and Russia:

While ordinary Chabadniks often describe Vladimir Putin as an evil thug, the Chabad leadership basks in its relationship with him. This contradiction has complex roots.

…In order to assure the choice of Lubavitcher Berel Lazar as Russian Chief Rabbi, Putin worked closely with wealthy Russian Jewish baal tshuvah Lev Leviev and with the Putin-friendly Russian Jewish oligarch Roman Abramovich, who was close to Georgian Jewish Oligarch Badri Patarkatsishvili, who until his death led the opposition to the Neocon-supported Saakashvili regime in Georgia.

…Lubavitchers like many Jewish groups are totally convinced of their moral superiority to non-Jews and rarely feel any remorse or connection to anti-Gentile crimes that arise out of Jewish politics and business practices…

There’s much there to read so go take a look. Anyway, the Lev Leviev and diamonds angle gets further pursued here:

Leviev built his enormous fortune trading diamonds with Apartheid-era South Africa. His company mines diamonds in partnership with the repressive Angolan government. New York Magazine reported in 2007 that in Angola, “A security company contracted by Leviev was accused… of participating in practices of ‘humiliation, whipping, torture, sexual abuse, and, in some cases, assassinations.’” Also, according to the diamond industry watchdog Partnership Africa Canada, Angola and Leviev have failed to fully comply with the Kimberley Process.

…Leviev runs a global commercial empire that includes: Leviev Group of Companies; Lev Leviev Diamonds; Africa-Israel (commercial real estate in Prague and London); Gottex (swimwear) Company; 1,700 Fina gas stations in the Southwest U.S.; 173 7-Elevens in New Mexico and Texas; a 33% stake in Cross Israel Highway (Israel’s first toll road); and more. Leviev partner Arcady Gaydamak, an arms dealer, also reportedly works with Danny Yatom, a former MOSSAD (Israeli secret service) chief and security advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Leviev is connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and to Sandline International, a U.K./South African mercenary firm operating in the war-torn areas of Eastern Congo and Uganda.

…Diamonds are Israel’s top export. In 2005 figures, exports to the EU totaled $10.7 billion in 2004, including $2.5 billion in diamonds (23.3%); exports to the US totaled $14.2 billion in 2004, including $7.3 billion in diamonds (51.4%); exports to Asia totaled $7.1 billion in 2004, including $3.2 billion in diamonds (45.0%); exports to the rest of the world totaled $6.6 billion in 2004, including $800 million in diamonds (12.1%).

…Millions of blood diamonds from past and current wars remain locked in the vaults of the Belgian, Russian, New York, London and Israeli diamond bourses to insure the artificially high, monopoly-fixed, prices of diamonds.

And, of course, Lev Leviev and the Chabad Lubavitch are connected, too. In fact he was the guest speaker at the International Conference of Chabad Shluchim in November 2007.

http://lubavitch.com/news/article/2021012/Interview-Lev-Leviev-Guest-Speaker-at-International-Conference-of-Chabad-Shluchim.html

Israel takes the long vision and stakes its claim on the next generation of Forbes millionaires if it ensures that the Jewish child in Rio or in Rome has a healthy Jewish identity, says the Chairman of Africa Israel Investments, an international holding and investment company valued in the billions. When this child later succeeds in business, chances are he’ll invest in Israel before he does so anywhere else.

Lev Leviev, one of eight children, was born in 1956, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to Avner and Chana Leviev, prominent members of the Bukharan Jewish community.

In 1971 his family emigrated from Uzbekistan to Israel, where Lev attended the Chabad yeshiva, and soon turned to polishing diamonds. Today, he is on Forbes’s richest in-the-world list, and one of the leading philanthropists of Jewish education through the worldwide Chabad network.

And from the Q&A:

Q. What, in your opinion, is the greatest problem that plagues the Jewish people today?

Assimilation.

So here are the main circles: Chabad, Russia, Israel, Lev Leviev, diamonds…

Now other topics of interest lately around here have included Saudi Arabia and Thailand, and those circles intersect with other circles, among them Israel, intelligence agencies, corruption, and child trafficking. But meanwhile it turns out that Saudi Arabia and Thailand intersect very specifically: they have been in a diplomatic kerfuffle over some stolen jewelry, particularly a blue diamond, and a few dead diplomats, for about 20 years now. Allright???

Does any of this link back to Russia, Chabad and diamonds? Who knows. But if it did, do you think anyone with any authority will point that out? Ha haahahahahah. That’s the trouble. The circles might intersect but unless somebody takes the time to lay the circles on top of each other so you can see where they overlap, or even just touch, it’s all just random coincidences, in isolation, signifying nothing. And furthermore, anyone pointing out such suspicious coincidences is known as a “conspiracy theorist.” hahahhahahaha. Too much fun. With a little money and power, you can get away with murder!

Let’s take a look. Today the Bangkok Post reported:

The South Bangkok Criminal Court on Wednesday rejected the prosecution’s application that declare a Saudi businessman who has not been seen since 1990 a legally missing person.

The petition was filed with the court on Sept 2 this year at the request of the Department of Special Investigation to clear the way for the businessman’s family to manage his assets.

The court denied the request on the grounds the prosecution had only one witness, Pol Lt-Col Benjapol Chanthawan, a DSI expert on special cases, who testified that Mohammad al-Ruwaili came to live in Thailand to run a business in 1985 and had disappeared on Feb 12, 1990.

…The petitioner also did not produce any important witnesses, such as the missing man’s wife or relatives, to confirm to the court that al-Ruwaili had disappeared.

…Also, there were no documents to confirm that al-Ruwaili had not left the country. The only document submitted to the court was a copy of the police complaint that the businessman was missing.

Additional details from September:

Mohammad al-Ruwaili, a shareholder in the job placement firm Sincere International Recruitment Co, has been presumed dead since February 1990.

The man and his wife came to Thailand five years before he went missing. They rented a room at Sriwattana Apartment in soi Yen Akas, in Yannawa district of Bangkok, and ran the job placement firm.

The missing man was seen in a car with Saudi consul Abdullah al-Besri on Feb 12, 1990, and was reported missing three days later.

His car was found abandoned in the Bangkok Christian Hospital’s parking lot.

The consul was murdered after he was seen with al-Ruwaili.

It was widely suspected that al-Ruwaili was kidnapped by police investigating the Saudi consul’s murder, and that he was tortured and later killed by his captors to cover up their brutal actions.

The businessman’s disappearance and the consul’s murder followed the killing of three other Saudi diplomats were in separate shootings on Feb 1, 1989. One of the diplomats, Saleh Abdullah al-Maliki, third secretary at the Saudi embassy in Bangkok, was shot dead in front of his home in soi Pipat 1.

And before that, in August, a new lead all of a sudden:

Abu Ali, where are you? The “Arab man” - the description given by the Department of Special Investigation - is being sought by the DSI for suspected involvement in shooting to death a Saudi Arabian diplomat 19 years ago.

Less than a year before the cases hit the 20-year statute of limitations on investigations, the name of Abu Ali came out of nowhere on Wednesday as a new suspect. [This important development was also reported in The Nation. -ed.]

…Since the murder case, Thailand has had 12 prime ministers, starting with Gen Prem Tinsulanonda at the time to Abhisit Vejjajiva, and 11 police chiefs (make it 12 in October after police commander Pol Gen Patcharawat Wongsuwon retires next month). For Saudi Arabia, the name of the interior minister has not changed over the past two decades. Back then it was Prince Nayef. Today it is till the same prince.

Thailand officials…elevating foot-dragging to an art form. Perhaps the only people better at foot-dragging are the Israelis working on “peace” with the Palestinians. But that is just an observation that Thailand and Israel seem to share certain characteristics like brazen corruption and insularity.

This is what happened to kick the whole thing off:

In 1989, Kriangkrai Techamong, a Thai employee working in a Saudi Royal household, stole about US$20 million worth of jewelry, including an infamous Blue Diamond, and shipped the goods to Bangkok [in a crate of apples - ed.] before boarding his own flight back home.

When three Saudi diplomats were sent to Thailand to solve the case, they were gunned down, and a Saudi businessman was kidnapped and killed. The Saudis had enough and banished all Thai workers.

That did not deter Thai authorities or the league of involved officials in the theft, distribution, resale and subsequent shipment of the jewels after they were recovered – sort of, back to Saudi Arabia. However, 75 percent of the returned jewelry turned out fake including the Blue Diamond.

Anyone can flip up the popular online video site YouTube and see where at least someone thinks the Blue Diamond is, but Thai authorities claim not to know. It may be gone forever. But the case lingers on. [I can't find the video. -ed]

The Saudi gems, diplomats and murdered businessman cases take an even more bizarre tone when one engages in conjecture over why Saudi Arabia has mellowed a bit over time even though the jewels have not been located nor the murderers caught. One theory is the Gulf rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, wherein the Saudi kingdom finds Iran’s growing influence in Thailand a disadvantage to its relations with Thailand.

So it seems that corrupt police in Thailand got the jewels, transferred them to safer hands, and murdered the Saudis sent to investigate. Serious business.

One person believed to know what happened is Chalor Kerdthes. This story is from April 2008:

Justice Minister Sompong Amornwiwat on Thursday paid a visit to Bangkok’s Klong Prem Prison, where Police Lieutenant General Chalor Kerdthes, a key player in the Saudi jewelry case, has been an inmate for the past 14 years.

Chalor, a former deputy commissioner of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) who was put in charge of the Saudi case in 1990, is serving a life-sentence for the abduction and murder of the wife of Santi Srithanakhan, a Thai gem trader who was believed to be involved in the disappearance of Saudi Prince Faisal’s jewelry including a “priceless” Blue Diamond in 1989.

Apparently that didn’t pan out. Last month a Chalor received a death sentence:

Thailand’s Supreme Court yesterday upheld a death sentence for a former senior policeman who abducted and murdered a gem merchant’s wife and son as he investigated the theft of Saudi royal jewellery. Ex-police commissioner Chalor Kerdthes was convicted of the abduction and murder in 1994 of the family members of Santi Srithanakhan, who had bought some of the jewellery stolen in a notorious heist from a Saudi prince’s palace. The prosecution argued that Chalor abducted the pair to pressure the merchant into revealing the whereabouts of the lavish gems, worth $20 million.

Now for some circles:

Thailand belongs – beside Israel – to the few countries on earth that can afford to have no full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. Most readers won’t be aware why Thailand ostracizes Saudi Arabia. Wait, it’s the other way round. Saudi Arabia is still waiting for justice. Prime Minister Abhisit wants to draw a line under the decades old case and normalize relations with the Saudis. After 19 years – finally? – an arrest warrant is issued. The whole saga began in 1989, in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

More precisely, in the palace of Prince Faisal, son of King Fahd. The palace employed a Thai house servant, Kriangkrai Taechamong, whose job included cleaning the room where the Prince and his family stored their jewels. Well, those jewels went missing and soon it turned out that they had been distributed among some influential people at the top of Thai society. At parties and receptions some of those missing jewels were seen in Thai cleavages. And many of these people would not stop at killing to protect themselves.

Riiight. So they’re not missing, exactly. It’s just that whoever has them does not want to return them. And they are not too worried seeing that this has gone on for twenty years. Who are these “influential people at the top of Thai society” who can wear the notorious stolen jewels in public and thumb their noses at Saudi Arabia? And how could it be that Saudi Arabia couldn’t do a workaround in all these years. I mean it’s not like the Saudis are little lambs. There’s got to be something else going on here in the power equation. And wouldn’t we love to know. Here are some tidbits from a timeline:

1990 - “At a gala dinner in Bangkok soon after the incident, wives of the Thai generals and leading politicians fiercely competed in showing off their jewelry. The Thai newspapers’ photographers caught pictures showing diamond necklaces belonging to the Saudi royal family. The pictures were shown to Saudi officials who also confirmed its similarity. The Thai ladies, however, denied their authenticity.” (Another?) sighting of the jewels is alleged to have occurred at a Red Cross event (date unspecified).

3/2008 - “Two Muslim experts” who have a good relationship with Saudi Arabia appointed to serve as advisors to DSI investigators in charge of the cases.

late 2008 - SDI Director Thawee reports that 90 percent of the investigation has been completed.

anonymous comment - The timeline is missing the various instances where XXX XXXXX wore the Blue Diamond in public.

Somebody has to hold the bag while the ladies wear those jewels.

Staff at the Saudi embassy and some outsiders were suspects but the court dropped all charges against them. Pol Col Tawee said DSI officials believed the murders could have resulted from conflicts between Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East.

Judging by their “theories,” the DSI investigators would appear to have ruled out the possibility that the murders of the Saudi diplomats had some connection with the efforts of the Saudi diplomats to investigate the theft of the jewels (There is little doubt that the jewels were stolen by the police). By the sound of it, the Thai police are off the hook for these murders.

I’ve read several comments on discussion boards, etc. to the effect that “everyone” knows who has the blue diamond but amazingly nobody will speak the name. Allegedly the former prime minister’s wife has been seen wearing it. Yet the cone of silence surrounds it.

And the circles continue intersecting. They connect to the economic crisis, to Iran, to the WTO…. they just go on and on like ripples across a festering swamp.