Nexus - 0802 - New Times Magazine-pages

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A DIRECT DRUG LINK TO DICK CHENEY "...He [the former KGB agent] reported that there was evidence The CPI report entitled "Cheney Led Halliburton to Feast at ‘regarding [Alfa Bank's] involvement with the money laundering Federal Trough", written by veteran journalists Knut Royce and of...Latin American drug cartels’." Nathaniel Heller, describes how, under five years of Cheney's It then becomes harder for Cheney and Halliburton to assert leadership, Halliburton, largely through subsidiary Brown & mere coincidence in all of this, as CPI reported that Tyumen's lead Root, enjoyed $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer- Washington attorney, James C. Langdon, Jr, at the firm of Aikin insured loans. The loans had been granted by the Export-Import Gump, "...helped coordinate a $2.2 million fundraiser for Bush Bank (EXIM) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation this June. He then agreed to help recruit 100 lawyers and lobby- (OPIC). According to Ralph McGehee's CIA Base, both institu- ists in the capital to raise $25,000 each for W's campaign." tions are heavily infiltrated by the CIA and routinely provide The heroin mentioned in the CPI story originated in Laos, NOC to its officers. where longtime Bush allies and covert warriors Richard Armitage One of those loans, to Russian financial/banking conglomerate and retired CIA ADDO (Associate Deputy Director of The Alfa Group of Companies, Operations) Ted Shackley have been contained $292 million to pay for repeatedly linked to the drug trade. Brown & Root's contract to refurbish It then made its way across Southeast a Siberian oil field owned by the H , Asia to Vietnam, probably the port Russian Tyumen Oil Company. The Under five years of Cheney s of Haiphong. Then the heroin was Alfa Group completed its per cent leadership, Halliburton, wiped to Rus a's Pacilic port or acquisition 0 umen Oil in what Par adivostok, from where it was sub- was allegedly - rigged bidding largely through subsidiary sequently bounced across Siberia by process in 1998. An official Russian Brown & Root, enjoyed rail and then by truck or rail to Government report claims that The Air . Europe, passing through the hands of Alfa Group's top executives, oligarchs $3.8 billion In federal contracts Russian Mafia leaders in Chechnya Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven, and taxpayer-insured loans. and Azerbaijan. Chechnya and "allegedly participated in the transit of Azerbaijan are hotbeds of both drugs from Southeast Asia through Russia and into Europe". These same and Brown & Root has operations all executives, Fridman and Aven, who along this route. reportedly smuggled the heroin in connection with Russia's As described in previous issues of FTW, this long, expensive Solntsevo mob family, were the same ones who applied for the and tortuous path was hastily established after President George EXIM loans that Halliburton's lobbying later safely secured. As a Bush's personal envoy Richard Armitage, holding the rank of result, Brown & Root's work in Alfa Tyumen oil fields could Amb: dor, had travelled to the former Soviet Union to assist it armed conflict and oil exploration, continue—and expand. with its "economic development" in 1989. The obstacles, then, to After describing how organised criminal interests in The Alfa a more direct, profitable and efficient route from Afghanistan and Group had allegedly stolen the oil field by fraud, the CPI story— Pakistan through Turkey into Europe were a cohesive using official reports from the FSB (the Russian equivalent of the | Yugoslavian/Serbian Government controlling the Balkans and FBI), oil companies such as BP-Amoco, former CIA and KGB continuing instability in the Golden Crescent of Pakistan/ officers and press accounts—then established a solid link to Alfa = Afghanistan. Also, there was no other way, using heroin from the Tyumen and the transportation of heroin. In 1995, sacks of heroin Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos and Thailand), to deal with China disguised as sugar had been stolen from a rail container leased by and India but to go around them. Alfa Eko and sold in the Siberian town of Khabarovsk. A problem arose when many Tove residents of the town became "intoxicated" or Look, THA nes D na " oor To BEM poisoned”. ZT avit As Your, The CPI story also stated: "The FSB on SG SHuU1 report said that within days of the incident, pastes Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) agents conducted raids of Alfa Eko buildings and found 'drugs and other compromising docu- Lavy mentation’. "Both reports claim that Alfa Bank has @ ° laundered drug funds from Russian and ~ Colombian drug cartels. ¢ co, "The FSB document claims that at the end me ° x of 1993, a top Alfa official met with Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the now imprisoned financial mastermind of Colombia's notorious Cali cartel, 'to conclude an agreement about ad me ne the transfer of money into the Alfa Bank from offshore zones such as the Bahamas, a ae, Gibraltar and others'. The plan was to insert ° it back into the Russian economy through the Se purchase of stock in Russian companies. Under five years of Cheney's leadership, Halliburton, largely through subsidiary Brown & Root, enjoyed $3.8 billion in federal contracts Geom, nee auit AS YouR, ° D ae ones “Bessie £ & Gy ER Gag E>) ee AV \ ; oe Ya C S ao NEXUS - 13 A DIRECT DRUG LINK TO DICK CHENEY and taxpayer-insured loans. FEBRUARY — MARCH 2001