Nexus - 1006 - New Times Magazine-pages

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PROJECT HAMMER RELOADED A web of intrigue connects a diverse collective of players who have conducted and benefited from secret collateral trading programmes which also have covert funding purposes. Part 2 of 2 ¢ Peter Seaman: In addition to being the President and Chairman of Nantucket Holding Company, Peter Seaman was a successful businessman and involved in a number of other enterprises. These included an entity called Harbor Fuel Holdings Co., Inc. of Westchester County, in which Seaman was a partner with attorney Stuart Root. Both Root and Seaman were clients of attorney Kenneth C. Ellis. Root was a director of anoth- er firm called Bowery Advisors Subsidiary Corporation, which was registered in Florida with a principal mailing address of Kenneth C. Ellis "care of" the Southeast First National Bank building, located at Biscayne Boulevard, Miami. Seaman had a residence in Greenwich, Connecticut, where, by another odd coincidence, his next-door neighbour was Citibank's John Reed. Following his close association with Dan Hughes in setting up the MidAval Hammer deal in October 1989, Seaman thereafter refused to speak with Hughes ever again. Whether it was guilt for diverting Hughes's commission or some other factor that caused this extraordinary vow of silence, we shall never know. Peter Seaman died, taking all his secrets with him. * Oswald Howe, Jr: Dan Hughes's attorney throughout the Hammer deal and the sub- sequent years of investigation was Oswald (Ozzie) Howe, Jr, of the Miami law firm of Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole, whose offices were located in the Southeast Bank building at the Southeast Financial Center. According to Dan Hughes, it was Howe who introduced him to Southeast Bank, and Howe did a lot of real estate work for the bank. Hughes also feels that his ongoing law case would be a great deal more effective if several vital documents had not mysteriously disappeared from Howe's office. In any event, Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole is now defunct, and Howe practises law and is the senior partner for Howe, Robinson & Watkins LLP in Miami. ¢ Southeast Bank: Southeast Bank NA was declared insolvent on 19 September 1991; it exists no more. Over the years it could boast some famous, if not infamous, clients— but one suspects that such boasting was the last thing the bank's board of directors had in mind. One such account "holder" was Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who used his henchman and former law school classmate Roberto Benedicto to front for him. In addition to being appointed by Marcos as the Philippines Ambassador to Japan, Benedicto was a signatory to Marcos's Credit Suisse accounts and was clearly content to be used by Marcos as a cat's-paw to hide his money and gold bullion.” Benedicto died in May 2000, following a heart attack. Other illustrious clients of Southeast Bank over the years have included such criminal luminaries as Licio Gelli and Michele Sindona, named by author Luigi DiFonzo in his book, St Peter's Banker. DiFonzo reveals that US$34 million of the "lost" money of Robert Calvi's collapsed bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, was traced to that bank's sub- sidiary in Nassau, where it was withdrawn and smuggled to two Miami banks, one of these being the Southeast First National Bank (of Miami)—where it was deposited in account number 18221465. ¢ Bankers Trust: Bankers Trust International, a subsidiary of Bankers Trust, was the other Miami bank named in St Peter's Banker as having funds stolen from Banco Ambrosiano deposited with it. According to DiFonzo, these funds were deposited into account number 001050018, which was also controlled by Licio Gelli and Michel Sindons (i.e., Michele Sindona). In 1982, Ferdinand Marcos arranged via his right-hand man, General Fabian Ver, to by David G. Guyatt © 2003 c/- NEXUS Office 55 Queens Road East Grinstead, W. Sussex RH19 1BG United Kingdom Website: http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk Website: http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk NEXUS = 31 MAPPING THE COVERT CONNECTIONS (continued from Part 1) by David G. Guyatt © 2003 OCTOBER —- NOVEMBER 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com