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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| The Incredible Mark Jimenez By Antonio C. Abaya December 26, 2002 Incredible, as in �not believable.� Not as in �amazing.� Among the 47 or so counts in his indictments in Miami, for which the FBI has been seeking his extradition for the past two years, are tax evasion, mail fraud and making false statements. Tax evasion is a form of lying. As in, you claim you earned only so much and thus paid only so much income tax, when you actually earned more and should have paid more. Or as in, you deliberately and unilaterally minimized the business taxes due on a transaction or transactions. Mail fraud is also a form of lying. As in, you advertise for sale a certain product or service and deliberately shortchange the buyers who respond by sending them a product, or by providing them a service, of a kind or quality inferior to what you advertised. Making false statements, if made under oath, is perjury; if not made under oath, is plain and simple lying. Why and how a habitual liar became Erap�s �corporate genius� and �presidential adviser on Latin American affairs� can only be explained by Erap�s being a criminally inclined ignoramus, as I have often called him, which honorific he richly deserved in this particular case. Erap could not possibly not have known that Mark Jimenez was wanted by the FBI and for the alleged crimes in his charge sheet. And yet Erap made him an important key figure in his inner circle, together with swindlers, big-time smugglers, stock price manipulators, high-stakes gamblers, jueteng tong collectors and other shady characters straight out of Dante�s Inferno. Jimenez� role in Erap�s Inferno seems to have been to engineer mega-deals of dubious propriety and legality such as the buy-out of a large bank (PCIB) by a much smaller bank (Equitable) with the use of SSS funds. Only a �corporate genius� (by Erap�s ankle-high standards) could have thought out such a scheme. ***** As for being Erap�s �presidential adviser on Latin American affairs,� Mark Jimenez had his work cut out for him. He is said to have made his fortune selling computers or computer parts in Paraguay. Paraguay is a small landlocked country in South America with a population of only 5.7 million people with a per capita income in 1999 of $3,650, compared to its neighbors�: Brazil, $6,150; Bolivia, $3,000; Uruguay, $8,500; Argentina, $10,000,(since halved by its economic crisis of 2001-2002). Just how much fortune one can make selling computers or computer parts in such a small and low-income market is debatable, to put it politely. Yet Mark Jimenez was not polite about bragging how wealthy he was. With the braggadocio typical of the nouveau rich, he sniffed that the $2 million �bribe� (later changed to �extortion� without any explanation) that he allegedly paid to then Justice Secretary Hernando Perez was �just loose change � to him. In the December 25 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Jimenez boasted how he would bundle off his wife and 11 children on board his own private plane to spend Christmas in a ski resort and how he would buy �the most expensive gifts from Tiffany�s� for them. Oh, wow! (January 12 update: Sixteen days after his first appearance before the Miami federal court, MJ remains in jail, although he had posted the required bail of $500,000. Perhaps the federal authorities deemed Jimenez� �loose change� the fruits of �loose morals.�) ***** Paraguay was ruled by the military dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner from 1954 until his overthrow by another military dictator in 1989. From 1993 on, Paraguay was ruled by elected civilian leaders who, however, were under constant threat of military takeover. What is remarkable about Paraguay is its reputation as the most corrupt country in South America. In an article titled �Paraguay takes back seat to no one in corruption� by Hector Tobar of the Los Angeles Times, which came out in the December 16, 2002 issue of Today, we are told: ��.Turn over the slimy rock of crime big and small in Paraguay and you stand a good chance of finding a politician, military officer or bureaucrat underneath. Now, the nation�s leading thinkers are saying the time has come to accept a label bestowed on this nation of nearly six million people by outsiders : the champion of Latin American corruption. ��It�s true and it hurts us,� said Martin Almada, one of the nation�s most respected human rights activists. �And it hurts more because we feel impotent to fight against this mafia that�s running the country, a mafia that wears the cloak of democracy.� �In few places from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego are bribery and official rule-breaking so blatant as they are in Paraguay. For two years running, the country has finished dead last among Latin American countries in a worldwide survey of corruption by Transparency International, a Berlin-based watchdog group. Only Nigeria and Bangladesh received more damning scores in this year�s report�.� So from the most corrupt country in Latin America, Mark Jimenez moved back to one of the most corrupt countries in Asia under its most corrupt president ever, with a sojourn in Florida, before or in between, long enough to break some US laws and become the object of an FBI manhunt. Is this all pure coincidence, or does this barracuda simply enjoy swimming in slimy waters? ***** There is a striking similarity between the careers of Mark Jimenez and his tocayo Marc Rich, foreign-born American billionaire racketeer who was indicted in 1983 for tax evasion, wire fraud and racketeering, who also became a fugitive from the FBI. Like Jimenez, Rich had changed his name (from Reich to Rich); like Jimenez, he set up dummy companies in Latin America (Panama); and, like Jimenez, he made contributions to the campaign kitty of Bill Clinton. Rich is said to have given $250,000; his now-ex-wife Denise gave $400,000 to the Clinton Library. In exchange, Marc Rich was granted a presidential pardon two hours before Clinton vacated the White House in January 2001. Corruption in the US sometimes also goes all the way to the top. The same motivation seems to have been behind Jimenez� illegal contributions to the Clinton kitty: to buy insurance against future contingencies, such as being indicted. Illegal because foreigners are not allowed to give contributions to American political coffers, a restriction Jimenez is alleged to have circumvented by having his (American) employees in Florida make the donations and then reimbursing them for their generosity. It seems to have been the reason why he is known to have been a major funder of the Erap campaign in 1998; why he allegedly gave P8 million (or is it P18 million?) to foundations associated with then VP Gloria Arroyo (just in case), and why he donated P100 million to the PNP Foundation of Ping Lacson, Erap�s designated successor in 2004. Insurance is expensive, but it can buy immunity from prosecution. However, since he does not seem to have given a single dollar to George W. Bush, he may be on his way to US federal prison, with no pardon in sight. Good riddance. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the January 13, 2003 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �The Incredible Mark Jimenez� JIMENEZ DID not give a single dollar to Bush for I do believe that Bush had more integrity. Jimenez might have offered and this is something we will never know. Andra Stone. Texas. aalstone@aol. January 13, 2003 MY REPLY. Jimenez left the US in, I believe, 1998 when he was indicted in Miami and became the object of an FBI manhunt. At that time it was probably still uncertain who the Republican candidate would be for the 2000 presidential elections. �������������������������� SOMETIMES as have a wee bit sympathy for Jimenez ne Crespo. Remeber Robert Vesco? The one who robbed the IOS Fund of billions in the 70s. Well Vesco was on the lam for a long time. What Vesco and Jimenez have in common (the latter is certainly worse) is that the fled because of a white collar crime. America rather looks kindly on white collar criminals, especially if one is wasp, a consition the two hombres do not posssess, but they could have gotten better deals if they did not flee. Jimenez is an incorrigible wog. Thinks like a wog and is doomed likea wog. Ross Tipon. Baguio City. [email protected] January 14, 2003 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |