|
Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz
Naef Bin Abdul Aziz
Salman Bin Abdul Aziz
Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz
| |
CHAPTER 16
-
- The focus of Operation C-Chase had gradually but radically
shifted by May of 1988. BCCI was all-important. The federal agents
were deter-mined to reach as deep into the bank as possible. Bringing
down a corrupt bank and its officers would score a first for Customs.
The first trip to Europe that month would be the critical opening
gambit of this phase of the operation. It was a risky one, too.
-
- In Tampa and Miami, Bob Mazur had been able to bring the
bankers along slowly over a period of weeks and months. If the time
did not seem right, he was free to skip revealing the incriminating
details crucial to winning the case in court. He still had not talked
about drugs directly with Akbar Ah Bilgrami. If there was no pickup of
drug cash, he could wait patiently for a call from Gonzalo Mora, Jr.,
before pumping more money into the laundering system.
-
- Such luxuries would not be possible in Europe. Too much
advance planning and expense were required to set up undercover
meetings in foreign countries. Mazur and Emir Abreu would have to move
fast. There would be no chance to schmooze for days or weeks with BCCI
executives. They needed to blind the bankers by offering a huge
deposit, then make it clear that the money was coming from drugs.
-
- As for the money, Mazur needed a lot. It would be the
equivalent of "flash money" in a drug-buying operation.
Agents flash a suitcase filled with cash to show that they have the
goods before the dealers reveal the location of the cocaine. In a rare
move, $5 million in taxpayer funds had been wired into Mazur's account
at Florida National Bank and he was prepared to deposit it with BCCI
in Paris to demonstrate that he was a major player, worthy of special
attention.
-
- It had taken weeks to get approvals from authorities in
Switzerland, France, and Britain to use hidden recorders to monitor
undercover meetings in those countries. Because they wanted to be as
mobile as possible, the recording would be done by Mazur with his
James Bond briefcase, but U.S. authorities still needed to get foreign
approval to avoid possible later objections from defense attorneys
about the admissibility of the taped evidence. A Swiss magistrate had
heard the request in a secret session and finally approved it late in
April. Britain had been slightly easier, since a court visit was not
required. In France, the Customs attach6 at the U.S. Embassy in Paris
had discussed using wiretaps with French customs officials and was
given a quick green light.
-
- Another layer of complexity involved the Colombians. Since
the trip to Costa Rica, Gonzalo Mora, Jr., had decided that he would
go to Europe, too. Rudolf Armbrecht, one of Don Chepe's lieutenants,
was leery of establishing the new laundering network, so Mora was
bringing him along. He could meet Bob Mazur and Mazur could persuade
him to buy into the system. By the way, Mora had added, he would be
bringing his wife. He planned to make a holiday out of the trip by
going on to Madrid and Rome.
-
- Bright and early on the morning of May 12, Mazur drove into
the parking garage at 1200 Brickell Avenue in Miami and took the
elevator to Awan's office on the fifteenth floor. In a few days, he
was leaving for Europe. He wanted to go over the last details of the
itinerary that Awan and Bilgrami had planned for him.
-
- The first stop would be BCP in Geneva, where Mazur would meet
with Franz Maissen, a bank official whom he had met briefly once
before in Miami. BCCI owned a majority interest in BCP, but a Swiss
bank held the remaining stock and Maissen answered to the Swiss. A few
days earlier, Maissen had telephoned Bilgrami and asked questions
about the nature of Mazur's business, since he had been moving large
amounts of money through the bank.
-
- "I would suggest you don't tell them anything of it at
all," advised Awan. Bilgrami added that Mazur should simply tell
BCP that his businesses in the United States included a securities
brokerage, a mortgage company, and a real estate firm and that Awan
and Bilgrami handled the account.
- Less trouble was envisioned at the next stop, Paris. There,
Mazur was to meet with Nazir Chinoy, BCCI's chief for Europe, and
perhaps some other officials. "Paris is quite happy to do
whatever you want," said Awan. "They would handle
everything, no questions asked."
-
- The prospect of Mazur depositing $5 million in BCCI
tantalized the bankers. They questioned him repeatedly about the
timing of the deposit, with Bilgrami urging him to place the money by
June 30. That was the close of the bank's half year and it would make
them look good if they could take credit for a major deposit on the
books then.
-
- Mazur and Abreu flew by commercial airline from New York to
Geneva, Switzerland, arriving on the morning of May 18. From outward
appearances, it seemed to be a romantic vacation, for they were
accompanied by undercover Customs agents Kathy Ertz and Linda Kane.
Since Mora had said he was bringing his wife, it was decided that the
agents should be accompanied by the women who had been introduced to
the Colombian previously as their companions.
It also would provide another layer of cover if they were invited to
social functions during the trip.
-
- The next morning, Mazur and Abreu went to the BCP offices in
Geneva's financial district and met with Franz Maissen and his general
manager, Azizullah Chaudhry. Maissen was a button-down Swiss banker
and, as expected, the meeting was formal and cool. Mazur described his
business enterprises and said he hoped to increase his transactions
with the bank. Near the end of the brief meeting, Abreu rented a safe
deposit box and paid a year's fee in advance. Then they departed, with
neither side any wiser about the other.
-
- Paris was different. Arriving at the Bank of Credit and
Commerce International's offices on the wide Champs Elysees on the
afternoon of May 20, Mazur and Abreu were greeted warmly by Nazir
Chinoy. The bank's general manager for Europe provided the service
that had made BCCI famous in many parts of the world. He fussed over
his customers, inquiring about their hotel and promising to send a car
there the following evening to bring the four Americans to his
apartment for drinks with his family.
-
- The business discussion was different, too. The agent and the
banker talked openly and with seeming candor. This was the time to
flash the big dollars and pull Chinoy into the net.
-
- Mazur said that he hoped to deposit $1 million in the Paris
branch within the next few days on behalf of a client. He added that
he intended to transfer $4 million to BCCI Paris soon on behalf of
himself and Abreu. These two deposits would remain for six months and
Mazur said he did not intend to borrow against them. Gravy for the
bank. And protection for Mazur's money. For the agent had no intention
of paying out $4 million from these accounts to Gonzalo Mora, Jr., or
his friends. This was Uncle Sam's money, the $5 million arranged by
Customs headquar-ters in Washington. He would be leaving it in the
bank as bait.
-
- After tossing out the big numbers, Mazur launched into his
patented pitch about the need for strict confidentiality for his
clients, many of whom he explained were South American. The $1 million
deposit, he explained, was money that belonged to a client named
Rudolf Armbrecht.
-
- The banker assured the American that he would be able to
trust him and two of the branch's senior officers, Ian Howard, the
country manager in Paris, and Sibte Hassan, Chinoy's chief assistant.
Chinoy introduced Mazur briefly to Hassan and said that he would meet
the Englishman Howard later.
-
- No doubt to reassure him that the bank could keep a secret,
Chinoy told Mazur a story. An army general had died, leaving 60,000
British pounds in illegal funds in an account at another bank. The man
had been a friend of Chinoy's and his distraught widow approached the
banker for help. The other bank was demanding probate records to
release the funds to her, but that would show the general was a crook.
With Chinoy's help, the widow got the funds without disclosure of the
general's unnamed illegal activities. Chinoy told Mazur he was
sur-prised that someone would risk his reputation for 60,000 pounds.
Sixty million pounds, now that, he said, he could understand.
-
- "If some of your clients have a problem, we will try our
best to hide it from [the authorities]," Chinoy assured Mazur.
"We'll give you as much cover as we can."
-
- Mazur explained that he had recently witnessed a
demonstration of the bank's loyalty. He described a telephone call he
had overheard in Awan's office. An associate of General Manuel Noriega
had called the banker. It was after the February indictment. Awan
agreed when the associate asked him to help Noriega conceal his funds
by moving them through the BCCI system. Mazur said he was impressed by
Awan's loyalty to Noriega.
-
- "Today, it's him [Noriegaj. God forbid tomorrow it might
be us," interjected Chinoy.
-
- Unfortunately, the American continued, one of his own clients
had been less loyal to the general, despite a history of profitable
dealings between the men. After Panama's banks froze all cash in
March, the client had sent Noriega a coffin containing a note: If the
client lost any of the money he had in Panamanian banks, Noriega would
need the coffin. Mazur observed that he had been much more impressed
by the way Awan had aided a customer in trouble. "It's worth
it," replied Chinoy. "It's an amazing position of power. We
had benefited and we'd made money. When the tide changes, we cannot
change. Because we owe him. There's a certain amount of
gratitude."
-
- "I think if you, eventually if you meet some of my
friends, I think if they were in a room with Lee lacocca, they could
easily be mingling with corporate executives," said Mazur. "lacocca
sells cars and they sell coke. And that's the way they deal in their
business. Everything is profession-al, professional,
professional."
-
- "That is how it should be with every major client 'cause
it's a close personal relationship," agreed Chinoy. Withdrawing
some papers from his briefcase, Mazur said that he wanted to open an
account in the name of Nicesea Shipping Ltd. Mazur said he wanted to
obtain a power of attorney over the account for Armbrecht. Mazur also
said he wanted to open an account in the name of Saintsea Shipping for
Emir Abreu and another under the name of Barkeville Ltd. for himself.
Kathy Erickson also would have power of attorney for Barkeville.
Chinoy summoned Sibte Hassan, who helped fill out the proper forms.
-
- When Chinoy and Mazur were alone again, the agent told the
banker in confidential tones that he wanted Amjad Awan to remain his
lead account executive. "I don't have to talk of this, you know,
drug dealers in Colombia are the types of people that-"
-
- Chinoy interrupted, saying: "Yeah, I've understood it. I
didn't ask, okay, but I followed the deal."
-
- At Chinoy's apartment the following evening, Mazur moved the
banker to one side of the living room and spoke privately with him.
Several important clients would be visiting him from Colombia. It
would help his negotiations if Chinoy met them. Chinoy was happy to
accommodate him, even suggesting that he could assign a BCCI account
executive to the customers. It would be convenient since the executive
already traveled to Colombia regularly to consult with other clients
there.
-
- The Hotel de la Tremoille is a small, elegant hotel on the
street of the same name in what is known as the haute couture district
of Paris. It was around the corner from the glitzier Plaza Athenee,
about half a mile from the Arc de 'Iriomphe and the Champs Elysees.
Mazur and Abreu, with their companions, had arranged for separate
suites at the hotel.
-
- It was in Abreu's suite, Room 110, that they met with Gonzalo
Mora, Jr., and Javier Ospina on the afternoon of May 22, 1988. The two
Colombians had just arrived from Caracas, Venezuela. They were tired
and hungover from too much drinking on the long flight. Nonetheless,
the first thing Ospina wanted when he got to the room was a Scotch.
-
- "Let's get to the point," he said once he got a
drink in his hand.
-
- Ospina explained that Rudolf Armbrecht was in Paris, too,
along with a Colombian lawyer, Santiago Uribe. Indeed, they had come
over on the same flight. Armbrecht, whom he described as a former
commercial airline pilot of German and Colombian descent, planned to
launder $5 million this trip, $4 million of it going to a bank in
Germany where Armbrecht's uncle worked and the remainder with Mazur in
Paris.
-
- This $5 million was not important, said Ospina. What mattered
was that Mazur would have to convince Armbrecht that his organization
had the capacity and security to handle large volumes of money. Mora
explained that money previously laundered through Panama was now
looking for a new home. The Colombians no longer wanted to deal with
an unstable government and distrusted Noriega, fearing he might sell
them out to the Americans in a deal to erase his indictment. Thus, he
said, it was important for Mazur to win Armbrecht's confidence so they
could land a big portion of the rerouted money. To help, he suggested
that Mazur introduce Armbrecht to "the heavy bankers."
-
- Armbrecht was hosting a dinner that evening for all of them
and their companions. Mazur objected, saying he had a previous
engagement with a top BCCI banker, but Ospina insisted, arguing that
Armbrecht was too important to risk offending. Mora, who was far more
reasonable than the slightly drunken Ospina, explained that a meeting
that night was especially important.
-
- A potential competitor was coming to Paris the next day. His
name was Eduardo, and he was trying to back up his operations in
Panama with new contacts in Europe. Panama is finished, said Mora.
Later, Customs agents were able to identify the competitor as Eduardo
Martinez-Romero, the big Colombian money launderer targeted by
Operation Polarcap.
-
- Had Mazur been less compulsive about planning, or if he had
found Ospina less intolerable, he might have given in and changed his
plans, but he held fast, insisting that he would meet with Armbrecht
the next day. He told Ospina to arrange it.
-
- On May 23, in the lobby of the Georges V, one of the finest
and most expensive hotels in Paris, Mazur finally met the
pilot-turned-drug-financier. Recalling the way Gonzalo Mora and his
cousin had burst into his meeting with Awan and Bilgrami five months
earlier in Miami, Mazur had worried about the impression that
Armbrecht might make when he introduced him to the BCCI bankers in
Paris. There seemed no reason for such concerns now.
-
- Armbrecht was far more impressive than the drunken Ospina or
rotund Mora. He was about five feet, six inches tall, compactly built,
and balding. He was poised and quiet, and spoke excellent English as a
result of extensive stays in the United States. Much of that time was
spent supervising money laundering for Don Chepe, but there was still
time for buying and flying airplanes.
-
- The Colombian expressed no hard feelings over the missed
dinner.
-
- Instead, he seemed anxious to learn more about Mazur's
American network. Mazur responded with a rundown on his operation and
its security, the CD-loan scheme and the BCCI connection. Armbrecht,
he said, should consider investing some of his cash in property
through one of Mazur's businesses. But Armbrecht resisted, saying:
"We are not very interested in investing the money in property.
We are cash oriented." A bit later, Armbrecht explained.
"I'm in all these money matters because basically I'm very
trusting."
-
- The two men left the Georges V and walked toward the Hotel de
la 'Iremoille, where they were to meet with the others for additional
discussions. On the way, Armbrecht cautioned Mazur not to reveal too
many details of his system to Ospina because he was weak and could be
pressured. Armbrecht had been disgusted by Ospina's behavior at dinner
the night before. He drank too much and talked too loud. Mazur, whose
initial distaste for Ospina in Costa Rica had only been strength-ened
in Paris, was happy to agree. He said that he would arrange for a
private meeting between his banker and Armbrecht the next day to go
over details.
-
- Armbrecht was indeed very trusting. In Mazur's suite, he
explained in great detail what he was looking for as a mechanism to
launder funds for his employer, Don Chepe. Looking over the power of
attorney and other forms that Mazur had had created for him at BCCI a
few days earlier, he said: "This is a mil. No big deal, okay. So
we don't like to put all these eggs in one basket unless it's a very,
very good basket. And even then we are not going to do it. But the
basket could eventually grow and be a very sizable kind of
thing."
-
- After the long meeting, the men were joined by Lucy Mora,
Kathy Ertz, and Linda Kane for dinner and a trip to La Scala, a trendy
Paris disco. Shortly after midnight, Armbrecht took Mazur aside in the
disco and told him that Javier Ospina was being sent back to Colombia
on the pretext that he was needed there. A few minutes later, Abreu
spoke in Spanish with Uribe and Armbrecht. He later told Mazur that
Uribe had asked him to kill Ospina if it became necessary.
-
- The C-Chase agents never saw Ospina again after that night.
They heard various rumors. That he had been killed in a gunfight. That
he had been murdered for making sexual advances toward Armbrecht on
the flight to Paris. That he was alive and still operating in Colombia
on behalf of Don Chepe.
-
- Customs intelligence agents had been scouring their files and
probing other agencies and informants. Don Chepe, the mastermind of
the cocaine ring supplying the cash for the operation, remained
unidentified.
-
- Several names had come up. A major figure in the Cali cartel,
one of the rivals to the Medellin cartel, used the nickname. So did a
couple of minor figures in the Medellin organization. The Cali one did
not wash at all. Everything pointed to Medellin.
-
- One of the recurring names was Gerardo Moncado, a member of
the Medellin cartel's upper echelon but one who kept a low profile and
maintained his riches in the shadows. As time had passed, the C-Chase
team came to believe that Moncado was their man. So, when Gonzalo
Mora, Jr., arrived at Abreu's room at the Tremoille on May 24, 1988,
Mazur asked him if Moncado was among the Colombians arriving in Paris
that day.
-
- Yes, said Mora. Armbrecht might be able to arrange for Mazur
to meet Moncado. But Mora was reluctant to say much about Moncado,
except that he and Armbrecht were on the same team.
-
- The prospect of meeting with the suspected Don Chepe raised
the hopes of Mazur and Abreu. Here was the chance for a double
victory. Nazir Chinoy was the highest-ranking BCCI official yet caught
up in C-Chase. Maybe Gerardo Moncado would move them up the ladder
within the Medellin cartel, too.
-
- Shortly after three o'clock on the afternoon of May 24, Mazur
escorted Armbrecht and Uribe to the BCCI offices on the Champs Elysees
to meet Ian Howard and Nazir Chinoy.
-
- As on the previous day, Armbrecht was full of detailed
questions about bank secrecy rules, the fees BCCI planned to charge,
the bank's general philosophy. He was particularly concerned about the
potential for a bank failure, since there was no chance his
organization would recover any funds lost in such a disaster. For the
agent of a drug lord, he talked like a bank examiner. Armbrecht knew
that BCCI did extensive business in Third World countries, including
some through its branches in Colombia. Did BCCI lend to Third World
countries? Could the failure of any single company topple the bank?
-
- Chinoy was reassuring. The bank saw itself as a bridge to the
Third World and dealt with many of those countries on trade finance
matters, but, he said, its loans were minimal. As far as fees, Chinoy
said the bank was flexible with its customers and interested in
long-term relationships. One percent was the usual fee on a
certificate of deposit. But it was negotiable, especially when large
sums were involved.
-
- "I am having a very good impression of the bank, and of
yourselves," Armbrecht told the BCCI bankers.
-
- Two brief meetings were held between the undercover agents
and Ian Howard the following day. Mazur rented a safe deposit box for
documents from the accounts he had set up earlier in the week and told
Howard that he would be transferring $1.8 million into his Barkeville
account and $1.2 million in Armbrecht's Nicesea account. It seemed the
bankers had made a good impression on the cautious Colombian. Howard
and Mazur agreed to set up a code for telephone communications
concerning the accounts.
-
- Later that day, Abreu took Gonzalo Mora, Jr., to BCCI and
introduced him to Sibte Hassan, saying that he wanted to show Mora
what a strong relationship he and Mazur had with the bank.
-
- "These people handle a lot of money from proceeds from
narcotics, especially cocaine," Abreu explained in English to
Hassan. Gesturing to Mora, he said, "He understands the needs and
he understands how to help and how to assist."
-
- "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine," replied
Hassan.
-
- That night it was time to assess the Paris trip. Armbrecht
and his entourage, which now included the Moras, were leaving the next
morning for Rome and the C-Chase crew was headed for London.
-
- From the operational viewpoint, Paris was a rousing success.
Chinoy, Howard, and Hassan were added to the list of BCCI trophies.
Armbrecht was a big step up the Medellin ladder. Pleased with the BCCI
arrangement and confident of Mazur's operation, he had agreed to begin
sending $5 million to $10 million a month through the system.
-
- There had been a couple of disappointments. They never met
Gerardo Moncado, and were not even sure he ever came to Paris. And
Kathy Ertz had gotten terribly sick the second day in Paris. Food
poisoning in the world's food capital. She had spent much of the trip
in bed.
-
- London was an anticlimax. The reception was nowhere near as
cool as in Geneva, but not nearly so warm and productive as in Paris.
-
- The agents checked into the Portman Hotel, a large, fairly
expensive place on Portman Square in central London on May 26. Amjad
Awan had arranged for Mazur to meet with Asif Baakza, the manager of
BCCI's corporate unit at its Leadenhall Street headquarters. Mazur
expected to meet Baakza for lunch on May 27, but the banker canceled.
-
- Instead, they met in Mazur's hotel room at six o'clock that
evening.
-
- "What we need to accomplish has to do with the placement
and transfer of funds in a very, very confidential and secure
fashion," Mazur said.
- The banker was somewhat cautious. He explained that BCCI
London offered a manager's ledger account to customers seeking total
privacy. He compared it to a numbered account in Switzerland. Only he
and one other individual in the bank would have access to Mazur's
records. But, he added: "I don't want to know anything that I
don't need to know. It's as simple as that."
-
- Undeterred, Mazur said that his clients were mostly
respectable Colombians. By way of comparison, he trotted out the
analogy he had used with Chinoy.
-
- "Really, I think that if they were in the same room with
Lee lacocca, they probably would be confused as being corporate
executives with Chrysler," he said. "It's just that they
aren't in that business and, you know, these people are very, very
feared people. That's why I made sure I researched everything to the
nth degree before I actually moved here."
-
- "Uh-huh," grunted the banker, not knowing exactly
how to keep this American from telling him more than he wanted to
know.
- "When you're dealing with the most powerful men in
Colombia, who are involved in drug dealing, you need to make sure you
know what you're doing."
-
- "That's right. That's right," agreed Baakza.
-
- "lacocca sells cars and they sell coke. And that's the
only difference. But they're executives about the whole thing."
-
- It was Mazur's only meeting with Baakza. Indeed, the ultimate
goal of the trip to London had been to meet with Swaleh Naqvi, who was
running the bank as a result of Agha Hasan Abedi's heart surgery and
continuing health problems. For weeks, Mazur had tried to persuade
Awan to set up a session with Naqvi. but it did not happen, nor was
Mazur able to arrange meetings with any other BCCI officials in
London. So he and his crew packed up and headed home to some
unexpected trouble.
-
- Akbar Ah Bilgrami slipped into the net on June 6, 1988. The
time was shortly after nine in the morning. Mazur went to BCCI's
offices in Miami to report on his trip to Europe. Awan was out of
town, so he met only with Bilgrami.
-
- The trip had been a resounding success in Paris, said the
American. Already he had deposited $4 million in accounts there. Franz
Maissen had proven to be cool and conservative, and the relationship
with Baakza and London was just beginning. Sensing some anxiety on
Bilgrami's part, Mazur added that he intended to deposit another $2
million in his Lamont Maxwell account through Miami in a matter of
days.
-
- A short way into the conversation, Bilgrami took a telephone
call. The conversation was conducted in Urdu, but Mazur picked up the
words "U.S. Customs Service." He questioned Bilgrami when he
hung up the phone.
-
- "I heard you mention my client's adversary there,"
said Mazur. "You, you do business with the U.S. government?"
-
- Bilgrami shook his head no, explaining that BCCI was
providing a financial guarantee to the Customs Service on behalf of a
client, Eastern Airlines. Under its controversial new zero-tolerance
program, the Cus-toms Service was seizing property any time it found
even a small amount of drugs. In this case, Bilgrami explained, the
authorities had seized one of Eastern's jetliners after discovering a
kilo of cocaine aboard.
-
- BCCI's guarantee would allow Eastern to essentially bail out
the plane and continue using it.
-
- Mazur nodded and said, "If you were to meet my
clients-"
-
- "No, no," interrupted Bilgrami, waving his hands.
"I'm not interested in meeting your clients."
-
- He didn't want the banker to meet his clients, Mazur said
reassuringly. He only wanted to explain that they were professional,
people who would mix well with, say, Lee lacocca.
-
- "He sells cars and they sell cocaine and that's the end
of it," said Mazur. "Never to be brought up again."
-
- Bilgrami, who had been far more cautious than Aftab Hussain,
Awan, or Chinoy, was flustered and slightly angered.
-
- "I don't want to know what they sell," he
stammered. "I won't tell you, I, I'm not interested in what they
do, what kind of business, in dealing with you. We know your business.
And, ah, ah, we keep all client relations confidential."
-
- With that, Bilgrami turned the conversation back to a more
suitable subject. They resumed their discussion of Mazur's money
transfers within BCCI.
-
- Later that morning, Mazur met Rudolf Armbrecht at Miami
Interna-tional Airport and they took the 12:30 Eastern Airlines flight
to Tampa. On the way, Armbrecht announced that he was going to
Nashville, Tennessee, to pick up a used Rockwell Commander 1000
airplane that he was having refurbished. Among the additions, he said,
was a $150,000 computerized navigational system. Once that was done,
Armbrecht would fly the plane to his associates in Colombia.
-
- Touring Mazur's offices in New Port Richey, Armbrecht
provided as succinct a definition of money laundering as one would
ever hear anywhere.
-
- "The system is like a merry-go-round," he said.
"We get the money over here. We reroute it. We clean it. We do
everything with it. Okay. Then we have it in legally and totally nice
accounts with everything over there."
-
- He repeated his promise to Mazur that far larger volumes of
cash would soon begin to flow through the American's network. However,
he cautioned Mazur that he liked to keep an eye on a new associate.
-
- "Sometimes there are fishy things to watch," he
said.
-
- As they prepared to go to Mazur's beachfront condominium and
meet Kathy Ertz for dinner, Armbrecht asked Mazur if he would be
interested in a little import business. Not cocaine, but marble desks.
He said there was a good market for them in the United States, and a
big markup.
-
- Like many pilots, Rudy Armbrecht fancied himself a ladies'
man, and Kathy Ertz was a lady who sparked his interest. After dinner,
the two of them left Mazur behind and walked along the Gulf of Mexico
beach for more than an hour. When they returned, they played chess
until two in the morning.
-
- If timing is everything, what happened at the end of June
1988 in Detroit could scarcely have been worse for C-Chase. The blame
could have been laid on Don Chepe's organization for mixing drugs and
money, but the real culprits were federal agents. And there was not
much they could have done to avoid it.
-
- Don Chepe's drug distribution in Detroit was carried out
predomi-nantly by a group of Chaldeans. These are Christian Arabs,
usually from Iraq, and they had been attracted to Detroit's large
Middle Eastern community.
-
- Unfortunately for C-Chase, they were a bit sloppy and mixed
drugs and money.
-
- In the Detroit operation, the same large truck used to carry
cocaine north from Florida or Louisiana was used to haul money back
south for laundering. Since Emir Abreu had started making the cash
pickups, the money was no longer going south, but they were still
using the truck to deliver the cash to him.
-
- DEA agents investigating the Chaldeans had spotted the
suspicious truck back in January and reluctantly done nothing about
what they figured was a load of drugs after Customs agents assured
them the truck contained money. But the DEA agents warned their
Customs counter-parts in Detroit that they would not let the truck
pass if they thought it contained a shipment of cocaine.
-
- "They're not using that truck for money," said a
DEA agent in a phone call to a Customs agent in January.
-
- "We don't think they're bringing money north to you. If
this truck comes back up, we have every reason to believe it's
cocaine. If it comes up again, we're going to arrest it."
-
- On June 28, as undercover Customs agents prepared to make
another cash pickup in Detroit, they discovered that there were two
trucks at the site. One was the white tractor-trailer that the DEA was
watching. The drivers were unloading boxes marked DOLE'S BANANAS and
stacking them on a small blue Chevy pickup. The banana boxes weren't
full of cash; they contained kilo bricks of cocaine. The Customs
agents had to act or lose control of the situation. They busted
everyone in sight, arresting nine people and seizing a hundred kilos
of cocaine.
-
- It was the biggest cocaine bust in Detroit history. There
were headlines in the papers and hard feelings in the law enforcement
community. The DEA felt betrayed. They had passed up what they
believed was a solid seizure six months earlier only to have Customs
come in and hog the show now. As the lead agency in the fight against
drugs, DEA was supposed to make all the big busts.
-
- A DEA agent began accusing Customs of having let an earlier
cocaine shipment of equal size be distributed. The Customs SAC called
him on the telephone and they traded obscenities. A short time later,
the two men ran into each other in a bar and nearly got into a
fistfight.
-
- Word of the fracas quickly reached Washington. In early
August, the Washington Times ran a big story by one of their top
reporters, Michael Hedges. The headline was "Customs Fumbled on
Big Drug Cargo, DEA Says." It went on to accuse the Customs
service of allowing one hundred kilos of coke to slip onto Detroit's
streets in January. DEA agents were quoted, but not named, accusing
Customs of trying to grab the glamour and glory of the war on drugs.
-
- "They got all these new boys on the block, and they
think they know what they are doing, but they've got a lot of lessons
to learn," said one DEA agent.
-
- It was not a total loss. Neither the Washington Times story
nor any other account mentioned the undercover operation, but this
major drug seizure was precisely the type of mistake that Mark
Jackowski and the investigators had feared would happen back in
February. Avoiding it had been the reason for the Clearwater meeting.
They had expected Customs in Los Angeles to mess up the delicate
balance. It had been Detroit. It didn't make any difference. Jackowski
and the others on the C-Chase team had known that it was inevitable.
-
- Since the arrests stemmed directly from information gathered
during the C-Chase investigation, the existence of the investigation
itself would have to be disclosed to defense attorneys once the
Detroit case got started in the judicial system. While the names of
the undercover agents involved, Mazur and Abreu, could be deleted from
the court papers, their mission would be compromised nonetheless. Mark
Jackowski and the Customs agents in Tampa succeeded in persuading
prosecutors in Detroit to hold off on filing the papers as long as
possible. But there was no way that C-Chase could remain secret for
much longer.
-
- This problem illustrated a central management deficiency
within the Customs Service. Because the agency was broken down into
distinct, largely autonomous regions, there was no central command in
Washing-ton that could have stopped the Detroit arrests and kept the
cover on C-Chase longer.
-
- The clock had started to tick. Operation C-Chase was going to
have to be rolled up. Indictments would be returned soon on the people
arrested in Detroit. That meant the legal process would get under way.
Defense attorneys would file motions for discovery of information
related to the government's case. The cocaine deal had been under
surveillance because of information obtained during C-Chase. That
would have to be disclosed, and probably fairly early in the process.
The question was hQw long they could hang on.
-
- "We weren't burned per se, but we were toasted,"
said one of the federal officials involved in the sensitive
discussions about how to react to Detroit.
- Jackowski's biggest fear was that the Colombians would
somehow connect the bust to the money laundering and bolt. He wanted
bodies to prosecute. He did not want a repeat of the Noriega case,
with all but two minor players free in Colombia and Panama.
-
- The Detroit fiasco pushed the C-Chase crew to move faster at
the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The investigators still
hoped to climb the ladder within the bank, and Mazur had been trying
to set up a meeting in London with Swaleh Naqvi and other high-ranking
officials.
-
- Ian Howard solidified his place in the ultimate case when he
tele-phoned Mazur in June with a new proposal. If Mazur could deliver
cash in bulk to BCCI Miami, it could be mailed to BCCI in London and
deposited in accounts there. When Mazur described the proposal to Awan,
the Pakistani banker was leery. He said that cash transactions were
watched too carefully in the United States. As an alternative, he
suggested that Mazur transport the cash to London. If he could do
that, Awan was sure the bank could handle up to $10 million a month.
-
- On June 30, 1988, Awan and Bilgrami told Mazur that they
would be leaving BCCI by the end of the year. They planned to form an
office in Miami associated with a business based in London called
Capcom Financial Services Ltd. They assured Mazur that his
relationship with the bank would remain unchanged and his accounts
would be handled by someone of equal sensitivity and skill. But they
also offered some-thing else.
-
- Capcom was run by a former colleague at BCCI, Syed Ziauddin
Ah Akbar. The former head of BCCI's treasury department, the man
blamed within the bank for the massive trading losses that took BCCI
to the brink of collapse, he had gone to work at Capcom when he left
BCCI in 1986. He was handling trading and investments for wealthy
individuals. Capcom also had a Chicago subsidiary, Capcom Futures,
which traded futures on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. Awan and
Bilgrami intended to take their list of wealthy
-
- Latin American clients with them to the new job.
-
- "Maybe there'll be some things we can do through the new
company," said Mazur.
-
- "Yes, that's what we're thinking," responded Awan,
who added that he had been considering ways that they could dispose of
cash for Mazur.
- The night of June 30, Mazur and Kathy Ertz had invited Amjad
and Sheereen Awan and Akbar Bilgrami and his Colombian wife, Gloria,
to their house in Miami for drinks. They planned dinner afterward at a
nearby restaurant. The agents knew the Awans and Bilgrami, but this
would be the first time that they would meet
-
- Bugrami's wife, who supposedly came from a wealthy Colombian
family.
-
- It was a pleasant social evening. Close to midnight, they
wound up at Regine's, a fancy, private supper club and disco on the
penthouse floor of the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove. As they sat
around a table in the club, Mazur and Ertz said they had big news.
They were getting married. The date was not set yet, but it would be
soon and probably in Tampa. They hoped that the Awans and the
Bilgramis and their other friends from BCCI would be their guests for
the celebration.
-
- No one would remember who came up with the idea of a wedding.
There was a late-night brain-storming session the day after the
Detroit bust. Steve Cook, Bob Moore, and Laura Sherman had been there.
So had Bonni Tischler. Also attending was David Burns, the crack IRS
agent attached to the investigation. All of them were searching for a
way to draw as many of the targets together as possible for a mass
arrest.
-
- Plenty of tricks had been tried in bringing down other
stings. A typical ploy was some sort of free cruise or big party.
Operation Cashweb the year before had arrested three of its suspects
by luring them aboard a boat and sailing into international waters,
where they could be nabbed legally.
- "Why not have a wedding?" said someone. "It's
something that has never been tried."
-
- It sounded logical. A chorus of voices supported the novel
plan. Mazur had insinuated himself into the social as well as the
business lives of some of his clients. Many of them knew Kathy Ertz,
too. It was natural that they would invite them to the wedding. This
would be a perfect opportunity to get them all together and make sure
that Mark Jackowski did not wind up with a hollow case.
-
- That night the scene was set for the showy takedown of
Operation C-Chase. It would be in Tampa, where it could be planned and
pulled off with the most security. The trick was to keep things up and
running until they could set a date and make the arrangements for the
final episode.
|
|
