"It is in our national interest that A.I.G. survive," says former AIG Chairman, Hank Greenberg. But just who and what is AIG? And why is it important to know? This is Part One of Mike Ruppert's 2001 investigative series on an enormous player in Wall Street's drug money laundering scam.
Drug money, Ruppert has demonstrated, has kept the markets from crashing for many years.
Now however, it appears that "plunge protection" is in over its head, and no amount of laundered cash can prevent the inevitable that is taking place before our eyes, namely, the collapse of A.I.G. and the U.S. financial system itself.--CB
Reprinted from FROM THE WILDERNESS
HOSTAGES: A Multi-Part FTW Special Investigation
- Medellin Cartel Co-Founder Carlos Lehder A Free Man in Gov't. Charade? -- Wife of Drug Lord Speaks
- American International Group, Arkansas, ADFA, Contras, Carlos Lehder and Coral Reinsurance
- Connections to 1996 Dark Alliance Series by Gary Webb
Carlos Lehder
[Part One of a Multi-Part Series]
by
Michael C. Ruppert
[© Copyright 2001, Michael C. Ruppert and From the Wilderness Publications. All Rights Reserved. Part I ONLY may be copied and redistributed for non-profit purposes only. All subsequent parts may be copied or distributed only with express written consent of the author. ]
[EDITORIAL NOTE - From The Wilderness is a sole proprietorship and dba. It is written and edited by one person. Me. I do almost all of the research. Therefore, in the following story, for both legal reasons and for better reading I have decided to use the personal pronouns "I" and "me" instead of standard editorial references in the third person.]
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-- This series is dedicated to Mark Swaney of the Ozark Gazette for his intellectual courage and tenacity; to John McGlaughlin, the straightest and toughest man who ever honestly carried a badge; to Celerino Castillo III, with a heart bigger than his beloved Texas; to all the young men and women, mostly minority, who are serving up to life in prison for crimes that don't remotely compare to those of Carlos Lehder, and to all the innocents in Colombia who stand at the brink of the next Vietnam War.
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But perhaps most importantly it is about the lies that the American people tell themselves each day as they drown in a sea of denial, worried about their pension plans, investments and careers, needing to deny the fact that the so-called war on drugs is a flimsy house of cards that consumes millions of innocent lives every year. It is a story about the lies told by the major media that chooses to ignore the reality of hard documentation about CIA involvement in the drug trade. If there is a common thread to this story it is the fact that lies make us all hostages of our own fears and failings. Eventually these lies entangle us to the point where even the slightest movement becomes impossible and, being unable to move, we sink and we drown - all the while looking for someone else to blame.
Denial is not a river in Egypt.
Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, aka Carlos Lehder, is the stuff of which legends are made. Legends are sometimes good, sometimes bad. As is the case with most legends there is a beautiful woman involved. There is also intrigue, crime, violence, corruption and betrayal. But legends, when examined closely, almost always tell more about the civilizations that create them than they do about the one who carries the name. Carlos Lehder is not a Colombian legend. He is an American legend. It is America that created him. America that made him rich. America where he began his criminal life. America where he was imprisoned and America that, it now appears, has set him free. It is America's shame that Lehder's freedom, if established, and alleged employment by the U.S. Government, are hidden behind lies told, not by Lehder himself, but by the American government to its own people.
In 1979-80, reportedly with the assistance of the CIA and legendary drug smuggler Barry Seal, Lehder co-founded the Medellin Cartel with Pablo Escobar and brothers Fabio and Jorge Ochoa. As celebrated on CNN and by recent books like Killing Pablo (Mark Bowden, 2001), Pablo Escobar was gunned down in a hail of Colombian bullets directed by U.S. intelligence in December, 1993. The Ochoas have faded into the jungle-like vortex of Latin American lore although an October 1999 Reuters story indicated that Fabio Ochoa had been arrested (again) in Bogota. Word of his promised extradition to the U.S. has been hard to find. Carlos Lehder remains the only cartel head to have ever been extradited to, then tried, convicted and sentenced to life plus 135 years in, the United States.
Prosecutors agree that Panamanian strongman General Manuel Antonio Noriega - against whom Lehder testified in return for a reduced sentence of 55 "non-paroleable" years in 1989 - was merely one of Lehder's employees.
Other new material indicating that Lehder, after his 1987 arrest and extradition, provided information to the DEA that assisted in Escobar's downfall has been characterized by his prosecutor, former US Attorney Robert Merkle, as nearly worthless. "That's BS. We didn't need his help to get Escobar," says Merkle.
As disclosed in this first of a series of special reports, I have now amassed a sizeable body of documents, records, witness statements and even a tape recording of Lehder's alleged wife indicating that Carlos Lehder is a free man who has kept his money, who travels the world freely and who makes a mockery of any notion that he might be a federally protected witness - hiding to ensure his safety or the safety of his family. One telling clue to Lehder's apparent lack of fear is the fact that he is listed by name in 411 directory assistance in La Fayette, California, just outside San Francisco. My researcher, while looking for other information, came across the listing and sent it to me. I was able to confirm it as a listing for the Carlos Lehder - not a coincidence - through confidential sources who know Lehder's self-professed wife, Coral Marie Talavera Baca Lehder. And I have spoken to Coral by calling her at that number myself. Mrs. Lehder was, until June 22, a manager for the insurance giant AIG in San Francisco. [Subsequent segments of this special series will focus on investigations into allegations of money laundering by AIG with and through the Arkansas Development Financial Authority in 1987 - the same year Lehder was originally captured].
I had lunch with Coral two days before she resigned. When I called her San Francisco office the following Monday, June 25, a company receptionist told me that she had, "Gone to Cuba."
Coral's reported flight to Cuba cuts off several interesting avenues that warrant further investigation.
Just prior to press time for Part I of this series, a defense source connected to Lehder's appeal for sentence reduction told me that their experience indicated clearly that Lehder was still in prison and that no one named Coral was connected to Lehder in any legal paperwork. Of all the journalists, experienced investigators and direct witnesses interviewed for this story, only those who have worked to prepare his appeals have raised the suggestion that Coral Marie Talavera Baca (Lehder) is a fraud. The rest have stated that they have long suspected that Lehder is a free man. So do I. And the possibility that the woman who has represented herself as his wife for many years has staged an elaborate hoax, while working for a company long connected to the CIA, only raises an equally troubling set of questions. Why? For what purpose? To whose benefit?
Just hours before this issue needed to be at the printer's, an e-mail arrived indicating that Lehder's current attorney (I do not know the name) had just stated that Lehder was definitely in prison, answered the phone promptly when called there, had never been married and had allegedly stated that he had never heard of Coral Baca -- by any name. She was a fraud. At the same time I have been told that the attorney may not identify himself to me and probably will not make Lehder available for an interview. This possible attempt by unnamed sources to delay publication of this story will be thoroughly investigated for Part II of this series.
"I've been speculating for years that Lehder was freeÉ Why am I not surprised? If Lehder is out of jail I would be extremely disappointed. It would send some very bad signals. It's pretty tragic. There's a lot of kids in jail for the rest of their lives -- I'm talking kids -- and a lot of them are minorities for insignificant drug offenses compared to what he did," says Lehder prosecutor and former US Attorney Robert Merkle. According to various news sources at the time of his arrest in 1987 Lehder, then 37, was reported to be worth between $2.5 and $3 billion. Throughout the early 1980s his airstrip at Norman's Cay in the Bahamas was receiving cocaine flights from Colombia, every hour on the hour, and transferring the loads to smaller planes for distribution throughout the US.
Pittsburgh-Post Gazette reporter Bill Moushey, who has perhaps spent more time tracking Lehder than any American journalist, wrote in 1996, " In it [a 1987 federal detention order] the U.S. government says Lehder and others were responsible for assassinating Colombia's Justice Minister in 1984; for the 1985 armed attack on Colombia's Supreme Court building that killed 11 justices and 84 other people; for assassinating two newspaper editors in Colombia and 26 other journalists; for shooting the Colombian ambassador to Hungary in 1987; and for a long list of murders of police officers, informants and other government officials."
Moushey's trail of Lehder grew cold in 1996. "Within weeks of sending that letter [of complaint regarding the government's alleged failure to honor terms of secret plea bargain] last fall [1995], Lehder was whisked away into the night, several protected witnesses at the Mesa Unit in Arizona say. No one has heard from him since." However he has since indicated that, as of late 1995, he believed Lehder to be in prison.
I have since talked nearly a dozen reporters, prosecutors and others connected to the case. At the same time that they protest that they have received Christmas cards, letters and even phone calls from Lehder indicating that he is still in prison they all - every one of them - have confessed their secret suspicions of a charade intended to fool them and hide a very dark secret. And all of them, without exception, agree that if Lehder is walking free it is time to find him and tell the American people about it.
Days of Glory - Days of Shame
I first became aware of Carlos Lehder's possible freedom in the Spring of 1997, not long after I had confronted CIA Director John Deutch on television and stated that there was direct proof of CIA involvement in the drug trade. Dick Gregory, the comedian, later told me that he had learned first hand that my confrontation with Deutch, and Deutch's poor handling of the situation, had cost Deutch a certain appointment as Secretary of Defense the following month. I was something of a small-time celebrity afterwards. At that time, however, those of us like retired DEA Agent Celerino Castillo, a Bronze Star recipient from Vietnam who has devoted his life to exposing CIA drug connections in the eighties, stood downstage from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb whose August 96Dark Alliance series in The San Jose Mercury News had inflamed the nation with its allegations of direct CIA connections to the Contras in Nicaragua and drug trafficking in LA.
In late 1996 I was approached by the publisher of the magazine Prevailing Winds, Patrick Fourmy, a young Canadian videographer who was also perennially scrambling to raise money. In several of our meetings Patrick talked openly of how a woman named Coral Baca had instigated Webb's investigations by providing him with secret federal grand jury transcripts. [Although widely ridiculed or ignored by the mainstream media, many of Webb's allegations were later corroborated in detail by a CIA Inspector General report released on October 8, 1998 and by a Department of Justice report released almost a year earlier.] On various trips and a meeting where Fourmy videotaped an interview with me, he almost boasted about the fact that Baca was engaged to Carlos Lehder. He claimed to have been the one who "introduced" Baca to Webb by giving her Webb's office phone number. It bothered me. But I was broke, unemployed due to an injury, and unable to do anything but ask, "Doesn't that bother you a little?"
I met with Patrick maybe three times between then and the summer of 1998. At one time he told of having actually met Lehder whom he repeatedly said was out of prison. Other confidential sources, close to the Lehders, have told me that Fourmy actually visited "the house" and videotaped an interview with Carlos Lehder. I didn't see Patrick much after that. Contacted with written questions for this story by e-mail and fax at his Santa Barbara offices, Fourmy has not responded to my requests for comment. I have been unable to locate a working phone number for him.
On June 28, 1998, just about two weeks after Webb's book Dark Alliance had been released I was invited to attend a fund raiser at the Beverly Hills home of Producer Jamie Otis and organized in part by Patrick Fourmy who did the videography and arranged hotel accommodations. The purpose of the "gala" event featuring Webb as a speaker, was to raise funds for "citizen's tribunals" to be conducted by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. I had just finished reading Webb's book and found it to be ground-breaking and well documented. In the first pages of Dark Alliance Webb wrote about his first meeting with Coral Talavera Baca, the woman now known as Mrs. Carlos Lehder. In retrospect Webb's description of her seems ponderous.
"I turned, and for an instant all I saw was cleavage and jewelry. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Dark hair. Bright red lipstick. Long legs. Short Skirt. Dressed to accentuate her positive attributes. I could barely speak.
'You're Coral?'
She tossed her hair and smiled. 'Pleased to meet you.' She stuck out a hand with a giant diamond on it, and I shook it weakly." - (p.6).
Earlier, on page 4, Webb had written that Coral worked for a law firm. What he did not report was that the law firm was solely devoted to legal work for AIG and that AIG had long standing ties to the CIA. Rather than reporting that Talavera was engaged to Lehder -- which he claims he could not establish -- Webb wrote in Dark Alliance that she was the "girlfriend" of convicted San Francisco Bay Area drug dealer Rafael Cornejo.
The night of June 28 and the following day can best be described as surreal. Coral and Webb arrived together and she stood by him as he spoke that night. She looked more elegant than Webb had described and she was truly stunning. Fourmy, who was busy with cables and cameras kept pointing her out and saying, "she's engaged to Carlos Lehder. I introduced them." Fourmy spent much time that night with crime writer and author Joseph Bosco who made a strange statement to me towards the end of the evening. "Gary Webb should be ashamed of himself for what he did to Coral." I have been unable to find out what Bosco meant.
Fourmy, Bosco, Castillo and Coral were all staying at the Beverly Garland Howard Johnson's in North Hollywood California. Although I was briefly introduced to Baca [I use the names Talavera and Baca interchangeably to reflect how she was addressed in various settings] just before she left the event in a taxi cab, and didn't quite know what to say, it turns out that she was more forthcoming in a conversation with Castillo. Just days after the event Castillo called me and told me what she said that night and the following day. He has since reconfirmed those statements for this story.
"I remember that I was introduced to her by Fourmy," says the retired DEA agent who has served in Peru and Central America. "She said, straight out, that she was engaged to Carlos LehderÉ I couldn't believe it! What was she doing here? I asked her, 'What's Carlos doing now?' and she said, 'Oh, he's out of jail and selling drugs to the Russians for the CIA.'
"I mean it just knocked me for a loop. It scared me. And then the next day she was out by the pool. Patrick [Fourmy] was there. Joe Bosco was there. She came down and sat with us. She was quite open and she said that her company -- a company she owned that I later found out was Capital Investment Group -- was owned by five of the largest drug dealers in South America. She was very agitated at the government and she said that the government had contacted Carlos and told him to 'put that bitch on a leash.' That, said Castillo, was probably because of her openness in talking about the fact that Carlos was out of prison and her public appearances with Webb. I have confirmed that Baca made at least one other public appearance with Webb at a book signing in Los Angeles.
Contacted at a New Orleans phone number, Joe Bosco has not returned a call requesting comment.
Maxine Waters -- From the web site of Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D), California:
"I also had numerous telephone conversations with Coral Talavera Baca, the girlfriend of Rafael Cornejo, who was a relative and part of Norwin Meneses' drug trafficking organization, as well as a long-time business partner of Danilo Blandon, another central figure in the "Dark Alliance" series. I received information from Ms. Baca and Mr. Cornejo who were connected to Carlos Lehder, a Colombian drug dealer and co-founder of the Medellin Cartel. It was through Lehder's private island that the Medellin Cartel moved massive amounts of cocaine to Miami and the United States. Ms Baca had visited Carlos Lehder's private island and have [sic] information regarding the connection between Mr. Lehder and Norwin Meneses." -- http://www.house.gov/waters/31698pr.htm. Contacted for comment, Waters' office had not responded at press time.
"The Units also housed one of the most sought after drug Kingpins in the world. Carlos Lehder Rivas, leader of the Medellin Cartel. Lehder admitted to ordering hundreds of killings, including a member of the Colombian Supreme Court, politicians, and reporters. His net worth is over $3 billion yet only $2 million in assets were ever seized. I reviewed Lehder's plea assessment, he was convicted and sentenced to life plus 135 years with no chance for parole. And then he joined the program by agreeing to testify against Manuel Noriega, who in effect worked for Lehder. Federal officials immediately cut Lehder's sentence to 55 years with eligibility for parole.[This eligibility is disputed by a member of Lehder's defense team who spoke on condition of anonymity]. Further sentence reductions made him eligible for deportation to Germany, his homeland. I have been told that Lehder is already in Germany.
"While in the Unit, Lehder developed new drug smuggling plans for after his release. He talked of a new frontier in the former republics of the Soviet Union. He and [convicted Gambino crime family Capo Sammy the Bull] Gravano talked of forming a partnership in a new cartel using money given to them by our government. They asked me to join them and I turned them down.'
Gary Webb -- Contacted for comment Gary Webb responded: "Coral's relationship with Lehder, if there was one, was not very pertinent to what I was looking at." Webb said he saw correspondence suggesting that she and Lehder may have had a relationship a long time ago but whatever the nature of that relationship was or is, it was her private business and had no bearing on his inquiries as far as he could tell.
Robert Merkle -- "I know that Lehder, right after he was arrested, tried to cut a deal directly with [then Vice President George H.W.]Bush and the FBI - which conversations I was excluded fromÉ There's a lot of stuff that went on that was questionableÉI've been speculating for years that Lehder was free but I figured he'd be in Germany or some tax haven with his money, which he still hasÉ One of the major things that was a red flag in terms of indicating that he made a deal was that Lehder wasn't required to turn over his assetsÉ There was essentially nothing seized in that case and the guy made millions of dollars. If I'm a U.S. Attorney or an Attorney General and the only member of the Medellin Cartel to be prosecuted in the US, facing life plus 120 years in jail, wants a deal, the first thing he's going to talk to me about is money. What banks? Where are they located?"
Texas is a One-Party State
Far and away Celerino Castillo's allegations are the most outrageous. They demand a level of scrutiny beyond the denials or silence of the other parties involved.
Under Texas state law, unlike Maryland where tape recordings of phone conversations unauthorized by both parties proved the undoing of Monica Lewinsky and resulted in legal action against Linda Tripp, Texas is a state where only one party to any telephone conversation need grant permission before recording a call. As a result of a number of investigations connecting to the CIA in which he was then involved, Castillo had his telephone set up to automatically record all incoming calls. This proved fateful when he received a call from Coral in April of 1999. Castillo and Baca had been in touch infrequently since the June, 1998 fund raiser. Baca had been suggesting that she might be able to get Castillo work as an investigative consultant on a legal case connecting to the CIA in San Francisco and had even paid one phone bill for him in the preceding months as a partial expense payment for that case. Castillo's early retirement had resulted from his efforts to expose CIA involvement in Contra-connected drug trafficking during the eighties and has been documented in his 1994 book POWDERBURNS - Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War.
In June, 2001 I traveled to San Antonio Texas where I met Castillo and obtained a copy of one of his "Baca" tapes. He says there are others he is holding as "insurance against any challenges against me" and that the one he provided me has had certain sections of the conversation removed for the same reason. [Beginning in August 2001 I will place selected excerpts of this tape, converted to MP3 format, on the From The Wilderness web site at www.copvcia.com. -- See Investigation Notes at the end of this story.] Having spoken to her on the phone several times since January 2001 I instantly recognized the voice on the tape. It was definitely the Coral that I had met.
Following are excerpts from the forty-plus minute conversation: (CC designates Celerino Castillo. CB designates Coral Baca. Certain segments of the tape have been edited to protect innocent third parties and to save space.)
CB: WeÕre living in both places now. WeÕre in Florida now. We did have, we still have the house in Boca Chica. But weÕve also got one in Coconut Grove.
CC: Oh. Good.
CB: So it works out really, really nicely. IÕm here three days a week.
CC: Then youÕre flying back.
CB: ÉSo it works out really, really nicely actually. I thought it was going to be exhausting but itÕs not. ItÕs really kind of nice because when IÕm here I really have some time to myself, you know, running the business [AIG]. I shouldnÕt say that, running the office.
CC: Oops.
CB: TheyÕll turn that [laughs]. That is a great one.
CC: [Laughs] Ooh - running the business.
CB: IÕve got to be very careful what I say, you know. Yeah, but um, itÕs really nice. If you ever get down there youÕre more than welcome to come and visit and stay. I love Florida. It's really beautiful.
CB: You know because I hear things, like there are going to be hearings on this mess [The Gary Webb Dark Alliance series]. Let me tell you something. IÕll tell you something and IÕve heard it from people who have been informed by very reliable people in the government. No there wonÕt. No there wonÕt be any more hearings.
CC: But even if there were any hearingsÉ
CB: ItÕs just going to be a joke.
CB: I've read such ugly articles lately. We attended some benefit. And somebody wrote an article and they titled it Beauty and the Beast. Is thatÉ
CC: God Damn...
CB: Is that fucking cruel? I mean like he is like the nicest man, the most generous man I have ever met. And to call him a beast?
CC: What newspaper was that?
CB: Oh, who the hell knows. I don't even know. I get so upset that people keep these things from meÉ. How about all the money he gave me to start an orphanage in Mexico.
CB: He was out of jail before I went to Gary.
CC: Oh yeah, well I know that was in, we know, during the Panama thing.
CB: Well no. He was released in 95. In March of 95. I didnÕt go to Gary until June - or July - of 1996. [NOTE: This date is disputed by both Webb and me. It would have given him roughly six weeks to write the entire Dark Alliance series.]
CB: Do you know a DEA Agent named Rafael Salcedo or Armando Medina.
CC: Yeah, those names sound very familiar.
CB: Those guys used to moonlight for the CIA all the time.
CC: Yeah, thereÕs a lot of them. The last one I heard was Juan Perez who was a CubanÉ
CB: I know who he is, of courseÉ
CB: We just saw Robert Vesco.
CC: Who?
CB: Vesco, Robert.
CC: What about him?
CB: We just went and saw him when we were in Cuba.
CC: Is he under house arrest? Cause thatÕs what I heard.
CB: What a great man. A Sweetheart.
CC: [Laughing] HowÕs Fidel doing?É
[CB: We had gone down once maybe a year or so ago and I met him [Vesco] for the first time then. And then when we
went back this time I met him againÉI mean heÕs old and he walks with a cane. HeÕs just a sweetheart though.
ThatÕs what Fidel did for him. He took him in because the United States was ready to just nab him. I mean you know how the United States is. They kidnap people and they call it extradition.
CC: So, is Carlos still playing ball withÉ?
CB: He has nothing to do with the business.
CB: In fact weÕre having a birthday party this weekend. What are you doing this weekend? IÕm 29 - again. [Laughs] A little party. Just a hundred of our closest friends. It's going
to be really, really fun. I think Julio Iglesias. He's going to sing. He's like my all time favorite. He's in Florida anyway.
[Baca enters into a lengthy discussion regarding a suspect who had allegedly burglarized her e-mail accounts. Because these are criminal allegations and I have been unable to ascertain the validity of the charges I have omitted references to the named suspect.]
CB: Because of Carlos' situation the State Department called in the FBI to find out who was doing thisÉ And then he got into my e-mail account, my Coral Lehder e-mail account, and they were e-mailing Carlos from my e-mail accountÉ
CB: He got into our e-mail account and was reading all of my correspondence with, back and forth between Carlos and me.
CC: How did he do that?
CB: Well itÕs not too hard if youÕre close to somebody. ItÕs not too hard if you know what words are important É
CC: Oh my God. So, what did the FBIÉ Are they going to bring any charges?
CB: See, thereÕs another point of contention. My other half is very pissed off and me, no, IÕm not going to do that. He has to live with the fact that what he did [was] wrongÉ
CC: So the FBI came and theyÉ
CB: The State Department, once I found out that my e-mail was being broken into, I told Carlos. And Carlos said,
"You know what, it makes sense "Because I knew that some of my e-mails just werenÕt right." HeÕs like, "I knew somebody had looked at them." So he called in I guess, whoever he has to report to, itÕs a matter of his national security status, that his security might have been jeopardized. And the Feds got involved, you know, because they called in the Feds. - It was an ugly ordeal. Do you know that we had to go to a safe house, because they didnÕt know who it was? É
CB: There were never wedding invitations... I never sent out wedding invitations. What was sent out after was like notifications... You got the one that said, "Please extend her every courtesy as my wife..."
."I had several conversation with Coral," says Castillo. "There is no doubt in my mind that Lehder is out of prison. None whatsoever. I received an e-mail from Carlos personally, in the summer of 1998, that invited me to come to the wedding that fall. Carlos had taken her out of the country for personal reasons. I also received an e-mail from Coral under a separate account. The address was snowqueen@hotmail.com. I can't get to those e-mails now because my old computer is broken and I don't have the money to fix it. But she was clear on many occasions that Carlos was out. She talked about travelling all over with him. Why would they have invited me to the house, or to visit them in the Bahamas if it weren't true? What if I had said yes? They were going to pay for it but I didn't go. I didn't want to compromise myself.
"I think Coral is really against the government and the war on drugs. She has family in jail and she spoke to me I think because of the price I paid for what I did. I believe that she hates the CIA."
Asked about the possibility of an elaborate ruse by Baca, Castillo replied, "Look. You almost have to go to more trouble to justify the notion that he's in prison than you do to justify the position that he's out. What could Coral possibly have gained from all this effort to make certain people think so? They both hate the government and would love to make it look bad. She had a powerful position at AIG that would be jeopardized if she were exposed as making this up. Why would someone go to all this trouble to make people think she's his wife? It's not something you would put on a resumé. It has drawn attention to Lehder rather than steer it away. What does she gain by that? I know that some people insist he's still in jail but why won't the government just say so? Instead you have this big mystery that only deepens the legend. Who benefits from that? Who profits from the confusion? And the government would have found out about it. That's why I think the government went to Carlos and said to put a leash on her."
A Paper Trail
Far from being silent about Talavera's relationship with Lehder I had written about it in January of 1999. I had been puzzled as to why no one in "the anti-CIA drugs movement" seemed to think it noteworthy. It was known to at least a dozen people that I was aware of. It was "sticky" to me, oozing with a kind of dysfunctionality found in families that conceal child abuse.
Information developing around the then pending Clinton impeachment had led me to suspect an alliance between the Medellin Cartel's genius of transportation and Arkansas' genius of money and political power, Bill Clinton. [See Parts II and III of this series.] My writing on this subject (available at www.copvcia.com) had drawn an angry January 7, 1999 letter from Talavera's attorney. I made a correction stating that at the time of the Dark Alliance stories Talavera was probably not married to Lehder when she went to Webb but that she was indeed his fiancée. What I found interesting in the letter was that Baca's attorney, David Secrest, had written, "We also demand that you immediately take all steps necessary to respect Ms. Baca's privacy and anonymity, as did the Dept. of Justice and the CIA in their respective reports." Why were those agencies been deferential to her? If she was a fraud, couldn't they discover it? My only error, since scrupulously corrected for this story, was in not seeking her comment before writing. I could have.
I stand by that story and no lawsuit has ever materialized. [The letter may be viewed at www.copvcia.com.]
Shortly after that my fax machine began to hum. On six occasions over the next twenty months an unknown source, being careful to disguise the point of origin, sent anonymous faxes to me containing a variety of documents ranging from news clippings and magazine stories, to supposed surveillance photos and reports, to official U.S. government documents all pertaining Lehder and Baca. All of the purported news clippings lacked publication names and dates. I had decided to write about these documents in the summer and fall of 2000 and began checking them out. It turned out that many of those documents were fakes, elaborate fakes, which someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to prepare. Several purported to be from an unspecified "Office of the U.S. Attorney." After learning that some of the documents were faked I contacted many government agencies in attempts to verify the authenticity of the rest. The results were inconclusive. One document, allegedly reporting that the Lehders received 24/7 overseas security at their home in Salinas Equador from the State Department's Office of Diplomatic Security, had drawn an angry, "I can unequivocally tell you that we have never protected either one of those people. Sounds more like CIA to me," response from Bob Franks. Franks was qualified to give the statement. At the time he was (and is) the Director of Protection for the State Department's overseas security operations.
Other documents, in particular an undated two-page "Report of Investigation (Law Enforcement)" from the U.S. Treasury Special Agent In Charge, San Francisco District Office (possibly the IRS), appeared credible but remained unverified. The "Treasury" report, which was later to become very important to this story was, in November 2000 -- after seven phone calls, a fax, a Fedex package and much delay, evaluated by Treasury Dept. spokesman John D'Angelo. He told me, "I have not been able to figure out what this report is. I can't figure it out. Things don't matchÉ It looks like something that was used at one time." That decidedly unsatisfying response had come after Treasury spokespersons had advised that I contact each of Treasury's component agencies (IRS, Customs, Secret Service and the ATF) for comment. Of course, each of those agencies had referred me back to where I had started.
What was so compelling about the Treasury report was that it contained a wealth of information on the Lehders that was to be subsequently confirmed by Talavera herself. More damning is the fact that in June 2001 I secured confirmation from a confidential source close to the Lehders that the document was authentic. Then, a former senior paralegal who had worked on Lehder's appeals efforts (speaking on condition of anonymity) found it to be possibly authentic and "consistent with other government documents I have reviewed in the case." Just to be sure I asked the paralegal for a place to check the paralegal's credentials vis a vis Lehder. That was instantly provided and credible confirmation was instantly given. "Kincaid," as I have named the source, had worked for a law firm representing Lehder and knew him personally.
The Treasury report stated that in 1987 (when she was 23) -- the same year that Lehder was captured and would have begun hiding his assets -- Talavera had founded a "Bohemian" company called Capital Investment Group (CIG) with an initial capitalization of $10 million. By 1997 the estimated worth of CIG was listed as $132 million. In financial parlance a "Bohemian corporation" is a company founded by two parent companies, located in two different countries, in yet a third country. This is usually done for the purposes of avoiding regulation by tax or legal authorities. The first thing I had done after receipt of this document in the summer of 1999 was to ask my researcher to pull the files on Capital Investment Group at the Secretary of State's office in Sacramento and send them to me.
Among other things, the Treasury report says that Carlos Lehder was an employee of the Treasury and a free man.
Another document, typeset like a news story but well sanitized to remove the publication name or date was titled "Beauty And The Beast." It read, "Just three days after the birth of her son, Carlo Rafael, the lovely Coral Lehder, adorned the arm of her husband, one-time Medellin cartel cocaine kingpin Carlos Lehder, during St. Jude's Children's Hospital annual benefit where Mrs. Lehder was honored for her exemplary work with underprivileged children.
"When asked to comment on the recent birth of his son, Mr. Lehder coyly remarked, "Once again it appears I have received a lot of quid [gesturing to his wife] for very little pro quo. America, where anything is possible. Even a beauty like that loving a wretch like meÉ," The quid pro quo statement rang a bell. I checked my files and found a June 15, 1996 story by reporter Bill Moushey that quoted prosecutor Merkle as stating that Lehder "received a very large quid for a very small quo." Sources familiar with Lehder and his speech patterns have indicated that he has never been this eloquent and never uses Latin. But could he have been taking a subtle, mocking swipe at the man who had tried to put him away? In the quote the Latin grammar was butchered. He should have said quo, instead of pro quo.
On the lower right hand portion of the page a photo of a reclining Coral bore the caption, "There's a lot more to being good looking than make up and prettiness. There's a lot more to being a woman than that. When I look in the mirror, I just want to like myself. And if I like myself, then I look good." -- Coral Lehder.
One of the things that made the document suspect was a heading at the top of the page that read, "Commentary." This term is usually used in journalism to designate a serious editorial piece. This was pure society page stuff. The clipping had either been camouflaged to disguise its source or else this was another fake. Before becoming aware of the Baca tape in Castillo's possession I had attempted to locate the source of the story without success. St. Jude's Regional Director Paul Withraw told me in November 2000 "Anyone here now was not here then [early 1999]. We do not have an annual awards banquet." He denied knowing anything about Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Lehder.
Trying again, after hearing a reference to the story on the tape in June, I was able to locate a receptionist at St. Jude's regional offices named Gladys who was a little more forthcoming. "Oh, that was probably the Miracle Cup in Miami. It was a formal in March of 99. I remember it well. Julio Iglesias sang there. He's great. I'll have someone call you."
I'm still waiting for the call. However, knowing that Coral's birthday party in 1999 was held on Saturday, April 17 [her actual birthday, as confirmed by her, is on the 18th] I called Anchor Marketing, the Miami management company representing singer Julio Iglesias, and asked what he had been doing that day. A woman named Myra told me that he played at Cesar's Palace in Las Vegas but could not confirm that he did not privately attend another function (like a birthday party) either before or after.
Still the faked documents forced me to put the investigation on hold. It was not until January of 2000, when the fax machine received an unsourced newspaper photo caption stating that Talavera had served as a technical advisor on the movie Traffic, that I reached out to Talavera directly to find out what the hell was going on. The Traffic clip had particularly offended me because I had been meeting and talking during the preceding weeks with the personal manager (Patrick Dollard of Propaganda Films) for Traffic's director, Steven Soderbergh. I knew that Coral had nothing to do with the film. Arriving with the Traffic clip was another document the government already knew I had and knew that I knew was a fake.
So, in January I contacted Coral to ask about the documents. I wanted as much to know who had sent them and why as to find out whether they were real. That contact led to a number of private conversations in which I was satisfied that the sender had intended personal harm to Coral and possibly to me if I published them. Lacking the ability to further authenticate those documents that I believed to be accurate, I assured Coral that I had no intentions of going to press or discussing personal information she had revealed in helping me check them out. I have since learned that several other journalists had received many of the same documents and withheld them for the same reasons. Curiously, however, none seem to have received the Treasury report.
It was during this period that I first learned of Talavera's employment by the American International Group (AIG) in San Francisco. She had given me contact numbers at her San Francisco office and sent e-mails and faxes so indicating. Included was a February 13, 2001 fax sent unsolicited to me and author Peter Dale Scott, PhD, Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley. The cover sheet had a letterhead in the name of Coral Marie Talavera Baca and showed a street address at Two Rincon Center. This is the address of the AIG building in San Francisco. The cover sheet showed a return e-mail address of Coral.Talavera@AIG.com. The heading read, "RE: Penthouse article re: Carlos/Atlantic Monthly article."
The message on the cover sheet said, "Dear Peter and Michael: Attached please find The Atlantic Monthly article regarding the CIA, which I am passing along for your pleasure. I got a good chuckle out of itÉ hope you both do also. It's nice to know that others find humor in the CIA's incompetence. -- Regards, Coral."
[NOTE: This document, the Treasury report, and other on-the-record e-mails concerning this investigation and confirming a June 20 lunch date for Talavera and me can be viewed on my web site at www.copvcia.com. Go to the section for this series of special reports and, from the Table of Contents, click on "Support Documentation."]
Coral Reinsurance
In the Spring of 2001 I was checking my e-mails when I opened one from a colleague that immediately caught my attention. It was titled "Google Search for AIG + Goldman + Harvard." Several themes immediately sprang to mind. First, I was aware that Coral was a manager at an American International Group (AIG) legal office in San Francisco. Coral's name was the same as the subject of the story attached to my e-mail. Secondly I had, through my newsletter From The Wilderness (FTW), been writing for many months about the roles played by Goldman Sachs, its past President, Robert Rubin (former US Treasury Secretary) and The Harvard Endowment in the massive looting of Russia -- to the tune of as much as $300 billion -- during the 1990s. [This tragedy has been compellingly documented by journalist Anne Williamson. Information on Williamson's writings can be found at www.newsmakingnews.com. Her forthcoming book on the subject, Contagion, is to be published in serial form by SRA Associates in London.]
The extract attached to the e-mail described a suspicious relationship in 1987 between AIG, the Arkansas Development Financial Authority (ADFA) and Goldman Sachs, then headed by Rubin, to found an offshore (Barbados) reinsurance company named Coral Reinsurance. (Reinsurance is simply the insuring of one insurance company by another to spread risk).
According to a confidential Goldman Sachs stock placement memorandum dated December 1, 1987, which I have since obtained, Coral Re, as it is known, was founded by AIG. All potential investors, including the State of Arkansas' ADFA, were bound to return or destroy the memorandum if they did not participate. Coral Re was clearly an AIG progeny and ADFA has been voluminously linked to allegations of drug money laundering in the 1980s. Moreover, there are also longstanding published links, some confirmed by CIA documents, between drug smuggling, Barry Seal, the Contras and the Medellin Cartel. All of those links joined at the Mena (Arkansas) Regional Intermountain Airport. [These subjects will be discussed in detail in Parts II and III of this series.]
This was something I had to investigate. I was aware of AIG/CIA ties dating back to the early fifties. From reading the full text of a 1995 story entitled Gray Money by journalist and mechanical engineer Mark Swaney I learned that the CEO of AIG, Maurice (Hank) Greenberg had also been a candidate to become CIA Director in 1995. Greenberg is also the former Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
In a number of e-mails, phone conversations and one face to face meeting Talavera consistently denied that she, her husband Carlos Lehder, or their good friend, fugitive financier Robert Vesco, had any connections of any kind to Coral Reinsurance. Notwithstanding that my investigation into that possible connection continues. If she is officially labeled as a fraud what then does one make of her denials about Coral Reinsurance? Of AIG as her confirmed employer? On June 12 she e-mailed, "Carlos is in no way, shape or form had/has anything to do with Coral Reinsurance and or AIG's involvement in same.
"Let me save you the next question. Robert Vesco had/has nothing to do with the above either. [I had never mentioned to her that I knew about Vesco.] Let me go one step further. No one that I know had/has anything to do with Coral Reinsurance and/or AIG's involvement in same.
Coral later agreed to meet me for lunch on Wednesday June 20, across the street from her San Francisco office. Before leaving for San Francisco I had occasion to speak to an AIG spokesman, Michael Murphy of Bermuda, said by many in the insurance business to be Hank Greenberg's right-hand man. To my question regarding Coral's status as the wife of Lehder Murphy responded, "I asked her the question whether that was her past and she said that she really preferred not to discuss her personal affairs in a company situationÉ I didn't want to pry into her life."
The Russians Are Here
I went up to San Francisco a day early. With the Secretary of State documents in hand I went to see what I could find out about Capital Investment Group (CIG). Its address, 601 Gateway Blvd. is a new, large, approximately ten story office building near the San Francisco airport. The incorporation papers showed that CIG had been there for at least three years until their corporate filings ceased in 1997. I poked around until I found someone on the building staff who had been there in the mid 90s.
"Oh yeah," said the building employee who asked that I not use his name. "I remember the Russians. There was Boris and Vladimir and Natasha." He laughed. "Real thick accents. They treated the eighth floor like it was Russian territory. Everyone knew about the Russians. The FBI came and were investigating them. They said they might be KGB."
The employee remembered one other thing. "They had so many extension chords running into so many computers that they blew the fuses in the building six times a day. Everyone was complaining about them. They left in 96 I think. I have no idea where they went after that."
Doing Lunch
Don't laugh. The name of the restaurant where Coral and I had lunch was The Red Herring. I stood waiting for her out front at noon. She came across Steuart Street wearing a black dress and pearls. She was and remains every bit as lovely as I had remembered. But during the lunch, I found her to be more elegant than vixen, more intelligent than bimbo, more loyal to her husband Carlos Lehder and much more "savvy" than Gary Webb's description had led me to expect. She declined to answer any on-the-record questions about the status or current activities of her husband or her family. The purpose of the lunch was to thank me for not publishing the faked documents and to discuss Coral Reinsurance.
Coral repeated all of her earlier categorical denials of any involvement with Coral Reinsurance. The same went for Carlos and Vesco. She stressed that Lehder had absolutely nothing to do with the drug business any more. A question about Capital Investment Group's possible involvement got her agitated after I told her what I had discovered at Gateway Blvd. the day before.
"The last thing I need is to be connected with any Russians!," she said. "My Capital Investment Group is in the Bahamas. I fund an orphanage with it. That's all," she said. I produced a copy of the Treasury report and she went through it line by line looking for information about CIG. While not confirming that report was authentic she did not dispute any information it contained with one exception. She confirmed that the aliases of Coral Marie Talavera, Coral Marie Baca and Coral Marie Lehder were correct. The date of birth was correct. The relationship with Lehder (the employee) and Talavera (the subject) was at least 18 years old. She breathed a sigh of relief to read the information showing Capital Investment Group having been founded by her in 1987 and agreed with the statement that she and Lehder were the only shareholders. An entry indicating that in 1995 she had been instrumental in negotiating Lehder's release from the Bureau of Prisons drew a nod. She made no comment about the fact that the report showed that she had been investigated by the FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Defense and the CIA by means of traditional investigation, "wiretaps" and informants." She also did not question the fact that the report showed her and Lehder as having multiple residences in Oakland California; San Francisco; Boca Chica, Florida; Salinas Ecuador; and Great Exuma, the Bahamas. Her net worth was conservatively "estimated" at $7,369,024.
The only item on the report she disputed was a statement indicating that she might possibly be Lehder's adopted daughter. That made her angry.
Turning back to Capital Investment Group she said, "Capital Investment Group is my company. But I work for AIG. My company has nothing to do with these Russians. This Coral Reinsurance is a good story. You should go after it." I remembered that in an earlier conversation where she was giving me on-the-record quotes about her non-involvement with Coral Reinsurance she had said that reinsurance was a great way to launder money.
Coral told me that she was planning on leaving AIG in December. That, she said, had nothing to do with my work on Coral Reinsurance. We then talked about the painful experiences I had had many years ago when, as a young policeman in 1976, I had fallen in love with a female CIA agent and come across evidence of CIA involvement in the drug trade. My refusal to go along with her work cost me the relationship and my attempts to expose CIA wrongdoing had cost me my career. I remarked that my lover had been every bit as beautiful as Coral. I had been left with an obsession that had lasted for many years. As we left the restaurant Coral turned to me sympathetically and said, "Who knows. Maybe one day there'll be a knock at your door."
As I shook her hand goodbye I answered, "I've worked through that... I would be immune now."
During the lunch I mentioned the fact that someone connected with Carlos' defense (Kincaid) was trying to reach him and I mentioned the name. This is the senior paralegal who has given me information for this story. After the lunch I sent an e-mail to Coral saying that I had given the paralegal Coral's office number and that she would be calling. I had no wish to interfere with attorney-client privilege.
The following Monday Kincaid called me at my Sherman Oaks office and told me that Coral had resigned on Friday, two days after our lunch and gone to Cuba. An immediate call to the receptionist confirmed this. Coral was gone.
Official Responses
The FBI -- A spokesman for the San Francisco Office of the FBI stated that he is unaware of any such (wiretap or e-mail) investigation."
The Department of Justice -- Asked on June 28th to state whether or not Carlos Lehder is still in prison and/or a member of the Witness Security program or whether he was an employee of the U.S. government, spokeswoman Susan Dryden stated that she would look into it and have someone call me back as soon as possible. As of press time a week later, no one has called me back.
The Treasury -- After three phone calls and voice mail messages resulting in no response, Treasury spokesperson Tasia Scolinos stated on June 29th that she did not know the John D'Angelo whom I had spoken to last November and did could not find the material I had sent him then. I found this strange since she gave me the same phone number I had used to reach D'Angelo and she had replaced him. She asked me to write a detailed request for the information I was seeking (which I did) and send her another fax of the document (which I did). She then suggested that, because the document had been stamped "Sealed by the Court" that I visit each court house in the San Francisco Bay area to see if I could find the file. She would consult an attorney at Treasury and get back to me. As of press time I have received no further response.
Question: If, after this story breaks, the Department of Justice holds a press conference and invites CNN and TIME into a prison to interview and photograph Carlos Lehder, will anyone believe that he will still be there the next day?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: - Special thanks to: Mark Swaney, Al Giordano, Lois, Lara Johnson, Linda Minor, Dave Hendrix, Marc Harris, Kincaid, and Peter Dale Scott.
COMING NEXT MONTH: The Hunt for Carlos Lehder Continues * ADFA, Arkansas and Mena * The Medellin Cartel and The Contras * AIG * Coral Reinsurance
Investigation Notes
I am sure to be criticized for all of the things that we could have investigated for this special series, but didn't. Bear in mind that in 2000 the gross income for FTW, aside from honoraria and outside writing, was $40,000. We have invested more than $8,000 in this story already. We anticipate needing at least $5,000 more to complete it.
Can you imagine what kind of investigation The New York Times could have produced using 20% of its gross annual income.
While we appreciate the calls from activists telling us that they have made 20 copies of FTW and handed them out for free, we ask that all of you who are due for renewal, or who want to assist us in this important project, dig deep and send us your money.
All we have to offer you is the truth. In a ham and eggs breakfast the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.
[© Copyright 2001, Michael C. Ruppert and From the Wilderness Publications. All Rights Reserved. Part I ONLY may be copied and redistributed for non-profit purposes only. All subsequent parts may be copied or distributed only with express written consent of the author. ]
August 14, 2001
HOSTAGES: A Multi-Part FTW Special Investigation- Medellin Cartel Cofounder, Carlos Lehder: A Free Man in Gov't. Charade?, -- "Wife" of Drug Lord Speaks
- American International Group, Arkansas, ADFA, Contras, Goldman Sachs, Carlos Lehder and Coral Reinsurance
- Exposing CIA Covert Operations
A.I.G.
[Part Two of a Multi-Part Series]
by
Michael C. Ruppert
[© Copyright 2001, Michael C. Ruppert and From the Wilderness Publications. All Rights Reserved. May not be reprinted or redistributed without the express permission of the author ]
[EDITORIAL NOTE - From The Wilderness is a sole proprietorship and dba. It is written and edited by one person; Me. I do almost all of the research. Therefore, in the following story, for both legal reasons and for better reading I have decided to use the personal pronouns "I" and "me" instead of standard editorial references in the third person.]
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This series is dedicated to Mark Swaney of the Ozark Gazette for his intellectual courage and tenacity; to John McGlaughlin, the straightest and toughest man who ever honestly carried a badge; to Celerino Castillo III, with a heart bigger than his beloved Texas; to all the young men and women, mostly minorities, who are serving up to life in prison for crimes that don't remotely compare to those of Carlos Lehder; and to all the innocents in Colombia who stand at the brink of the next Vietnam War.
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There are mounting holes in the story of a woman, Coral Talavera Baca (henceforth referred to by her maiden name Talavera), who has claimed to be the wife of Medellin Cartel co-founder, Carlos Lehder, deepening the mystery about relationships between her, Lehder himself, the insurance giant American International Group (AIG), and the Central Intelligence Agency. These new discrepancies, including her prior confirmation of the authenticity of documents now suspected of being forged, have raised the possibility that the U.S. Government, in partnership with AIG, has been deliberately planting false information in the press to support the woman's claims about Lehder's reported freedom and activities. Talavera has been simultaneously described as either Staff Counsel for AIG's in house San Francisco law firm or as its office manager.
In Part I of this series we reported that other journalists, who have asked not to be identified, had received the same documents we continue to examine here. Some of those documents purport to be official reports from the U.S. Treasury and U.S. Attorney's offices. As FTW moves deeper into its multi-part investigation - inspired by revelations of possible 1987-92 drug money laundering involving AIG, Goldman Sachs and the Arkansas Development Financial Authority (ADFA) - attention now focuses on Talavera's employer, AIG. These events increased my interest in the 1987 founding of Coral Reinsurance (Coral Re) by AIG, Goldman Sachs (whose then Vice Chairman Robert Rubin served as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration) and ADFA. Lehder, arrested in 1987, was allowed to keep almost $3 billion in assets in a move severely criticized by Merkle. Where did that money go? Was it hidden it in a major insurance company with cash flows large enough to conceal it? This question, more than any other, except establishing Lehder's current status, prompted me to begin this investigation.
What is known about the firm which employs Talavera, who is not a lawyer, and permits her to represent herself as "Staff Counsel" for its San Francisco legal office while simultaneously representing herself as the wife of a one-time cocaine cartel head? On June 22, just two days after I had lunch with her and confirmed that I was writing a story, a receptionist at Brown and Boland, AIG's San Francisco in-house counsel, told me and others that Talavera had fled her employment and gone to Cuba. Yet the firm, located in the AIG building and using AIG e-mail addresses, is currently announcing in new, dated voice mail messages, that she is still the office manager.
FTW has also conducted an extensive investigation into AIG and its predecessors, including the C. V. Starr Insurance Companies, revealing deep connections to US intelligence dating back to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II. These connections include documented CIA operatives connected to drug smuggling from Southeast Asia and a current board member, Frank Wisner, Jr., whose father was a key figure in the creation of the CIA. History, as well as AIG's current operations, suggest that these relationships continue unabated today.
These connections may go a long way toward explaining the behavior of Talavera, a woman whose education, work experience and history apparently do not qualify her to manage a legal office which, according to AIG spokesman Michael Murphy, specializes in the international operations of a company operating in 130 countries and with year 2000 revenues of $46 billion.
While the mystery deepens about the woman claiming to be his wife, the key question as to whether or not Lehder is free remains unanswered.
In Part I of this series I reported that through a number of vehicles including correspondence, e-mails, a telephone listing in the name of Carlos Lehder, tape recorded conversations and in-person statements Coral Talavera had represented to a number of people, including a retired DEA agent, me and others that she was the wife of Medellin Cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder. In an on-the-record interview and a legally tape recorded conversation she has also vouched for the authenticity of documents that have either been shown to be forged or are now seriously suspected of being forged. She additionally made it clear that Lehder was out of prison, working for the United States government and directly connected to the CIA and the U.S. Treasury. This scenario was circumstantially, but well supported by statements from a number of credible sources, including reporters, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Lehder's prosecutor (former U.S. Attorney Robert Merkle). Their independent statements gave credibility to many of Talavera's assertions. And suspicion or belief has been widespread that Lehder is, in fact, free -- regardless of Talavera's actions. All this is in spite of the fact that Lehder has been officially serving 55 non-parolable years in prison after giving testimony of questionable value in the 1990 trial of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Noriega's prosecutor, Robert Mueller, who put Lehder on the stand, has just recently been confirmed to head the FBI.
During a lunch meeting with Talavera on June 20 of this year, she went on the record with me stating that she had worked for AIG since 1994 and that she also owned a currently existing company named Capital Investment Group, Ltd. (CIG) in the Bahamas. She had earlier written me, speaking for Lehder, stating that neither she nor Lehder had any connection to Coral Re. In a 1999 tape recorded conversation she had discussed her marriage to Lehder and e-mail notifications allegedly sent by him introducing her as his wife. My investigation since that time has proven all of these assertions, and many others allegedly made to colleagues or social contacts, are lies at worst, or seriously suspect, at best.
One of the critical documents discussed in Part I of this series was a U.S. Treasury "Report of Investigation," the authenticity of which I had been unable to ascertain despite repeated contacts with Treasury. Since publication of Part I have received communication from "Kincaid," a confidential legal source, who has obtained an evaluation of that document from Lehder's current legal team, that the document is not authentic. This was the same document that, at the June 20 lunch meeting, Talavera went on the record to evaluate, line by line, and state was a real document that had been filed in a court case that she would not disclose to me.
The purpose of this portion of the on the record interview was to clarify Talavera's relationship with a Bahamian investment company known as Capital Investment Group, Ltd.
Although Bahamian law provides great secrecy for corporations, I was able to learn in late July that CIG in the Bahamas was "not listed" on government records. Through a confidential source with Caribbean banking connections, I was told that a banking official offered four possible explanations for CIG's "lack of registry." They include: the company was never formed; the company failed to pay dues; the file was lost; and, the file was lost intentionally at the request of the Prime Minister or the Attorney General. Coincidentally, the largest single shareholder in AIG, the Starr International Company (SICO), owning 13.62% of AIG stock, is also headquartered in the Bahamas.
Information, developed while looking further into Talavera's background now casts suspicion on the 1999 reported birth of a son, allegedly fathered by Lehder, as well as her employment history, education and qualifications to manage a legal office. So, with the exception of the statement that neither she nor Carlos Lehder had anything to do with the founding of Coral Re, almost all of Talavera's statements regarding her history have been shown to be false. This now calls the Coral Re denial into question as well.
All of this begs the question as to why AIG would protect and employ a woman engaged in these and other behaviors and with a history that could only damage the company's reputation. The one fact of Coral Talavera's life that has not been called into question by any of the sources I have contacted is that Coral knew and had a relationship with Carlos Lehder in the 1980s. The suspicions of many that Lehder is free have not yet been allayed. So these disturbing developments also drive home the importance of a question that the US government still has not answered. Where is Carlos Lehder and what motive could the government -- or AIG -- have for wanting some people to believe, or know, that he is free? If I am so patently wrong in what I have reported in this investigation, including the publication of the tape- recorded conversation wherein Talavera openly talks about Lehder's freedom and says that she is his wife, why doesn't the government just deny it, produce Lehder, discredit Talavera and state that the rest is pure bunk? Is there a legend -- a cover story -- that the CIA and AIG are trying to protect for the benefit of unknown third parties in other parts of the world?
Why would AIG spokesman Michael Murphy have stated, after speaking with me and learning of Talavera's representations regarding Lehder, that he mentioned them briefly to her but did not pursue them because he, "didn't want to pry"?
Deconstructing Coral
Coral Talavera's life has improved dramatically since 1995, the year that she provided San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb with documents including federal grand jury transcripts that started an investigation which subsequently established, through government records and a CIA Inspector General report, that the CIA was a hands-on player in the drug trade during the Contra war years of 1982-88. According to records filed in a protracted and contentious 1994 divorce case involving a previous husband -- which I obtained from the court -- Talavera was working as a legal secretary for the Oakland law firm of Hanna, Brophy et al. Her salary was approximately $26,000 per year and, according to a spokesperson for the firm which I also visited recently, she was employed there for two years until February, 1994. Hanna, Brophy specializes in Workman's Compensation defense of insurance companies in California.
Confidential sources familiar with Talavera led me to another law firm, Schmit, Morris, Bitner and Schmit where she reportedly worked throughout 1995 and into 1996, also as a secretary. Representatives of that firm refused to disclose any information unless I presented written authorization from Talavera for them to do so. Schmit, Morris is also a law firm exclusively devoted to Workman's Compensation defense. It may be a single-client firm representing AIG which may explain Talavera's "promotion" to the in-house firm but I have been unable to confirm this.
Briefs and petitions filed in Talavera's divorce also indicate that she was the mother of one female child whose paternity was ultimately questioned and later verified as being of Talavera's then husband. In a dispute over the property settlement it was alleged that she had stolen the seal of a notary public and forged a deed giving her sole title to a piece of real estate that was later judged to be community property. This fact lends credibility to allegations made by a number of people, who asked not to be identified, that she was the likely source of the forged documents. Those include forged newspaper stories and magazine articles, alleged memoranda from an unspecified U.S. Attorney's Office, a faked custom printed invitation to a birthday party allegedly sent by Lehder, photographic surveillance reports (including one purporting to be of her newborn son, Carlo), and the Treasury report which was described as "consistent with similar reports" by a source familiar with Lehder's case. [Some of these documents are posted on theFTW web site at www.copvcia.com. ]
It was also alleged in the divorce settlement that Talavera had deliberately placed the name of someone other than the real father, her then husband, on the birth certificate of her daughter. Even though she told me, during a 1998 unsolicited phone call, initiated by her, that she was going to have a child by Lehder, people who knew her during the period state that she was never pregnant. As Talavera's story fell apart I checked birth records in two Bay Area counties and found no recorded births listing Talavera as the mother aside from the 1992 birth of her one known daughter. Yet, in the 1999 taped conversation with Castillo, Talavera specifically referred to a purported news story entitled Beauty and the Beast which described a society function which Talavera and Lehder allegedly attended in 1999, "just three days after the birth of her son." During the conversation with Castillo, Talavera did not dispute this reporting about the birth. Instead she went to lengths to castigate the mean-spirited people who had written the story for calling Lehder, her husband, a beast. Asked by Castillo what paper had written the story Talavera stated on the tape, "Aw, who the hell knows?"
One document that seems beyond Talavera's ken, however, is a completely rewritten and re-typeset article from the August, 2000 issue of Architectural Digest, in which the 1,000 word story about the Ixtapa, Mexico home of a Levi Strauss executive was completely rewritten with copy about the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Lehder. In numerous conversations and in written correspondence I found Talavera to be a good communicator, at times very good, but her writing did not reach the style and skill of the professional journalist who had to rewrite the story and make the copy fit exactly into the same photograph-filled layout before faxing it to me. Indeed, there is nothing in Talavera's educational or employment background, that I have found, to indicate such skill. In fact, her statements to colleagues about her education also reveal more glaring holes in her story.
Acting again on information from confidential sources who have worked with Talavera, I learned that she had allegedly told people that she had BA and MBA degrees from St. Mary's college in the Bay Area. Lacking the ability to quote these sources by name I cannot confirm whether she made the representations or not. However, a check with the registrar at St. Mary's has revealed that she earned a BA in Liberal Arts in 1988 but has subsequently earned no advanced degrees of any kind. The registrar's office also stated that Talavera was currently enrolled in a graduate program but that it is not an MBA program.
All of these revelations prompted me to recontact Coral's "former" employer on August 3 to see what I could learn about her employment at AIG. It was then that I heard the voice messages informing me that she was still there. These messages, recorded within the last three weeks by senior attorneys Robert Brown and Larry Kloenhamer, both specifically refer callers to Office Manager Coral Talavera if the caller needs immediate assistance. A switchboard operator also confirmed Talavera's current status with AIG. Another interesting fact is that, on his current resume with the California State Bar Association, Robert Brown states that he is a Vietnam-era veteran of U.S. Army Special Forces. There is abundant evidence linking Special Forces to covert CIA operations and drug smuggling during the Vietnam War.
Credible sources with longstanding legal and business experience are perplexed to explain Talavera's apparent meteoric professional rise between 1992 and 1996. Asked about the transition from legal secretary at a Workman's Comp defense firm to office manager for the firm handling some of AIG's international operations, a legal expert with more than 20 years of experience in a variety of law offices summed up general reactions to Talavera's rise saying, "It's unprecedented."
The question as to what AIG knew and when it knew it gets stickier with the fact that, in no less than ten e-mail messages to me, Talavera had a signature block reading, "Coral Talavera, AIG Staff Counsel, 121 Spear Street, Suite 410, San Francisco, CA 94105. [An example of this can be viewed on my web site at www.copvcia.com]. The legal expert told me that this practice would be illegal in the state of Florida. A spokeswoman for the California State Bar Association told me on August 5 that the use of the term was, at best, misleading. She referred me to the San Francisco County District Attorney's office which subsequently stated that the action could be a violation of California's Business and Professions Code. Although Talavera was quick to point out in a number of conversations that she was not an attorney, the use of the term in official correspondence, might give AIG's overseas clients a different impression.
I have left three messages at AIG's law offices in San Francisco seeking clarification. At press time no calls have been returned. The current voice mail messages refer to Talavera as the "office manager."
So what is known then about the firm which employs Talavera and permits her to represent herself as Staff Counsel for its San Francisco legal office while simultaneously representing herself as the wife of a one-time cocaine cartel head?
Is it possible that AIG's CEO Hank Greenberg, a legendary stickler for detail and hands-on manager, would permit such activity, including the representation about owning an offshore investment company that might compete with AIG? In a June interview, AIG spokesman Michael Murphy, head of AIG operations in the Bahamas and reported to be Greenberg's right-hand man said, "Whenever there's the slightest hint of anything improper or of misuse of funds, [AIG CEO Hank] Greenberg is the first guy to lead the posse and clean house." I placed one follow-up call to Murphy's office for further clarification but it was not returned.
I was able to locate two sources in the insurance industry who were familiar with AIG and ask them if Talavera could be doing all this without Greenberg's knowledge. One response was short and direct, "The possibility that this is going on without Greenberg knowing is less than zero."
The second source was a bit more diplomatic. "M.R. Greenberg is a legendary leader. All current and former AIG employees know he is not only a visionary but a detail oriented person on all aspects of the firm's business activities worldwide. The General Counsel of AIG, Ernest Patrikis, was the senior legal officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and given the scrutiny AIG is subject to, it would surprise me if Mr. Greenberg was not aware. Sometimes, however, in a big company things slip by, but when he becomes aware, the situation is addressed quickly."
Deconstructing AIG
The seemingly mundane insurance business is, in fact, one of the primary weapons of intelligence gathering around the world. And the founder of AIG, Cornelius Starr, was an architect of its use in World War II. Consider these
quotes from a September 22, 2000 story by Los Angeles Times reporter Mark Fritz entitled, "The Secret (Insurance) Agent Men."
"COLLEGE PARK, Md.ÑThey knew which factories to burn, which bridges to blow up, which cargo ships could be sunk in good conscience. They had pothole counts for roads used for invasion and head counts for city blocks marked for incineration.
"They werenÕt just secret agents. They were secret insurance agents. These undercover underwriters gave their World War II spymasters access to a global industry that both bankrolled and, ultimately, helped bring down Adolf HitlerÕs Third Reich.
"Newly declassified U.S. intelligence files tell the remarkable story of the ultra-secret Insurance Intelligence Unit, a component of the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA, and its elite counterintelligence branch X-2.
"Though rarely numbering more than a half dozen agents, the unit gathered intelligence on the enemyÕs insurance industry, Nazi insurance titans and suspected collaborators in the insurance business. But, more significantly, the unit mined standard insurance records for blueprints of bomb plants, timetables of tide changes and thousands of other details about targets, from a brewery in Bangkok to a candy company in Bergedorf. 'They used insurance information as a weapon of war,' said Greg Bradsher, a historian and National Archives expert on the declassified records. That insurance information was critical to Allied strategists, who were seeking to cripple the enemyÕs industrial base and batter morale by burning citiesÉ
"Germany had 45% of the worldwide wholesale insurance industry before the war began and managed to actually expand its business as it conquered continental Europe. As wholesalers, or 'reinsurers,' these companies covered other insurers against a catastrophic loss that could wipe out a single company. In the process, the wholesaler learned everything about the lives and property they werereinsuring [emphasis, mine]É
"The men behind the insurance unit were OSS head William "Wild Bill" Donovan and California-born insurance magnate Cornelius V. Starr. Starr had started out selling insurance to Chinese in Shanghai in 1919 and, over the next 50 years, would build what is now American International Group, one of the biggest insurance companies in the world. He was forced to move his operation to New York in 1939, when Japan invaded China. In the early years of the war, the German insurance industry expanded its business as it conquered continental Europe. Nazi insurance brokers who traveled with combat troops during invasions also scoured local insurance files for strategic dataÉ"
On the special value of reinsurance as a vehicle for intelligence gathering Fritz wrote:
"Such convoluted business dealings were traced largely through the work of Ernest Stiefel, a member of the intelligence unit who diagrammed the way insurance companies pooled their risks, invested in and insured each other and, as a result, willfully or witlessly shared data about nations at war. 'Stiefel mapped the entire system, said [Timothy] Naftali, a historian at the University of VirginiaÕs Miller Center of Public Affairs. "Each time I take a piece of your risk, youÕve got to give me information. I am not going to reinsure your company unless you give me all the documents. ThatÕs great intelligence informationÉ"
Later in the story Fritz confirmed the value of reinsurance as a vehicle for money laundering:
"With the Axis defeat imminent, U.S. intelligence officials focused greater attention on ways the Nazis would try to use insurance to hide and launder their assets so they could be used to rebuild the war machine..."
And how did Starr benefit from his service? Fritz writes:
"Starr sent insurance agents into Asia and Europe even before the bombs stopped falling and built what eventually became AIG, which today has its world headquarters in the same downtown New York building where the tiny OSS unit toiled in the deepest secrecy.
Starr died in 1968, but his empire endures. AIG is the biggest foreign insurance company in Japan. More than a third of its $40 billion in revenue last year came from the Far East theater that Starr helped carpet bomb and liberate.
"In The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA (Basic Books, 1983) author Bradley F. Smith shed more light on Cornelius Starr and the OSS.
"It [a secret intelligence operation in China] was formed in April 1942, when [Bill] Donovan persuaded British insurance magnate C.V. Starr to let C.O.I. (Covert Operations Intelligence) use his commercial and insurance connections in occupied China and Formosa to create a deep cover intelligence network. Although the State Department was nervous about the operation, Donovan went ahead and, with the cooperation of the U.S. Army, bypassed the diplomats in operating the communications system. Starr's people handled their own internal communication, then turned over their intelligence findings to [General Richard] Stillwell's headquarters for dispatch to the U.S. Starr, who was residing in the U.S. at the time, provided these services to the Allied cause. Later Starr became disgusted with what he considered Donovan's inefficiency and transferred his services to the British S.I.S. But the Starr-Donovan connection worked in China at least until the winter of 1943-44.
"The establishment of the Starr intelligence network, an operation so secret that it even escaped the attention of Chiang's [Kai Shek]security police (and of historians heretofore), was a major accomplishment for an intelligence operation barely six months old"[p.133]
Drug Connections
The War Conspiracy (Bobbs-Merrill, 1972) by Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D. of UC Berkeley is a book few Americans have seen. The compelling and meticulously documented history of the creation of the Vietnam War was rushed from bookstores and shelves almost as soon as it was published. Scott, author of Deep Politics and the Assassination of JFK, The Iran-Contra Connection and Cocaine Politics is an expert on the interface between covert operations and the international drug trade. In Chapter Six of The War Conspiracy, entitled "Opium, the China Lobby, and the CIA," Scott traces the connections between drug trafficking in Southeast Asia and American intelligence operations. There are detailed references to C.V. Starr and connections with some figures, like CIA veteran Paul Helliwell, who have been irrevocably and blatantly tied to the drug trade. Those connections also lead directly into the so-called "China Lobby" and firms identified as either CIA proprietaries or "affiliates" such as Sea Supply, Inc. (run by Helliwell), Civil Air Transport (CAT), a CIA proprietary, Civil Air Transport Co., Ltd. (CATCL) -- a separate firm not owned by but affiliated with the CIA through CAT-- and Air America, an evolution of Civil Air Transport. In 1957 the Airdale Corporation which owned 100 per cent of Air America changed its name to Pacific Corp. In 1976 CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston testified before the Senate's Church Committee looking into intelligence abuses about CIA Air operations. When asked what the one single holding company, above all others, was at the top of CIA proprietary and contract air operations, he identified Pacific Corporation. According to published reports, Houston also testified that the CIA also had interests in investment and insurance companies.
Pacific Corp -- which one source has told me is currently insured by AIG -- and the CIA have, in the 1990s, been connected with the "laundering" of some 28 C-130 military transport aircraft into the hands of private, forest fire, air tanker contractors in the U.S. Subsequently, many of those C-130s turned up all over the world. Some were directly involved in drug trafficking and one in particular, operated by Aero-Postale de Mexico, was seized with a billion dollars in cocaine aboard in Mexico City in 1996. [See FTW, Vol I, No 10 - Dec, 1998]
A key figure in the post-war operations was lawyer Tommy Corcoran, a legendary "fixer" in the Roosevelt Administration, who went on to represent Nationalist Chinese financial interests after the Communists took power in 1949. Corcoran and Helliwell worked closely together in Asia. One of the critical and well-documented U.S. responses to the Communist takeover was to fund remnants of the Chinese Nationalist army -- who had fled into Burma, Thailand and Laos -- with opium. Much of that money, along with the drugs, found its way into the U.S. As noted by writers like the late Jonathan Kwitny of The Wall Street Journal in The Crimes of Patriots(Penguin, 1987) and by Professor Alfred McCoy of the University of Wisconsin in The Politics of Heroin (1972, 1991, Lawrence Hill Books), Helliwell paid the troops using five-pound "sticky" bars of heroin. Helliwell later went on to head Castle Bank and Trust in Florida and the Bahamas and then was heavily involved with The Nugan Hand Bank in Australia and the U.S. Both banks have been heavily linked in official investigations to both drug trafficking and money laundering while also moving money for the CIA.
In The War Conspiracy Scott writes:
"For it is a striking fact that the law firm of Tommy Corcoran, the Washington lawyer for CATCL and [China Lobbyist] T.V. Soong, had its own links to the interlocking worlds of the China Lobby and of organized crime. His partner W.S. Youngman joined the board of U.S. Life and other insurance companies, controlled by C.V. Starr (OSS China) with the help of Philippine and other Asian capital. Youngman's fellow-directors of Starr's companies have included John S. Woodbridge of Pan Am, Francis F. Randolph of J. and W. Seligman, W. Palmer Dixon of Loeb Rhoades, Charles Edison of the postwar China Lobby, and Alfred B. Jones of the Nationalist Chinese government's registered agency, the Universal Trading Corporation. The [Senate] McClellan Committee heard that in 1950 U.S. Life [later part of AIG] (with Edison as a director) and a much smaller company (Union Casualty of New York) were allotted a major Teamsters insurance contract, after a lower bid from a larger and safer company had been rejected, [Jimmy] Hoffa was accused by a fellow trustee, testifying under oath before another committee, of intervening on behalf of US Life and Union Casualty, whose agents were Hoffa's close business associates Paul and Allen DorfmanÉ
"We find the same network linking CIA proprietaries, war lobbies, and organized crime, when we turn our attention from CAT to the other identified supporter of opium activities, Sea Supply, Inc. Sea Supply, Inc. was organized in Miami, Florida, where its counsel, Paul E. Helliwell, doubled after 1951 as the counsel for C.V. Starr insurance interests, and also as the Thai consul in Miami..."
The historical connections to CIA covert or proprietary air operations are interesting in light of the fact that AIG proudly announces in its 2000 annual report that with 494 full-sized jets -- 89 of which it manages itself -- it owns "the world's most modern fleet of aircraft." AIG customers include major airlines and a number of air transport companies. AIG also reported that in 2000 it leased additional aircraft "to a number of established customers" in South America.
CIA proprietary ownership or interest in companies is very difficult to detect. But, it has been proven by writers like Scott and many other researchers who combed through the paperwork that surfaced during the Iran-Contra scandals of the 1980s, where Air America assets were laundered into companies like Southern Air Transport and Evergreen Air. The single largest stockholder in AIG, the Starr International Company (SICO), holds 13.62% of AIG stock. Aside from knowing that Maurice Greenberg owns 21.86% of SICO (source, SEC) we may never be able to find out who, or what, owns the rest.
They Even Put It In Writing
In September 1997 a group of business and labor executives* reviewed and made recommendations on the use of sanctions by the President of the United States to influence world events. One of those executives was Oackley Johnson of AIG. The group, called the Sanctions Working Group (SWG) of the Department of State's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, having completed its review of the way the White House has imposed sanctions on foreign governments, completed a detailed report which was sent to the State Department by the Committee head, Michael Gadbaw of General Electric. The advisory panel called for massive revisions in the way sanctions were selected and imposed in foreign affairs to punish or induce foreign governments to behave the way the U.S. wants.
Approval of the recommendations was unanimous from the business community and opposition was unanimous and acerbic from organized labor representatives who sent their dissent separately to the State Department. The report, they said, cared about nothing but the financial interests of major U.S. Corporations.
As an Appendix to the report, which was found at http://www.usaengage.org/studies.html, Footnote 4 following Tab 5 listed valid U.S. foreign policy objectives. It states: This report addresses sanctions undertaken pursuant to laws or regulations that authorize or mandate unilateral economic sanctions in order to achieve a foreign policy objective.
"The foreign policy objectives may include the transition to democracy, opposing terrorism or support of terrorist activities, sanctioning drug production and transit or trafficking, supporting human and worker rights and religious freedom, opposing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and protecting the environment."
The language "support of terrorist activities" is ambiguous. It could mean that the U.S. would punish those who support terrorist activities or that it might support terrorist activities itself. The drug trafficking language also catches the panel on the horns of a dilemma. As defined in the American Heritage dictionary, to sanction something means to "grant authoritative permission or approval." A secondary meaning means "to punish." In government documents and reports, especially those laying out or recommending policy, every word is reviewed dozens of times. Lawyers and decision makers sign off on every aspect. Drafts usually circulate for weeks before final approval. This language may mean exactly what it says. And if there is ambiguity then it must have been intended.
The whole purpose of From The Wilderness is to teach the world that it is a specific intent of Wall Street and the U.S. government to give authoritative permission and approval to the drug trade to ensure that drug profits -- the money -- comes back under the control of the people who sanctioned the trade to begin with. Is that what Coral Talavera is doing at AIG? I e-mailed Oackley Johnson at AIG and asked him to comment on the report. At press time he has not responded. I have also solicited (again) comment from AIG Corporate offices on the content of this story. Also no response. But I hope to have something from them for Part III in September.
AIG has also been connected, albeit indirectly, to a major money laundering case. As the insurance carrier for the Bank of New York (BoNY) they are defending BoNY in a suit filed this year by BoNY shareholders charging mismanagement of the bank. That suit arose from revelations (See FTW Vol II, No.7, 9/99) in the major media that BoNY had been involved in laundering between $7 and $10 billion in criminal money out of Russia during the 1990s under its Chairman, Thomas Renyi. A credible source has told me, but I have not been able to confirm it, that AIG also insures the U.S. Department of Justice which was charged with investigating BoNY and which decided not to file criminal charges in 1999.
Perhaps no one knows more about your life, not even your immediate family, than the various companies who insure you. Your health, finances, work history, medical records, driving habits and almost every other aspect of your life is recorded in insurance files and records. Is this necessarily something you want available to the CIA or any part of the government? Remember that the CIA doesn't operate under the law or respect privacy. What happens then when a giant like AIG winds up insuring parts of the government or major businesses that violate your rights or break the law?
- Members of the Sanctions Working Group of the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy: -- Mark Anderson, AFL-CIO * Harvey Bale, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Assoc. * Steven Beckman, United Auto Workers * Seddik Belyamani, Boeing * Fred Bergsten, Institute for International Economics * Thomas Block, Chase Manhattan Bank * Carol Brookins, World Perspectives * Anthony Corso, Mobil *Greg Farmer, Northern Telecom * Isaiah Frank, Johns Hopkins (SAIS) * Don Fuqua, Aerospace Industries Association * R. Michael Gadbaw, General Electric * R. Harkin, United Technologies * Robert Hormats, Goldman, Sachs International * Nancie Johnson, DuPont * Oackley Johnson, AIG * Robert Johnson, Phelps Dodge & Morenci * Dale Jones, Halliburton * Robert Kapp, US-China Business Council * Frank Kittredge, National Foreign Trade Council * Mary Lou Lackey, Motorola * T. Lee, AFL-CIO *Charles Levy - Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering *Clement Malin, Texaco * Rebecca Mark, Enron Development *Joel Messing, Cigna *Robert Niemeth, Pfizer * G. Staley, Toys R Us * Roger Swanson, US-Japan Business Council * Sandra Taylor, Eastman Kodak * Robert Vastine, Coalition of Service Industries * Alan Wolff, Dewey Ballantine *
AIG Highlights
- AIG has the largest market capitalization (total value of all shares) of any insurance or financial services organization on the NYSE -- $198.4 billion in 2000. It has operations in 130 countries.
- Ranked #7 on Forbes Super 100 list of companies. After GE, Citigroup, BankAmerica, Exxon, IBM and Ford.
- The largest U.S. underwriter of commercial and industrial insurance.
- Operates AIG Financial Services Group, which sells investments, international asset management and "advisory" services.
- The largest seller of retirement annuities in the U.S. through its acquisitions of SunAmerica and American General in 1999 and 2001 respectively.
- AIG is licensed to operate banks in three countries, including the US (1999) and also issues credit cards.
History
- Originally formed as the Asia Life/C. V. Starr Companies in the 1930s by founder Cornelius Starr who served with the OSS during World War II. The Starr corporation shared the same office building as OSS headquarters in New York, and functioned as an intelligence conduit on shipping, manufacturing and industrial bombing targets in Asia and Germany throughout WW II. [The Los Angeles Times, Sept. 22, 2000]
- Early business centered primarily in China and Asia. Starr interests centered in Asia and Panama.
- 1951 - Changed name to American Life Insurance Company (ALICO).
- Acquired major U.S. insurance companies in the 1950s and 60s.
- 1967 - Incorporated as American International Group (AIG).
- 1969 - First public offering.
- First western insurance company to create joint ventures with Hungary, Poland and Romania in the 1960s.
- In 1980 established joint venture with the People's Insurance Company of China.
- First insurance company licensed to do business on its own in Japan (1952), Mainland China (1990), and Vietnam (2000).
- Member and staunch supporter of the World Trade Organization. During 1997 WTO negotiations, AIG collaborated directly with Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to negotiate Asian financial, investment and trade agreements covering 102 countries, which one report described as bullying and marked by "messages back and forth from Geneva to Washington, andÉ reports, between the US Treasury and American International Group." [Third World Economics, No. 175, 16-31, 12/97].
- During the 1990s involved with U.S. investment in Russia (overseen by Goldman Sachs and The Harvard Endowment) through Brunswick Brokerage. Secured a $300 million OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) guarantee for a Russian investment fund. [Paul Likoudis, Editor, The Wanderer.]
- AIG has "joint venture" interests in Latin America through ZonaFinanciera with Citibank which in May 2001 purchased Mexico's Banamex and will be placing reported drug money launderer and trafficker Roberto Hernandez on its board of directors.
- AIG insures more than half of the major US airports.
- The world's "market leader" in leasing and remarketing of advanced technology commercial jet aircraft - "the most modern fleet of aircraft in the world. " With 2000 revenues of $2.44 billion AIG owns a fleet of 494 jets, 89 of which it "manages" itself. Clients include airlines in U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America where, in 2000, it leased, "additional aircraft to a number of established customers."
Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, 75 -- Chairman and CEO of American International Group (AIG)
- WWII, Served with US Army Signal Corps and Army Rangers
- LL.B., New York Law School, 1950
- Korean War, Investigated reported massacres at POW camps run by UN/US personnel
- Elected AIG President in 1962, CEO in 1967 and Chairman in 1989.
- Former Chairman and Director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
- Forbes 111th richest man in the world (More than $4 billion net worth)
- Vice Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations
- Vice Chairman, Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Member, Board of Directors, New York Stock Exchange
- Member, Trilateral Commission
- Member, The Bilderberger Group
- Chairman, The Nixon Center
- Chairman, U.S.-China Business Council
- Chairman, The Starr Foundation
- Accompanied President George Bush on his trade mission to China in 1992
- Major contributor to The Heritage Foundation
- Name floated by Senator Arlen Specter to become CIA director in 1995 (Reported in U.S. News and World Report - 2/20/95)
AIG Board's Board of Directors as Reported to the SEC
- M. BERNARD AIDINOFF -- SENIOR COUNSEL, SULLIVAN & CROMWELL (Attorneys). Director since 1984 -- Age 72. [NOTE: Sullivan and Cromwell is the legal firm that was home to Eisenhower Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles, who was a key OSS leader during WWII and who served as CIA Director under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.]
- ELI BROAD -- CHAIRMAN, SUNAMERICA INC (a wholly-owned subsidiary of AIG). Director since 1999 -- Age 67.
- PEI-YUAN CHIA -- RETIRED VICE CHAIRMAN, CITICORP AND CITIBANK, N.A. Director since 1996 -- Age 62.
- MARSHALL A. COHEN -- COUNSEL, CASSELS BROCK & BLACKWELL (Barristers and Solicitors); FORMER PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE MOLSON COMPANIES LIMITED. Director since 1992 -- Age 66.
- BARBER B. CONABLE, JR. -- RETIRED; FORMER PRESIDENT, WORLD BANK, AND FORMER MEMBER, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Director since 1991 -- Age 78.
- MARTIN S. FELDSTEIN -- PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY; PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH (Nonprofit Economic Research Center), Director HCA and TRW. Director since 1987 -- Age 61.
- ELLEN V. FUTTER -- PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Director, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Consolidated Edison, Inc. (also serves as Trustee of Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Director since 1999 -- Age 51.
- MAURICE R. GREENBERG -- CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AIG, Director, Transatlantic Holdings, Inc. ('Transatlantic'), which is owned 60.0 percent by AIG. Also serves as Chairman of Transatlantic, a director, President and Chief Executive Officer of C.V. Starr & Co., Inc. ('Starr'), and a director of Starr International Company, Inc. ('SICO') and International Lease Finance Corporation ('ILFC'); Starr and SICO are private holding companies (see 'Ownership of Certain Securities'); ILFC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AIG. Director since 1967 -- Age 75.
- CARLA A. HILLS -- CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, HILLS & COMPANY; FORMER UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE. (Hills & Company provides international investment, trade and risk advisory services). Director, AOL Time Warner Inc., Chevron Corporation, Lucent Technologies Inc. Director since 1993 -- Age 67.
- FRANK J. HOENEMEYER -- FINANCIAL CONSULTANT; RETIRED VICE CHAIRMAN, PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA. Director, Carey Fiduciary Advisors, Inc. Cincinnati, Inc. Director since 1985 -- Age 81.
- RICHARD C. HOLBROOKE -- FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS; FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN, CREDIT SUISSE, FIRST BOSTON. Elected February 7, 2001 -- Age 59.
- EDWARD E. MATTHEWS -- VICE CHAIRMAN -- INVESTMENTS AND FINANCIAL SERVICES, AIG. Director, Transatlantic. Also serves as a director of Starr, SICO and ILFC, -- Director since 1973 -- Age 69.
- HOWARD I. SMITH -- EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, AIG. Director, Transatlantic, 21st Century Insurance Group ('21st Century'), which is owned 62.8 percent by AIG. Also serves as a director of Starr, SICO and ILFC -- Director since 1997 -- Age 56.
- THOMAS R. TIZZIO -- SENIOR VICE CHAIRMAN -- GENERAL INSURANCE, AIG. Director, Transatlantic. Also serves as a director of Starr and SICO. -- Director since 1986 -- Age 63.
- EDMUND S.W. TSE -- VICE CHAIRMAN -- LIFE INSURANCE, AIG. Also serves as a director of Starr and SICO. -- Director since 1996 -- Age 63.
- JAY S. WINTROB -- PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SUNAMERICA. Director, Anchor National Life Insurance Company and First SunAmerica Life Insurance Company, wholly-owned subsidiaries of AIG. Also serves as a director of Starr and SICO -- Director since 1999 -- Age 44.
- FRANK G. WISNER -- VICE CHAIRMAN -- EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, AIG. Director, EOG Resources, Inc. -- Director since 1997 -- Age 62. [NOTE: Wisner is the son of former CIA deputy Director, Frank Wisner, Sr. who was present at the creation of the CIA. As head of the Office of Policy Coordination, the forerunner of the CIA's Directorate of Operations. Wisner, Sr. once boasted, "I can play the media like a mighty Wurlitzer." In a 35 year career with the State department, Wisner, Jr. served as U.S. Ambassador to India, the Philippines, Egypt and Zambia.]
- FRANK G. ZARB -- CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECURITIES DEALERS, INC. AND THE NASDAQ STOCK MARKET, INC. -- Elected February 7, 2001 -- Age 66
- AIG is a client of Henry Kissinger and Associates. Kissinger is the Chairman of AIG's International Advisory Board.
[© Copyright 2001, Michael C. Ruppert and From the Wilderness Publications. All Rights Reserved. May not be reprinted or redistributed without the express permission of the author ]
On or about August 16, 2001 FTW subscribers will be able to visit a secure are of our web site and download selected portions of the taped conversation between Coral Talavera and Celerino Castillo. Watch the FTW web site for exciting new features -- for paid subscribers only! If you are a subscriber, please make sure that we have your e-mail address to send you your passwords.
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to the
Seventy-Seven Subscribers and Long-Term Supporters Who Responded To Our Special Plea For Help Last Month
Thanks To You, FTW Will Be Around For Yet A While LongerÉ
Telling The Truth
Filling The Void
Taking The Risk
Shining The Light
Building The Map
Coming Next Month: More on Carlos Lehder * The History of Coral Reinsurance * A Look at ADFA * Fallout From Part IIÉ Stay Tuned for Part III!
Important Announcement
Effective immediately, in order to reduce costs, all FTW subscribers who are on-line with e-mail will be receiving their monthly issues over the Internet.
In order to continue to bring you the news and information that you have made it so clear you want, it is essential that we cut monthly printing and mailing costs.
The recent loss of an investor, after he pledged to support a publishing project FTW had invested almost $30,000 in, nearly put us out of business. That investor, a high school classmate, moved and took his family out of Southern California and has not been heard from since.
Last month we issued a plea for help to two hundred of our oldest subscribers for financial assistance. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and we have decided to fight on. This month's issue is proof of that!
For those of you who have not been with us from the start, following are some of the stories we have brought you since March, 1998.
We are not out of the woods yet but let's pray that this is still only the beginning.
- Two years of groundbreaking coverage on the Vietnamization of Colombia.
- Three years of reporting on the channeling of drug profits through Wall Street.
- The first news entity to publish the entire deposition of Adm. Thomas Moorer admitting sarin gas use in SE Asia.
- Exclusive coverage on the contents of a CIA IG report (10/98) admitting direct CIA involvement in the drug trade.
- Expanded coverage of the CIA illegally transferring military aircraft to private companies that were later used to smuggle cocaine in the 1990s.
- The connection between the crack cocaine epidemic and massive foreclosures of HUD financed homes in South Central Los Angeles. (Ethnic Cleansing)
- The first US news entity to report in detail on connections between the KLA and the heroin trade.
- An exclusive two-part series connecting Dominican drug lords to money laundering through the Democratic Party.
- The first US news agency to fully explore the massive looting of Russia through the Bank of New York and link it to the drug trade.
- Gov George Bush flying in a Texas state airplane once owned by Barry Seal (picked up by the AP).
- Perjury committed by Deputy Attorneys General in the conviction of Edwin Wilson.
- The Democratic Party's Presidential Drug Money Pipeline.
- The 9th Circuit Court Affirming Contra Leaders Claims of CIA Sanction for Drug Trafficking.
- Promis Software (2000).
- The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire.
- European Economic Conference on US Economy - (dateline Moscow).
- Massive Holes in the U.S. Position on the Shootdown of Missionaries in Peru
