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Venez-Argentina "Suitcase Scandal" All Sounds Like a Bad Movie
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
BoRev.net - Jan 12, 2008
http://www.borev.net/2008/01/it_all_sounds_like_some_bad_mo.html
It all Sounds Like Some Bad Movie
Intrigue! Extortion! Incompetence! Todays New York Times [see below]
details every sordid allegation in the U.S. case against the Venezuelan
businessmen who didnt deliver a suitcase full of cash to Argentina.
You have to read it twice and slowly to figure out they are indeed only
covering the U.S. allegations, though. Check out artfully constructed
sentences like this:
"What is clear is that soon after leaving Argentina he agreed to be
recorded, photographed and videotaped by F.B.I. agents as he talked to
a number of Venezuelans in Florida, who coaxed, cajoled and outright
threatened him to keep quiet and accept falsified documents about the
origin and intent of the money, American investigators contend."
You see, its clear that were talking about what the investigators
contend, only haha its written so crappily that its actually not
clear at all.
Anyway if you bother to read the whole thing youre finally slapped
with this little piece of context thirty whole paragraphs down:
"Thomas Mulvihill, the assistant United States attorney leading the
case, also accused Cubas Fidel Castro in the late 1980s of acting as a
go-between in cocaine trafficking out of Colombia, claims that were
never substantiated].But the current case is unusual because the
statute has almost always been used in cases where people are accused
of trying to spy on expatriate communities, or where the suspects were
viewed to be dangers to national security, legal experts said."
Oh right by the way everything you just read came from a discredited
crackpot and the case has no precedent in the history of U.S.
jurisprudence. By Simon Romero The End.
***
The New York Times - Jan 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/world/americas/12venez.html
Suitcase of Cash Tangles U.S. and 2 Latin Nations in Intrigue
By SIMON ROMERO and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
CARACAS, Venezuela " One day last August, an air****t policewoman in
Buenos Aires noticed something peculiar as she was monitoring a baggage
scanner: the appearance of six perfect, dense rectangles inside a
suitcase.
She asked the passenger, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, one of eight
people aboard a private plane chartered by Argentinas national oil
company that flew from Caracas, to open the case. He became frozen and
did not say a word, the policewoman later said in a radio interview.
When he did open it, nearly $800,000 in cash spilled out.
Mr. Antonini, a businessman with Venezuelan and American citizen****p,
is now at the center of a spy mystery and diplomatic imbroglio
involving Argentina, Venezuela and the United States. American
officials ****tray the episode as a rare glimpse into President Hugo
Ch!vezs use of oil wealth to spread his influence, saying the cash was
destined for the campaign of Cristina Fern!ndez de Kirchner,
Argentinas new president.
Venezuela and Argentina describe it as an amateurish American attempt
to smear their governments. Mrs. Kirchner has called the case a
garbage operation by Americans, while Venezuelas official news
agency claimed this week that it was a plot by the Central Intelligence
Agency.
But American investigators, in court documents, say a concealed
recording device they persuaded Mr. Antonini to wear after the cash was
seized revealed that Venezuelan spies and businessmen threatened and
pressured him to cover up the destination of the cash.
The United States attorney in Miami is prosecuting those men for
failing to register as foreign agents. The case hinges on a charge that
four Venezuelans and one Uruguayan in south Florida tried to cover up
an operation gone badly awry and to prevent Mr. Antonini from going
public.
Neither Mr. Antonini nor his lawyer, Theresa van Vliet, responded to
numerous requests for interviews.
Thomas A. Shannon Jr., assistant secretary of state for Western
Hemisphere affairs, said Friday that the Argentine reaction was
regrettable and not positive, but that the investigation had no
foreign policy purpose. He said recent statements from Argentine
officials indicated that the Argentines understand that this is a
judicial process and that it is best for everybody to allow this to
play itself out.
The case began when Mr. Antonini, 46, returned to his home in Key
Biscayne, Fla. Within days, he began cooperating with American
investigators, offering them insight into what they contend was an
operation in which wealthy Venezuelan businessmen in south Florida
plotted with officials as high up as Mr. Ch!vezs spymaster and former
vice president.
Mr. Antonini may have asked for American help after Argentine
investigators sought his extradition. Two days after being caught with
the cash, Mr. Antonini was seen in the presidential palace in Buenos
Aires celebrating the signing of business deals with Venezuela,
according to Victoria Bereziuk, an Argentine secretary who was at the
palace and who was one of the passengers in the private plane with Mr.
Antonini, according to Argentine investigators.
Alberto Fern!ndez, Mrs. Kirchners chief of staff, later denied her
assertion, saying the Argentine government had no record of Mr.
Antonini being at the palace.
What is clear is that soon after leaving Argentina he agreed to be
recorded, photographed and videotaped by F.B.I. agents as he talked to
a number of Venezuelans in Florida, who coaxed, cajoled and outright
threatened him to keep quiet and accept falsified documents about the
origin and intent of the money, American investigators contend. The
government made 41 audio recordings and eight videotapes, documents in
the case show.
The surveillance took place in a series of restaurants and cafes. In
one meeting, on Aug. 23 at Jacksons Steakhouse in Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., Carlos Kauffmann, 36, a Venezuelan businessman, told Mr. Antonini
it was not in Venezuelas best interest for him to have any problems
in Venezuela. A Venezuelan lawyer assured Mr. Antonini that Venezuelas
national oil company, Petrleos de Venezuela, would pay for all legal
expenses and financial penalties that might result from the suitcase
scandal.
But by Sept. 7, when Mr. Antonini met with Franklin Duran, 40, a
Venezuelan oil products tycoon and close friend, at a Quarterdeck
restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Mr. Duran was telling him that
Venezuelan authorities no longer trusted Mr. Antonini and suspected
that he was talking to American law enforcement.
At one point, two of the suspects, according to prosecutors, offered
Mr. Antonini $2 million in hush money. On another occasion, prosecutors
said, Mr. Duran told Mr. Antonini that if he did not cooperate his
children could be in danger.
On Oct. 27, Mois(c)s Maionica, 36, another Venezuelan suspect, told Mr.
Antonini by phone that an emissary was being sent from Venezuela to
meet with him at a Starbucks in Plantation, Fla.
The emissary was Antonio Jos(c) Canchica Gmez, an agent of Venezuelas
Disip intelligence service, according to investigators. The next day
Rodolfo Wanseele Paciello, a Uruguayan also charged in the case, drove
Mr. Canchica to the Starbucks. Coded language had been agreed upon in
advance.
Christian, Mr. Antonini muttered in Mr. Canchicas direction at the
Starbucks.
The code word accepted, Mr. Canchica assured Mr. Antonini that he would
be skillfully and discreetly helped, American prosecutors charge, and
that he, Mr. Canchica, was the last link in the chain.
When the 40-minute meeting was over, Mr. Paciello drove Mr. Canchica to
the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel, seven miles away. But Mr. Paciello,
apparently to try to lose any trailing car, drove 43 miles instead of
seven, making constant ****fts and turns in direction and going 35 miles
on the Florida Turnpike, where the speed limit is 70 miles per hour.
It was, American investigators contend, an attempt at
countersurveillance. It did not work. The F.B.I. was watching the whole
time, an agent testified in court last month. Three days later, Mr.
Canchica left Miami by plane. On Dec. 12, the F.B.I. arrested the three
Venezuelans and Mr. Paciello, the Uruguayan.
Mr. Canchica, the fifth suspect, remains at large. American officials,
who requested anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of the case,
said they believed he had fled to Cuba, beyond the reach of American
intelligence services.
No investigation of Mr. Antonini or those involved in the alleged
cover-up has been initiated in Venezuela, opening its government to
charges that it is reluctant for the truth to emerge.
That leaves the burden of proof foremost with federal prosecutors in
the United States.
With a trial in the case still months away, some im****tant questions
remain unclear: Who gave the orders to the Venezuelan businessmen to
pursue Mr. Antonini on American soil? Where did the money in Mr.
Antoninis suitcase come from? And what motivated Mr. Kauffmann and Mr.
Duran, two highflying Venezuelan tycoons enmeshed in the scandal who
have pleaded not guilty to the charges?
The State Department says that prosecutors in Miami initiated the case
without orders from Wa****ngton, and that the indictments were not
motivated by any desire to smear Mr. Ch!vezs government. A senior
United States official said that the State Department learned of the
case soon after the investigation began but did not interfere.
Mr. Durans lawyer, Edward R. Shohat, in Miami, said the case should be
of no concern to the United States. Here, in essence, Venezuelan
citizens are accused of trying to influence the conduct of another
Venezuelan citizen with respect to a seizure of currency in Argentina,
which, if such conduct amounts to an obstruction of justice, could only
affect proceedings in Argentina, he said. No United States interest
is implicated.
This is not the first time the United States Attorneys office in Miami
has pursued a hostile government based on the statements of people
involved in an investigation.
Thomas Mulvihill, the assistant United States attorney leading the
case, also accused Cubas Fidel Castro in the late 1980s of acting as a
go-between in cocaine trafficking out of Colombia, claims that were
never substantiated. In February, a former professor at Florida
International University and his wife were convicted of acting as
unregistered agents of the Cuban government.
But the current case is unusual because the statute has almost always
been used in cases where people are accused of trying to spy on
expatriate communities, or where the suspects were viewed to be dangers
to national security, legal experts said.
This time, Mr. Mulvihill insists, the suspects in question have
implicated themselves.
The taped conversations indicate clearly they were doing the bidding
of a foreign government, and those taped conversations are in their own
words, he said in a Miami courtroom last month.
[Simon Romero re****ted from Caracas, and Alexei Barrionuevo from Miami
and Rio de Janeiro. Vinod Sreeharsha contributed re****ting from Buenos
Aires.]
*
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