Posted on 11/30/2007 7:55:34 PM PST by Fred
A partnership Rudy Giuliani forged with a wealthy diamond-trading family from Israel helped his effort to expand his fledgling consulting business in Japan, and generated more than $600,000 in speaking fees for the Republican presidential candidate.
The former New York mayor's previously undisclosed relationship with the Sage Capital Growth -- a medium-size private equity firm associated with the diamond-trading Steinmetz family of Israel -- shows how money came his way after he earned international acclaim leading the city through the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
It offers a peek at Mr. Giuliani's closely held five-year-old consulting business, New York-based Giuliani Partners LLC, whose clients he has declined to identify. In addition to large speaking fees that went directly to Mr. Giuliani, the Sage relationship helped his firm expand into a foreign market where he and his team of ex-New York City criminal justice, municipal and fire department officials lacked experience.
They went beyond their core security expertise to work with companies in sectors ranging from condominiums to alternative energy -- though their promises to help Japanese companies to expand sometimes fell flat.
Mr. Giuliani's personal contributions appear largely to have been to make speeches in Tokyo and elsewhere to promote his partnership with Sage, and to lend his celebrity status to conferences. Two of the Japanese companies Sage invested in prominently posted photos of the former mayor posing with their executives.
"At the beginning, there was some hope this would lead to something bigger, but that just didn't materialize," said Nobuyuki Omori, an investor relations manager at Digital Garage Inc., an Internet firm the Sage-Giuliani partnership had vowed to help expand.
At one point, Mr. Giuliani was slated to head a Sage-funded philanthropy alongside major business leaders in the U.S. and Japan, though that..
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Yay! Someone is finally looking at Giuliani-Sage!
Hopefully they will demonstrate that his “consulting” business was more of a pennystock-trading/money-laundering machine.
The Mob On Wall Street Goes Global.
WSJ Bump! Rest in Peace Daniel Pearl.
November 16, 2001
Much-smuggled gem aids al-Qaida
Bought, sold by militants near mine, tanzanite ends up at Mideast souks
By Robert Block and Daniel Pearl
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MERERANI, Tanzania, Nov. 16 — In the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, miners with flashlights tied to their heads crawl hundreds of feet beneath the East African plain, searching for a purple-brown crystal that will turn into a blue gem called tanzanite. Many of the rare stones chipped off by the spacemen, as the miners are called, find their way to display cases at Zales, QVC or Tiffany. But it’s a long way from these dusty plains to U.S. jewelry stores, and the stones pass through many hands on their journey. Some of those hands, it is increasingly clear, belong to active supporters of Osama bin Laden.
A TRADE GROUP called the Tanzanian Mineral Dealers Association denies that bin Laden’s al-Qaida has any role in the tanzanite trade. But in the bars and cafes that dot the streets of Tanzania’s mining community, the radical connections are no secret. According to miners and local residents, Muslim extremists loyal to bin Laden buy stones from miners and middlemen, smuggling them out of Tanzania to free-trade havens such as Dubai and Hong Kong.
“Yes, people here are trading for Osama. Just look around and you will find serious Muslims who believe in him and work for him,” says Musa Abdallah, a Kenyan who has worked as a tanzanite miner for six years.
EMBASSY BOMBINGS
Many details of the trade remain murky, such as whether its main role is to earn money for the militants or simply to help them move funds secretly about the world. Still, William Wechsler, a former National Security Council member in charge of counterterrorism under President Clinton, says there is little doubt that bin Laden’s links to gemstones, including tanzanite, have been used at times to help fund his terror activities. Al-Qaida’s dealings in tanzanite in the 1990s were detailed at length during the recent federal trial that convicted four bin Laden men in connection with the U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya.
Alex Magyane, a Tanzanian government official actively investigating the tanzanite trade, says he has recently traced bin Laden-linked smuggling of rough stones through Kenya to bazaars in the Middle East. “Beyond any doubt, I am 100 percent sure that these Muslim gem traders are connected to Osama bin Laden,” the official says.
Tanzanite is so rare it is mined in only one place on earth, a five-square-mile patch of graphite rock here in northeastern Tanzania. Legend has it that Masai tribesmen discovered the gem when a bolt of lightning set fire to the plains, and some crystals on the ground turned blue. In 1967 an Indian geologist identified the stone as a rare form of the mineral zoisite and determined that it turned a velvety blue when heated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Tiffany & Co. named it “tanzanite” and promoted it as “the most important gemological discovery in 2,000 years.” Tanzanite became a U.S. marketing phenomenon, second in popularity only to sapphire among colored stones.
HEART OF THE OCEAN
Its popularity soared when movie fans learned that the sapphire heart-shaped pendant Kate Winslet hurled into the sea in the movie “Titanic” was actually tanzanite. By then, the U.S. was selling $380 million of tanzanite jewelry a year.
Yet Tanzania’s official exports of uncut tanzanite crystal totaled a mere $16 million last year. Rampant smuggling spirits as much as 90 percent of the production out of the country, Tanzanian government statistics show. Local traders often buy plastic bags full of rough stones, paying cash and exchanging none of the paperwork that would trigger a 3 percent export duty. And in faraway places where the rough tanzanite is cooked, cut and polished, such as the Indian city of Jaipur, dealers say they don’t question suppliers closely about sources.
Mererani, which is a 30-minute drive from the mines along a treacherous dirt road, is reminiscent of a Gold Rush town, with shacks, bars, brothels and hordes of young men hoping for a strike. Besides a few big mechanized mining operations, hundreds of individuals hold tiny, 50-yard-square claims that they mine as best they can. Working with the “spacemen” who descend the tunnels are “snakes,” the term for boys who sift piles of grit on the surface and sometimes wriggle into the crevices too small for adults. Restaurants play on the dreams of prosperity, taking names like New York and The Big Apple. But alongside the dreams and the decadence, a religious radicalism is brewing.
Tanzania’s Muslims, who make up about 40 percent of the populace, have long practiced a “soft” Islam, tolerant of drinking, revealing dress and their many Christian neighbors. But Muslim radicalism began to rise in the early 1990s, fueled by poverty and financial support from Islamic charities abroad. It included the al-Qaida cell that bombed the U.S. embassy in Tanzania three years ago.
In Mererani, a new mosque called Taqwa has brought an openly radical Muslim presence to the tanzanite district. Taqwa’s imam, Sheik Omari, has issued edicts that Muslims miners should sell their stones only to fellow Muslims. The diktats breed resentment. “The fundamentalists have established a mafia to dominate the trade,” says Abdallah, the Kenyan spaceman. “Even if non-Muslims offer better prices for our stones, we are harassed by the fundamentalists not to sell to anyone but them. Many Muslim miners obey because they are scared of them.”
The Taqwa mosque is still under construction on a dusty side street. Inside a temporary prayer hall of wood and corrugated metal, miners are taught the importance of avenging the “arrogance” of America and defending Afghanistan from “U.S. oppression.” Support for bin Laden is a duty, miners are told. The faithful of Taqwa often address one another as Jahidini, a Swahili word that means Muslim militant. Some routinely greet one another as “Osama.”
After prayers, the mosque’s courtyard becomes an open-air gem-dealing space, where Sheik Omari and other mosque leaders trade tanzanite with small-time miners. In between haggling, the elders preach the virtues of suicide attacks as a way to defend their faith.
‘TICKET TO PARADISE’
“Remember, Islam teaches us that your body is a weapon,” Sheik Omari tells a group of young men in Swahili. “But if you die, you should take as many of your enemy with you as you can. This will be your ticket to paradise.”
Asked if he works with or belongs to al-Qaida, Sheik Omari gives a vague answer, as do others at the mosque. ” ‘Al-Qaida’ means ‘base.’ I don’t know any base. But Islam says we must support our brothers and sisters and those who defend Islam from its enemies,” Sheik Omari says.
The mosque traders, who aren’t licensed as dealers but act as informal middlemen, make clear the gem business must serve their militant brand of Islam. “We as Muslims must unite in dealing in gemstones to help one another and to generate funds to defend Islam from those who want to destroy it,” says Aman Mustafa, a Kenyan gem broker and teacher at the mosque, who says he has studied Islamic law in Sudan.
U.S. investigators of al-Qaida’s business say that it is designed to create self-sustaining networks and cells. Here in Mererani, some proceeds from the tanzanite trade are plowed back into expanding Taqwa’s influence. “This mosque is being built with tanzanite,” Sheik Omari says. “Our Islam is stronger with our efforts to create a Muslim force in this gemstone.”
KENYAN CONNECTION
Magyane, whose government title is regional mine officer, says some of the stones bought by the Muslim militants are smuggled through “rat routes” to the Kenyan city of Mombasa. That city is a stronghold of al-Qaida sympathizers and was a base for the 1998 embassy bombings.
Throughout the embassy-bomber trial this year in New York, several bin Laden associates or former ones, both state witnesses and defendants, referred to dealings in tanzanite in the mid-1990s. Testimony described how the stones moved through Kenya to Hong Kong via one of two al-Qaida companies, Tanzanite King or Black Giant, set up by defendant Wadih el Hage, a gem dealer and former personal secretary to bin Laden. El Hage is serving a life sentence for his role as the bombers’ financial facilitator.
Bin Laden supporters trading tanzanite today face no interference from Tanzanian authorities. “We have no proof they are involved in terrorist activities,” says the mining area’s regional governor, Daniel Ole Njoolay.
Adadi Rajabu, head of Tanzania’s counterterrorism police, adds that “before 1998, we never knew there were people smuggling gemstones on behalf of a terrorist group. But it is not an area we have looked at carefully. Most of our attention since 1998 has been focused on operatives who were likely to be engaged in activities like bombings, not business.”
ROAD TO DUBAI
Sheik Omari and Mustafa say they sell their stones to a prominent local dealer, Abdulhakim Mulla, who Mustafa says sends some of the gems on to Dubai. The dealer denies the Dubai connection. In any event, on a recent day Sheik Omari could be overheard telling miners to bring perfect stones to the mosque, because “our market in Dubai only wants perfect stones.”
To Westerners in the gem business, mention of Dubai raises alarms. For one thing, the emirate is known as a center of money laundering and the underground cash-transfer system known as hawala, much-favored by bin Laden. Dubai also has no gem-cutting industry. It lies far outside normal channels for the trade in rough gemstones, most of which go to Jaipur, to Bangkok or to a few other traditional centers of cutting and polishing.
“Dubai is the kind of place that should throw up a flag that something is definitely askew,” says Cap R. Beesley, president of American Gemological Laboratories in New York, which tests colored stones. “When you see any rechanneling through nontraditional destinations like Dubai, it means someone is finding some financial incentive not to play by the book.”
U.S. law-enforcement officials have identified Dubai as a haven for al-Qaida business interests. The FBI and the Treasury Department are currently trying to help the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, to crack down on the abuse of Dubai’s free-trade zones by terrorists and criminals. While this effort mainly focuses on gold smuggling, the U.S. also has reports that al-Qaida uses tanzanite as a way to move funds around the world, says a U.S. government investigator familiar with Dubai.
Out of more than 12,000 pounds of official tanzanite exports from Tanzania last year, a mere 13 pounds were sold to Dubai dealers. But Magyane estimates that a hundred times that amount actually made its way to Dubai, through smuggling.
CASH BUSINESS
In Dubai, on a strip of small jewel shops along a creek, Africans often go door to door trying to sell plastic bags full of unrefined gold and sometimes uncut gemstones for cash. D.B. Siroya, an Indian dealer based in Dubai for two decades, says he has sometime acquired rough tanzanite in Dubai on behalf of Indian friends, buying from sellers he knows.
The cash element is part of what makes the gem trade attractive to al-Qaida, according to Wechsler, the former U.S. counterterrorism official. He says the gem business is also attractive because it is tiered, with many layers of brokers, traders, cutters, polishers and wholesalers between miner and consumer.
A U.S. government-funded report last year for Tanzania’s mining industry noted that the country’s gem industry was “subject to abuse by money launderers, arms and drug dealers.” Afgem Ltd., a South African mining company, has been trying to change that. It advocates branding tanzanite stones with tiny laser-etched logos and bar codes, plus other regulations to discourage smuggling. But its plan last year ignited clashes with small miners, who, Tanzanian intelligence claims, were funded by foreigners with a stake in the current loose system.
The many tiers in the business make it possible for unsavory players to get in and out without leaving much of a trace. In the U.S. jewelry industry, which consumes nearly 80 percent of tanzanite gems, many participants say they have heard industry reports of tanzanite links to al-Qaida only recently, and tend to discount them.
QVC Inc. says it has met with its seven tanzanite vendors to make sure they comply with its ethics code, which says QVC won’t knowingly deal in gemstones “that originate from a group or a country which engages in illegal, inhumane or terrorist activities.” Darlene Daggett, executive vice president of merchandising, says that if tanzanite “definitively can be linked to terrorist activities, we will not continue to sell it.”
Zale Corp. says it has heard “bits and pieces” about such a link, but not enough to know if it needs to change procedures. “It comes down to knowing who we do business with and knowing where they get their stones,” says spokeswoman Sue Davidson. “But all we really know is what they’re telling us. Without some kind of gemstone authorization, certification and tracking system in place, we cannot guarantee that no stone has been smuggled.”
Zale CEO Robert DiNicola adds: “If it came to light that there is a problem with tanzanite, we wouldn’t deal with it.”
Jewelers of America, a retail jewelers’ trade group, says it has been focusing on the “far more significant consequences to human life” of “blood” diamonds, those whose sale helps to fuel African conflicts. “I’m not suggesting we are not willing to look at other connections,” but “we need more information,” says the group’s chief executive, Matthew Runci.
Ann Zimmerman contributed to this article.
Ut, oh-----whenever "Giuliani and philanthropy" rears its ugly head, you know there's no-good afoot.
In a few google searches I did find a Sage Foundation. But I don’t know enough about the details of this yet to tell if it is related.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/81/biz_06israel_Daniel-Raz-Steinmetz_4QAX.html
Israel’s Richest
12.11.06, 6:00 PM ET
Age 50
Marital Status Married, 4 Children.
Industry Diamonds, Natural resources & more
His private company, BSG, invests in diamonds, natural resources, real estate and energy, both in Israel and overseas. Steinmetz also has a 37% stake in Nikanor, a holding company with copper and cobalt mining assets located in the Congo, which raised $400 million during an IPO on London’s Alternative Investment Market in July 2006. Steinmetz owns 70% of Bateman Engineering, which specializes in heavy engineering projects servicing the mineral and metals industries worldwide.
Age 68/42
Marital Status Married, 1 Child.
Industry Diamonds
Brother and partner of diamond billionaire Benny Steinmetz, Daniel Steinmetz, with his son Raz, owns a stake in the Steinmetz Group, considered a leading player in the global diamond market and one of the largest customers of De Beers. Part of the family’s portfolio: Odimo, a struggling online retailer of luxury items.
The way this stuff keeps coming out about shady ties to shadier “business” people this guy couldn’t pass a background check to flip burgers at the Greyhound bus station if he wasn’t a revered icon.
I forgot about Pearl and the tanzanite. Thanks.
Interesting little path I took down the mining/Steinmetz trail.
Among other places, it led to Sierra Leone, as well as Canadian stock exchanges.
“Blood Diamonds” too.
I remember Jesse Jackson taking trips to Sierra Leone.
Huh, I remember Jackson having some Blood Diamond controversey.
Hey, I remember he also has connections to stonewall!
small world.
I wonder when the connection may surface between the Pat Robertson diamond operation connects with the dots to Rudy Giuliani, which would help explain the sudden lovefest between them.
GIULIANI BANDWAGON BRANCHES OUT TO ISRAEL
By MAGGIE HABERMAN, NY Post, April 21, 2007
EXCERPT A group of Israelis has launched a grass-roots effort to get people living in the Jewish state who are eligible to vote in the United States to line up behind Rudy Giuliani, it was reported yesterday.
The group, Giuliani Supporters in Israel, was launched by Mordechai Twersky, a onetime candidate for state Assembly in The Bronx in the early 1990s, according the Jerusalem Post. Twersky has established a Web site, giulianisupportersinisrael.org, with background information including Giuliani's famed eviction of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from a Lincoln Center concert in 1995. "I did this as a private personal initiative, as a proud American and Israeli citizen, and I am confident that it will catch on," Twersky told the paper.
He said the campaign hadn't set up his group, but that he's been in contact with Team Giuliani since he got started. Giuliani has historically been popular with Jewish voters, and took a hard pro-Israel line when he was in office. Giuliani's campaign didn't return The Post's calls for comment. In some past elections, planeloads of Israelis with American citizenship have flown to the United States to vote.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04212007/news/nationalnews/giuliani_bandwagon_branches_out_to_israel_nationalnews_maggie_haberman.htm
=================================
calcowgirl tells use: Twersky was the family name of those who founded the town of Hillary’s donors (and Bill’s pardons), New Square, where four men stole millions from the federal government for a phony Jewish school. New Square Rabbi David Twersky had met with Hillary shortly before clemency was granted. Any relation, I wonder?
=====================================
HILL/BILL'S PARDONS AND VOTER FRAUD Wednesday, May 2, 2001 news reports found 26 illegal votes contributed to "an overwhelming 1,400-to-12" vote for Hillary Clinton among New Square Hasidic residents.
The Daily News story headlined "Double Take In Ballot Probe---Voters With Same Name and Birthday Show Cracks In New York System." The report said one registrant who "voted in Brooklyn's Hasidic neighborhood of Williamsburg" in 1996 also voted in the same election "forty miles away in the Rockland County Hasidic community of Monsey."
New Square residents were upset about what they felt were gratuitous references to Hasidim and a picture captioned, "A Hasidic woman pushes two children past a yeshiva in New Square, Rockland County, where questions about votes for Sen. Hillary Clinton have emerged."
The story re alleged improper voter registrations for 26 New Square voters began with, "A Rockland County Hasidic community's overwhelming vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was tainted by irregularities, a Daily News investigation has found."
The Daily News also reported that, "Several other New Square voters appeared to have current addresses in Hasidic communities in Brooklyn, Monsey in Rockland County, and Monroe in Orange County.
There has to be a connection there somewhere. Robertson was linked up with Mobuto and Charles Taylor in Zaire and Liberia, while Rudy's Steinmetz backers were linked up with Dan Gertler, Robert Friedland and others in Sierra Leone. Historically, Steinmetz diamond businesses go back to at least 1981, where I found David Steinmetz operating Diamex Inc. in New York.
Steinmetz's companies were also closely associated with Executive Outcomes and Sandline--which makes me wonder if Kerik, more recently, might have been the chosen one to head up some new mercenary-type operations. Calpernia mentioned “Blood Diamonds”... I think she may have been on to something.
I can't vouch for the source, but this article mentions many of the players. I've been able to verify a good amount of this from other sources.
“GIULIANI BANDWAGON BRANCHES OUT TO ISRAEL”
Charles Kushner was going to buy the Israel Discount Bank a few years ago. I wonder if that ever went through.
Kushner also owns a real estate development company in Israel.
Kushner is a main funder of campaign contributions.
Kushner’s name comes up often in stories about human trafficking and pornography. He is also skilled in blackmail.
Heck, he even has connections to his own supply of sexpionage agents of Ravens and Swallows. Golan Cipel was from Rishon LeZion. After Cipel took down McGreevey, Kushner closed a deal in a $65m real estate project in Rishon LeZion.
Amazing how things work out.
>>Robertson was linked up with Mobuto and Charles Taylor in Zaire and Liberia
Jesse Jackson too.
One little change------convicted felon and ex-jailbird Kushner was jailed for campaign bundling and corporate fraud.
Convicted felon Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his own BIL and planned to video the liaison to blackmail the guy.
Convicted felon Kushner's son now owns the NY Observer newspaper.
I wouldn’t even give Kushner that title of jailbird. He didn’t spend his time there. He had mental health issues or such and went to some halfway house type of facility.
>>>Convicted felon Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his own BIL and planned to video the liaison to blackmail the guy.
Don’t forget his pet Raven, Golan Cipel.
Excellent observation----read on.
August 19, 2006
NY POST
GUYANA BANK KO'S KERIK PAY
Post Wire Services -- GEORGETOWN, Guyana - The Inter-American Development Bank said yesterday that funds from a $20 million loan to boost Guyana's infrastructure cannot be used to pay former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to oversee reforms to the country's police force.
The bank said "none of our current bank operations in Guyana is financing the consulting services of Bernard Kerik either as an individual or as part of a consulting firm." In June, Kerik pleaded guilty to accepting gifts from a company that was trying to do business with the city.
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/guyana_bank_kos_kerik_pay_worldnews_.htm
Really interesting article on Kerik’s business activities and other stuff. Some of the hero stories have been debunked already, but there is a lot of stuff I haven’t seen elsewhere:
http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/finance/Bernie_Kerik_Wont_Fold.shtml
I’ll put that in morning reading tomorrow. Thanks!
This one is also interesting.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/spicer200704?currentPage=5
Some words to look for: Kerik, Lion and Louwtjie, Jordanian Prince, Equatorial Guinea, overthrow, “convention of mercenaries in Jordan”...
While not detailed in this article, Tim Spicer and Tony Buckingham tied back to Sierra Leone, Diamond Works, and Steinmetz.
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