David Guyatt on WWII Gold

[Lauren Johnson]

The Truth World War II Gold, Nazi Plunder, and Elite Plans to Control Our Financial Future

[Peter Lemkin]

The Truth World War II Gold, Nazi Plunder, and Elite Plans to Control Our Financial Future

Read it long ago.....and recommend it without reservation!! The true and very sad/unknown/horrifying story - and how it still very much effects us today!! Bravo for David's great research on this and many other topics.

[David Guyatt]

Thanks Pete.

Interesting, for me, is the recent 8 part series on the History Channel titled "Lost Gold of WWII", which is a very curious title for masses of gold looted primarily by the Japanese (largely from China) and Germany during (and slightly before) WWII.

The e-book I wrote above has many documents in the documents section. For those who have (or will) watch the Lost Gold of WWII TV series, they'll notice that Bob Curtis is mentioned. I was in contact with Curtis who lived in Las Vegas. He worked with Marcos to alter the metallurgical fingerprint of the 7,000 metric tonnes of gold bullion he and Marcos recovered from that particular 777 stash. This was to ensure the Chinese government couldn't learn that the gold was that plundered from China by the Japanese Golden Lily teams.

Many people will considered Curtis's story pure tripe, as according to official statements gold was very rare. But of the many thousands of documents I had received over the years from different sources, one was a copy of a gold certificate of deposit drawn on Swiss Bank Corporation, Zurich, in the name of Ferdinand Marcos and covered the deposit of 7, 120 metric tonnes of AU (gold bullion). The certificate is dated 1956 -- although one has to treat all such gold certificates with caution because the fact is that many details are designedly wrong to throw anyone off the scent. For example, in regard to the Peter Johnson / Dr. Edison Damanik story all the related certificates - at first glance - as they name holders with in-built nonsense such as "Mrs. Queen Elizabeth II". But when you've seen dozens of these certificates bearing nonsensical names or childish spelling errors one eventually concludes this is part of the issuers plan aimed to deny credibility of what were credible instruments (albeit very heavily coded).

This was made clear to me when I was contacted by an American lawyer who represented a client who was involved with a case where Dr. Damanik was arrested by a US Treasury agent in Dallas after he visited the Dallas Federal Reserve to ask them to verify a very, very large certificate of deposit. The Fed told the Treasury agent the certificate was fraudulent and thus Damanik got arrested. However, Damanik's aim was simply to ask the Fed to affirm on deny the validity of the certificate --- something bankers do every date with currency bills they suspect to be fake.

Eventually Damanik stood trial. Two US Congressmen requested he be released from custody to attend Senate hearings to give testimony. These requests by Congressman Charlie Rose and (I if memory is correct) Senator John Tower were denied and Damanik remained in custody. Eventually, a deal was cut by Damanik's lawyer to release him and expel him from the US - he was made a persona non grate in effect - in exchange for him legally assigning two certificates he had in his possession to the US government. The question to ask here is since when does a government need a an alleged crook to legally assign a fraudulent instrument to it? I've never heard of it before. The normal procedure is to seize the instrument under the legal colour of it being fraudulent.



Henceforward, Dr. Damanik only ever used appointed representatives to negotiate these instruments.

During the 12 years I investigated this story (and the associated Project Hammer stories) I came across endless people who were formerly involved with the intelligence community. For example, during a phone call with Bruce Mead he let it slip that in his earlier life he was a member of British Army intelligence. I had phoned him based on a file of documents about Mills and Mead (Millsmead) that Peter Johnson had given me. It took some sigging to get to the bottom of Bruce Mead's "UK domiciled buyer" and the "leading European Bank" that buyer represented. The fact is that my fairly extensive banking background helped immeasurably in this particular endeavour. The "buyer" turned out to be Michael J Summers (who I either could not track down or who refused to talk to me - can't now remember which...) and his "bank" was Credit Lyonnais Rouse Ltd, the precious metals arm of the thenFrench State owned Credit Lyonnais - one of France's biggest banks at the time. That they knew of Dr. Damanik and knew that "everything offered by him [Dr. Damanik] is genuine", speaks volumes given who Summers legally represented.



In the last analysis, it's a long and involved story that ultimately reveals that authorised lie that gold is as rare as the authorities say it is. It is actually more plentiful - much like diamonds themselves are plentiful - but for the purposes of maintaining an elaborate and high price it is vital to create the illusion (and are we Brits ever good at doing that per De Beers for diamonds for example) that the source is rare. Thus any of this gold haul can ony ever be transacted privately and out of sight - which means and meant the black market. Despite this fact the prices struck for transaction were based on an agreed discount (usually around 10% but subject to negotiation) on the 2nd London gold price "fix" arranged in the offices of N M Rothschild, banker to Cecil Rhodes of diamond and gold fame. How those in the know must've giggled at the use of the term "fix" in the setting of the daily gold price...

In any event, in 1992, Imelda Marcos eventually admitted that the gold she and her husband had recovered and controlled were part of the Golden Lily plunder:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...Q2Z0COW08Q

In 2017, Imelda went on to say that she had wanted to return "part" of the 7,000 ton gold her husband and her recovered in that one 777 stash:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/08/31/17/i...xbCli14qro

Colour me cynical about this claim. When I was still active investigating this story I repeatedly came across black market gold deals Imelda was said to be behind. But maybe in her older age, a life of guilt and greed finally caused a rethinking?

Who knows?

[David Guyatt]

For the record, the link for The Secret Gold Treaty is from a file on the site of an entity called Bibliotecapleyades.com which has breached my copyright to host this file. They have never asked for permission to do so. However, I'm not really bothered as all four of my e-books were made freely available almost two decades ago.

However, what I do object to is that Bibliotecappleade has appended to my book an additional chapter titled (the) Wisconsin Report that has absolutely zero to do with me and which I largely regard to be utter nonsense. I strenuously object to being associated with this crap.

For the record The Secret Gold Treaty, the Two related Project Hammer books and the short but important The Bilderberg File, which for the first time ever, published almost the entire report - prepared by the rapporteurs - covering the most significant 1973 meeting where those who control these meetings sought elite European consensus for the fourfold hike in the price of oil. This Bilderberg file was given to me by F William Engdahl. He excised 4 pages as I recall. You can read more about it HERE.

All four of these e-books remain freely available to one and all can can be download on my website deepblacklies.co.uk. They can be found HERE They are locked inside a small e-book programme that requires an unlock key to access. All the unlocks keys can be found HERE

Lastly, on The Secret Gold Treaty I consider myself fortunate to get some very good reviews, including the novelist Arthur Hailey, who I used to correspond with about matters relating to gold. Arthur was a kind soul. Also a review from the late Prof Antony Sutton, who I still much admire for his ground-breaking work - see reviews HERE.

There is an additional review from Sterling Seagrave, author of Gold Warriors and a number of other factual books on Ferdinand Marcus, Japan and the Japanese royal family. Seagrave's book Gold Warriors relied on much of my research which Seagrave de facto purloined after having read my MS - and despite a clear agreement covering collaboration which Seagrave himself had insisted upon. These were two general areas, which Seagrave called "upstream" that he reserved for himself, whereas everything "downstream" was agreed to be my domain.

Additionally, Seagrave, without the slightest concern for a confidentiality agreement signed between us, purloined a number of documents I had sent him under this collaborative confidentiality agreement - see HERE. You can see the letter Seagrave was forced to sign confirming that my documents had been removed from publication on his website bowstring.net in order to unblock his sales vehicle - see HERE.

These matters spelled the end of our association and I have nothing but bad memories of him. My frame of mind on this, despite his death, is not helped by the fact that I put him in touch with Bob Curtis, and it was Curtis from whom Seagrave obtained much of his "downstream" research and the Golden Lily story from. Such are the vagaries of men who have no personal honour but are only motivated by success. Seagrave died in 2017, (which I believe was also the year Curtis died). He lived on a hilltop overlooking Banyuls sur Mer, France, which coincidentally is an region of France I am very fond of and have holidayed in many times.

Below is an authority to probe for purposes of validating, a gold metal account in the name of Maj. General Edward Lansdale at the UBS, Zurich. Many on this forum will instantly know Lansdale, who spent approximately three years in the Philippines supposedly fighting the Huk Rebellion from 1950 onwards. However, he had spent many years in the Philippines during WWII as an OSS officer and remained there until 1948.

I think this is the period when Lansdale learned about the 175 odd Golden Lily plunder burial sites and that his return two years later to apparently fight the Huk's was actually when the US began recovering significant quantities of this war plunder, laundering it through 178 bank account across the world as part of the Black Eagle Trust (and using OSS operative Santa Romana as the launderer for these bank accounts).

[Lauren Johnson]

However, what I do object to is that Bibliotecappleade has appended to my book an additional chapter titled (the) Wisconsin Report that has absolutely zero to do with me and which I largely regard to be utter nonsense. I strenuously object to being associated with this crap.

I was wondering about that. Glad you cleared that up.

[David Guyatt]

The Secret Gold Treaty ---- continuing:

The many, many gold certificates that Peter Johnson gave me copies of and was also trying to negotiate on behalf of Dr. Edison Damanik, all bore owner names that were well known VIP's such as the USA's James Baker III, East Germany's Erich Honecker, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Ireland's Patrick Hillery, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - plus dozens of other high profile individuals - were almost all misspelled or mis-titled - such as "Mrs." Queen Elizabeth II. The spelling mistakes were sufficient to cause immediate suspicion and usually meant that the certificate in question were written off as poor fakes. The unlikely names of such famous people added an additional layer of deniability. Were any of these people directly contacted - as was Dr, Patrick Hillery - asking ab out his ownership, they could, with hand on heart deny ownership.

The mechanism was set out in the below letter that Peter Johnson copied me with and details the mechanism that the so called "heritage documents" bore. Each certificate set could easily run to 70 or 80 pages of double sided printed information that was, at first glance, dizzying and bewildering in its complexity. Each bore numerous code numbers and names.

I was once told by someone who was knowledgeable on these matters that that the complex information on each certificate was rendered clear by use of a Cardano Grille, a cryptogrpahic device to cloak messages that was invented by Frenchman, Jerome Cardan. I have no idea is this was true but if one were to see any of these certificates close up it certainly seemed a feasible explanation.



We see that the Heritage Document reveals that the "named party" on the main certificate is actually not the beneficial owner but is a so called "painted face" acting as a cut out on behalf of the real owner. Doubtless the named party was handsomely rewarded for their role play.

The foregoing is just to explain the complexity and cunningness that formed part of this story.

I now wish to to turn to the Project Hammer story which explains how such staggeringly vast sums of AU bullion plundered by the Golden Lily teams could not be absorbed into the gold market without destroying the price of gold bullion. Some quantities could be absorbed over many decades, and were. But in the main the bullion sat in various banks around the world and were simply used as collateral in so called Collateral Trading Programmes or High Yield Investment Programmes - which in fact was another deniable mechanism (and denied they were), but one that enabled value to be drawn from the underlying collateral.

The investigation of Collateral Trading also took me many years of hard digging to understand and verify. The break through came when I was given a copy of General Erle Cocke's de facto death-bed confession in the form of a deposition he gave a few weeks before he died of Pancreatic cancer. A second breakthrough came when I was sent a batch of documents from US lawyer, Jonathan Levy, that related to his class action lawsuit against the Vatican Bank (Alperin v Vatican Bank) fo laundering gold bullion of the Ustasha treasury that was plundered by Croatian fascist, Ante Pavelic, a puppet of Adolf Hitler at the end of WWII.

At Johnathan's request I acted as an expert witness in that law case in order to rebut a claim made by the Vatican lawyer, Franzo Grande Stevens, (who was the Agnelli family lawyer). As I recall, Grande Stevens claimed that the Vatican Bank only kept its records for 10 years, which I understood to be an argument to convince the court in the negative concerning approval for a far reaching discovery process. But wait! How could the Vatican Bank, which was responsible for paying the pensions of retired priests only keep its records for ten years? Do all priests die before the ten year period is up thereby meaning there is no need to keep addresses and make monthly payments to them? It seemed a wholly unjustifiable argument. I also rebutted on the basis that banks are required by law to keep their records for decades, often for 70 years or more and sometimes in perpetuity. For me, Grande Stevens argument just didn't play.

The Vatican became so concerned that Levy's lawsuit would force full disclosure of their files that they turned to the US State Department who as I was told instructed the Judge to dismiss the trial for reasons of sovereign immunity.

Anyway turning back to the second breakthrough I mentioned above; this was a letter from the Vatican to the US Treasury requesting permission to join a High Yield Programme. It was there in black and white. Bingo!

[David Guyatt]

Project Hammer

PROJECT HAMMER


Covert Finance, the Parallel Economy & Elite Actions


By David Guyatt





Project Hammer is all about money. Stupendous great gobs of money. So much money, in fact, that it will challenge whatever reality you thought you had about the over-world of banking, finance and economics.


It is also about the nether world of international banking and finance, a world that is said not to exist in reality. But exist it does. More often than not this never-never-land of international banking is concealed from public view by the judicious use of two sets of books. It is also eclipsed from interested investigators by a never-ending series of real frauds that result in arrest and imprisonment of numerous scam artists. This creates the clever illusion that the only thing going on are artful scams designed to fleece the unwary.


Such swindles fall under the general category of "High Yield Investment Programmes," "Front End Fee" frauds and "Prime Bank Note" schemes. Numerous law enforcement cases such as these, when twinned with dire "beware" warnings published on FBI, US Treasury and other websites, easily lead one to conclude that there are no such things as "real" trading programmes. And the powers that be don't at all object to this conclusion being reached. It is the old case of hiding trees in a forest.


A key point to keep to the fore in what follows is that trading programmes operate "off-ledger." That is to say the banks and central banks that operate them run two sets of books one set for public scrutiny and another set for private viewing only. Another fact to bear in mind is that authorised programmes generate quite spectacular profits for very little, in fact, miniscule risk, and those that are invited to participate as funders, accumulate capital at a shockingly rapid rate. One reason, perhaps, why the wealthy get altogether wealthier as the poor sink ever lower into the mire of poverty.


The financial, banking and economic shadow-world in which Project Hammer lived, breathed and manufactured money "out of thin air" is the dirty little secret of the western economy. It is a form of money creation that is effectively unchallenged by any form of oversight or accountability as we understand it. "Hammer" and numerous other transactions like it are based on what are known as "Collateral Trading Programmes" although many other descriptive names and terms are also used. [1]


The reason for such programmes is to create vast pools of ready money that are earmarked for use in sanctioned (authorised) operations and projects. On the plus side, many beneficial projects throughout the world get funded as a result of programme trading. On the negative side, there are more shadowy projects. Included in the latter category are certain black operations.


The amalgamated pool of funds created and now held in dormant and orphaned bank accounts run to trillions of dollars, according to insiders. At the low end of estimates there is believed to be enough to pay off the US national debt plus some change. At the higher end, estimates range up to hundreds of trillions of dollars. I have been repeatedly told, almost matter-of-factly, that the higher estimates are closer to the truth. I simply don't know how big the sums amount to but I can document $12 trillion. This sum is revealed in the late Baron Krupp papers that form part of the exhibits of companion volume to this dossier, THE SECRET GOLD TREATY (http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk).


Many different sources say that programmes are also used to launder money by spinning it through a programme cycle until it is pristine clean. Drugs, guns and the usual array of dirty money transactions are said to feature.


Since US dollars are the corner-stone of all programme activity, Uncle Sam naturally gets a bite of the action. A percentage of the proceeds are collected via private tax treaties negotiated with off-shore entities. These treaties also help to shield the reality of these programmes from public awareness. There are unsubstantiated rumours that some of the tax take occasionally gets "diverted" for altogether private purposes. It is an allegation that is impossible to stand up, however.


London and Zurich are key centres for programme activity although transactions are usually booked through off-shore entities. London & Zurich are also gold centres and more than one credible source confirms that black gold form an important part of programme trading activity. There are also good reasons to suppose that part of Uncle Sam's share of trading profits are credited to the Exchange Stabilisation Fund. Here it is pooled with other funds and used to shore-up the American economy by amongst other manoeuvres - manipulating the gold price to keep it below a pre-determined price.


Trading programmes are the preserve of many governments, their treasury departments and the top international banks which by very nature have the necessary mechanisms in place to enable trading to take place efficiently and secretly. Banks from G7 nations dominate. It follows therefore, that a number of problems occur as a consequence of the multi-jurisdictional nature of supervision, and although safeguards are in place to ensure that "clean" money is fed into the system, this doesn't always happen. Funds of suspect origin do enter the system and are made pristine clean by this form of paper alchemy.


Large sums of "black" gold, cash or other forms of convertible assets are used as "collateral" to initiate trading programmes. There are also certain classes of government issued Treasury Notes and Bonds that are privately lodged into major western banks. These "treasuries" are never meant to see the light of day but are, in turn, used by major banks to back the issuance of their own bank debentures "off-ledger" in substantially leveraged amounts that can run into tens of trillions of dollars - or their foreign currency equivalents. In turn, this bank "paper" is traded in pre-arranged "buy/sell" transactions at steep discounts (cents on the dollar) of the face value of the issued bank debentures. The trading of the paper between banks using proxies - is arranged and coordinated so that the traded obligations effectively "wash out" or are otherwise cancelled, although other scenarios exist where issued paper is purchased at a fair market value and held to maturity. In the past trading was paper based but today everything is electronic "screen-based" and consequently, the credits traded have a life of milliseconds.


The difference between the buy and sell price - usually known as the "spread" (in the case of Hammer this was said to be many percentage points) generates a "fallout" - a term that implies profit. In other transactions, most notably "Jacobe," the spread was represented to be at least 10% on a planned face value issuance of US$27.5 trillion according to documents I have seen. This would have created a fallout of US$2.75 trillion. However, for reasons yet unknown to this writer it seems that the Jacobe programme, privately hailed as the largest programme "ever put together" was, for reasons that are still inexplicable, only two thirds completed.


Less grand but just as interesting in other respects was the fallout from Project Hammer that is said to have totalled over US$220 billion. In fact, the precise sum is US$ 223,104,000,008.03. [2]








THE NUGAN HAND BANK CONNECTION


One of the central characters associated with Project Hammer was Brigadier General Erle Cocke. Back in 1966 along with his sleeping partner General Eugene Phillips, Erle Cocke established the Washington based consultancy firm Cocke & Phillips International. This was at the height of the Vietnam war and just a few months after cold warrior Paul H Nitze, issued the directive authorising the establishment of the US Navy's clandestine intelligence collection programme more commonly known as Task Force 157.


TF 157 would later feature in the Nugan Hand Bank affair exposed by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jonathan Kwitny, in his book THE CRIMES OF PATRIOTS. Task Force157 came to an end on the instruction of Admiral Bobby Ray Inman once he discovered the full involvement of "rogue" CIA agent Edwin Wilson in the Task Force. Wilson was responsible for so much intrigue and illegality that one could shake a stick at it. He was eventually arrested, tried and imprisoned where he remains to this day fighting for release. Many now believe that he was working on orders from above but in a deniable role and was cynically sacrificed to save other more prominent players.


During his investigation, Jonathan Kwitny learned that General Erle Cocke ran Nugan Hand Bank's Washington office. Cocke's partner, General Philipps denied this saying they had merely rented office space to Nugan Hand Inc's., Hawaii President, General Edward Black a former OSS, CIA and senior military officer. This proved to be untrue however. Kwitny learned that papers filed with the U S Treasury listed General Cocke as the "person in charge" of Nugan Hand's Washington office. Cocke claimed that someone else must have filed these papers without his knowledge or consent.


In April 2000, Cocke gave a deposition running to 67 pages concerning his knowledge and involvement in Project Hammer. Ten days later he died from Pancreatic cancer. His explosive deposition reveals him as a very significant and highly connected player in a world few of us are familiar with


Cocke fought in three wars: WWII, Korea and Vietnam. During WWII he was an artillery officer and a division staff officer and was a POW under the Germans. He worked for General MacArthur during the Korean war and for General Westmoreland in the Vietnam war. Highly decorated for his service he was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and cluster, a Purple Heart with three clusters, a Croix de Guerre plus a Chevalier Legion of Honour (France) and a Medal of Honour from the Philippines. He was the youngest National Commander of the American Legion and prior to his death also became the oldest National Commander. In addition he was distinguished by the Red Cross with the medal Cruz Roja and was made an Honourable Comrade of the Nationalist Chinese Air Force.


He was a Shriner Mason of many years standing (where he held a semi-official voluntary position for that organisation) and was a Grand Commander of the Knights of Malta the secretive Vatican Order that boasts numerous members who serve or are closely affiliated with western intelligence and military services. Intriguingly, he claimed to have been the first Protestant "in 1200 years to be so honoured."


In 1959 and again in 1960 he was a member of the U. S. delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations holding the rank (and pay grade) of Ambassador. After that he was the first full time U. S. alternate Executive Director of the World Bank, a position he held for four years from 1961-4. Pressed about this in more detail Cocke responded saying:


At that time I owned 28 percent of the stock and, of course, I had all kinds of people in the Treasury tell me what to do. Don't get me wrong, I made all the decisions. But I was the executor, I was the delivery.


He also confirmed that he had worked for every US President:


…from Truman to date. At some stage of the game I worked for all of them. I have to admit that some of them were very minor chores and others were important.


In addition to his many abilities and accomplishments listed above Erle Cocke was above all other things a banker, a profession that ran in the family. His great grandfather put a bank "together in 1867" which was then the only bank in Georgia. His grandfather founded a bank in about 1890 and his father was President of Fulton National Bank (which became Bank of America) and was, at one time, the President of the American Bankers Association and Chairman of the FDIC.


Asked about his own knowledge of banking Cocke said he had taken all the normal banking courses and added:


I understand banking. I can teach banking you understand what I am saying at the college level.


This banking expertise was at the core of his firm, Cocke & Phillips International which began life as a:


…normal American firm, lobbying firm here in Washington, and we grew into banking particularly. The UN contacts, and the World Bank contacts, sometimes they help those people for 10 years.


In a similar vein he undertook all sorts of "chores" for some of the government intelligence agencies. He explained this as follows:


One thing is if they trusted you, they practically came in and said what do I do? I mean, you didn't argue with them. You sort of proceeded with the program and gave them a few choices, of course. But [they] practically always followed what we did. I was administrator, arbitrator. I was [the] moderator, bringing people together.


Asked if that experience "would be true in the financial and banking world in particular?" Cocke replied:


Oh, yes. I have been able to close things that other people can't close.


As we shall see, Cocke's ability to "close" things other people could not close did not extend to Project Hammer, a financial operation that, according to Cocke, deeply involved Citibank and its Chairman, John Reed. Cocke said he could get to see any President without any trouble, but complained that he could not get to meet John Reed.


Having briefly examined General Cocke's background and Vitae, let's now return to that stupendous sum of "black" money mentioned earlier. For purposes of clarity this amount was referenced in Erle Cocke's deposition. If, as we have said, this amount was stealthily "magicked" into being as a result of an exotic form of financial smoke and mirrors the question is where did it go? According to Cocke this sum was lodged in:


…30 some odd accounts together.


Asked where these accounts were located, Cocke responded saying:


In almost one solid block at Citibank.


General Cocke's questioner, a Washington attorney then asked: "Would they have been in control of Mr. Reed" meaning former Citibank CEO and Chairman John Reed. Cocke responded as follows:


A Probably not all because there were so many different participants involved, and in different locations, countries, that I would say no, he did not have complete control, but everybody recognized it wouldn't be settled until it got to him."


Q And these were, you say, accounts for various people around the world?


A Yes.


Q Produced as a result of what?


A Well, most of them figured that greed in particular was mighty high. And, if they put up this amount of money, then I am going to get this kind of money coming back. That's the way practically all of it was. I hate to use the word sole, but present might be a better word.


Q Were these accounts for the benefit of people who had engaged in some kind of trading program?


A They were all to get in the trading program. I haven't found anybody that didn't go in wanting to increase their income and their greed in the highest bracket if they could possibly put up money.


Q What I am understanding from you is that whatever these individuals, corporate entities, or even government, they believed apparently by putting these funds with Citibank as part of this effort, they would then receive later down the road a pay off?


A That is correct.


Q As a result of Citibank's management of these funds, is that fair to say?


A Yes, basically the whole trading bloc in a nutshell.


During the course of his deposition, General Cocke was asked if he knew who "created" Hammer "to begin with…?" He admitted that he didn't know and was even reluctant to make a guess but added that whoever set it in motion "had to have been somebody at a pretty high level." He then made the interesting observation that whoever it was who had authorised "the original structure" that it had "obviously got way out of proportion as time went by." The implication was that some of the money the fallout got diverted from its original intention.


More than a few of those involved in Project Hammer, at various levels, have told me that they believe some of the pool of money created by the Hammer project was "diverted" and used to rescue many of the worlds major banks who by the very end of the 1980's faced insolvency following reckless lending policies throughout the late Seventies and early-middle Eighties. it is certainly true that at that time many major banks like Citibank, HSBC, Chase, BoNY and others stood teetering on the very brink of disaster.


Another view is one that has been expressed by Daniel Hughes, of Hughes Oil Company, a Florida based Corporation. Hughes had been heavily involved in finding collateral to place in a number of trading programs over several years. This has cost him tens of thousands of dollars since most of these were illegitimate rather than genuine. It is a fate that waits for untold thousands of unsuspecting investors who step into this shadowy realm unprepared.


Even so it seems that Hughes did play a part in attempting to place collateral in Project Hammer. He believes that the funds diverted from Project Hammer ended up in a CIA controlled Swiss bank account in the name of late Howard Hughes. Based on years of investigation, Hughes believes that Project Hammer involved the trading of US$13.6 trillion in debentures resulting in a "fallout" of about US$1.1 trillion which was stashed in the Howard Hughes account in Credit Suisse. Whilst there is no hard corroboration in support of this claim it remains an intriguing possibility. More so for in his deposition, General Cocke indicated that black money generated by trading programmes might be hidden in dormant accounts, and a Howard Hughes account set up thirty years ago would clearly fall into that category.


According to Erle Cocke plus others I have spoken with, Project Hammer began life as an authorised but secretive trading programme aimed at repatriating dollar assets that dated back several decades. Cocke confirms this when asked:


Q -- what the overall objectives of Project Hammer were?


A Well, it was mainly to bring monies back to the United States from all types of activities, both legitimately and illegitimately. Not that they were in the smuggling business per se, but they were all in the arms business, they were all retracing dollars of one description or another that had accumulated all through the forties and fifties really. And that probably is as broad a definition as I can give you. And all kinds of nationalities were involved, all kinds of people were involved…"


Cocke was then asked who would have been behind the Hammer project. Would it, the questioner asked, have involved:


Q … various agencies of the U. S. Government?


A Yes. Obviously, the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agencies of all types, Pentagon in the broadest sense of it and as such, and the Treasury, Federal Reserve. Nobody got out of the act, everybody wanted to get in the act.


But there were numerous other entities involved in Project Hammer. None more so than the worlds big bank as is made clear by the following exchange:


Q What other banks and financial institutions were involved in it?


A Well, if they were, they were still as a correspondent to Citibank…


A "Correspondent" in the sense General Cocke's uses this term means one banks account maintained at another bank. This is used to handle money transfers between both banks and very often denotes a "special relationship" between the the banks concerned. The questioner then asks:


Q Do you know which of those would be involved, was Chase Manhattan one?


A I am sure that every big bank in every major country at some stage of the game had some of this pass by them. They had a chance to refuse, or they had a chance to take it up.








CITIBANK ARE THE "CHEESE"


Cocke was then asked who the "dominant participant" was in "terms of running this project, this vast project?" The general is in no doubt about his reply when he says that, based on his own investigation, it was: "Citibank of New York, in both their Athens, Greece office and in their New York City office." He also acknowledged that Hammer was part of "an ongoing long term kind of project."


Cocke went on to reveal that Citibank were "…going to be the trustees. They were going to be running the program. They were going to be the disbursing agency. They were the cheese."


Asked to identify which principal officer in Citibank handled Project Hammer, Cocke responded that "from all records, communications and contacts, John Reed was Vice President, but he was the lone coordinator, for a better word."


Reed, who was Citibank's President and Chairman during this period has formally denied his involvement in Project Hammer. In a deposition sworn in December 2000, Reed states that he has "no recognition or knowledge of anything purportedly known as project Hammer." Nor did he have "any recognition or knowledge" of any person named Erle Cocke. His deposition goes on to list a number of other items, people and allegations that he also had "no recognition or knowledge" about.


For their part, Citibank in a letter dated December 12th 2000 state that they "never issued commercial instruments on the basis of its possession of quantities of gold made available to it by agencies of the U.S. Government and the Federal Reserve in order to ensure the solvency of Citibank in the 80's and other bullion banks."


This denial, although emphatic, is interesting. Research shows that gold recovered by the forerunner to the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was deposited in Citibank (and many other banks, too) not in the name of the OSS or CIA but in the name of one of their operatives, Severino Garcia Santa Romana.


On his death in 1974, some but not all - of Romana's "assets" appear to have been illegally acquired by former Philippines President, Ferdinand Marcos, who was at one time Santa Romana's attorney. According to Santa Romana's widow, her husband gave Marcos a limited Power of Attorney for use solely in the Philippines, since he travelled abroad regularly. Marcos, somehow, seems to have made use of this to gain control over Santa Romana's gold and other assets.


It also appears likely, based on documents in this writer's possession that considerable quantities of gold once held by Santa Romana were later placed under the control of former CIA covert operator, Major General Edward Lansdale. These assets were, however, lodged with the Union Bank of Switzerland. Again it is worthy of note that they were placed in Ed Lansdale's name not in the name of a U S Government Agency. These assets are very clearly off the books.


Large quantities of gold held by Citibank remained in the account names of Severino Garcia Sta. Romana and Jose Antonio Diaz De La Paz (the latter being a well -known a.k.a for Santa Romana) under reference codes "Fanerst King Fisher" and "Burgst Harbour King" respectively. [3] These have been the subject of a legal wrangle between Santa Romana's heirs and Citibank's John Reed.


The fact that the gold held by Citibank and others may not have been in the name of the Central Intelligence Agency or the Federal Reserve but rather was in Santa Romana's name may have been all Citibank needed to wriggle out of a poorly crafted question.








THE ILLUMINATI ANGLE


The gold "connection" remains unclear. However, there is reason to suppose that the dollar "assets" that date back to the 1940's and 1950's as earlier discussed by General Erle Cocke may relate in part, to vast quantities of gold looted during WWII by the Japanese plunder teams known as the Golden Lily and also by the Nazi's in Europe.


That substantial amounts of gold bullion were ransacked and then hidden throughout the Philippines prior to wars end is now undeniable. This, however, was "black" gold, meaning it did not appear on official statistics or in treasury department lists. Santa Romana was an OSS officer operating in the Philippines during the war and learned where the Japanese had buried plundered gold and other valuables.


But there are other aspects to the Santa Romana gold story that are only now coming to the surface. They reveal a shocking secret that, if true, could shake the foundations of our belief and change the way in which we view the world we live in.


According to Santa Romana's widow, Luz, her husband told her that he was a member of the Illuminati a very secretive elite group that dates back to 1776 when it was founded by Adam Weishaupt at the University of Ingolstadt, Germany. According to those who have researched it, the purpose of the Illuminati was to set in motion, in secret, a New World Order of world revolution.


This, however, does not fully tally with what Santa Romana told his wife about them. According to Luz the purpose of the Illuminati was based on the knowledge that the royal families of Europe were aware that they were losing political and effective control of their nations. But it was the possible loss of control over the wealth of their kingdoms that bothered them most. Consequently they founded the "Illuminati" and set in motion long-term plans aimed at secretly taking control of world finances, especially gold and other precious metals.


In time the royal families who sat at the centre of the Illuminati movement were forced to expand and take into membership political and business leaders. At some point in the early twentieth century two fifty year plans were set in motion aimed at cornering the worlds precious metal reserves.


The foregoing is the account given to Luz by her husband Santa Romana. How true it is remains to be seen and it is not hard to view it as disinformation told by Santa Romana to his wife to conceal his real motives whatever they may have been.


More intriguing still is Luz's account that her late husband was the one time "head" of the Trilateral Commission an elite group that is known to have tentacles deeply embedded in the Marcos gold story of later years. Again, there is no corroborating evidence and the fact that the Trilateral Commission was founded only in 1973 whereas Santa Romana died in 1974 suggests this is unlikely.


However, it is more than a little curious that whilst the great bulk of gold that eventually (and undoubtedly) came to be controlled by Santa Romana resulted from plunder during WWII, he did have substantial gold deposits dating back further than that.


Papers relating to the "estate" of Santa Romana purport to show a gold account at the Union Bank of Switzerland, Zurich, containing 8,000 metric tonnes that was valued at US$10 billion. The account dates back to 1920. Such a quantity of gold dating from that period represents a massive holding far surpassing that held today by the worlds leading central banks.


It is also at least interesting that, again according to the account of his wife, Santa Romana was, as a young boy, adopted by his great uncle in Hawaii who was married to the last Hawaiian princess. The couple had remained childless throughout their marriage leading to the decision to adopt the young Santa Romana. According to Luz, it was this "royal" connection that gave Santa Romana entrée into the Illuminati said to have once been dominated by royal families.


Interestingly, during the course of my on-going investigation into Project Hammer, a number of others involved in this program I have spoken with have told me, quite independently of the Santa Romana story, that the Hammer program and numerous other collateral trading programs associated with it have enormously powerful "gold trusts" of royal origin sitting behind them.


Perhaps the Hammer program was to generate enough money to buy substantial quantities of black gold stashed in the Philippines to ensure it is kept out of circulation thus protecting the gold price to some degree? Perhaps it had more to do with the secret acquisition of vast amounts of this black gold in line with what Santa Romana told his wife? Perhaps the assets in question were not just gold but included pre-war US Treasury obligations (Bonds and Notes) that are now coming to light in the Philippines but which are said by US authorities to be fraudulent. What ever is the case, it is certain that substantial quantities of "black" gold are used to underpin (collateralise) certain trading programs and the funds thus generated are earmarked for use in other secretive operations?


This whole subject remains an ongoing investigation. The deeper I dig the murkier it becomes. Stories of warehouses full of banknotes waiting to be laundered by a trading programme so that they can re-enter the financial system as clean as a whistle are commonplace. Foreign exchange transactions involving billions of dollars in equivalent currency and which trade at huge discounts - unknown in the official marketplace - are also not uncommon.


It is also a fact that many of those involved in trading programmes are members of government intelligence and security organisations.








EXECUTIVE OUTCOMES, SANDLINE, AND THE STASI


Another individual who has played a considerable role in Project Hammer is South African, Rolf van Rooyen, who operated a number of business entities including one called "Oceantech" and another called "Eastech International Bank." At one time van Rooyen worked for South African intelligence and is also believed to have been CIA at the time Project Hammer was in process.


Of significance is the fact that General Cocke and van Rooyen knew each other, although Cocke says he only spoke to him on the phone but never "shook hands with him." During a police interview in Germany in 1995, van Rooyen when questioned about Project Hammer responded:


If you are referring to Operation Hamer (sic) it is an extremely large, very delicate operation in co-operation with the authorities of various countries in which Oceantech is involved.


Van Rooyen then proceeds to identify: "America, England, Germany, France, Italy…" as being involved. He also told German police that from the very first day he began investigating Project Hammer that


We realised that it was a direct state matter and that the U.S.A., the CIA and several other groups in the secret service were involved, as well as very, very high-coupled people in the American Government.


The latter are rumoured to include George H. W. Bush, James Baker III. Former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.


During his deposition Erle Cocke was asked if he considered van Rooyen's foregoing statement to be accurate. Cocke replied saying "He is not too far off. I am sure he flavoured it up a little bit, yes."


Working alongside van Rooyen was South African intelligence operative Riaan Stander. Both Stander and van Rooyen were board members of the "Eastcorp Syndicate" which boasted almost two dozen other companies in its stable. [4] Included were Intercol Pty, Ltd., Cavo Shipping which conducted intelligence gathering missions for governments and Bridge S. A. The latter was registered in Monrovia, Liberia.


According to Peter Goslar, once a close friend of Riaan Stander, other board members of Bridge S. A., were Colonel Tim Spicer and Mick Ranger "of Sandline fame." In a letter written to a Washington law firm involved in a lawsuit involving Project Hammer, Goslar fingers Bridge S A and hence van Rooyen and Riaan Stander as "part of the "Executive Outcomes operation."


But there is more. During several daylong meetings I had with Peter Goslar in late June 2001, he handed me hundreds of pages of documents he had retrieved from Riaan Stander's private papers. These included documents showing a Mexican entity called Ro-Mar Pharmaceuticals that van Rooyan told German police was the "money power" behind Eastech International Bank. The money Ro-Mar Pharmaceutical claimed to control was represented by over US$100 billion in gold. Other papers clearly show van Rooyen and Stander engaged in Collateral Trading Programmes involving Latin American Governments, most notably Argentina once the preferred bold-hole of notorious Nazi's like Martin Bormann.


Another document from the batch I received from Peter Goslar was a list of companies listed under the heading "United Kingdom Network" and identified this "network" as being part of "The Palace Group." An interesting description, I think. In any event, listed under this "group" were twenty-four business entities including Sandline International, Diamond Works, Branch Mining Ltd and Bridge International. The list also included Defence Systems Ltd as a part of The Palace Group and identified it as a division of Vickers - Britain's oldest and most distinguished armaments manufacturer and which resides at the very centre of the United Kingdom's Establishment.


During one of our meetings, Peter Goslar told me he was a personal acquaintance (perhaps even a friend) of former East German spy-master, Marcus Wolf, who headed the East German security apparatus known as the Stasi. Peter also claimed to know several former Stasi operatives. He also spoke German fluently in addition to Afrikaans and his native English tongue.


I later was told that a Peter Goslar was briefly mentioned in the autobiography written by Marcus Wolf entitled MAN WITHOUT A FACE. Discussing the fall from grace of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1977, following the discovery that his personal secretary, Dagmar Kahlig-Scheffler was a spy working for the Stasi. Wolf explains that Chancellor Schmidt's spy-cum-secretary was caught when her Stasi control officer, Peter Goslar came under suspicion by West German counterintelligence.


I asked Peter if he was the same Peter Goslar identified by his "friend" Marcus Wolf. He denied that it was him. Non-the-less, he told me that Rolf van Rooyen was still living in Germany and was under the protection of two former Stasi agents. And we do know that the Stasi worked closely and in the shadows with South African intelligence on a variety of projects, mostly weapon related. Curious.


The "Palace group" meanwhile, contains all the guile and charm of a privatised off-the-books appendage of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). On the other side of the Atlantic, General Cocke and his firm Cocke & Phillips International has many similarities as its foregoing British cousin and probably was (and is the firm remains active) one of the CIA's private off-the-books companies. This conclusion is not only drawn from Cocke's affiliation with the known CIA entity, Nugan Hand Bank, but another CIA front company called Associated Traders Corporation.


ATC, as it is known, came into brief prominence some years ago following a series of articles written by syndicated columnist, Jack Anderson naming Associated Traders as an a gun running, money laundering "off-the-books" CIA front. Then in 1988 a US$4 million lawsuit was filed that involved Associated Traders. By 1990, Director of the CIA, William Webster, issued an Affidavit calling for a sweeping gag order by asserting that it was a matter of national security. Of interest is the fact that more than one source has told me that Associated Traders Corporation was General Cocke.


The foregoing connections could easily be typified as part of the Anglo-American-African covert intelligence relationship that continues to conceal many sins. There is reason to suppose that part of funds derived from the Project Hammer financial trading programme went to fund certain military and intelligence operations in South African. These are thought to have included financing of the so called "Hammer Units" that are alleged to have engaged in brutal beatings and assassinations throughout South Africa prior to the collapse of the Apartheid regime. It is also believed that Hammer funds were used to finance the purchase of arms given to the Inkatha Freedom Party that was engaged in widespread acts of bloody violence during 1992 and 1993 as discussed in the 1994 Report of the Goldstone Commission of Inquiry that named Eastech, VAN Rooyen and Stander.


Another aspect of Project Hammer may have involved the desire to plunder South Africa of much of its available mineral wealth prior to the country coming under control of the ANC in 1994. In the hard-hitting and suppressed book GLITTER & GREED written by Australian investigative reporter, Janine Roberts, the Oppenheimer family and De Beers arranged that a:


fabulous multi-billion Rand stockpile of the finest gems was shipped out prior to the 1994 elections and that the mines producing the best gems were put into overdrive in both South Africa and Namibia so that as many as possible of the better gems were extracted as fast as possible. [5]


I have also been told that large quantities of South African gold were also surreptitiously shipped out of South Africa at around this time presumably for similar reasons. It is also of interest to note that mounting evidence points to the conclusion that since 1995 the price of gold has been kept purposely low as a result of a conspiracy engineered by the US Treasury department in collaboration with leading international banks. The result has been that the cost of extracting gold for many South African gold mines is no longer cost effective.


Could some of this alleged "missing" South African gold be related to a transaction that van Rooyen and Stander entered into in 1991? This involved Eastech International Bank agreeing to purchase 5,000 metric tonnes of gold at a 4% discount from the prevailing Second London fix at a cost of about US$50 billion. This gold was held in the free zone area beneath Zurich's Kloten airport. The contract, which was to be governed by the "canton-laws of Zurich" runs to six pages and each page bears the official stamp of the Swiss police authorising and validating the transaction.


It remains unclear if van Rooyen and Stander were acting on their own behalf or were fronting for someone else in this transaction. Van Rooyen, at least, has been fingered as a CIA asset in addition to his South African intelligence affiliations. Might they have been operating as a deniable cut out" for the US Treasury Department who wished to get delivery of this gold?


Perhaps the Chinese Government was party to the transaction instead. Eastech International Bank was, after all, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sino-Eastech, an entity which van Rooyen told German police investigators was "established in China" and which "operates from Xin Xong and was originally established by the General Staff of the 7th military power in China." In operating their bank, Van Rooyen and Stander liased with a Chinese Army General who van Rooyen declined to name saying he wasn't "sure what his name is." His German police interrogator, displaying a well honed sense of official disinterest in such diplomatic incongruities, rapidly moved on to other issues.


By 1995 Eastech International Bank had begun to hit the radar screen of regulatory authorities around the world that viewed it with suspicion. But by then it seems probable that much of Project Hammer's South African objectives had been fulfilled. Fearing the worse, Rolf van Rooyen left South Africa and travelled to Germany. And according to his one time friend, Peter Goslar, that is where he still lives albeit protected by former members of East Germany's Stasi spy-network.


It remains to be seen whether the sanctions busting objective of the South African end of Project Hammer was a simple case of certain Elites making sure they got all the mineral wealth they needed from South Africa before turning the country over to the ANC and Nelson Mandela in 1994. What is known is that the price of gold entered a new round of price manipulation beginning in 1995 which continues to this day.


Over the last two years, the Gold Anti Trust Action Group (GATA) have demonstrated that the manipulation of gold price has been orchestrated by the US Federal Reserve working in collusion with leading Wall Street and international banks. Many of those banks quoted by GATA as being party to the price manipulation conspiracy for that is what it amounts to are also major players in Trading Programmes.


In any event, the depressed price of gold has made many South African mines uneconomic to operate and one cannot help but ask if this was by design? Southern hemisphere nations may sit on much of mineral wealth of the planet but the northern hemisphere industrialised nations appear intent to continue to control and exploit it.








THE FRENCH CONNECTION - AGAIN


Project Hammer and Jacobe have the appearance of being "umbrella" operations geared, in the narrow sense at least, to generating funds for particular authorised projects. Once the proper authorisation has been issued programmes such as these seem to broaden in scope and greater effort goes towards creating deniable slush funds for use in any number of ways as the occasion demands. When you think about it, this makes considerable sense for those who engage in the game of black operations and political manipulation.


In addition to its authorisation to repatriate dollars dating back to the 1940's and 1950's, as explained by General Cocke, could Project Hammer have had other purposes? Could it, for example, have been used to finance another project, one that had specific East German connotations and which might explain the Stasi connection more fully?


It is certainly interesting that on the 6th February 1989, the French Central Bank, the Banque de France, issued an International Certificate of Deposit for 620,000 kilograms of 99.99% pure gold. At that time, 620 metric tonnes of gold had a market value of about US$7 billion. A king's ransom.


The certificate is almost identical to dozens I have on file and which I have written about and also reproduced in my book, THE SECRET GOLD TREATY. As I explain there, certificates of this nature invariably contain spelling mistakes or other obvious typographical flaws which can be used to deny the validity of the certificate in the event it ever reaches public attention.


This was a technique developed by Britain's secretive Special Operations Executive (SOE) in WWII. SOE agents parachuted into France and elsewhere in occupied Europe, were taught to insert pre-arranged spelling errors on messages they sent by radio in the event they were captured by the Nazi's. This would immediately alert SOE that the agent was in custody and that German Counter-intelligence wished to use the agent to feed false information back to HQ.


In any event, the Banque de France certificate mentioned above was in the name of Erich Honecker, the then East German Head of State (see exhibits). Six months later, in a trumpet of media coverage, Honecker was ousted from power. A month after that, the Berlin Wall - the very symbol of Communism throughout the world - was opened. The reopening was abruptly followed by its complete demolition at the hands of a euphoric public. Germany, which had been divided for over thirty years was, at least, reunified.


By many accounts, Project Hammer began trading in November 1989, but was being set up a lot earlier than that. Few of those involved in the transaction on the peripherary know for certain what assets were used to collateralize the transaction, although "black" gold has been mentioned in numerous telephone conversations and correspondence. All parties are certain, however, that an element of the backing collateral was cash.


What we do know if that Citibank had accounts in the name of Jose Diaz and Severino Santa Romana. These were bullion accounts dating back to the years that Santa Romana, General Edward Lansdale and others were engaged in recovering gold stashed on the Philippines by the Japanese plunder teams known as the Golden Lily.


Some of Santa Romana's gold was, at some point in history, converted to cash. This along with gold and other plunder was deposited in well over a hundred bank accounts located in over forty countries throughout the world. These were the deniable assets that made up a particular CIA slush fund known to insiders in the black gold market as the "Black Eagle Fund" - a name that was based on the symbol of the Nazi Eagle.


Part of these assets were placed under the control of the late Baron von Krupp. Baron Krupp's personal attorney, Carl Hermann Letemeyer, of the private Zurich based law firm of Senn, Christians & Letemeyer handled the Baron's estate following his death.


Documents I published in THE SECRET GOLD TREATY reveal that out of a fortune of just over $12 TRILLION that the late Baron controlled, slightly over $110 billion was earmarked for one Clemente Santiago, a relative of Candelaria Santiago who was the most "trusted lady" of the late President Marcos of the Philippines.


Baron Krupp's incredible fortune was undoubtedly largely composed of Santa Romana's plunder later acquired by deception by President Marcos, who had earlier been Santa Romana's lawyer in the Philippines, prior to his rise to political office. Stories about "Marcos gold" in reality speak of Santa Romana's gold, and the OSS/CIA's gold - although Marcos did recover vast quantities for himself via a Philippine Army battalion dedicated to locating and recovering WWII plunder.


A memorandum under the letterhead of Senn, Christians & Letemeyer and signed by Carl Herman Letemeyer (see exhibits) lists four banks accounts which collectively have balances of US$71 billion. The bulk of this was listed as being held in account number 4 77 22 P at Standard Chartered International Truste Limited, London. US$9 billion is shown under account number LVI 820975 TI at Citicorp, New York. US$12 billion is listed for Bank of China, Hong Kong, under account number 5555 201HE and US$3 billion in the Bank of East Asia, Hong Kong, account number 78 9520 37 0. The memorandum is dated 3rd October 1989 right in line with the Hammer and Jacobe trading programmes.


This is more than interesting. Other information provided to me shows that Standard & Chartered Bank was deeply involved in the Jacobe programme. According to a detailed memorandum in my possession, the Trustee of the Jacobe programme had "arranged that the monies be funneled through a Trust account..." of this bank.


Citibank, according to General Cocke and many others who were involved, was "the cheese" behind the Project Hammer programme. And then there is the Chinese connection to van Rooyen's Eastech International Bank and van Rooyen's and Stander's involvement with both Hammer and Jacobe.


The foregoing has merely scraped the surface of what is an exceptionally complex and extensive story. A great deal of further investigative work is required to plumb the depths in order to present a more comprehensive account. Presently there are more questions than answers. Project Hammer and Jacobe, meanwhile, are only two of many other trading programmes presently under investigation by this writer. Others with names like Redhead, Grandmother and Graystone also need investigating.


These programmes eclipse more secrets than you can wag a dog's tail at. They represent the very pinnacle of covert funding for deniable government operations. Slush funds that have been generated by this process are regularly said to be in the many trillions of dollars. This is confirmed in the deposition of General Cocke who argues that the Hammer programme "expanded" by Dan Hughes in 1989, would have "enhanced" over the decade and now is worth over one thousand billion dollars. It is also confirmed by the documents issued by the late Baron von Krupp's Swiss lawyer which reveal "profits" in excess of US$12 trillion.


Amounts of this magnitude could punch a massive hole through the shortfalls in social welfare programmes around the world. Famine could be virtually eradicated from the face of the earth and death from easily cured diseases in the southern hemisphere, in particular - which spiral for lack of money - could easily become a thing of the past. All this could be achieved if these huge gobs of money were brought in from the cold and placed on-ledger.


But there appears no will to do this. Too many difficult questions and harder to justify explanations block the way. How would G7 governments explain to a cynical public that decades of drug money and illegal weapon sales proceeds had been laundered with their blessing (albeit in secret) in order to win the cold war and also to artificially prop up a political system that we call Capitalism, that would otherwise collapse under its own inherent flaws?


It took the CIA over six months to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking information on Project Hammer and Jacobe. The request was denied under exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3) of the FOI Act. Section (b)(1) of the Act applies to material that is "properly classified pursuant to an Executive order in the interest of national defence or foreign policy," and exemption (b)(3) applies to the CIA Director's statutory obligation to "protect from disclosure intelligence sources and methods, as well as organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries or numbers of personnel employed by the Agency…" Appeals are in progress.






[1] "Credit Enhancement Business" is another term that has been used. Others include "Capital Accumulation & Structured Debt Programmes."


[2] Others involved believe this sum represents a part of the fallout from the Jacobe transaction and not Hammer.


[3] This information is drawn from a letter dated December 20, 1995 from C.E. (Jim) Brown (the second husband of Santa Romana's widow, Luz) which is addressed to the US Justice Department. Sta. Romana also used J Antonio Diaz as another a.k.a. In fact he used many different names and entities to conduct his business.


[4] Of the many activities that Stander and van Rooyen were engaged in, including gold dealing, setting up banks in Switzerland and Latin America, trading Prime Bank Debentures plus numerous other "business" opportunities, they were also putting together a deal to sell a consignment of Glock pistols.


[5] Janine Roberts' incredible and compelling book Glitter & Greed is freely available for download on the internet at http://www.macha.f9.co.uk/dia-suppress.html


ENDS

[David Guyatt]

When watching the 2019 History Channel TV series Lost Gold of WWII, it seemed evident to me that this was a reconstruction and not the actual event. I reached this conclusion for a small number of reasons. For example, all seven episodes showed the extraordinary efforts and dangers faced by the recovery team of treasure hunters in finding the tunnel that contained the Golden Lily gold and treasure stash.


And yet, in the final episode, No. 8, the team suddenly, even inexplicably and without any explanation at all were hacking their way through the lush jungle and by sheer accident came across an open engineered tunnel complex that extended for what seemed to a very long way into the mountain they were on. It was too convenient for an old cynic like me. I reasoned that the team probably had found the tunnel and the gold earlier and latterly made the documentary TV series.


There were other indications that not all was entirely accurate too. Not least, during various episodes of the TV series, the public was shown strange carvings on rocks that apparently were concealed Golden Lily coded messages concerning the treasure location. Unless my memory is more deficient than I believe it is, all three of the following rocks appeared in this TV series:




Fish rock




Circle rock




Tunnel rock

The photo's were published in my The Secret Gold Treaty which was first published at least 15 years ago (I neglected to date the book and memory is no longer as precise as it once was) [actually it was published 18 years ago in 2001 - I just checked]. If one navigates to the link in the opening post of this thread and selects Documents and then click on the various "Cambodia" photos and then click on "Cambodia 8" you'll find these photos there.

The tunnel entrance was concealed in the below dwelling. The recovery team said it took them four years to reach the treasure room:



The recovery was underway when this e-book was published. The previous tunnel the team had excavated which consisted of 100,000 12.5kg gold bars that had been stacked a metre high along the entire 500 metre length of the tunnel began in July/August 1996 and were assayed as 20-22 karat bars with a value of US$150,000 each. Do the maths.

It is quite possible I am barking up the wrong tree with regard to the TV series and that these sorts of rock signs are commonplace. But I have a sneaky sense that the History Channel will not have a second series showing the actual recovery of the bullion.

[David Guyatt]

Project Hammer Reloaded (supporting documents HERE)

[quote]

PROJECT HAMMER
RELOADED


The Ties That Bind Mapping The Covert Connections


David Guyatt
2003




THE BACKGROUND


Beginning in 1988 and lasting until approximately 1992, Project Hammer was the latest in a series of highly secretive banking practices known as collateral trading programmes that are used to create, as if by magic, huge amounts of unaccountable funds for use in specific projects.


These vast pools of unvouchered slush funds are applied to finance a wide variety of clandestine activities that include secret military projects, geo-political requirements and the development of infrastructure projects.


It is also whispered that in the case of the Project Hammer programme at least, that a percentage of the proceeds generated from this secretive activity found their way into the pockets of VIP's and well-known politicians. Names associated with such corrupt behaviour are carried on the wind but if one listens attentively the names George Bush (senior) and Jim Baker III are just discernible - to the trained ear.


An example of the types of projects that these funds are expended on, was the trading programme known as E F G Jacobi a predecessor of Hammer that was, I understand, used largely to finance military facilities and related operations at the top secret US "Pine Gap" base located near Alice Springs, in Australia.


In order to maintain secrecy that surround genuine activity, these trading programmes are routinely said not to exist. Enquiries about them are deflected and attention is, instead, focused on the warnings issued by government agencies about fake programmes. This, when combined with the numerous prosecutions that occur every year of fraudulent High Yield Investment Programme transactions, serve to create the impression that authorised programmes do not occur.


The reasons for this deflection are many but not least is the fact that the asset base on which these programmes usually operate are also said not to exist at least in the quantities that they actually do. The assets in question are large volumes of gold and lesser amounts of platinum plundered by the Nazis and Japanese during WWII.


The fact that gold has been the one stable commodity used to back and support the issuance of currency over the decades, means that it has been subject to considerable government and central bank secrecy. It was only in 1997, that the Bank of England decided to lift this veil of secrecy and allow the London bullion market a degree of openness. But that openness did not include coming clean about the true amount of gold in existence that is far larger than official figures allow.


Because of this and the extremely covert nature of related trading programmes, comprehensive details of their operations and the financing techniques employed have remained hidden from public view. This, at least, was the case prior to the publication of part one of this series The Project Hammer File[1]. Further examination of the techniques and activity of Project Hammer represented by this essay, now places into the public domain additional important material.


Project Hammer remains a high level state secret in a number of countries including the USA. This was de facto confirmed by the CIA in its refusal to release any relative information following to my Freedom of Information Act request. The exemption used by the CIA to reject my request was that relative material is "properly classified pursuant to an Executive order in the interest of national defence or foreign policy."[2]


Project Hammer also stands out because proceeds from the trading activity were illegally diverted by major banks. Confirmation of this was provided by Brigadier General Erle Cocke in his April 2000 affidavit. In this, General Cocke was asked about the involvement of former US Treasury Secretary, Lloyd Bentsen, who was retained to investigate what had happened to (and to also recover) the missing funds. Asked if Bentsen "had the government's interest in closing this whole problem, have you ever had a discussion [with Bentsen]," Cocke replied.


"Many hours just trying to find out whether any agency, any group, Federal Reserve, Treasury, CIA, FBI, security agencies, and so forth, all of them put together whether any of which would really like to finish. And, quite frankly, nobody stepped up to the plate."


Cocke was the asked if "…they would like to finish it?" and responded:


"I think they would like to finish it, but they all back away. It is not my cup of tea, or they have spent enough time with it and are not going to realize anything, and therefore they just quit. They don't confirm, they don't deny, they just stop."


One can conclude that the banks that diverted this money, were too powerful for any agency of the US government to tackle. Providing suitable and substantial "incentives" to former senior Bush Administration figures to bring their influence to bear quietly to ensure that action against the banks was not taken, also helped


Although not part of the sanctioned plans for Project Hammer - which was to generate funds to pay off debts on bullion certificates issued by certain metal trusts the funds were siphoned-off surreptitiously to rescue numerous major US and other banks that were, by the latter half of the 1980's, tottering on the brink of bankruptcy.[3]


The banks only had themselves to blame for their imminent collapse. Reckless lending to Third World nations for over a decade or more when combined with the raw greed of senior bank executives had caused unparalleled damage to the worlds banking system. The inability of indebted Third World nations to repay their massive debts could have been in fact was foreseen but ignored.


The spiral of gluttony had taken prisoner the faculty of prudence and reason as bank executives, seeking their next bonus and promotion, pleaded with sovereign nations to take loans they did not need and ultimately could not repay. Nor was it unusual for some of the loaned funds to find their way into the private bank accounts of corrupt state officials "diversions" that were known about in the boardrooms of the top banks, but ignored as "business as usual."


By the end of the 1980's big banks including Citibank, Chase Manhattan, the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, England's Midland Bank and many, many others were in dire straits. In all but name they were bankrupt. The fear of a prolonged series of collapses a sort of "domino theory" of finance - of the worlds top banks was regarded in some quarters with palpable fear; the entire western banking system was rocking when it should have been rolling along nicely.


Somewhere, someone nobody knows who (or at least no one is saying) took the decision to bail out the banks and save the banking system by diverting Project Hammer funds for this purpose. Those banking executives who caused the problem in the first place weren't confronted by their mistakes or held to account by their shareholders but instead continued to collect their million dollar pay cheques, boost their bonus payments and profit shares, flick ash off their Cuban cigars, quaff bottles of expensive Cheval Blanc and slap each other on the back in delighted relief. One of those sighing relief was almost certainly Citibank's John Reed. Another quite likely to have also been cultivating a quiet exhalation was Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank boss, Sir William Purvis.


Meanwhile many investors who had placed their money into Project Hammer in return for an agreed profit as well as all those middle-men who had worked hard for their promised commission, were relieved of their money in a twisted version of the well known axiom: one man's loss is another banker's gain.


STEALING FROM THIEVES


The sanctioned purpose of Project Hammer was of a macroeconomic nature. Which is a nice way of saying that it was all to do with "repatriating" assets earlier stolen by someone else. Except when nations steal valuable assets during wartime it's called "plunder" but when the victors in that war grab those same assets they call it "recovery."


The assets in question were a vast horde of gold and lesser quantities of platinum plus not inconsiderable volumes of loose gemstones that had been grabbed by the Nazi's and the Japanese during WWII. Large volumes of this loot found their way to the Philippines where they were hidden in numerous treasure sites by the Japanese occupiers who planned to recover them after the war.


But it didn't quite work out the way the Japanese had planned. They lost the war along with the Philippines that, it seems, they were fairly confident they would be allowed to keep in a negotiated truce with the Allies. In their place the OSS the wartime forerunner of America's spy agency the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), began recovering the bullion plundered from a dozen or so nations.


This bullion formed what became known as the "Black Eagle" fund, which was part of a secret agreement eclipsed behind the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. Consequently, the metal was placed under the care of OSS (and later CIA) operative, Severino Garcia Santa Romana, who put it under the control of numerous corporate entities he formed for the purpose. These entities, in turn, proceeded to establish 176 bank accounts in 42 different countries in which to deposit these assets under private treaty agreement.


Confirmation for this comes from General Cocke who was asked: "I have been advised that a chunk of the Hammer Project funds that were used to trade, to invest and reinvest, came from a large block of assets that CIA put into the bank [Citibank]?" Cocke replied: "And they pulled that several times from several sources. Nobody is going to confirm it."[4]


Following Santa Romana's death in 1974, his former attorney and trustee was able to "acquire" considerable portions of Santa Romana's estate by illicit means. The lawyer was Ferdinand Marcos who went on to become president of the Philippines and a favourite friend of the United States until his overthrow in 1986. The acquisition of these assets helped give rise to stories of "Marcos gold" a legend that was supplemented by additional later recoveries of WWII gold and other loot using a Filipino Army Battalion under the overall command of Marcos henchman, General Fabian Ver.


But Marcos was not the sole illegitimate beneficiary of war loot once controlled by Santa Romana. Another was the late Baron Krupp who, I have been told, also gained access to some of these assets. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that Santa Romana, prior to his death, was apparently associated with former US president and head of the CIA, George Bush, and "had some contact" with Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida.


In any event, this bullion has, collectively, given rise to a whole class of gold and platinum certificates issued over the decades, mainly by top-drawer European banks. The certificates bear the names of prominent, and in some cases infamous individuals usually heads of state as beneficiaries. But these named owners were and are not the legal beneficiaries but rather were cat's paws used to muddy the waters concerning the true origin of the bullion. Nor did the banks that held the assets own them but they could and did use them in support of their off-balance sheet activity - to the point of irresponsibility.


It should not be forgotten that this gold and platinum was stolen and under international law every effort should have been made to return it to its rightful owners rather than secretly stash it in bank vaults for use in cold war covert operations. And although it can reasonably be argued that the true owners could never be traced, since the greater quantity of the bullion was privately owned (rather than being central bank bullion), it is clear that the ends dictated the means.


And even though numerous nations around the world were to benefit from post war reconstruction based on the use and application of this war booty, the price of this apparent largesse was for these nations to be moulded into Uncle Sam's image. As they say in American boardrooms, there is no such thing as a "free lunch."


In examining the techniques employed in setting up Project Hammer, one is struck not just by the complexity of it but also by the way the banks and intelligence agencies involved structured things to shield themselves from responsibility (and lawsuits no doubt) by utilising subterranean networks each working at "arms-length."


Piecing these techniques and networks together has been an arduous, painstaking task but in doing so it further unveils a shadow world of parallel finance usually only known to those initiated into it.


THE EMPIRE STATE CONNECTION


During his April 2000 deposition, just days before his death from cancer, Brigadier General Erle Cocke, when asked what the overall objectives of Project Hammer were replied:


"Well, it was mainly to bring back monies to the United States from all types of activities, both legitimately and illegitimately. Not that they were in the smuggling business per se, but they were all in the arms business, they were all retracing dollars of one description or another that had accumulated all through the forties and fifties really. And that probably is as broad a definition as I can give you…"


General Cocke then added that involvement in Project Hammer extended to:


"…the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agencies of all types, Pentagon in the broad sense of it and as such, the Treasury, Federal Reserve. Nobody got out of the act, everybody wanted to get in on the act."[5]


Cocke's involvement with clandestine CIA activities dates back many years. At the very least he is known to have been involved with the CIA's Nugan Hand Bank. For example, US Treasury records obtained by veteran journalist and author, Jonathan Kwitny, show Cocke as the registered "person in charge" of Nugan Hand's Washington office.[6]


Cocke also indicated in his affidavit that he was regularly contacted by the CIA for expert assistance over the years and was usually debriefed by them following overseas travel. Despite this, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CIA made on behalf of this writer was dismissed with the statement that "…no records responsive to your request were located," which is not entirely the same thing as saying that no records exist.[7]


It also appears that the CIA are not the only ones who care to deny knowledge of General Cocke. Another is former Citibank CEO and Chairman, John Reed who, in a sworn affidavit dated 5th December 2000, stated he had "no knowledge of any persons named Erle Cocke, Jr or Barrie D. Wamboldt." Both the CIA and Citibank's John Reed hold at least one major advantage over General Cocke…he is dead and while it is true that the dead can't lie, it is also true that they can't rebut anyone's testimony sworn or otherwise.[8]


In his deposition, Cocke states that although he had never "met" John Reed, he had attempted on numerous occasions to speak with him, but was continually rejected:


"We did our best to make the normal approaches, but I can see the President of the United States with no trouble. I cannot see Reed."[9]


The "we" Cocke was referring besides himself was Paul Green, a "long time real estate lawyer in New York," with "50 years practice" who "had done most of his real estate dealings through Citibank."[10] Green also did some of his banking business with Citibank, at their 5th Avenue, New York branch, under account number: FOCUS #946 963 94.


According to Cocke, Green was an outside counsel for Citibank and went back "30 odd years with large transactions through that bank buying and selling big buildings. He was very much involved buying and selling the Empire State Building one time."[11] Asked if Paul Green was involved in the purchase and sale of collateral instruments, Cocke replied:


"Probably not as an individual. But he represented the clients that certainly wanted to do the same thing." [12]


News in late March 2003, revealed that the Empire State Building had just been sold by Casino king, Donald Trump, and the heirs of shady Japanese billionaire Hideki Yokoi for $57.5 million. Yokoi (who at the time was serving a prison sentence had secretly negotiated the transaction through a middleman) and his partner Trump had gained ownership of the building in 1991 for $42 million. Little is known about Yokoi's WWII activities.


The building last changed hands four decades earlier in 1961, when it was acquired by real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley from the Prudential Insurance Company in a sale-leaseback deal. The world-renowned skyscraper was built on land owned by the Astor family and later sold to the Du Pont's in 1929. John Jacob Astor was one of the first Americans to become involved in the Opium trade from which his later fortune derived. This he invested in Manhattan real estate.


Construction of the Empire State building began in 1930. Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates were the architects of the Empire State Building. They also designed One Bankers Trust Plaza in New York City, the HQ of Bankers Trust, together with the Credit Lyonnais building.


It is of more than passing interest that one law firm represents many of the "actors" who appear in this story. That firm is White & Case. Amongst numerous notable achievements listed on its website background/history was its representation of the sellers (the Du Pont group) of the Empire State Building in 1954 for the princely sum of $51.5 million. As we noted earlier, almost forty years later in 1991, the building sold for the less than princely sum of $42 million. I am not certain how the real estate investors define investment performance over the years but an aggregate loss of $9.5 million over the course of 37 years doesn't usually constitute an investment accomplishment by any standard I know of.[13]


In any event, the 1954 sale was to a Chicago "group" headed by businessman, Colonel Henry Crown, who went on to take a controlling interest in General Dynamics, a major defence contractor. During WWII, Crown was the procurement officer for the Western division of the Corps of Engineers. This is of some interest, since the US Army Corps of Engineers do appear to have been involved in the post war recovery of plundered gold stashed in the Philippines. Crown also became involved in the mining industry in 1942, when Crown's principal company, Material Service Resources Company, acquired Freeman Coal Mining Company. In any event, by 1954, when Crown was involved in the purchase of the Empire State Building, he was fronting for the Chicago "mob" and laundering their money into real-estate.[14]


In my e-book The Secret Gold Treaty, I make mention of the fact that Santa Romana's sidekick and CIA associate, General Ed Lansdale, had his name appear in connection with substantial UBS gold bullion deposits. Indeed, Lansdale is a central figure in the recovery by the OSS and later the CIA of plundered gold and other assets stashed on the Philippine islands by the Japanese Golden Lily plunder teams. Lansdale's name also surfaced in another major event. According to the late Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, who was Lansdale's close military associate on covert missions, Lansdale was identified as being present in Dallas on 22nd November 1963 the day President John Kennedy was assassinated. Lansdale's speciality was black operations and assassination and Prouty believed him to have been a party to the Kennedy slaying. Lansdale's skills in these departments were honed following a tour he made to the Philippines to put down the so called HUK uprising, as well as his later posting to Saigon in 1954, to pave the US takeover from the French particularly of the opium trade.[15]


Investigations conducted by Prof. Peter Dale Scott, for his book on the JFK assassination, reveal many leads linking Lee Harvey Oswald to Max Clark, a former security officer of General Dynamics. Moreover, there were additional links between Jack Ruby and General Dynamics controlling stockholder, Henry Crown and his friend Jake Arvey Ruby's former political boss in Chicago. Crown is further implicated in these matters because of his association with Hilton Hotels International, of which he was a director. In particular, Crown had negotiated with a Cuban pro-Baptista faction for casino rights in the Havana Hilton.


Moreover, as one begins digging deeper into the defence contractor, General Dynamics, one is confronted by a most unusual entity by the name of Empire Trust Co., which has been likened to a "private CIA" who's shareholders used it to protect their business interests around the world. These included interests in Cuba, Guatemala and in "General Dynamics." Empire Trust later merged into the Bank of New York, but in its earlier years it was a vehicle at least in part - for the Smiths, the Scottish banking family. This is not the place to go into greater detail about Empire Trust (which I hope to do at another time) but suffice it to say that one internationally known individual, Lord Peter Carrington, is of the Smith banking family. Lord Carrington's name was once purloined and used as the hero in a play entitled "Rescuing Rosebud." Interestingly, the Empire Trust can also be connected to Citigroup.


But the connections just keep on happening. It is known that Colonel Crown was connected to a number of Texan businessmen, including Robert B. Anderson who would later become Secretary of the Treasury. Anderson was, moreover, one of the central figures in setting up the Black Eagle gold trusts using gold plundered by the Axis during WWII and had accompanied Ed Lansdale to Tokyo in 1945, when Lansdale reported to General MacArthur his boss on all the loot that he and Santa Romana had uncovered in the Philippines.[16] [17] Not least, two of Santa Romana's "front companies" used by him for the deposit of plundered WWII bullion just happen to have the name "Crown" in their title: Crown Commodity Holding International, and just plain Crown International. Stranger still, is the fact that for many years, Santa Romana lived in a suite at the Hilton Hotel in Manila.


Meanwhile, a brief review of White & Case's client list tell us that they also represented the First National Bank (the forerunner of Citibank), Astor Trust Company,[18] Prudential, J P Morgan & Co., Saudi Aramco, Swiss Bank Corporation and Seagram Company Ltd. of Canada, controlled by the Bronfman family (regarded by some as the kings of the Canadian mafia).[19] But White & Case's most "enduring" client is Bankers Trust Company, a J P Morgan controlled bank, which the law firm was "centrally involved" in forming back in 1903.


The ancestor of all trust companies is England's Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, which dates back to 1868 and was conceived by one of the foremost legal minds of the day, Lord Westbury. The current Lord Westbury, Richard Bethell, will appear later in this story.


But first, lets step through the looking glass and examine one of the early Hammer deals, which General Cocke believed:


"…was one of the very early transactions as far as I am concerned with Hammer." I think he [Dan Hughes] is the one who expanded Hammer in the sense that we moved from one hundred million [dollars] to a billion type movement, and now we are doubling, about a trillion. He is the one who enhanced it is the best way of saying."


THE HUGHES PORTAL


Dan Hughes Jr - the nephew of US Representative Hughes from New Jersey - made a considerable fortune in the construction business in Florida during his early working life. By the mid 1980's, with paper assets nearing $100 million, he became involved in collateral trading and by late 1989 entered the realm of Project Hammer.


During the autumn of 1989, Hughes was approached by Peter Seaman, the President & Chairman of a small investment bank called Nantucket Holding Company. Seaman had developed an arrangement with Ecoban, Limited, a small merchant bank with offices in London & New York City that specialised in emerging market-debt and the A'forfait market[20] Seaman using Nantucket Holding Company, concluded an agreement by which Ecoban would purchase $100 million worth of documentary letters of credit issued by the Head Offices of Citibank, N.A., and the Chase Manhattan Bank N.A. Hughes had access to these bank credits via a $50 billion "commitment" extended to him by the Bankers Trust Company.


To fund the purchase Ecoban needed the support of a bank and turned to Midland Bank Aval Limited (MidAval), the Forfaiting subsidiary of Midland Bank Group International Trade Services (MiBGITS). MidAval, once wholly owned by Midland Bank had, shortly before commencing with the Hammer transaction, concluded a private agreement with Sir William Purvis, chairman of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, wherein HSBC purchased a controlling equity stake in MidAval. This meant that MidAval was 60% owned by HSBC and 40% owned by Midland Bank.[21]


Accordingly, on 12th October 1989, MidAval issued a letter agreeing to purchase "$100 million with rolls until funds are exhausted of documentary letters of credit…" An earlier MidAval letter (dated 25th September 1989) stated that they "irrevocably commit to purchase the above letters of credit and pay the amount agreed between you and Ecoban Limited ("the purchase price") to Citibank N.A., Lugano."


The reference to "Lugano" was deleted in later letters at the specific request of Nantucket's Peter Seaman as detailed in his 11th October 1989 letter to Brian Fitzpatrick, the Managing Director of Ecoban Ltd. Lugano was of some considerable importance as we shall see later but not least because it was at Union Bank of Switzerland in Lugano where, according to Dan Hughes, the actual trading of the Hammer programme took place.[22]


Meanwhile, MidAval's letter was addressed to Jardine, Emett & Chandler New England Inc, in Boston, USA, who acted as an agent for MidAval. On the strength of MidAval's signed and authorised letter, Jardine, Emett & Chandler issued it own "Request for collateral instruments" under its letterhead. This letter, dated 12rth October 1989 bore the reference "Midland Bank Aval Limited for Ecoban Limited."


To close the circle Dan Hughes had earlier instructed his attorney, Oswald (Ozzie) Howe Jr of the Miami law firm of Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole, to cause to be issued a Sight draft dated 6th October 1989, drawn on the Southeast Bank N. A., Miami, and payable to Bankers Trust Company for $50,000. A further Sight draft was issued in the amount of $25,000 at the request of Bankers Trust.


Following this sequence of events nothing happened and no draws were made against the Sight drafts issued by Southeast Bank in favour of Bankers Trust. But on the 18th October 1989, Hughes received a time and sequence confirmation from Joan Johnson, Vice President and Operations Manager of Security Pacific bank in Los Angeles," which Hughes believes activated his transaction through a "back door" arrangement which would cut him out of his commission.[23] Thereafter, Peter Seaman point blank and inexplicably refused to speak with Hughes again.


General Cocke was an experienced banker from a long line of bankers and was a former full time US representative at the World Bank. Intimately familiar with the operational techniques of trading programmes he was asked: "Can you explain in a general way how it [Hammer] functioned, that it was a trade programme, for those of us that are not familiar?"


"The stock way all big banks, all central banks, change within themselves and curtail their balances, build up their peaks and then sell it."


He went on to explain that "…most of it is done in a four week program to be technically correct," and involved the trading of banking instruments usually known as collateral that are heavily discounted and then sold off.


MAPPING THE COVERT CONNECTIONS


To appreciate the subtleties of how the diversion of this particular "portal" into Project Hammer may have occurred, it is instructive to look at the connections and associations of the principal players.[24]


Ecoban: In addition to Ecoban Limited in London, there was the affiliated Ecoban Finance Limited that conducted business out an address on Third Avenue in New York City. A one time President and CEO of Ecoban Finance Limited in New York was Jim Demitrieus who more recently was the President and Chief Operating Officer of Ixnet/IPC which was acquired by Global Crossing in June 2000. Global Crossing was one of the US firms that recently suffered a spectacular collapse together with Worldcom, Enron and the accountancy firm Arthur Andersen. All were subjected to a welter of media attention for what was believed to have been unparalleled insider trading activities by senior executives.


Earlier in his career, Demitrieus "served as senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Commodity Division of Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc. responsible for the precious metals, energy products, foreign exchange trading subsidiary and institutional brokerage division." Of interest here is the little known fact that Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, New York, was a recipient of gold bullion from Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in January 1984. It is not clear from Mr. Demitrieus' available Vitae if this was the same time period he was the senior vice president of Drexel's bullion business, but I am informed this is probably the case. Before that, Demitrieus" held senior level financial positions with Freeport McMoRan, ITT and Arthur Andersen."[25]


Significantly, Freeport McMoRan, back in the days when it was Freeport Sulphur, positively heaved with CIA and elite heavy-hitters - not to mention persistent whispers of its involvement in the recovery of plundered gold stashed in Indonesia where Freeport had the largest copper mining operation in the world. Over the years the Freeport senior management have included such luminaries as Augustus "Gus" Long, the chairman of Texaco who has "done prodigious volunteer work for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital" which has been described as a "hotbed of CIA activity."[26] Meanwhile, perhaps one of the best-known directors was Dr. Henry Kissinger, who was appointed to the board in 1995.


Another director was Robert Lovett, who has been described as a "Cold War architect" and had been an executive at the old Wall Street bank of Brown Brothers Harriman. He also served as Undersecretary of State, Assistant Secretary of War, and Secretary of Defence. He was a best friend of Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman (and Warren Commissioner), John J McCloy.


The Chase Manhattan and Citibank connection (note these are the exact same two banks that were to issue the Project Hammer documentary letters of credit) to Freeport was further enhanced by the board appointment of Godfrey Rockefeller - brother of James Stillman Rockefeller who was appointed Chairman of Citibank (then known as First National City Bank or FNCB for short) in 1959. Godfrey Rockefeller was a one-time trustee of the Fairfield Foundation that financed a variety of CIA "fronts." Meanwhile, Stillman's cousin, David Rockefeller, was chairman of Chase Manhattan and regarded as the "goliath of American banking."[27]


By a strange coincidence of fate it was Robert Lovett and John J McCloy, who together with Robert B. Anderson, formed Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson's team of financial experts concerned with tracking WWII gold looted by the Axis powers. Indeed, Lovett and McCloy were responsible for negotiating the secret agreement hidden behind the Bretton Woods Agreement concerning the establishment of the "Black Eagle Trust" that was to make use of plundered WWII bullion in the post war years.[28]


As connections go, there can be few that dovetail in to this story so comprehensively as that of the late David Alexander Harrison III a lawyer, investment banker and philanthropist, who died in June 2002. Twelve days after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbour, Harrison signed up for military service and served on General Douglas MacArthur's staff in the Philippines. Reaching the rank of captain, he was discharged in August 1944. He began his business career at Freeport Sulphur Co, in New York and in 1947, joined the law firm of White & Case in New York City, where he practised corporate law. In 1961, he joined the Wall Street investment bank of Reynolds & Co - which later became part of Morgan Stanley where he was made a partner.[29]


Earlier, we noted that General Edward Lansdale, a CIA (and formerly OSS) operative had been strongly linked to the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy. He was also a key player in the Black Eagle gold trust. We also observed that Colonel Henry Crown, of the Empire State Building, also had links to Lee Harvey Oswald, who is officially held responsible as the "lone gunman" - for JFK's murder. Crown is also further linked to the Black Eagle gold trust. These two unusual "associations" - black gold and the JFK assassination - likewise extend to Freeport Sulphur (now Freeport McMoRan).


According to the JFK assassination investigation files of New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, Freeport Sulpher's then Vice President, Charles A. Wight, flew to Cuba to set up an import deal for Cuba's Nickel ore to a Canadian front corporation. Accompanying Wight on this flight was Clay Shaw, suspected by Garrison to have been the key figure in Kennedy's slaying. Piloting the Freeport Sulphur aircraft was David Ferrie a CIA contract agent and also a key Garrison suspect.[30] David Ferrie meanwhile, frequently piloted aircraft carrying narcotics and was, as early as 1957, a paymaster to Barry Adler Seal - who would later become the biggest drug smuggler in American history. Ferrie was also a mentor to Lee Harvey Oswald.[31]


Prior to his appointment to the Freeport Sulphur board of directors, and chairman of its Executive Committee, Charles Wight was a Vice President of the Bankers Trust Company.[32] Wight plainly was a significant player in a number of events, including apparently, an assassination plan of a head of state. A Garrison memo noted an interview he had conducted with a James J. Plaine of Houston, Texas, in which Plaine said was contacted by Freeport Sulphur's Mr. White (later identified as Charles Wight), regarding a possible assassination plan for Cuba's Fidel Castro.[33] Fidel today, Jack Kennedy tomorrow perhaps?


Freeport Sulphur was, in fact, an enclave of the fabulously wealthy Whitney family, and John Hay "Jock" Whitney, the heir to the family fortune, had significant ties to both the OSS and the CIA. During WWII, "Jock" was "…temporarily detailed to Wild Bill' Donovan of the OSS…" and was second cousin to CIA staff officer Tracy Barnes, regarded in the Agency as the "Golden Boy" of CIA director Allen Dulles.[34] Jock Whitney was also a lifelong friend of "…William H. Jackson, who briefly served as second in command at the newly formed CIA as Deputy Director under Walter Bedell Smith."[35] Whitney's pro-British perspective eventually led him to being appointed US Ambassador to London in 1957.


The name Whitney although not part of the same family line as the "rich" Whitney's occurs elsewhere in this story. Although Santa Romana told people that he worked for the OSS during the war, because it was easier to explain things this way, the fact is that he worked directly for then Colonel (later General) Courtney Whitney, MacArthur's closest friend and also his pre-war financial adviser in the Philippines. During the war, Whitney was in charge of a secret military group of Filipino soldiers trained in Australia and then sent on clandestine missions behind Japanese lines in the Philippines.


After the war, and following MacArthur's ignominious sacking as commander of allied forces in Korea by President Truman, Texan oil millionaire H L Hunt backed MacArthur's bid to become the next US president. Hunt, who was reported to be the richest man in the world at that time shared the rabid anti-communist even pro fascism of many of MacArthur's closest (and former military) aides including General Courtney Whitney, General Bonner Fellers and General Charles Willoughby.


This association between MacArthur and Hunt is not without significance, for it is now widely accepted that H L Hunt was deeply involved in the assassination of President John Kennedy.


In my earlier essay, The Spoils of War,[36] I noted that General Willoughby was a member of a secret right-wing group, called the Shickshinny Knights of Malta (as distinct from the official Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta). I also noted that Brigadier General Erle Cocke who proclaimed himself to be a Malta Knight in his 67-page Project Hammer affidavit, was probably a Shickshinny knight since his name does not appear on the membership roll of the official Order. This conclusion is supported by the fact that General Cocke during the Korean war acted as a liaison officer between General MacArthur's staff and the staff of General Marshall.[37]


This "black gold" constellation of connections extends to a range of momentous political events including, as we have seen, the JFK assassination. It also very likely extends to Nixon's Watergate as well. For example, another senior MacArthur aide, General Marquat, was placed in charge of a secret post-war slush fund - composed of recovered gold and other war loot that was used to help rebuild Japan as well as fund a range of anti-communist activities. This was called the "M-fund" and has been held to be so secret that it is usually denied to exist (as usual).


One of those engaged in later negotiations regarding this fund was General Alexander Haig Nixon's last White House chief of staff.[38] Haig has been named as a principal "plotter" in the plans to force Nixon's resignation in the wake of Watergate. He is also a Knight of Malta, albeit of the official Order and not the Shickshinny variety. I also understand that Haig's father-in-law, General Alonzo Fox, was a close associate of… General Willoughby.[39]


Meanwhile it has been reported that Richard Nixon, as Vice President during Eisenhower's Administration, handed over direct control of this fund now valued to be in excess of $500 billion - from the MacArthur/Marquat clique to certain members of Japan's ruling Liberal Democrat Party. This was in exchange for a promise that it would be covertly used to further Nixon's political career specifically to get him elected president.


A number of those deeply implicated in Watergate were also involved in the JFK assassination.[40] And Alexander Butterfield, who was in charge of the tapes and taping system in Nixon's Oval Office the recorded conversations of which led directly to Nixon's fall from power - was also a former career intelligence officer in Asia with a deep knowledge of Nugan Hand Bank officer, Bernie Houghton.[41] Nugan Hand Bank, it will be recalled, not only laundered narcotics money but also laundered Marcos gold out of the Philippines to Australia and quite probably also to those controlling Golden Triangle opium production.


Midland Bank: When looking at MidAval's parent, Midland Bank Group International Trade Services (MiBGITS), one could do worse than read the very informative book by former Arms company Chairman, Gerald James, entitled "In the Public Interest." James recounts numerous chilling accounts of Her Majesty's intelligence service MI6 deep involvement with MiBGITS special defence unit. Included are details of Stephan Kock, who James claims to have been a former head of the Foreign Office's so called assassination squad, Group 13. Another intelligence-connected individual named in James' book is Sir John Cuckney, who was a non-executive director of Midland Bank from 1978 until 1988 and was responsible for having formed the defence unit in the first place. Gerald James and his munitions company Astra, also had dealings with, and a private account at, MidAval.[42]


Kock's boss at Midland was Comte Herve de Carmoy, a Frenchman and a leading light on the Trilateral Commission. He left Midland in 1988, to take up the position as the most senior executive of Belgium's massive transnational company, Societe Generale. He was replaced as head of Midland International by John Louden who had an unfortunate speech impediment and who was a multilingualist leading wags in the bank to say of him that he could stutter in seven languages. De Carmoy's departure was followed by both Cuckney and Kock following what Gerald James describes as "funny practices" relating to a loss of £100 million involving all three.[43]


Although a similar amount to the MidAval's Project Hammer transaction, this sum of £100 million cannot have been the same money for two reasons. Firstly the Hammer amount was in dollars and not pounds and was discounted at approximately 4% over the prevailing one-year interest rate (LIBOR). For US banks of the standing of Chase & Citibank at that time, a market rate of perhaps one quarter of one percent or at most, one half of one percent was applicable. Four percent was unheard of by a very long shot indeed. Secondly, at least a year separated the two movements of money.


Even so there are notable connections between the MidAval CEO, Ian Guild, and Herve de Carmoy (who was known in the bank as "Herve the Swerve"). Firstly, de Carmoy was Guild's overall boss. Secondly, shortly after de Carmoy moved to Societe Generale, a valued employee of MidAval (also a Frenchman referred to in-house by the affectionate nickname of "Froggy") left MidAval employment to take up the post of Chef du Cabinet at the specific invitation of de Carmoy. Thirdly, Guild and the other two senior executives plus some other staff left Midland in 1990 to form IndoSuez Aval Limited. IndoSuez Bank was directly owned by Societe Generale and negotiations between de Carmoy, his Chef du Cabinet the former MidAval employee - and the three senior MidAval executives had been ongoing for almost a year before satisfactory terms were settled.


Following the take over of Midland Bank by HSBC, MidAval had its name changed to HSBC Forfaiting Limited. It was dissolved in February 2000. Former staff had long since scattered to the four winds. IndoSuez Aval Limited is likewise now defunct.


Peter Seaman: In addition to being the President and Chairman of Nantucket Holding Company, Peter Seaman was a successful businessman and involved in a number of other enterprises. These included an entity called Harbour Fuel Holdings Co, Inc of Westchester County in which Seaman was a partner with attorney Stuart Root. Both Root and Peter Seaman were clients of attorney Kenneth C. Ellis. Root was a director of another firm called Bowery Advisors Subsidiary Corporation, which was registered in Florida with a principal mailing address of Kenneth C. Ellis "care of" the Southeast First National Bank building located at Biscayne Boulevard, Miami. Seaman had a residence in Greenwich, Connecticut where, by another odd coincidence, his next-door neighbour was Citibank's John Reed.


Following his close association with Dan Hughes in setting up of the MidAval Hammer deal in October 1989, Seaman thereafter refused to ever speak with Hughes again. Whether it was caused by guilt for diverting Hughes commission or some other factor that caused this extraordinary vow of silence, we shall never know. Peter Seaman died taking all his secrets with him.


Oswald Howe Jr: Dan Hughes attorney throughout the Hammer deal and the subsequent years of investigation was Oswald (Ozzie) Howe Jr., of the Miami law firm of Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole whose offices were located in the Southeast Bank building at the Southeast Financial Center. According to Dan Hughes, it was Howe who introduced him to Southeast Bank and that Howe did a lot of real estate work for the bank. Interesting real estate work appears to have been one of Howe's specialities in fact, as we shall shortly see.


Hughes also feels that his ongoing Hammer related law case would be a great deal more effective if several vital documents had not mysteriously disappeared from Howe's office. In any event, Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole is now defunct and Howe practices law and is the senior partner for Howe, Robinson & Watkins LLP, in Miami.


As a Florida attorney, Oswald Howe has registered numerous business entities. One of the more interesting is the 1983 registered, Hines Florida Club Corp, with an address at 2800 Post Oak Boulevard, Houston, Texas. This is an entity of Gerald D. Hines, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, a multi-billionaire and the largest real estate developer in Houston as early as 1965. Another Hines entity located at the same address which incidentally is a building owned by Hines, is City Club of Miami Inc. This entity was registered by Howe in 1983, notably in the middle of the Iran Contra era. In this case, however, the Florida registration record shows the owner and developer as "Gerald D Hives" rather than Gerald D. Hines. Spelling errors seem to appear with uncommon frequency when it comes to Hines. Howe's registration of Hines Florida Club Corp, mentioned above has Hines listed of "Gerald D Hineo." Such typographical errors are said to be an old CIA trick to camouflage paper trails, according to some investigators.


Deeper research shows a connection between Hines and the Phoenix real estate developer Del E Webb, who owned the New York Yankees until 1965. Webb's business entity, the Del E Webb Development Corporation was fingered, in an investigation following the death of an Arizona journalist, Don Bolles, for being an "active business partner with organized crime for three decades." Webb's corporation had been the developer of the Las Vegas, Flamingo Hotel, owned by mobsters, Bugsy Siegal and Meyer Lansky. Author Anthony Summers, revealed that Webb was protected at "the highest levels" by former FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. Moreover, Webb's further mob connections also extended to Chicago power broker, Col. Henry Crown who we met earlier in this essay. Indeed, so close were the Crown-Webb connections that one former Webb executive revealed that he had to be interviewed by Crown before the Webb Corporation would hire him.[44]


Gerald Hines also built and owns 2700 Post Oak Boulevard in Houston (not a million miles away from S. West Oak Drive which is owned by G. H. Bush). This was the home of many oil companies, including Buttes Gas & Oil Co on whose board of directors sat Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt II, the grandson of president Theodore Roosevelt. Kermit's background is as wild as it is disturbing.[45]


Kim was with the OSS during WWII, and served in the most secret of all OSS posts, Cairo, as a cryptographer. In this role he would almost certainly have come into contact with Allen Dulles, the Swiss based OSS operative and later a director of the CIA. Kim also joined the CIA, officially as Dulles Near & Middle East expert, but was in fact a clandestine operator par excellent. His "activities" included the overthrow of Iran's Mossadecq, who was replaced by the CIA choice, the Shah of Iran in 1953. The Shah's name would later appear on a bank of England Obligation certificate in the amount of $5.45 billion, with the code "Theheran Memorial King."


By 1954, Kim was working closely with leading Nazi war criminals. This particularly included Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny who had earlier been hand-chosen by the Nazi hierarchy to secretly transport nazi gold, other plunder and key Nazi assets to safety in Latin America and elsewhere around the world prior to the fall of Berlin in 1945. Kim's association with Skorzeny focused on the failed plan to topple Egypt's president Nasser using elements of the fascist-leaning Muslim Brotherhood.


By 1957, Kim was working for Gulf Oil which, by 1959, owned a 20% slug of George Bush's Zapata operations that was later used by Cubans in the aborted Bay of Pigs fiasco aimed at toppling Cuba's Fidel Castro. With Gulf Oil, he continued his speciality work as he had done in the CIA; Kim was a prolific arms dealer. In the 1960's he established a consulting company and recruited Adnan Khashoggi another prolific arms dealer - to serve as an agent for US defence contractors, Northrup and Raytheon, who Kim was representing via his consulting firm.


It is more than likely that Kim first met Khashoggi in 1962, when King Faisal secretly commissioned the twenty-seven year old Adnan, to act in an unofficial capacity to strengthen ties with the US and western nations. In this capacity, Khashoggi was to act as the ears and eyes of the Saudi royal family, acquire arms, invest to win friends and bring his charms and the Kingdom's money to exert influence where required.


Interestingly, 1963 was the year of issue of a Union Bank of Switzerland Trust Note in the amount of Swiss Francs 92.625 billion in the (as usual) misspelled name of Adnan Kasogi. This obligation note bears the "Special Code: Panama Fusse King" and almost certainly formed part of the Santa Romana Black Eagle loot.


Kim's relationship with Khashoggi resulted in a close relationship he also had with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz to whom we shall return later. Kim was also a crony of multi-billionaire financier, Sir James Goldsmith, who owned a stake in Canadian gold mining company Barrick Resources. Kim's associations extended to organised crime and Las Vegas hotels on the one hand, and on the other, extended deeply into the CIA arguably two heads of the same beast, but in any event these Siamese-twin associations reveal Kim Roosevelt to have been a classic covert operator of considerable distinction.


The foregoing are just some of the more interesting "threads" that fan out from an investigation of Oswald Howe. Additional research is being conducted as we speak.


Southeast Bank: Southeast Bank N A., was declared insolvent on 19th September 1991. It exists no more. Over the years it could boast some famous, if not infamous clients but one suspects that such boasting was the last thing the bank's board of directors had in mind. One such account "holder" was Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos who used his henchman and former law school classmate, Roberto Benedicto to front for him. In addition to being appointed by Marcos as the Philippines Ambassador to Japan, he was also a signatory on Marcos's Credit Suisse accounts and was clearly content to be used by Marcos as a catspaw to hide his money and gold bullion.[46] Benedicto died in May 2000, following a heart attack.


Other illustrious clients of Southeast Bank over the years have included criminal luminaries as Licio Gelli and Michele Sindona, named by author Luigi DiFonzo's, in his book "St. Peter's Banker." DiFonzo reveals that $34 million "lost" money of Robert Calvi's collapsed bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, was traced to the Banco Ambrosiano subsidiary in Nassau, where it was withdrawn and the funds smuggled to two Miami banks one of these being the Southeast First National Bank (of Miami) account number 18221465.[47]


Bankers Trust: Bankers Trust International a subsidiary of Bankers Trust was the other Miami bank named in the book "St. Peter's Banker" as having funds stolen from Banco Ambrosiano deposited with it. According to the books author, Luigi DiFonzo these funds were deposited into account number 001050018 that was also controlled by Licio Gelli and Michel Sindons (i.e., Sindona).


IN 1982, Ferdinand Marcos arranged via his right-hand man, General Fabian Ver to transfer 50 tonnes of gold bullion to Switzerland shipped via two 747 aircraft on charter. The charter aircraft were arranged by an individual using the name Ron Lusk who had been retained by Ver to deliver the gold to Bankers Trust, Zurich.[48]


Bankers Trust is also of considerable interest for other reasons too. Firstly, readers will recall that Dan Hughes caused two Sight drafts to be issued in favour of Bankers Trust for the collateral commitment relative to the Chase and Citibank debenture instruments, an activity which, as we have already seen, caused General Erle Cocke to believe kicked-off the Project Hammer programme in a big way.


Secondly, the lawyers and investigators who were building a lawsuit for Dan Hughes and other clients cheated out of their money were quietly negotiating with the Central Intelligence Agency in an attempt to settle privately and quietly out of court. According to Dan Hughes, these negotiations were taking place with the office of Buzzy Krongard, the then No. 3 man in the CIA hierarchy. By profession Krongard is a banker and had formerly been the chairman and CEO of investment bank, Alex Brown Inc. In September 1997, Krongard engineered the merger of Alex Brown with Bankers Trust and became the vice chairman of the board of directors of Bankers Trust. A few months later in January 1998 he was recruited as a "counsellor" to CIA boss, George Tenet. In March 2001, he was promoted to Executive Director, making him the No. 2 man of the spy agency.


But the strange coincidences don't end there. South African intelligence operatives, Rolf van Rooyen and Riaan Stander, [49] who are both deeply enmeshed in the Project Hammer story, were working closely with Gregory Serras, the President/CEO of the San Diego brokerage firm of Vanguard Capital. This involved discussions for Vanguard to act on their behalf on the Private Placement of Argentinean government approved debenture instruments that formed part of a trading programme that van Rooyen and Stander had been working on. In a signed letter, Serras acting on behalf of his bank, Morgan Stanley & Co requested confirmation that the debentures in question were "legal securities authorised and approved by the government of Argentina…"


Vanguard appear to change their banking relationships from time to time. At the time Serras was in contact with van Rooyen, their relationship was with Morgan Stanley & Co. Today it is with the Bank of New York, Inc itself no stranger to front-page scandals involving money-laundering activities for Russian crime syndicates and political figures.[50] Of interest is the fact that Vanguard was earlier affiliated with Buzzy Krongard's old firm, Alex Brown - which had changed its name following the take over of Bankers Trust by Germany's Deutsche Bank - to Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown Inc. It is now Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.


The fact is that when it comes to the fraternity of banking, one can often disregard the supposed rivalry that is said to exist, because incestuous relationships are commonplace. In the past, at least, the big banks owned significant chunks of each other's stock, whereas nowadays they just tend to merge together. Take for example the Bank of America, whose second largest stockholder was J P Morgan. In third place was Citibank. Meanwhile, Citibank's larges stockholder was J P Morgan which in December 2000 merged with Chase Manhattan to form the all powerful J P Morgan/Chase.[51] Bankers Trust was a J P Morgan creation from day one.


White & Case: No doubt by sheer coincidence alone, the Marcos account at Southeast Bank held by Roberto Benedicto was a "White & Case Trust" account (number 018-410191). It may also have been mere coincidence that Peter Seaman's and Stuart Root's attorney Kenneth C Ellis who was the registered addressee at Southeast Bank building for the Bowery Advisors Subsidiary Corporation is also listed on the White & Case website as a Partner of that firm who specialises in financial matters and who now works out of their Singapore office.


UBS Lugano: One of the more flamboyant financiers of recent decades undoubtedly is Italian, Florio Fiorini, the former director of finance of the Italian state-owned oil company, ENI. Fiorini is best known for his failed attempt to rescue Roberto Calvi's bankrupt private bank, Banco Ambrosiano an affair that also involved mafia financier Michel Sindona and, of course, Licio Gelli, the Grandmaster of the secret Masonic lodge P2, that was a de facto parallel government of Italy.


Unlike others, Fiorini spilled the beans in two books he wrote while in Champ Dollon prison in Switzerland for "fraudulent bankruptcy." Of the many secrets Fiorini revealed in his books, one of the most explosive was the now infamous "Conto Protezione," or protection account, used to launder profits derived from a myriad insider dealing activities by some of the largest and most prestigious banks and transnational corporations in Europe. A significant slice of the profits were paid to what Fiorini amusingly described as the "starving of the parties" or in plain words kickbacks paid to the various political parties.


The administrator of the secret kickback account numbered 633369 was a member of P2 and a former Minister of Justice of disgraced Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who went by the name of Claudius Hammerings and if one deletes the last four letters of his name… coincidence throws up the word "Hammer."[52] Readers will by now have guessed that the account was held at UBS Lugano.


Fiorini's name also appears prominently in the story of the looting of MGM, the famous Hollywood film studios by Italian mafia "thug" Giancarlo Paretti. The MGM affair was an event that almost brought France's state-owned bank, Credit Lyonnais crashing to its knees and, without intervention and an infusion of considerable sums of money from the French taxpayer, France's once proud bank would have folded.


This is not the place to recount the MGM/Credit Lyonnais story, but it is of passing interest only to note that Credit Lyonnais recruited attorney Charles Meeker, to join MGM as president to handle negotiations with Paretti. Prior to joining MGM, Meekers was with the law firm of White & Case.[53] Following a warrant issued by France, Paretti was eventually arrested and cuffed by federal agents in a conference room in the downtown Los Angeles office of White & Case.


Credit Lyonnais has also been deeply involved in Black Eagle gold transactions. In one transaction I am familiar with, a large block of bullion was to be purchased by a representative operating on behalf of Credit Lyonnais Rouse Limited, London, the precious metals trading arm of the bank.[54]


It is also interesting to note that UBS Lugano was not only the bank of choice for those running the secret insider trading Protection Account, but it was the bank of choice for former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The numerous confidential accounts he had at that bank have been dubbed the "Mother" money laundering account for the Marcos family by Marcos gold investigator, Reiner Jacobi.[55]


But the UBS connections don't end here. The Honorary Chairman of UBS (now part of the Swiss Bank Corporation group) is Nicholaus Senn, who was also the chairman of the enormous transnational corporation, Compagnie Financiere Richemont AG, until his retirement in September 2002. Senn was also the senior partner of the Swiss based international law and consultancy firm of Senn, Christians and Letemeyer, which coincidentally, acted for the late Baron Arndt Krupp. In particular, Carl Letemeyer and Nicholaus Senn worked hard on behalf of the Krupp Estate in regard to the Krupp Heritage & World Peace Foundation (Singapore) that received a legacy of US$97 billion from Baron Krupp. This was a cash gift. According to documents I have in my possession, Krupp's "secret" properties and businesses did not form part of this legacy. However, the most interesting fact is that prior to his death, Baron Arndt Krupp controlled some of the Santa Romana "Black Eagle" fund assets. Of the $97 billion gifted, $47 billion were on deposit in account nmber 4 77 22 P with the trust department of the Standard & Chartered bank, London.


Indosuez: is one of those banks that are barely visible but which consistently circle the waters of black gold and Project Hammer - like a prowling shark with just the tips of its fins showing. For example, in one bullion transaction being negotiated by Dr. A Konig a the Swiss representative of Rolf van Rooyen's Eastcorp Syndicate, the nominated closing bank for the transaction was Indosuez, Lugano - where Eastcorp Holdings maintained an account. This is in addition to the migration of some MidAval staff to Indosuez following their involvement in the Project Hammer trading programme outlined earlier. With the closure of Indosuez Aval, a rump of former MidAval employees (now unfortunately ex-Indosuez Aval as well), including MidAval's former CEO, found a new berth for their abilities. This was at Standard & Chartered Bank in London. Standard Bank Nominees, meanwhile, is the second largest shareholder of Oppenheimer's Anglo-American, with a stake of 11.74%.[56]


While the hidden connections of the Hughes "portal" into Project Hammer are vital to understanding how the world of parallel finance operates, there were still deeper "rhythms" at work. An examination of these leads to the companies, people and intelligence assets that sit at the heart of the so-called Anglo-American relationship.


THE KESWICK-JARDINES CONNECTION


A few days after I first published part one of Project Hammer in late October 2001, I was alerted to an anonymous posting on www.cryptome.org of a document produced by the South African National Intelligence Agency in 1998. The document describes plans, then alleged to be in preparation, for a coup to occur during the 1999 South African general election. Whilst this did not happen, the document was of significance because it describes members of and entities aligned with those who wished to disrupt the ruling African National Congress (ANC) political party.[57]


A large part of this document outlines the alleged involvement in the coup of Executive Outcomes; the British based private security company that is part of the "Palace Group" of companies. A few days prior to this document being made available, I had published charts showing the "Network" of the Palace Group that formed the London end of the associated South Af

[David Guyatt]

Supporting documents published with Project Hammer Reloaded can be found HERE. I think they should be read if one wishes to get a full sense of the Reloaded story.

Included are a number of documents on the letterhead of Midland Bank Aval Ltd - a wholly owned and highly discrete division of Midland Bank Group International Trade Services, known affectionately by insiders as MIB-GITS - which was a berth for such wonderful figures as Stephan Kock and Sir John Cuckney. These two were the the dog and pony show at MIB-GITS, where Cuckney was the General Manager/Director/Chairman and Kock was a director.

It was a very spooky bank as I have said. For example, during the mid 1980's (1985 I believe?) the Moscow Representative of MIG-GITS was thrown off a high rise building to his death in the streets of Moscow below, a fate that the Financial Times - in part 1 of a planned three-part sensational story about the bank (only part 1 made it to print...) blamed the KGB for responsibility for this very unpleasant death.

Stephan Kock was, in his pre-banker incarnation a former South African SAS soldier and then ran an assassination squad for HM Foreign Office (FCO) and then with MI6. This is set out quite clearly in the book written by the former Chairman of Astra, Gerald James. Astra was the largest private British arms firm of that time. Sir John Cuckney was a former (if there is ever such a thing as former in spookdom?) fixer for MI5. MIB-GITS also housed at least 6 members of British SIS/MI6 on permanent secondment, due to their heavy involvement in weapons financing, particularly Iraq and then Iran during the war between those two Middle Eastern nations. See HERE (I highly recommend one and all to read Gerald's article - it's a stonker)

I don't know all this simply because I read Gerard James book, excellent though it was and is. It is because I was the Treasurer and a director of Midland Bank Aval Ltd. I knew these people - not well, and not all of them, but enough of them. Gerard James and his company Astra were clients of ours. I had also met with Gerard James at his club in London twice to discuss these matters, and remained in contact with him during the research phase of the Project Hammer story. And here is a curious fact. Sir (later Baron) John Cuckney died on 30 October 2008. Stephan Kock died three days earlier on 27 October 2008.

Some years before I even knew about Project Hammer I had been asked to provide background on some of MidAval's arms deal for a British charity. A meeting was arranged at the City of London office of the highly connected law firm where the lawyer I was to meet was, I am sure coincidentally the son of a former Midland Bank director by the surname of Pepper (a former stockbroker btw). During the course of the meeting a man entered without being introduced and sat down opposite me. It was Stephan Kock. The message about a failure of memory seemed evident. To me anyway.



My professional involvement with MidAval was, in fact, the reason Dan Hughes contacted me. Somehow he found out about me being there. He phoned me out of the blue and said he had copies of letters from MidAval Ltd. I told him I didn't believe him and he duly faxed these documents to me. I almost fell off my chair. I had worked daily with Ian Guild the CEO & Chairman of MidAval and Janine Barber, an Executive Director for 13 years - way back before we were taken over by MIB-GITS. I knew the bank letterhead intimately, I recognised the filing codes, I knew Ian's and Janine's signatures and knew these facsimiles were genuinely his, hers and also Andy Freeman's (another Executive Director) handiwork.

Some time after I had left the bank - and in the midst of my Project Hammer Reloaded research I asked to meet Ian Guild for lunch. Afterwards we returned to his office ( he was by that time with Standard & Chartered) and I began placing copies of these MidAval letters in front of him. His first reaction was to say they were fakes. I placed another copy and then another. Even he didn't have the gall to continue to deny their genuineness and admitted he knew about them: "we would've made a lot of money, David" was how he explained it to me.

I then told him that I had been phoned by a senior attorney at the Washington headquarters of the White Shoe law firm, White & Case (very US Treasury) who had read the Project Hammer File and had also been in contact with Dan Hughes lawyer in Washington. He proceeded to brief me about a client he was representing who had been arrested and was in custody for his involvement in a High Yield Trading Programme. He wanted me to speak to Ian Guild and ask him if he would be prepared to speak to this senior attorney as he developed a defence - which was one of the reasons I had asked to meet Ian for lunch. I was unsurprised by Ian's response; in fact it was what I expected. He no more wanted to speak to the attorney than stroke the head of a rattlesnake.



For those who have looked at the Nantucket Holdings papers in the Reloaded document file will see it is addressed to Brian Fitzpatrick, who was the intermediary and brought the Project Hammer deal to Ian Guild in the first instance. And yes, I knew Brian too. In fact he was a member of one of my golf courses. As a matter of fact he seoncoded my membership there. That's the City for you

I would also suggest people read the document image showing a list of secret Ferdinand Marcos bank account. Included is... an account held for White & Case Trust at South East Bank on behalf of Roberto Benedicto, a close crony of Ferdinand Marcos.



When I said above that my old CEO, Ian Guild, was at Satndard & Chartered when I met him for lunch, I neglected to add that he had left MidAval under a cloud and set up for Forfaiting arm of Induez called Indosuez Aval. That venture barely lasted two years before - as I understand it - that company was closed by French authorities for indiscretions Ian declined to tell me about when I asked him. But he did confirm what I already knew, that Standard & Chartered was a sinecure for the Bank of England. It seems he was rescued by the Old Lady and given three days a week as a way of earning his full pension entitlement. Indosuez Bank was where Rolf van Rooyen had chosen to hold a meeting to transact 50 metric tonnes of Dore gold bullion that undoubtedly were ex the Philippines. The Reloaded Cambodia documents show a picture of some Dore bars



Yep, it really is a very, very small world.