Is Kroll the newest members of Derwick Associates' reputation management offensive?

Gustavo Gomez Lopez's UK residency
scrutinized by The Times

Dear Kroll employees who have been poking around:

I know you have a long and rotten history of working for some of Venezuela's nastiest and most corrupt figures. They range from major bank fraud titan Jose Alvarez Stelling from Banco Consolidado, to the loathsome Gustavo Gomez Lopez at Banco Latino (the Madoff of Venezuela) who now pretends to be a lawyer in Venezuela, failing to mention any reference to Banco Latino and its vanished billions in his bio.

Criminals having fun:
Orlando Castro (left)
and Jose Alvarez Stelling

You filled your corporate coffers with the ill-gotten payments of these corrupt oligarchs of the pre-Chavez era, it was a real waterfall of "fees." And now it appears, from what a source tells me but that I cannot confirm, that you couldn't help yourself and are doing work for the corrupt moneymen of the Boligarchy. I noticed you were visiting the site recently. Specifically, looking for information about Leopoldo Alejandro Betancourt Lopez, and his Derwick Associates gig. Newest Venezuelan client, perhaps? Did Derwick dismissed FTI Consulting already, or are you collaborating in the production of "due dilligence" reports and "vetting" Betancourt-Lopez, and his partners Francisco Convit, Edgar Romero Lazo, Iker Candina and Pedro Trebbau-Lopez? 

If I recall correctly, it was your company, Kroll, that "vetted" and gave a thumbs-up to a businessman by the name of Allen J. Stanford. Right? How did that work out for you?

"Super DEA agent" Tom Cash,
former Kroll Executive Managing
Director, and agent of Allen Stanford

I guess if you are looking into the Derwick boys while holding a check from their overflowing accounts at JP Morgan, you are probably thinking these are fine, upstanding young men. Why else would a bank like JP Morgan Chase be in business with them, right? Didn't Derwick file a $300M defamation lawsuit when someone questioned their "sterling reputation", only to cower at the prospects of discovery in a US court and having to settle, while being dismissed with prejudice? I would have thought that after another Venezuelan blogger brought down Allen Stanford you would err in the side of caution, but when will you learn your lesson Kroll?

I have been told that for your previous Venezuela capers you had a former "super-agent" of the DEA, Thomas Cash,  always trading on his "special agent in charge of the largest DEA office in the world, the Florida and Caribbean Division" meme and charging the dirtiest businessmen in Venezuela ridiculous amounts for his "due diligence" work. Cash was also meant to be a "fraud and money laundering" expert, wasn't he? Where is Mr Cash now?  Oh, right, he's the one who OK'd Allen Stanford, and kept defending him even after he was no longer a Kroll client, and had to step down in utter disgrace as head of Kroll in Miami. I'm looking forward to watching you make fools of yourselves as you pursue Derwick's dollars. Thus far, you're proving to be as useless as FTI Consulting and your former man Frank Holder...

Smartmatic doctors press release from New York's MTA to counter blogger's criticism

Smartmatic, the Venezuelan fly by night that in less than a decade went from nothing to become a (self described) "world-record setting elections company" managing to get contracts in excess of $500 million, doctored a press release from New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to counter criticism published in this blog.

In "Metropolitan Transportation Authorities Wants a Change for the Payment Systems", Smartmatic's PR people basically hacked a story -in Tarzan English- about New York's MTA's development of a new contact-less payment system, and invented two spokespeople along the way: Alek Halford and George Boyd (bold added). Go ahead and google Messrs Halford and Boyd in relation to the story, it's good fun. Relevant keywords ("telecommunication, technology, system integration and payment industries, Switzerland, Netherlands, Philippines and South America") were added for good measure.

The original notice can be read here, while the linked article in Smartmatic's post makes no mention to either Halford or Boyd, nor does it the article at banktech.com that, presumably, served as source of inspiration.

Readers of this site will remember previous attempts by Smartmatic of silencing me: by Luis Acuña here, and more recently by Paul Babic here. Today, by mere chance, I discovered Smartmatic's idiotic online reputation management strategy described above. Risking to sound like a broken record here, Smartmatic does have a huge PR problem. It maintains, to this day, an unblemished record of failures: every single electoral process in which it has participated outside of Venezuela -whether in Belgium or the Philippines, has been marred by accusations of either fraud, lack of functionality, corruption, lack of transparency -see the latest here, while crucially, in Venezuela, its lottery machines cum "the world's best electoral system"  according to Jimmy Carter were checked -not properly audited- just once, in 2005, when it was revealed that vote secrecy was compromised. In the words of the European experts both Smartmatic and chavismo like to quote so much:

While the source codes are owned by the CNE they are for commercial reasons not made available for public scrutiny and no independent third party audits have been conducted on any part of the electronic voting system.

Open Letter to Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen about David Osio

From right: David Rivera, David Osio and Congress-
woman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Dear Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen,

It's been a while since I was last in touch, so here's hope that this communication finds you well.

Not very long ago you participated, along with Congressman Connie Mack, Senator Marco Rubio (and now-disgraced former Congressman David Rivera) and others in an event in Capitol Hill, during which a group of my Venezuelan countrymen received recognition for their "distinguished contributions".

I do not know what sort of criteria was followed to decide which Venezuelan residing in the USA had made "distinguished contributions" to your country. What I do know is that many people were appalled and disgusted that David Osio was part of the group being honored. Others went even further, and suggested that the whole charade, arranged by David Rivera's Miami-based Venezuelan girlfriend, was paid for by Osio, to cleanse his sullied image, but it would be irresponsible of me, of course, to state that as fact rather than an appreciation based on the impressions of others.

In any case, I would like to ask you the following: did you, or any of your staff, do any due diligence on the members of that "distinguished" group? Can anyone specifically point out the "distinguished contributions" that David Osio has purportedly made to the United States? Are you aware that David Osio's financial group, DAVOS, alerts "US citizens, residents or any person located in the United States" through its website to refrain from considering its products and services? Ask yourself why Osio avoids U.S. regulation. Are you aware of the involvement of David Osio in the $500+ million ponzi scheme run by Francisco Illarramendi, through which workers of Venezuela's oil company lost a significant part of their pension funds? Were you aware that David Osio, through its DAVOS website, made the ridiculously misleading and totally false claim -immediately deleted after I called it- that his financial group had $1 trillion under management? Are you aware of the current professional relationships that entangle David Osio with utterly corrupt chavista officials from Venezuela? It is my belief he is one of the bankers of choice for the Venezuelan “boligarchy.”

David Osio eagerly employs the services of spin doctors and lawyers to silence his critics, and even takes matters into his own hands by sending baseless communications defending his "reputation" when it is challenged —sources have told me that he has even emailed you some of his preposterous defenses.

I would like to openly, and in good faith, warn you. The truth about David Osio and his enormous money laundering operation will one day make headlines. What will you say? That you didn't know? Or will you pretend that it never happened and retreat into silence, like Al Cardenas when confronted publicly about his dealings with corrupt chavista businessmen? Did Cardenas, by any chance, speak wonders to you about David Osio and did he tell you he had performed the proper “due diligence” about David Osio, that he is “clean”? Please be advised, Congresswoman, Al Cardenas has significant financial motivations to defend criminals like David Osio. Cardenas is in cahoots with a “due diligence” firm by the name of FTI Consulting, with its own criminal history. Al Cardenas is a fixer and rainmaker for his law firm, for FTI Consulting, and for his lobbying firm—and Venezuelans with ethical problems are his favorite targets.

Those of us from countries lacking rule of law are always grateful for the elected representatives of the U.S. Congress who stand tall against dictatorships and publicly denounce the crimes and abuses of authoritarian governments. You are one of the leaders in the congress who for years has championed the suffering of people from Havana to Hungary. We need you strong, and I consider it a duty to warn you when those with pecuniary interests, such as Cardenas, muddy the waters by trying to launder the reputations of unsavory businessmen like David Osio.

Sincerely,
Alek Boyd

Kazakhstan's dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev gets Italy to engage in extraordinary rendition

Kazakhstan's dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev and former Italian Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2010.

Europe seems to be going downhill very fast indeed. Vladimir Putin's having his critics killed in Central London is not a one of, isolated event. Now we see how Kazakhstan's dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, gets Italy's Minister of the Interior, Minister of Justice, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and police's special forces chief and commandos violate every pertinent law and due process, by summarily kidnaping and deporting from Rome relatives of his critics. This event, in the capital city of a European country let's not forget, should be a scandal of monumental proportions, shouldn't it?

Let me provide some context. Despite indefensible whitewashing from Tony Blair et al, Nursultan Nazarbayev is a proper dictator, no two ways about it. Nazarbayev has imposed his rule in Kazakhstan since 1991 and controls the country as his personal fiefdom. Kazakhstan is yet to see its first free, fair and democratic election. Human, civil and political rights are simply nonexistent. But many Western nations, companies and former political leaders are doing phenomenal business deals with Nazarbayev, who is "absolutely justifiably loved by his nation”, according to Silvio "bunga-bunga" Berlusconi. Nazarbayev's connivance has allowed, in true Russian style, the emergence of an oligarchy: a handful of relatives, appointees, confidants and collaborators have become obscenely wealthy over the years. So there's Timur Kulibayev, Vladimir Kim, Alidzhan Ibragimov, Bolat Utemuratov, Rashid Sarsenov, Rakhat Aliyev... all of whom owe their ill gotten fortunes personally to the khan. And then, there's Mukhtar Ablyazov, a once trusted minister of Nazerbayev accused of embezzling billions from Kazakhstan's BTA bank. So far so Kazakh.

But Ablyazov, as other Kazakh "entrepreneurs", fell from Nazarbayev's grace for whatever reason, and fled to the UK, where he requested political asylum. In all frankness, I have no sympathy for "businessmen" that go from selling bits and bobs in market stalls to multibillionaires in a few years. Fortunes of the magnitude of some of these oligarchs can not possibly be made in the real world without complicity, or partnership, of utterly corrupt government officials that give them control of valuable State assets for peanuts, or worse, on credit. So whatever happens to Ablyazov, who, stupidly, fled the country that risked it for him, is neither here nor there.

However, what happened to his wife and 6 year-old daughter in Italy is an entirely different issue. The wife, Alma Shalabayeva, was living in Rome. Legally, on a Schengen permit obtained as citizen of Kazakhstan. Ditto the 6 year-old daughter, Alua Ablyazova. That did not stop 50 heavily armed operatives from DIGOS (Italy's special forces) to storm the house where she was staying at after midnight last Wednesday 29. She was arrested without a warrant. Her crime? Well, this is where things get interesting.

Shalabayeva's lawyer, Riccardo Olivo, claims that she committed no crime in Italy, she was not wanted in connection to any crime in Italy, nor was there an international warrant on her. Shalabayeva's was arrested for being in Italy with a fake Central African Republic passport. That was allegedly her "crime". But her lawyer claims that Central African Republic Embassy officials confirmed that the passport was legitimate. So the 50 operatives from Kazakhstan's Italy's special forces -note special forces; no immigration, customs or regular police- took Shalabayeva  away to Centro di Identificazione ed Espulsione -Identification and Deportation Centre- on the basis of a deportation order. From there she was to be immediately deported to Kazakhstan, where she has committed no crime either.

Such expedite and efficient process, this being Italy, is completely abnormal. There's an estimated 440,000 illegal immigrants in Italy. How many of those are the target of sting DIGOS operations? Why were Ablyazov's wife and daughter singled out? Further, how many of the "7,944 irregular immigrants detained in 2012" were arrested by DIGOS and had chartered private jets waiting at the ready in Ciampino airport? But this being Italy, those involved in sending Ablyazov's wife to Nazarbayev missed the daughter, and the law prohibits deportation of the mother without the daughter. So back they were sent, by their Kazakh handlers, to the villa from where Shalabayeva was snatched, to arrest her 6 year-old daughter, who once reunited with her mother onboard the jet was sent to modern day Genghis Khan two days later, on Friday.

«MACCHINA INFERNALE» otherwise known as extraordinary rendition

Thus describes lawyer Olivo the operation:

«Sono personalmente intervenuto - prosegue l'avvocato - sui vertici della Procura di Roma per informarli. Il Pm Eugenio Albamonte e il procuratore aggiunto Nello Rossi attraverso anche l’intervento del Procuratore capo Pignatone, sono riusciti a bloccare questa macchina infernale. Ma poi deve essere successo qualcosa, la pressione era troppa e la macchina infernale ha ripreso la sua corsa. Alle 18,30 mamma e figlia decollavano da Ciampino dirette nel loro Paese. Dal punto di vista formale è probabile che tutto sia stato fatto in regola. Da un punto di vista sostanziale hanno dato una donna nelle mani del boia di suo marito. Ed è una cosa raccapricciante, di straordinaria gravità».

Olivo claims to have reached out to relevant authorities from Rome's Attorney's Office (Prosecutor Eugenio Albamonte, deputy prosecutor Nello Rossi and Chief Prosecutor Pignatone), who were able to block the «MACCHINA INFERNALE» otherwise known as extraordinary rendition, but pressure from above (?) prevailed, and so mother and daughter were sent to Kazakhstan, in clear violation to current Italian immigration law that establish that no one can be deported to a country where they can be subjected to persecution, violation to human rights, etc.

Rendition aircraft used owned by Austria's Avcon Jet AG

Olivo makes important questions, such as: "who owned the plane? Who chartered and paid for it?" The plane (OE-HOO) used for this extraordinary rendition belongs to Avcon Jet, an Austrian company that has on its board former Austrian Minister of Finance Andreas Staribacher. The true owners of Avcon seem to have gone the extra mile in having the identities of its majority shareholders hidden behind proxies. Austrian press reports claim that "Borat agents" are behind this "cloak and dager" operation, which ended up with Ablyazov's wife and daughter being placed under house arrest in Kazakhstan. Indeed, this is no laughing matter, as Kazakhstan's KNB intelligence operatives not only are allowed to operate freely in Italy, and in Austria where their intelligence European central command seems to be based, but all Italian authorities involved are effectively acting as Nazarbayev's black ops. 

In light of all this, it is worth asking: who benefits where? ENI, the Italian energy conglomerate in which the Italian state has a 30% stake, has no small amount of business with Nazarbayev. In fact, ENI seems very comfortable dealing with Kazakh thugs, paying bribes to Nazarbayev's son in law to get concessions. It wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that shipping Ablyazov's family as a payback of sorts is out of the question, would it? But what to say of due process in Italy? What of its debased and corrupt ministers and special forces? How can thuggish communist dictators and its intelligence services operate so brazenly? How can Italian officials violate current laws, persecute and endanger innocent people, and children, with such impunity?

Max Blumenthal's dishonest electronic intifada

Pity Max Blumenthal and Electronic Intifada. After spending, presumably, countless hours researching Islamophobia, "exposing" Thor Halvorssen's links to it, and "alerting" the government of Norway and Amnesty International about it, they were dismissed, by both, as irrelevant. It must be hard I would imagine, all that work to reveal the "shadowy" links, and to inform the world that Thor has "ties to the Islamophobes who inspired mass killer Anders Breivik", only to be dismissed by one of the world's most respected governments and THE human rights watchdog as irrelevant. That goes on their CV you know, that's part of the public record now.

Google alerts is a good tool to be aware of what other people are writing about topics of interest. As such, I got one the other day where my name had been mentioned by Blumenthal in the fringe Electronic Intifada website in a conspiratorial tirade against Thor Halvorssen and the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF). I declare that I have been unaware of Thor's run ins with others in the press. In 2008 I was contracted by the NGO he founded, Human Rights Foundation (HRF). While I think we did great things together -such as getting Guadalupe Llori out of illegal imprisonment by Ecuador's Rafael Correa, providing much needed technology support to Cuban freedom fighters pre Alan Gross, and exposing Evo Morales barbaric tendencies- the marriage came to a sudden and unexpected end. In any case, I think I was instrumental in the success of HRF's first OFF in 2009 and its subsequent relations with the late Vaclav Havel. Many things have happened since, Havel's passing for one, though OFF's seems to be well on the way to permanent success, and the more successful it becomes the more vicious the attacks from irrelevant radicals like Blumenthal.

In 2010, a publication associated with Norway's extreme left called Manifest first "brought to light" my former relation with Thor. I didn't respond then. Manifest, and Blumenthal recently, repeated baseless allegations about me made by Calvin Tucker, a London-based extremist with a history of violence. I am not going to start defending Thor, after all he's got a media megaphone and access to people I can only dream about, but I will point out that if the strategy his critics have left is guilty by association, he really has nothing to worry about. And if my critics only recourse left is to continue citing Tucker's out-of-context reference to a nightmare I had nearly 10 years ago, well, they are truly hopeless.

Calvin Tucker's article in The Guardian's Comment is Free is the source of choice for those wanting to criticise me -and with the 14-month association with HRF- Thor. It is lost in them that Tucker is anything but an authoritative source on anything to do with Venezuela, me, human rights, or objective journalism, but rather a nostalgic Stalinist, an individual so insane as to be proud of having given someone such a vicious beating that the victim needed reconstructive surgery to his face. Tucker, and those who take him seriously, are part of an intifada allright, an ideological one that advocates for and supports the violent struggle of the extreme left as a legitimate position. Curiously they see my arguments of violence as the only recourse left to deal with authoritarian regimes, such as Hugo Chavez's, as something unacceptable. It could be because Chavez was an icon of the extreme left, as Hamas, Arafat, Castro, communism, Stalin, Che Guevara, etc. Holding an argumentative and virtual mirror to them is an intolerable affront. For only their side has "sufficient moral justification" (Tucker's dixit) to remove by force "corrupt governments... which had lost all claims to democratic legitimacy". Ergo Chavez's assassination attempt and coup d'etat against democratically elected Carlos Andres Perez = good;  terrorism against Israel = good; Fidel Castro coup against Batista and 54-year communist dictatorship = good; Joseph Stalin's reign of terror = good; but same stance against Chavez, Arafat / PLO / Hamas, Fidel Castro, communism = FUCKING INTOLERABLE!!!!!

Intellectual honesty and consistency is certainly not Blumenthal et al's forte. Take for instance just a couple of Blumenthal's irrelevant accusations against Thor published by Electronic Intifada:

"The forms show that the Human Rights Foundation received approximately $600,000 in donations from the Donors Capital Fund from 2007 through 2011. Based in Northern Virginia, Donors Capital Fund is essentially a slush fund for the cadre of rightist donors who bankroll the conservative movement. The Electronic Intifada’s analysis of IRS filings by Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust shows that the Human Rights Foundation received $764,950 from 2005 through 2011 from Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust, all but about $5,000 coming through the Donors Capital Fund. “Since the fund handles money from multiple donors and donors names aren’t disclosed, contributions made through the Donors Capital Fund are difficult to trace,” the Center for American Progress noted in its 2011 landmark report “Fear, Inc.” “Potential donors are required to open a minimum $1 million account to utilize the fund’s services.”" 

Is it $600,000 or $764,950? A slush fund? As in "money earmarked for a loosely defined, but legitimate, purpose that is instead surreptitiously used for an illegitimate purpose", like Blumenthal's baseless writings in Electronic Intifada? In a shorter period (2006 - 2010) Electronic Intifada's parent organization (Middle East Cultural and Charitable Society or MECCS), whose stated mission is "education and elimination of discrimination" (talk about loosely defined...) got $1,282,034.  What is the source of those funds?

In addition, Electronic Intifada's parent organization has gotten in excess of $150,000 from Network for Good, a donor advised fund that "has processed more than $800 million in donations to more than 80,000 charities" according to its website. Among the 80,000 charities that receive money from donors through Network for Good one finds, for instance, Friends of the Israel Defence Forces (FIDF), an organization at odds with Electronic Intifada's "education and elimination of discrimination" mission. One also finds the Center for Security Policy, Ander Breivik's source of inspiration according to Blumenthal. By his logic (guilty by association), Blumenthal and his publishers are associated with FIDF's "war criminals" and purported atrocities committed on Palestinians. In fact, Blumenthal and his dishonest intifada also share with Thor the "guilt" they attribute to the Islamophobes that stoked Breivik's killing spree (Center for Security Policy). After all MECCS, FIDF as well as the Center for Security Policy get funds from Network for Good, innit?

Fortunate son of Venezuela’s elite: "Halvorssen is the scion of an oligarchic Venezuelan family closely linked to the political opposition that formed against recently deceased former President Hugo Chavez..."

Et tu Blumenthal?

Take a good look in the mirror mate. While Thor's OFF gathers more support and recognition from some of the world's most respected people and organizations, who stands shoulder to shoulder with Blumenthal and his comrades, Hamas? I mean, is this imbecile for real? I could refer to Columbia Journalism Review's elegant put down of Blumenthal's deficient grasp of facts and intellectual dishonesty, but I rather go with Hitchens: "to read Max Blumenthal is more like being confronted with a young skunk who hasn't learned to piss yet."

As per those who continue citing Calvin Tucker, an extremist proud of disfiguring people, don't forget to quote next time the following from him:

Now j.scott bernard wants to fight me! This is getting distinctly surreal. But whenever you're ready, scott. Whenever you're ready. And yes, I would kick your ass. I grew up in a LONDON barrio, mate, so I know how to look after myself. The last guy who tried it on with me, left for hospital in an ambulance and required reconstructive surgery to his face. And no, I'm not kidding. 

BUT... if you think you can intimidate ME with threats, you're picking on the wrong guy. If you're up for a ruck, Mr Big Mouth, let's have one. But I warn you, I don't fuck about.

My point is that the Caracazo and the political disenfranchisement of most Venezuelans was sufficient moral justification for the insurrection of 1992. With the benefit of hindsight, i.e. from the standpoint of Chavez's election win in 1998, I think we can also say it was also a tactical success, even if at the time it appeared to be a defeat. Without 1992, as with Fidel's Moncada debacle, ultimate victory would have eluded the revolutionaries." 

By contrast, I proclaim my support for the attempt to overthrow by force in 1992 the corrupt government of Carlos Andres Perez, which had lost all claims to democratic legitimacy when it massacred up to 3,000 civilians and secretly buried many of the bodies in mass graves.