The Infiltrator, page 16
I explained to Ospiña that the system our organization offered was unique. Many of our companies were sheltered under a Lichtenstein foundation that owned Luxembourg trusts, which in turn owned other offshore companies that held interests in the many cash-generating businesses managed by my investment company. Our seat on the New York Stock Exchange played a role, as did our mortgage companies. Our air charter service moved money from the U.S. to the Bahamas. I offered him everything I could about BCCI, which created accounts all over the globe that camouflaged the movement of funds that fed money to Ospiña’s organization. It took hours.
After all that, Ospiña discussed a proposal to extend the turnaround time for laundering cash. That period would increase from ten days to thirty. Because we would receive no less than $12 million per month, the proposal provided us with a $12 million float the bank could enjoy at all times. This was the cartel’s response to my request for holding 25 percent of each pickup for six months.
I told him it had nothing to do with the amount we held but everything to do with our handling funds in a manner that made us look like investment counselors. We couldn’t look like a money-laundering machine pumping funds from the U.S. to other parts of the world. We needed to demonstrate, if challenged, that we actually managed money. The only way to do that was to cut 25 percent of the money aside for six months and put it in CDs or other conservative investments.
“I think I would like to take your offer,” Ospiña responded, “but not with such a high percentage.” He countered with a proposal that his boss allow us to hold 10 percent of each pickup for an investment. I came back with no less than 15.
Ospiña agreed that we were close to a deal, but rather than haggle he proposed a meeting in Paris within forty-five days when he and his bosses would sit down with me to hammer out details. Bullseye! I accepted and suggested we take a break. It was time to change the tape in the recorder.
When Emir stepped outside, Ospiña warned him, “Ever since Operation Pisces, my bosses have decided that they will kill anyone in the money business who steals from them.” They weren’t playing games.
Back in the room, we spent another two hours discussing how our organization could help the cartel. My mortgage company could finance the purchase of assets or investments in companies. Ospiña liked the idea that all the cartel had to do was give me the cash they would have used to buy a big-ticket item like a jet, and I would make it appear that my mortgage company had loaned them the money they used to buy it.
“Listen.” Ospiña shook his head. “From our side, indeed, one can make a lot of commercial transactions through us, buying vehicles and airplanes. Just recently, two months ago, we bought four airplanes with cash. This group has about five or six helicopters. The maintenance and spare parts, the Mercedes vehicles bought in Miami … Man, that’s very interesting. That’s very interesting.”
Ospiña also explained that commercial pilots based in Miami were smuggling huge amounts of currency both to Colombia and Uruguay. They were so good that the cartel used them exclusively to move all cash from Miami. In Philadelphia, Ospiña’s people had no laundering sources, so they were transporting cash by car to Houston.
Before we ended our marathon discussions, Ospiña made one point very clear. Mora had staked more than his reputation on me and Emir. He had staked his life. If any problems or losses arose from my or Emir’s involvement, Mora was dead. Mora knew the consequences long before Ospiña’s blunt outlay. He had introduced us to Alcaíno, and now he had introduced us to Ospiña. If we ran or turned out to be los feos, he would be killed. As Ospiña made this speech, Mora seemed resigned that it was too late to turn back. In any case, he had all the faith in the world in Emir. After all, there was no way that Emilio Dominguez could be a fed.
After the meeting, Emir and I took a three-hour break before dinner with everyone at the hotel restaurant. On a walk, we stumbled across a cemetery — fitting because the silence and seclusion offered us a safe place to talk openly and because of Ospiña’s sobering promise of death for Mora.
“These fuckers are for real,” I said. “We’re going places no undercover agents have ever been before. We went hunting for the biggest whale in the ocean, but now we’ve been swallowed, and we’re inside it.”
“I agree,” Emir replied. “My gut tells me that Ospiña is not bullshitting us. This guy is for real, and we are in deep water. I just hope we get the support we need to get through this thing because these guys are not playing. If they ever figure out who we are, no one will ever find us. This shit is getting heavy.”
“This meeting in Paris is huge. As we get closer, you’ll be the only one Gonzalo will trust with the secret of who will attend from their side. Getting that information out of him in advance will be very important. Let’s get back to the hotel and catch a few hours of peace before we’re back onstage. I’ll write up notes about what we discussed with Ospiña and hide them in my briefcase.”
After writing, I barely had time to freshen up before dinner at the Herradura. Mora’s mind was surely calculating the millions he was going to make now that he had helped us pass the credibility test with Ospiña. With the first bottle of wine, I offered a toast: “To the marriage of our alliance, loyalty, and friendship and the beginning of a new tomorrow for all of us. Cheers.” The clanking of glasses grabbed the entire restaurant’s attention, but we didn’t care. It was time to enjoy ourselves.
After a magnificent meal, we made our way a second time to La Plaza Disco. Salsa and merengue blared deafeningly from huge speakers, and we had to scream to be heard. Lucy Mora entertained her husband, Emir, and me while Ospiña played the field with more moves than John Travolta. During a break, he came over to me and as he had the first time, he put his hand on my shoulder, then ran it to the small of my back, checking for a wire. He still wasn’t convinced.
Ospiña had clearly had too much to drink and through Emir said, “Mr. Bob, do you know a man in your business whose last name is Turk?”
I didn’t.
“Well, he is a consul from Finland in Colombia. He arranges the smuggling of millions of U.S. dollars for us from the States and Europe.” Followed by another “Mr. Bob, we are going to do the big business together,” and another wire check. Unbelievable.
At 3 A.M., the Moras returned to the hotel. Ospiña, Emir, and I closed the place an hour later and caught a cab, Ospiña and me in the back, while Emir jumped in the front and told the cab driver, “We want to go to the Herradura, but can you first please drive us through downtown and show us some sights. I’ve never been in San José before.”
Eager to please, the cabbie drove past the Catedral Metropolitana de San José and other buildings that grabbed Emir’s attention. Ospiña grinned at me and said again, “Mr. Bob, we are going to do the big business.” He patted me on the shoulder, and then a glimmer in his eye confused me.
He put his hand on my thigh and repeated his line in a drunken slur. I smiled back — and then he ran his hand up my thigh into my crotch. It blew me away. All this time I thought he had been looking for a wire when he was actually hitting on me!
A million thoughts from kicking his ass to asking him politely to stop flashed through my head. He was, after all, the key to the cartel. A simple yes or no from him and our fate was fixed in Medellín. But there was no way I was going to put up with this — not even for my country.
I grimaced, locked my hands together, and shoved him to the side of the taxi with a cold stare. “Nada más, Javier. No para mi. No me gusta.” — No more, Javier. That’s not for me. I don’t like it.
Ospiña put up his hands in surrender. “Lo siento, lo siento, Mr. Bob. No más, no más. Excusa me, por favor.” — Sorry, sorry, Mr. Bob. No more, no more. Excuse me, please. Emir was so wrapped up in Costa Rican architecture that he never even noticed.
Back at the hotel, as Emir and I were walking to our rooms, I said, “This son of a bitch started to rape me in the backseat of the cab! Did you see that?”
“What?!” said Emir doubtfully. “You’ve had too much to drink. Go get a good night’s sleep.”
“Seriously, I’m telling you, this guy is gay, and we need to talk to Gonzalo and his wife. I don’t know how we’re going to deal with this from now on, but he was all over me like a teenager on a prom date. I couldn’t care less what he does on his own time, but we’ve got to get this shit under control.”
“We’ll talk about it in the morning.” Emir yawned. “I can barely stay awake. I’ll call you when I wake up.”
Early the next morning came a knock on my door. “That son of a bitch,” Emir muttered.
“What happened?” I asked, still half asleep.
“I was taking a shower, and someone knocked on my door. I had a towel around my waist, and when I opened the door it was Ospiña. He was dressed in a see-through white linen shirt and pants. I remembered what you said last night, and from the look on his face I think you may be right. Get dressed so we can go talk with Gonzalo and his wife to find out about this guy.”
With no sign of Mora or Lucy, we had to have breakfast with Ospiña, back to his old cordial self. The three of us caught another cab to downtown San José and did some shopping.
While Ospiña was busy in a store, Emir grabbed me. “Let’s get the hell away from this guy. I want to find Mora and Lucy so we can get the bottom line.”
We jumped in a cab back to the hotel where we found Mora and Lucy in the lobby.
Emir got right to the point. “Excuse me, Lucy, but I have to ask a personal question so we know how to deal with something. Mr. Bob said that Ospiña came on to him last night in the cab. Is there something we should know about him?”
The Moras both smiled, but Lucy answered. “Why do you think I’m on this trip with my husband? Ospiña is as queer as a three-dollar bill and aggressive as hell. I would never stay behind and let my husband take a trip out of town with him.”
They both burst into laughter.
No one cared about Ospiña’s sexual interests, but apparently it was funny to everyone else but me that Ospiña thought he could force himself on me because I needed his help to get to the next level of the cartel.
“I couldn’t care less what this guy does when I’m not around,” I deadpanned to Mora, “but you need to tell him to back off because if I have to deal with this again he’s going to regret it.”
“No problem, Mr. Bob. I’ll take care of it.”
We packed and headed back to the lobby to say our goodbyes.
A cold wave of sweat rolled down my back as Lucy pulled a camera from her purse and said, “Mr. Bob, Gonzalo, everyone, stand together and show me a big smile.” Disney World all over again, but no graceful way out. Too much had already happened or been said to risk putting anyone on edge, so Emir and I wrapped our arms around Mora and Ospiña and smiled at the camera. Then another shot of me, Emir, and Lucy. Pictures that would soon land in Don Chepe’s hands.
The flight back to Miami had a layover in Nicaragua, where anti-aircraft artillery in bunkers manned by the Nicaraguan army lined the runway. They were guarding the airport against the Contras, ready to blow anything out of the sky that wasn’t scheduled to land.
On my one night on the home front, the reception was cold. But trying to sort that out while still undercover was like trying to close open-heart surgery with a bandage. Nothing was going to stop the bleeding.
The next day at Financial Consulting, I entered my office, locked the door, and tossed the place for bugs as I always did.
But this time my heart started racing when under the desk I found what looked like a listening device, taped underneath the middle drawer. I carefully removed it, put it in a box, and walked into Eric Wellman’s office. I opened the box and pointed silently to what I’d found.
As we both examined it closely, we began to smile. This listening device was the internal movement of a watch. One of the staff apparently had taken note of my calls from Panama, Colombia, and lands unknown. She and a few other employees joked that I might be a spy and thought it would be funny to tape watch guts under my desk. This harmless office prank that almost gave me a heart attack also warned me that my paranoia must have been more evident than I realized.
That afternoon, undercover Customs pilots flew our jet to Miami, where they picked up Awan and Kathy. As they taxied to the private Page Avjet terminal, Awan pointed to another aircraft. “There’s one of the BCCI Boeing 737 jets. It’s one of three we had converted from commercial carriers to luxury corporate jets. It has a living area, bedroom, galley, and is manned by a full crew.”
Impressive.
Then he drifted to Agha Hasan Abedi, president of the bank. “My good friend, Mr. Abedi, unfortunately suffered a heart attack recently and may not recover sufficiently to return to his job. But I have a better than average chance to replace him as president within the next few years…. At one time, Mr. Abedi operated the largest bank in Pakistan, which led to his establishing relationships with the ruling families in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.”
It was the Saudis who later bankrolled BCCI and gave him the capital to establish branches throughout the world. Not long after, Abedi handpicked and groomed Awan for senior management.
“Welcome to Tampa, Amjad,” I said as Awan stepped down the stairs of the jet at Tampa’s Suncoast Air Center. “It is so kind of you to visit us. It is a tremendous pleasure to have you as our guest.”
And it was the beginning of an extraordinarily important four days. Awan had to see as much of our front as possible, and believe I was a well-polished, mob-connected money launderer working with Medellín. He and Bilgrami had recently shown signs of nerves, probably due to the Noriega affair, but I was a new face in their world. Giving Awan the royal treatment in Tampa and New York would convince him and Bilgrami that I was the real deal.
Awan, Kathy, and I jumped in my Mercedes 500 SEL and headed to Dominic’s house. I gave him the tour, and then we visited Financial Consulting and Tammey Jewels. During the drive, I explained that the owner of the $750,000 frozen in my account at BCCI Panama was understandably upset because he was able to get frozen funds out of Banco de Occidente but not BCCI. Awan explained that if Noriega fell the U.S. would control the new regime and ask BCCI to open their books. If the bank violated the freeze, they could lose their banking charter. There were other ways he might be able to get around this problem, and he was working on it, but he didn’t have a solution.
Then Awan and I played a long game of revelation tennis.
After hearing about my role as a launderer for my “family” in New York, Awan shared that Senator Kerry’s subcommittee was pressuring them for records. One of America’s biggest drug dealers, Stephen Kalish, had appeared before Congress and identified Awan and BCCI as the bank to which Noriega had referred him to handle dirty money. No wonder Awan and Bilgrami had started to measure their words. But Awan didn’t measure his words enough because he revealed that he was getting closed-door information from the Senate hearings. BCCI had friends in high places feeding them.
I had to relay that leak up my chain of command. The more the subcommittee pushed, the more the bank learned about why BCCI was a target. We had to get the Senate to back off until October. Their inquiries were only sweating Awan and his cronies.
At Financial Consulting, Tammey Jewels, and Dynamic Mortgage Brokers, phones were ringing, printers and faxes were grinding out paper, and the offices were buzzing. None of it an act. These people were just earning an honest living. They had no idea I was a fed or Awan was a dirty banker. Eric Wellman, always a huge help, told Awan he was a former bank president and explained his long and successful history in the business, something you can’t fake. BCCI doubtless had researched the details of both our backgrounds — all verifiable. I explained to Awan how our organization established nationwide cash-generating businesses in order to launder cash through pumped-up receipts. When Awan saw one of the Tammey Jewel outlets, it all made sense.
He in turn explained the relationship with First American Bank. BCCI wasn’t licensed to own banks that did business with U.S. citizens in the States, but they circumvented that problem by having BCCI shareholders front for ownership of several domestic banks, including First American and National Bank of Georgia. According to Awan, Clark Clifford, former secretary of defense, had helped arrange this secret ownership. Quite a revelation. How could Saudi and Pakistani interests convince such a respected politician to help them acquire hidden stakes in U.S. banks? BCCI had friends in even higher places than I imagined — and too many people inside the Beltway already knew about our operation.
In exchange, I told Awan that, although Noriega had problems with the U.S., he should worry more if he double-crossed any of the people to whom he had offered protection, like Jorge Ochoa. I explained the coffin. Awan forced a laugh, but then ruminated.
The next morning at Suncoast Aviation at Tampa International we met Kevin Palmer and Craig Morgan, the undercover pilots decked out in braid and epaulets. They flew us in the Cessna Citation to Teterboro, a small airport in New Jersey just twelve miles west of Manhattan. At the terminal, a huge black limo was waiting for us. I’d asked Frankie to arrange transportation to the brokerage firm, but I wasn’t expecting this. The chauffeur, an attractive, dark-haired New Yorker, looked more like a model in her black suit and chauffeur’s hat.
“Hello, Mr. Musella,” she said. “My name is Lydia, and it is a pleasure to see you, sir. Frankie asked me to help you and your party during the next few days.”
“Well, thank you,” I said, pleasantly surprised. “It’s great to be home. This is my fiancée, Kathy, and this is my very good friend Amjad. Let’s drop Kathy off at the Sherry-Netherland, and then Amjad and I will be going to the brokerage firm.”
“No problem, sir.” She handed me a card. “I’ll be at your disposal until you leave. Call me at this number anytime you need me, and I’ll be back to you within minutes.”
