Haggai Carmon - Triple Identity

“The match was perfect. He needed a seasoned banker who wouldn't ask too many questions and who could help him move his money from Switzerland to other locations without making any waves or attracting attention. The complexity lay not only in moving the money out of Switzerland to another country without leaving a traceable paper trail but also in moving it into accounts held under different names.

“For Guttmacher, too, meeting DeLouise was a blessing. Not only did this new client bring a potentially huge fortune to his bank, he also brought his personal business savvy Guttmacher was doing business with DiMarco, the Italian purchasing agent for the Iranians. Doing business Guttmacher-style meant moving some of the transactions through Bankhaus Backer amp; Haas as well as hiding DiMarco's fat commissions both from the Iranians and Italy's internal revenue service. Apparently the Iranians didn't realize that in addition to the hefty fees they were paying DiMarco, he was collecting commissions from the suppliers. Their contract with him specifically forbade that.”

Benny continued. “DiMarco complained to Guttmacher that he was having difficulty supplying the Iranians with the missile technology and the nuclear machine tools and materials they ordered. Many vendors in Europe were reluctant, for various reasons, to deal with the Iranians. There were significant trade restrictions imposed by the U.S. government and many European manufacturers had subsidiaries in the U.S. Therefore, fearing they would have to explain their ties with Iran, they simply gave up. When after a tedious search the Iranian agents found a good source of supply they negotiated the transaction, and then DiMarco was brought in to do the actual placing of the order, masking the identity of the real purchasers. But nothing went smoothly, and the Iranians were blaming DiMarco for the delays caused by bureaucracy. The export-control laws of some of the industrialized nations made it difficult to purchase and ship what the Iranians wanted to the places where they wanted it to go. This wasn't the kind of stuff you'd buy out of catalogues or off the shelf. These were materials and machinery that were complex, expensive, heavily regulated, and easily detectable in border crossings.

“Hearing DiMarco's gripes, Guttmacher suggested two solutions to help the Iranians and DiMarco. To answer the growing need for suppliers who'd look the other way when Iranians orders were placed, he suggested they look for contacts in the Soviet Union. The shake-up of the Soviet empire during the previous year had opened new opportunities if you knew where to look for them, he told him. Another possibility was North Korea or China, but Guttmacher told DiMarco to concentrate on the Soviet Union first. The second piece of advice was to use private businessmen to front all the nonnuclear orders, to distance Iran even further from the transactions. The Iranians were impressed with Guttmacher and suggested he locate the kinds of businessmen he'd described. When Guttmacher met DeLouise and sized up both his international business experience and his flexibility, he asked DeLouise whether he was available to participate in some ‘interesting business transactions.’ DeLouise, smelling money and needing the available cash, said yes without knowing what he was getting into. How long could he live on the meager $250,000 he carried with him and the one or two million he managed to extricate from Switzerland? That was small potatoes for him.”

Benny paused to take a drink and I answered for him. “Not too long if you're living the lifestyle to which DeLouise was accustomed.”

“Exactly,” said Benny. “His big bucks were stuck in Switzerland, where the Colombians, disgruntled minority shareholders of his collapsed bank, were still looking for him. He also needed to remove his money from Switzerland as quickly as possible, before the U.S. government found it.”

“At this point Guttmacher threw out the bait. He told DeLouise that the government of Iran needed to buy machinery and spare parts for its oil and pharmaceutical industries but the West was giving it a hard time. Therefore, said Guttmacher, the Iranians were looking for private businessmen to front and ‘facilitate’ these transactions. Many of the products and machinery had dual purposes and could pass as benign. If the government of Iran buys steel with military specs, it's a suspicious transaction; if Raymond DeLouise, a private businessman, buys it, it's legitimate business.

“Also, the Iranians needed U.S. computer technology for the development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons; their shopping list included graphics terminals to design and analyze rockets, and U.S. law prohibited export of this hardware to Iran and other nations known to sponsor terrorism. But it looks as if DeLouise thought that he could at least order the terminals, supposedly for end users in an acceptable country but actually for clandestine transshipment to the Iranians.”

Ron said, “I've handled parts of some of these cases. European law can be far more accommodating than U.S. law about shipment of dual-use equipment and materials to nations on the State Department's list of states sponsoring terrorism – which of course includes Iran.”

“They forget their morals when it's time to do business. But that will change,” said Benny. “Terrorism knows no political borders, and terrorists, like extortionists, know how to identify weakness and use it for their own benefit.”

“Anyway,” Eric stepped in, trying to distance himself from politics, “Guttmacher's deal sounded like a good business opportunity to DeLouise. He was no fool, and with his education and background he immediately understood what kinds of deals the Iranians were trying to make in Europe and why they wanted advanced U.S. computer technology. He thought he could bilk the Iranians while also gaining access to their covert activity in Europe and the U.S.”

Once an agent, always an agent, I thought. But was DeLouise working only for himself?

“So DeLouise took a step forward, showing Guttmacher he understood what the transactions were really about, and offered his contacts in the Soviet Union,” Eric said.

“Did he have any?” I asked.

“Apparently not. But he read the papers and saw what was going on in the Soviet Union, and that gave him an opportunity to take a lead in a transaction rather than simply lend his name to a shady deal and collect a limited commission. He wanted more than that. Instead of being just a straw man, with no influence or knowledge of the ins and outs of the Iranian purchasing frenzy, he wanted to play center stage. It was riskier but more lucrative, and the leverage he expected this to give him with the U.S. government would be commensurate with the risks: he hoped to trade intelligence on the Iranians’ nuclear program, and their attempts to get prohibited U.S. computers, for a sweetheart deal on his criminal charges.”

“I would think that DeLouise would have needed a viable U.S. criminal case against someone else, which he could then give up to a federal prosecutor in exchange for a plea bargain,” said Ron.

“He had it,” answered Eric. “There was an Iranian attempt to acquire proscribed U.S. computer technology.”

“I don't know who gave him that idea,” said Ron. “Certainly a defendant could trade intelligence data for a plea bargain, but, from my own experience, it seems far-fetched. For one thing, the CIA wouldn't let the federal prosecutors know how good the defendant's intelligence had been, so the prosecutors could not make representations to the court about the usefulness of the defendant's cooperation – thus, there'd be no adequate basis for the court's acceptance of the plea. The prospective plea bargainer almost certainly would have to give up persons whose activity clearly contravened U.S. criminal law.”