35. Guelfi André (1919- )
Born in Morocco, the son of a Corsican military officer, this French international wheeler-dealer and good friend of the late Charles Pasqua, the powerful former French Interior Minister, has promoted sports and oil deals, especially in Russia. Gulfi was also a boon companion of the late Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former International Olympic Committee President. In 1993, Guelfi sold his Ouchy (Lausanne) mansion, overlooking the dazzling Lake of Geneva, to the I.O.C. to be used as the administrative center for the Olympic Museum located next door (See: “The Man Who $old the Olympic$” by Andrew Jennings, Allsports magazine, August 2008, p. 27-29.
A.k.a. “Dédé la Sardine” (from his days as Morocco’s biggest fish exporter), Guelfi went on to become a Formula One race driver in the 1950’s. Later he married Georges Pompidou’s niece, and made a fortune by investing in Parisian real estate. He also became a big promoter of international sports events, e.g. the 1980 Russian Olympics. In 1999, he bought Le Coq Sportif, the French sports equipment company which made athletic shoes, jerseys and T-shirts. (Le Coq Sportif previously had two subsidiaries in Fribourg: Le Coq Sportif Distribution SA, and Le Coq Sportif Holding SA)
http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/f1/teamsBySeason.aspx?driverID=279&driverTeamArticleID=257
In 1997, Guelfi was imprisoned for six weeks because of his connections to the Elf-Aquitaine kickback scandal (See #10, #13 & #30, above).
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/May-June-2002/story_ignatius_mayjun2002.html
While in prison, Guelfi met the flamboyant French sports executive Bernard Tapie who had been incarcerated for having fixed a soccer match. The two dealmakers made a pact whereby Guelfi would give Tapie a generous salary and buy him a sumptuous secondary residence if Tapie agreed to share with Guelfi a settlement he would receive from Crédit Lyonnais which Tapie believed had cheated him when it had been hired to sell his sports company Adidas.
http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2014/07/27/tapie-guelfi-petits-derangements-entre-amis_1071294
In recent years, the enterprising nonagenarian (96 yrs. Old!) has been battling French oil giant Total for a commission he was supposed to have received many years ago for the exploitation of Russian oil fields.
http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2014/07/27/dede-la-sardine-ferre-elf-total_1071280
In 2002, Guelfi admitted to having illegally arranged numerous free flights aboard Elf corporate jets for his fellow Corsican, Mr. Pasqua. Shady Moroccan, French, and Swiss business affairs still “pitch about in his wake” (“Intermédiaire professional du sport et des affaires, André Guelfi se met à table,” Le Temps, Geneva, 2/18/99). But Guelfi steadfastly maintained that all the accusations made against him were unfounded.
At the beginning of 1999, Guelfi’s polemical autobiography, L’Original, was published by Robert Lafont. One of the persons that Guelfi savages in his book is French author Françoise Sagan, who claims that she was manipulated by Guelfi so that he could gain access to her friend French President François Mitterrand when Guelfi was seeking to close a deal between Elf and the new Central-Asian state of Uzbekekistan (See: “Quand Sagan jouait les Mata-Hari,” Le Monde, 3/12/99, p. 14).
Then, on September 16, 1999, on page one of the Swiss daily Le Temps, it was announced that an international warrant for the arrest of André Guelfi had been issued in Geneva by Judge Paul Perraudin, who had been investigating the myriad Swiss connections to the Elf affair. Guelfi was accused of fraud, forgery, and money laundering in the Leuna-Minol affair, named for the East German oil refinery which Elf bought after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Elf accused Guelfi of fraudulently obtaining a commission of SFR. 80 million with the complicity of an Elf subsidiary in Geneva. Some of this money was rumored to have gone into the coffers of ex-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s political party.
Initially, Guelfi was considered to be a fugitive from justice. Several weeks earlier, on August 31, 1999, Roland Trachsel, chairman of the Lausanne fiduciary Orgafid, which had played an important role in laundering the Guelfi commission, was arrested on the same charges that were later leveled against Guelfi. Trachsel, who had been administrator of several Fribourgeois companies (Études Techniques Gertec SA; Karmento SA) was also on the board of Guelfi’s Fribourgeois company Gerag SA (See: “Les Pots-de –vin d’Elf en Allemagne dans le collimateur des Suisses,” le canard enchaîné, 9/8/99, p. 3).
In November 2003, the long Elf affair ended, and a French court gave Guelfi a suspended sentence of three years and a fine of $1.2 million. Today, Guelfi resides in an exclusive Maltese community, and continues to pilot his own jet in his travels around the world.
Fribourg cos. : BSTV, Big Screen Television SA, Commerce internat. de télévision à grand écran et d’access, annexes, etc. Cap 0,05. (20.5.77, 1.3.79) Rue de l’Hȏpital 3, chez Gestion Financ. Schibler SA
Gerag SA, Participations, etc., Cap 0,05. (7.1.82, 8.10.82) Bd. de Pérolles 15. Chez Me Bernard Boni
Guelfi’s mansion above the Lake of Geneva where he lived from 1975-1993
http://www.newsweek.com/five-ring-scandal-163712
Haboby and Fadel Kadhum settled on a company called Schmiedemeccanica (SMB). Not only did it make maraging steel, it could provide the machine tools needed to shape it as well. Better yet, it was located in the paradise of all arms dealers, dope peddlers, dictators, and money launderers: Switzerland.
–Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Death Lobby, p. 385.
36. Haboby, Dr. Safa (1946- )
Saddam Hussein’s Oil Minister, who was formerly one of his chief agents for the procurement of advanced arms technology. Haboby worked with Gerald Bull on the Super-Gun project until Bull’s assassination in 1990.
http://fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920810g.htm
Haboby’s specialty was setting up front companies that were used to hide Iraq’s secret procurement of American and European weapons technology, especially for Saddam’s uranium enrichment program which used gas centrifuges.
(See: “Al Gore Blamed the Swiss for Helping Iraq Get the Bomb,” below)
In late 1989, Haboby set up a shell company in Fribourg, Fartrade Holding SA, which he used to clandestinely buy a 18% stake in the Lugano-based company Schmiedemeccanica. Haboby intended to expand this holding by another 12% in the near future, making Iraq’s total interest in the company 30%.
This company, known as SMB, made high-strength maraging steel for “end caps” and “baffles” used in uranium enrichment centrifuges. Fartrade’s only administrator listed in the Fribourg Public Registry was Ferruccio Nessi, a Locarno (TI) lawyer.
In July, 1990 a shipment of SMB maraging steel was blocked at Frankfurt airport. Gianni Martinelli, SMB’S president, told the press that “he had no idea that companies controlled by the government of Iraq had bought into his firm, nor that he had sold the Iraqis equipment for their nuclear weapons program. He was not an arms dealer, he said; he had been tricked. He believed he had sold ‘gears,’ not end caps for uranium enrichment centrifuges.” (Kenneth R. Tmmerman: The Death Lobby, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1991, p. 386.
http://exportcontrols.info/smb.html
“Fartrade Holdings SA,” “Ferruccio Nessi,” and “Safa Haboby” all figure on the Office of Foreign Assets Control list as a “blocked” business and persons. Nessi was unblocked in 2008. (See: pages 45, 49, and 51 of the link below).
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-List/Documents/sdnew04.pdf
Fribourg co.: Fartrade Holding SA (Originally: “ASE Software and Engineering Holding SA”), Cap 0,2., (14.12.89)
(Me Ferruccio Nessi of Locarno was the sole administrator)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inspecting
The Iranian centrifuge program in 2008.
An example of a “cascade” of centrifuges
37. Hayek, Nicolas (1928 – 2010)
Flamboyant entrepreneur who rescued the mass market part of the 300-year-old Swiss watch industry when he introduced the $50 Swatch in 1993. In October of 1998, Hayek’s long-awaited compact, the Smart car, finally appeared. One month later, Swatch parent company SMH’s 19% stake in the project was bought out by co-developer Daimler-Benz. This was seen as a huge defeat for the Lebanon-born visionary. Swatch, on the other hand, has done quite well over the years.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/swatch-founder-also-gave-birth-to-the-smart-car/?_r=0
In 1978, Hayek’s younger brother, Sam, became CEO of SIBRA, the Fribourgeois company which controlled the Cardinal brewery. Fribourg’s beloved but troubled brewery was eventually sold to Switzerland’s number one brewer Feldschlösschen in 1991, and its grounds were sold to the Bluefactory zero-carbon technology project in 2011. (see my petition for Oct. 14, 2014, above)
http://www.bilan.ch/economie-exclusif/la-longue-agonie-de-la-brasserie-cardinal-prend-fin
Fribourg cos. : Hayek International Ltd., à Londres (GB), succursale de Fribourg, consultations, conseils, services dans le domaine de l’engineering, de la chimie, etc., Cap 0,1. (11.11.83) Bd. de Pérolles 42. Siège princ. à Londres, GB
Wat Holding AG, Participations, etc. Cap 35,0. (27.8.85, 10.9.85) Bd. de Pérolles 7. chez Mes Hartmann & Dreyer
Albert [Hakim] always promised that he would get his bookkeeping under control, but he (and I) always thought we were on the verge of shutting down the covert operations and it never quite happened. I also knew he was sensitive to criticism about his friends at CSF, so I learned early to tread lightly on that area.
–Richard Secord in Honored and Betrayed, p. 249.
38. Hefti, Suzanne (1922- ? )
Swiss fiduciary owner who was the administrative president of Lake Resources, the master company in the Iran-contra affair. Ms. Hefti was a board member of several companies that were set up in Panama by Iran-contra conspirators Ollie North, Richard Secord, and Albert Hakim. Her Geneva-based associates Willard Zucker and Roland Farina headed other Panama companies. The whole operation was designed to get around US congressional restrictions (the“Boland Amendment”) which prevented the US Government from arming the Nicaraguan “Contra” rebels. Money that was generated from the secret—and also illegal–sale of missiles to Iran was comingled in Lake Resources’ Swiss bank account, and also used to buy arms for the contras. The sale of arms to our arch-enemy Iran was approved by President Reagan because he thought it would bring about the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon.
http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
Ms. Hefti, baptized “the little old lady of Irangate” by the Swiss press, became a female scapegoat for the messy Iran-contra business. Hefti’s Audifi SA was affiliated with the Geneva fiduciary Compagnie de Services Fiduciaire SA (CSF). American Lawyer Willard I. Zucker was the owner of CSF. It appears that Ms. Hefti was never anything more than a nominee director of Lake Resources, but the tens of millions which flowed through its Swiss account caused a huge scandal that rocked the final days of the Reagan administration. Audifi’s inauspicious headquarters shown below became a symbol for the banality of hoodwinking the American Congress.
https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/v-rs1.php
Suzanne Hefti controlled the Iran-contra finances from her offices on the 5th and 6th floors of this building.
In May of 1987, I met with Ms. Hefti and one of her employees in her office to discuss a letter that I had written to the local news paper in which I had linked her Iran-contra activities to the tragic death of Fribourgeois agronomist Maurice Demierre, who had been killed in an ambush by the contra on February 16th, 1986. In the letter, I also revealed the bogus Fribourg residency of notorious insider-trader Ivan Boesky and his entire family (see letter to La liberté below)
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/10/opinion/abroad-at-home-freedom-fighters.html
The flow chart below, found in Ollie North’s safe, indicates the complexity of North’s web of offshore companies which he used to hide the financing of the contra rebels from the US congress. Note the centrality of “Lake” [Resources] in North’s scheme. (See: #65, #88, & #100, below)
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/7-North%20diagram%207-86%20(IC%2003086).pdf
Fribourg cos. : Audifi SA Auditing & Fiduciary Services, tous sevices et tous conseils en matière de comptabilité, de contrôle et de révision, etc. Cap 0,05. (18.11.76, 8.7.77) Rue de l’industrie 16
Dick James Music SA, acquérir et céder des droits d’auteurs et d’éditeurs
d’œuvres artistiques et musicales, Cap 0,05 (25.1.71, 5.8.81) Rue de l’industrie 16. Chez Audifi SA
Golodetz Finance Company SA (Formerly : « M. Golodetz SA ») Réaliser et servir d’intermédiaire dans toutes opérations financières prendre des participations dans d’autres sociétés ou entreprises, financer des affaires d’exportation, gérer des fortunes, exécuter tous mandats fiduciaires, Cap 3,0 (4.10.73, 14, 5,85) Route de Villars 1
Gravinada SA, Particip. A toutes entreprises industrielles, commerciales ou financières, etc. Cap 0,5. (4.8.76, 21.10.85) Rue de l’industrie 16. Chez Audifi SA
Musibar SA, Agent pour des artistes, etc. Cap 0,05 (13.11.81, 13.9.84)Rue de l’industrie 16. chez Audifi SA
Nortrade Fribourg SA (Formerly : « Picsa Primary Industries Commercial SA ») Toutes opération de commerce international dans le domaine des matières premières, ainsi que développer la production de ces matières
dans les pays sous-développés ou en voie de développement, Cap 0,05. (10.7.79, 21.5.84) Rue de l’Industrie 16
Nortrust SA (Formerly : « Gesport SA ») Agir en qualité de fiduciaire de toute personne ou société ainsi qu’assumer les fonctions de représentant, d’agent, de courtier et de tout intermédiaire ; conclure et exécuter des contrats de sous-traitance ; prendre des participations ; acheter, vendre et distribuer, en dehors de Suisse, tous produits bruts ou manufacturés, Cap 0,05. (26.8.74, 21.5.84) Rue de l’Industrie 16, c/o Audifi SA
Stanford Technology Corporation Services SA
(originally : Fonocolor SA) Fournir des services en qualité d’’ingénieur-conseil en matière de projets de fabrication et de montage d’équipements ou de systèmes électriques et électroniques. Achat, vente, importation de tous biens, articles manufacturés ou non, de matières premières et marchandises, en particulier d’appareils électriques ou électroniques, d’appareils de projections photographiques et cinématographiques, Cap 0,05 (24.12.75, 5.6.81)
Rue de l’industrie 16. Chez Audifi SA, Auditing and Fiduciary Services
–others—
Al Gore Blamed the Swiss for Helping Iraq Get the Bomb
“Defeating Hussein, Once and for All,” Al Gore, New York Times, 9/26/91, A27
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/26/opinion/defeating-hussein-once-and-for-all.html
“Defeating Hussein Once and for All,” New York Times, Late Edition, 9/26/91
Unpublished letter to the editor of The New York Times
Letter of Swiss Ambassador to the U.S. published in the NY Times, 10/15/91
Gore also Blames America for Helping Iraq get the Bomb, NY Times, 10/30/92, A21