Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Odebrecht Files for Bankruptcy Protection

Posted on by

When a huge global construction conglomerate like Odebrecht ends up in a John Podesta email released by Wikileaks, one should take some notice, right?

Odebrecht, the Brazilian company that is synonymous with corruption, decided to file for bankruptcy protection on Monday after years of graft scandals and trials involving top Latin American businessmen and politicians. Founded in 1944 as a construction company, Odebrecht expanded into the chemical and energy industries to become one of Brazil’s largest conglomerates. It counts among its building achievements the Miami International Airport, the Lisbon metro, and Brazil’s Transnordestina railway. At one point, its global success was seen to have symbolized Brazil’s economic boom.

In part published in 2017:

Odebrecht has confessed to paying $98 million in bribes to the governments of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and of his successor Nicolás Maduro over the last decade. If the allegations are true, Venezuela has received the most bribes from the construction group outside of Brazil. Next on the list is Panama with $59 million for which 17 executives and former officials have been charged while President Juan Carlos Varela has been accused. Varela, who had been advocating for proposed charges to be filed, became implicated in February by one of the partners of Mossack Fonseca —the law firm at the center of last year’s Panama Papers scandal —who said Varela admitted to him he accepted bribes from Odebrecht, accusations Varela has denied. Peruvian authorities, similarly to Varela, had been taking aggressive measures to fight Odebrecht-related corruption involving $30.4 million in bribes until their own names became implicated. Toledo, as well as former President Alan García, are being investigated by Operation Car Wash while a third former president, Ollanta Humala, has been implicated by Marcelo Odebrecht himself, but he has not been named in the investigations.

Notable projects in the U.S. include:

The first Brazilian company to complete a public project in the country, Odebrecht celebrates 20 years of operations in the United States in 2010. The construction company has completed 55 projects throughout its history and is currently present in Florida and Louisiana. In the country, Odebrecht has also been in California, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Odebrecht arrived to U.S. soil after it won the public bid to build a stretch of the Metromover, Miami’s above-ground subway. Soon after, in 1992, Odebrecht was responsible for building Route 56, a highway in the region of San Diego, California.
After these projects, the rhythm of the work continued to be intense. The following year, after winning the bid to work on the Santa Ana River chute, the company earned an important contract: The Seven Oaks Dam project in California, in the amount of US$ 168 million, with a construction period of 52 months. During this same year, 1993, the Company was responsible for the construction work on the Merrill Barber Bridge and the Golden Glades viaduct, which extends 2,464 meters to serve those who use the I-95 system, the federal highway that goes from Southern Florida to Canada. As a result of these experiences, Odebrecht was chosen to erect Garcon Point Bridge in Santa Rosa Bay, at the border between Florida and Alabama.
In the building construction area, Odebrecht was responsible for the American Airlines Arena, a sports and cultural complex in Miami, where it competed for the contract with major U.S. companies. It also built the Fortune House building, an apart hotel with 29 floors, the Ocean Steps building, with 15 residential floors, and the Ritz Carlton Key Biscayne Resort & Spa, a residential hotel project.
One of the company’s main clients is Miami-Dade County – with projects in the sector of aviation and mass transportation. The partnership has existed since 1993, when the construction company was responsible for building the American Airlines cargo building. Currently, Odebrecht is responsible for expanding the North Terminals of the Miami International Airport, building the lightweight vehicle that will run on the tracks (Mia Mover) and extending the subway (Airport Link).
The North Terminal Development Program, which involves investments of US$ 2.85 billion, is the center of a bigger venture, worth US$ 6.2 billion, called the “Capital Improvement Program.” Undertaken by Miami-Dade County, it was developed with aims of expanding and improving the aviation system. The complete project includes 52 new gates, four train stations, new installations for the United States Immigration and Citizenship Services, 123 counters, 119 self-service kiosks, 72 federal inspection service posts and a new luggage system. In September, the Sky Train operation began running, connecting the ends of the four main areas of the North Terminal in under five minutes. It is estimated that the program will be completed in 2011, while the construction work for the South Terminal began in 2001 and was completed in 2007. The project included Concourse J, a lobby with 15 departure gates for national and international flights, Concourse H, which already existed and was modernized, as well as a patio that surrounds the area of these buildings.
Also at the Miami International Airport, Odebrecht is heading the construction of the MIA Mover, an automatic vehicle that runs on tracks and will connect the Miami International Airport (MIA) to the Miami Intermodal Center (MIC), a terminal that connects different transportation services. The development, the result of a US$ 256 million investment, will be completed in September 2011.
Another project underway is the construction of the Airport Link, which will connect MIC at the airport to the Earlington Heights subway station. With an investment of US$ 360 million, the project extends nearly four kilometers, with the construction of three subway substations, a bus stop and highway access points.
Odebrecht was also at the Orlando Airport, working on the North Transversal taxi strip and South Terminal Complex. The project also involved the construction of access ramps and new viaducts.
In New Orleans since 2006, Odebrecht won two new contracts in 2010 in the city. In August, it signed a contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers to undertake preventive construction work for floods. In May, the company began constructing four water pumping stations, with aims of preventing floods caused by hurricanes. Recently, the company also delivered projects at Cataouatche Lake and in the region of Chalmette, work designed to reconstruct and fortify containment dikes. The construction works are part of the Hurricane Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS), which consists of 250 different projects and involves total investments of US$ 15 billion.

Main Completed Projects
South Terminal of the Miami International Airport – Miami, Florida
Containment Dike at Lake Cataouatche – New Orleans, Louisiana
Containment Dike at Chalmette Loop – New Orleans, Louisiana
American Airlines Arena – Miami, Florida
Expansion of the FIU Football Stadium
Expansion of the Northeast Terminal of the Orlando International Airport – Miami, Florida
Seven Oaks Dam – San Bernardino, California
Carnival Center for the Performing Arts – Miami, Florida
Miami International Airport Dolphin Garage Building – Miami, Florida
M-DWASD Head Office – Coral Gables, Florida
South Road System Extension – Miami International Airport – Miami, Florida
Miami International Airport North Terminal Extension – Miami, Florida
Fine Air Hangar at the Miami International Airport – Miami, Florida
Metromover – Miami, Florida
Western “U” Apron at the Miami International Airport – Miami, Florida
Fort Lauderdale International Airport Yard – Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Merrill Barber Bridge – Vero Beach, Florida
Santa Rosa Bridge – Santa Rosa County, Florida
Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne Resort & Spa – Miami, Florida
Route 56 – San Diego, California
Miami International Airport Lobby “A” – Miami, Florida
American Airlines Terminal – Miami, Florida
Federal Express Terminal – Miami, Florida
Challenge Air Cargo Terminal – Miami, Florida
Miami International Airport Western “U” Cargo Terminal – Miami, Florida
Miami International Airport Control Tower – Miami, Florida
Golden Glades Viaduct – Miami, Florida

Odebrecht Organization
Founded in Bahia in 1944, Odebrecht Engenharia & Construção is currently the largest company in the sector in Latin America. With earnings of over R$ 18.7 billion in 2009, 70% of its revenues originate from projects abroad. It is present on the three Americas, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and employs some 87,000 people.
The company, which has already completed nearly 2,000 projects in 35 different countries, provides integrated services in the areas of engineering, supply, construction, assembly and management of projects in the civil construction, industrial and special technology areas. Odebrecht Engineering & Construction includes six companies, consolidated in 2010, based on the business or geographic area of operations: Odebrecht Energia, Odebrecht Industrial, Odebrecht Infraestrutura, Odebrecht Latin America and Angola, Odebrecht Venezuela and Odebrecht International.
In 2009, Odebrecht finished building the Doraleh container terminal in Djibuti, and started the construction work to rebuild over 240 km of railroad for Arcelor Mittal in Liberia. Among its current projects, worthy of note are the Tripoli Airport (Libya) and the construction of an ethanol plant in Ghana.

The Bribery Schemes

According to its admissions, Odebrecht engaged in a massive and unparalleled bribery and bid-rigging scheme for more than a decade, beginning as early as 2001. During that time, Odebrecht paid approximately $788 million in bribes to government officials, their representatives and political parties in a number of countries in order to win business in those countries. The criminal conduct was directed by the highest levels of the company, with the bribes paid through a complex network of shell companies, off-book transactions and off-shore bank accounts.

As part of the scheme, Odebrecht and its co-conspirators created and funded an elaborate, secret financial structure within the company that operated to account for and disburse bribe payments to foreign government officials and political parties. By 2006, the development and operation of this secret financial structure had evolved such that Odebrecht established the “Division of Structured Operations,” which effectively functioned as a stand-alone bribe department within Odebrecht and its related entities. Until approximately 2009, the head of the Division of Structured Operations reported to the highest levels within Odebrecht, including to obtain authorization to approve bribe payments. After 2009, this responsibility was delegated to certain company business leaders in Brazil and the other jurisdictions. To conceal its activities, the Division of Structured Operations utilized an entirely separate and off-book communications system, which allowed members of the Division of Structured Operations to communicate with one another and with outside financial operators and other co-conspirators about the bribes via secure emails and instant messages, using codenames and passwords.

The Division of Structured Operations managed the “shadow” budget for the Odebrecht bribery operation via a separate computer system that was used to request and process bribe payments as well as to generate and populate spreadsheets that tracked and internally accounted for the shadow budget. These funds for the company’s sophisticated bribery operation were generated by the Odebrecht Finance Department through a variety of methods, as well as by certain Odebrecht subsidiaries, including Braskem. The funds were then funneled by the Division of Structured Operations to a series of off-shore entities that were not included on Odebrecht’s balance sheet as related entities. The Division of Structured Operations then directed the disbursement of the funds from the off-shore entities to the bribe recipient, through the use of wire transfers through one or more of the off-shore entities, as well as through cash payments both inside and outside Brazil, which were sometimes delivered using packages or suitcases left at predetermined locations.

Odebrecht, its employees and agents took a number of steps while in the United States to further the scheme. For instance, in 2014 and 2015, while located in Miami, two Odebrecht employees engaged in conduct related to certain projects in furtherance of the scheme, including meetings with other co-conspirators to plan actions to be taken in connection with the Division of Structured Operations, the movement of criminal proceeds and other criminal conduct. In addition, some of the off-shore entities used by the Division of Structured Operations to hold and disburse unrecorded funds were established, owned and/or operated by individuals located in the United States. In all, this conduct resulted in corrupt payments and/or profits totaling approximately $3.336 billion.

Braskem also admitted to engaging in a wide-ranging bribery scheme and acknowledged the pervasiveness of its conduct. Between 2006 and 2014, Braskem paid approximately $250 million into Odebrecht’s secret, off-book bribe payment system. Using the Odebrecht system, Braskem authorized the payment of bribes to politicians and political parties in Brazil, as well as to an official at Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras (Petrobras), the state-controlled oil company of Brazil. In exchange, Braskem received various benefits, including: preferential rates from Petrobras for the purchase of raw materials used by the company; contracts with Petrobras; and favorable legislation and government programs that reduced the company’s tax liabilities in Brazil. This conduct resulted in corrupt payments and/or profits totaling approximately $465 million.

Time to Start a Recall Process for California

Posted on by

Recalling a governor has been done before (Gray Davis) in California for reasons not nearly as serious as those under the present Governor Gavin Newsom. Procedures are here.

Let’s take a look shall we?

  1. He pardoned several felons just last month including that committed grand theft, solicited a murder for hire operation in a street gang network and even forgery.
  2. There is a growing homeless problem that is so far out of control, the Center for Disease Control should declare several cities/counties a threat to public safety for disease control and prevention. In fact, the CDC spends more than $3 million out of their California office and most of that is earmarked for Los Angeles.
  3. Remember that boondoggle of a high speed rail system? Well the Federal government kicked in $2.5 billion and canceled a balance of $930 million since Newsom for the most part terminated the rail construction. There is some chatter about restarting the high speed rail construction where the cost would blow up to $77 billion. But hold on….there is more about this. California owes landowners under eminent domain. Seems many of those landowners moved away for nothing, literally nothing. Businesses too wonder about their financial sacrifice. Others could not sell their real estate that was not part of the rail system or eminent domain but was too near the proposed rail project, the land was essentially declared worthless.

    John Diepersloot squinted under a bright Central Valley sun, pointing to the damage to his fruit orchard that came with the California bullet train.

    High-speed rail route took land from farmers. The money they’re owed hasn’t arrived

    He lost 70 acres of prime land. Rail contractors left mounds of rubble along his neat rows. Irrigation hoses are askew. A sophisticated canopy system for a kiwi field, supported by massive steel cables, was torn down.

    But what really irritates Diepersloot is the $250,000 that he paid out of his own pocket for relocating wells, removing trees, building a road and other expenses.

    “I am out a quarter-million bucks on infrastructure, and they haven’t paid a dime for a year,” he said. “I don’t have that kind of money.” Read more of the sad/pathetic stories here.

  4. Now Governor Newsom has declared undocumented immigrants will get state paid healthcare. The state has already financial obligations it has not paid and must to make things right for her citizens before he can go spend $98 million. Where did that number even come from in the first place? Oh, another detail is a fine on people who don’t buy healthcare insurance, known as the individual mandate. He included in this budget (state budget is $214 billion) an additional $450 million over 3 years to fund insurance subsidies. Don’t forget that water tax too, it is still on the table while the state power companies are toggling power to users to save dollars. Sounds like a third world country more every day. Can the state even fund the $7.8 billion in the state employee pension fund? Oh, all diapers and menstrual products are tax exempt, there is rental assistance and a major housing shortage. Swell eh?  California Housing Crisis photo

Don’t think this is just a California problem, rather it is a national problem. Remember federal dollars go to the state for all kinds of reasons, least of which is for the sanctuary status. People and disease can travel freely anywhere in the country.

It is prudent to review the members of the state legislature, the attorney generals office in Sacramento and the governor’s mansion and consider a real movement to encourage Californians to recall almost all of the state officials for the protection of national public safety and to stop the fleecing of all taxpayers.

Europe Refuses to Admit Iran is a Terror State with Tangible Evidence

Posted on by

When the United States collaborates with counterparts in Europe, it must be quite frustrating when European officials ignore evidence. Perhaps this is all driven by German Chancellor Merkel as she appears to only concentrate on stopping Brexit. But read on…

In Part: British intelligence in 2015 caught an alleged Hezbollah terrorist stockpiling more than three tons of ammonium nitrate, a common ingredient in homemade bombs, on the outskirts of London, but never divulged the plot, The Daily Telegraph reported Sunday.

The report said the arrest came just months after the UK joined the US and other world powers in signing the Iran nuclear deal and speculated that it was hushed up to avoid derailing the agreement with Tehran, which is the main supporter of the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

Acting on a tip from a foreign intelligence agency, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police raided four properties in North West London, discovering thousands of disposable ice packs containing ammonium nitrate, the Telegraph said.

According to the report, the plot was part of a wider Hezbollah plan to lay the groundwork for future attacks and noted foiled Hezbollah operations in Thailand, Cyprus and New York. All those plots were made public and were believed to have targeted Israeli interests around the world.

Ynetnews News - Hezbollah member jailed in Cyprus bomb ... photo

The Telegraph said the Cyprus case was strikingly similar to the one in London. In 2015 in Cyprus, confessed Hezbollah agent Hussein Bassam Abdallah was sentenced to six years in jail after he was found with 8.2 tons of ammonia nitrate in his home. He had reportedly planned to attack Israeli targets. (by the way, this Abdallah cat has dual citizenship of Lebanon and Canada.)

The Telegraph said its information came after a three-month investigation in which more than 30 current and former officials in Britain, America and Cyprus were approached and court documents were obtained. More here.

But hold on there is more. John Kerry and Barack Obama promised inspections and validations of the Iranian nuclear program, remember that? Well…..

For the first time since the signing of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the UN’s nuclear watchdog on Monday did not explicitly report that Iran was implementing its nuclear-related commitments and said that its rate of uranium enrichment was increasing.

In each of the previous reports since the agreement, International Atomic Energy Agency director general Yukiya Amano wrote that “Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments,” text that was notably absent from Monday’s report.

Iran announced May 8 that it no longer considered itself bound to keep to the limits of stocks of heavy water and enriched uranium that it agreed to as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),which lifted crippling economic sanctions against it. Tehran’s move came a year after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal. Washington has also reinforced economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The latest IAEA report noted that “technical discussions… are ongoing” with Iran in relation to its installation of up to 33 advanced IR-6 centrifuges. But it did not specify the content of those discussions.

Iran has also said that if the other parties to the JCPOA do not speed up work on mitigating the effects of US sanctions, by early July it may stop abiding by restrictions on the level to which it can enrich uranium and on modifications to its Arak heavy water reactor.

Two weeks ago, the latest inspections report by the IAEA said that while stocks of uranium and heavy water had increased, they were still within the limits set by the JCPOA.

In Tehran on Monday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that those waging “economic war” against his country through US sanctions could not expect to “remain safe.” Read more here.

Fraud/Theft on Govt Contractor for Puerto Rico Hurricane

Posted on by

Not only do individuals not do the research and proper vetting of people and information, but when the Federal government is guilty, things are really bad. The Federal government has people, technology and the resources to ‘get it right’ when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars but again, we get fleeced.

So we have this cockamamie contractor that in the end was just not real and no one up or down the system to figure that out. So, 475,000 tarps that were to be delivered to Puerto Rico, never happened but the money…well that is gone too. Yikes.

Puerto Rico: Where Americans live without roofs - CNN

Just for fun, read the contract here.

Now for the story that began burning in 2017 and continues.

The owners of the Textile Corporation of America promised the government that they could deliver 1,000 new jobs to residents of Pikeville, Tennessee, and millions of dollars of supplies to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. And federal and state leaders lined up to support them, helping them secure millions of dollars in contracts and grants.

But two years later, the company is the subject of a federal criminal investigation alleging that its executives bilked taxpayers out of those millions.

According to affidavits filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a federal court in Tennessee in October and February, the Textile Corporation of America (TCA) fabricated evidence of work performed at a Pikeville, Tennessee, textile plant in order to draw grants from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)—a federally owned corporation—and the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development.

The FBI alleges that the company’s owners pocketed much of that money for personal use.

But more than a million dollars of the grant money, investigators say, went towards the purchase of tarps to fulfill a $30 million Federal Emergency Management Agency hurricane relief contract. The TCA sister company to which FEMA awarded that contract, Master Group USA (MGUSA), used more fraudulent paperwork, including fabricated copies of invoices and wire transfers, to conceal the fact that it was purchasing those tarps from China, in violation of federal sourcing laws, the FBI alleges. FEMA awarded MGUSA nearly $4 million before canceling the contract, after the tarps failed to meet quality requirements.

Some information about the scheme has trickled into public view over the past year. But the existence of a federal criminal investigation into TCA and MGUSA, and the full extent of their alleged fraud, as spelled out in a pair of FBI affidavits, has not been previously reported. Those affidavits, filed in November and February, sought the seizure of millions of dollars from the companies’ Pakistani-American owners, brothers Karim and Rahim Sadruddin, and search warrants for their email accounts and those of a number of family members allegedly involved in the scheme.

No criminal charges have yet been filed, and the Justice Department declined to comment. But the allegations against the Sadruddin brothers go beyond a typical case of procurement fraud, given the roster of high-profile politicians who lent their support to their companies over the past two years.

The Sadruddin brothers, and the family members allegedly party to the scheme, did not respond to requests for comment on the investigation. Nor did Troy King, the former attorney general of Alabama and TCA’s chief counsel.

King was one of a number of high-profile public figures who lined up to support TCA’s plans to buy, renovate, and revitalize the Pikeville textile plant. At an unveiling ceremony in July 2017, King, flanked by then-Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) and an aide to Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), said the project “represents the renaissance of America, the return of America as a global manufacturing center.”

“This is a great story,” DesJarlais said of the project. “A local entrepreneur made an investment in his community.”

“Textile Corporation of America’s commitment to create 1,000 jobs in Bledsoe County, a Tier 4 Distressed county, will have an incredible impact on the community and surrounding area,” promised Haslam. “We appreciate the company’s investment in our state and look forward to building a lasting partnership in the future.”

As of early this year, no work had been done at the site, and its gates had been padlocked.

A month before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, TCA received a $3 million “fast track” development grant from the state, $850,000 of which was to go towards purchasing the Pikeville facility, with the rest earmarked for redeveloping it. The company brought on a local contractor, Cagle Development, to assist with the project.

The structure of the grant stipulated that TCA would finance its own work at the site, then submit paperwork to a local development agency, which was charged with administering the grant funds. The agency would then use those funds to reimburse TCA for work performed.

In October 2017, TCA submitted its first tranche of paperwork for reimbursement: a $1.4 million invoice for work performed by Cagle on the site and records of a wire transfer from TCA’s bank account to Cagle’s. “

Ed Cagle, the contractor’s owner, recalled seeing a copy of the invoice in the company’s records and immediately recognizing that it was fraudulent. “He made up the invoice and put Cagle Development up top,” Cagle told The Daily Beast in an interview on Friday.

Cagle immediately called up the Pikeville mayor, who was one of TCA’s biggest boosters at the time and whom Cagle knew personally. “I never did receive this money,” Cagle told him. “I don’t know why somebody fabricated this but this is not me.”

Cagle would eventually tip off federal and state authorities to the apparent fabrication as well. “The FBI got involved, they came in and checked all my records,” he recalled. “They saw that I never did get the money,”

The FBI checked bank records as well and concluded that “the wire transfer record submitted by Karim Sadruddin to obtain a reimbursement… is, in fact, fraudulent.”

By the time authorities realized that TCA had already received reimbursement checks for both that $1.4 million and another $850,000 for the purchase of the Pikeville facility. In November 2017, Karim Sadruddin drove from his home in Atlanta to Pikeville, picked up the checks, and deposited them in a bank account with a prior balance of just $500.

Later that month, he submitted another invoice—also fraudulent, according to the FBI—for work ostensibly performed by Cagle and financed by TCA. In January, the company received a check for $728,000, every last penny available under the Pikeville grant.

Around the same time, the Sadruddins began hitting up the TVA for money as well. TCA had received a $230,000 performance grant from the federally owned company, and in January 2018, Rahim Sadruddin sent an email to the agency falsely claiming that the Pikeville facility was “in operation from this week onwards,” and that he wanted “to get in touch with you regarding the grant funds.”

In June, the Sadruddins officially certified that the Pikeville plant had been up and running for months. They secured the $230,000 in TVA grant money as a result.

In fact, according to the FBI, “the Pikeville facility was not commercially operational as a textile manufacturing plant. No textiles were being produced.” Instead, the affidavits allege, they were simply using the Pikeville facility as a warehouse to store tarps purchased to supply their sister company MGUSA’s $30.8 million FEMA contract, under which the company agreed to provide 475,000 tarps to areas hit by hurricanes in 2017, chiefly in Puerto Rico.

The Sadruddins had already begun transferring TCA’s grant money to MGUSA in order to purchase those tarps, according to the FBI. FEMA awarded the contract in November 2017, as TCA was drawing down its Pikeville grants. The FBI estimates that more than $1 million of TCA’s grant funds, or more than a third of the total, eventually went towards the purchase of tarps under the FEMA contract.

Soon after the contract was awarded, a FEMA representative reached out to MGUSA to verify that the tarps being provided complied with the Trade Agreements Act, which contains restrictions on countries of origin for such purchases. MGUSA documentation showed the tarps were being shipped from China, a nation barred by those sourcing restrictions.

To allay FEMA’s concerns, MGUSA provided copies of purchase orders and wire transfers designed to show that the tarps were purchased from a company in Taiwan and simply shipped through China to minimize transit costs. Those documents, the FBI alleges, were also fraudulent.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, which conducted its own investigation into the FEMA contract, determined that the Taiwanese company listed on those purchase orders didn’t actually exist. The IG also determined that the wire transfer records submitted to the agency were fraudulent.

The tarps were, in fact, coming from China. FBI investigators determined that the Sadruddins even visited the Chinese facility where they were being produced. Investigators interviewed that supplier, who told them that, “Karim wanted the tarps to be from a TAA compliant country, but the supplier explained to Karim that a factory in China was the only source which could produce the tarps in the needed time period, and after a couple of days, Karim Sadruddin agreed to take the tarps from China.”

MGUSA eventually provided more than 58,000 tarps under the contract, for which the company was paid more than $3.7 million, before FEMA suspended the work, citing concerns about the quality of the goods provided, and their Chinese sourcing. It’s not clear how many actually made it to Puerto Rico.

As it pursues a criminal investigation against the Sadruddins, the FBI has also sought to recoup the millions of dollars they say were illegally extracted by their two companies. But the frequent transfers of money between various bank accounts owned by the Sadruddin brothers and the family has apparently made recouping that money difficult.

The FBI attempted to seize more than $815,000, for instance, from a bank account in the name of Rahim Sadruddin’s wife, Fatima. But according to court filings, the bank could only locate about $130,000 of those funds.

For the residents of Pikeville, the cost of the Sadruddins’ alleged fraud can’t be measured just in dollar terms.

“What really upset me was offering people over there 1,000 jobs,” said Cagle of TCA’s textile project. “These people really put a lot of hope into that. So to see somebody come in and steal all their grant money, and them living like kings, that’s what bothers me the most.”

Cagle sighed. “I wish I’d never met them.”

#Occupy Venezuelan Embassy in Washington DC

Posted on by

Enter Madea Benjamin, only to refuse to leave. #OccupyVenezuela or something like that. And…the ANSWER Coalition is there too.

The Embassy building, located in Georgetown, is owned by the Venezuelan government and is a protected international compound by the Vienna Conventions. Progressive activists have been working and living inside the Embassy as invited guests for weeks.

The Embassy Protection Collective was initiated by CODEPINK and Popular Resistance, and the ANSWER Coalition has been mobilizing support for this effort in Washington and around the country. Many ANSWER volunteers and organizers are inside the Embassy.

Image result for answer coalition venezuela

“The people inside this Embassy are here at the invitation of its lawful owner, the Government of Venezuela,” said ANSWER’s National Director Brian Becker. “The Trump administration is acting as the world’s number one international pirate as it seizes Venezuelan assets, properties and diplomatic compounds. In pure colonial fashion, U.S. and European entities have grabbed hold of Venezuela’s oil revenue, gold reserves and bank accounts — while openly championing the Monroe Doctrine. We are joining with the people of the world to declare that the days of the Monroe Doctrine are over.”

Becker continued, “Any action to evict the Embassy’s current tenant guests by the MPD, Secret Service or other police agencies would be an illegal and unlawful arrest under both D.C. and international law. What we are doing here in this Embassy is not an act of civil disobedience. International law and D.C. law are on our side. The violator of these laws — the criminal in this case — is none other than the Trump White House and the U.S. State Department.”

A letter was sent last night from the Embassy Protection Collective, with the assistance of lawyer Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, to the U.S. State Department:

Members of the Embassy Protection Collective are writing to make it expressly clear and ensure all personnel are put on notice that any arrest of persons inside the embassy would constitute an unlawful arrest. We understand from our communications with your office that you are threatening to arrest persons inside the Venezuelan embassy.

Not only are we here at the invitation of persons lawfully in charge of the premises but we are also here as people with lawful rights under Washington, DC tenancy law.

It is our intention to hold responsible any person who orders or effectuates any unlawful actions against us.

We have received no eviction notice and due process opportunity to challenge any attempted eviction as is required by law.

No water or electricity.

Pepco, with protection from the Secret Service, cut electricity and water to the building,” says Ariel Gold, the national co-director of the antiwar activist organization Code Pink. “All of the utility bills have always been paid in full by the government of Venezuela.”

Carlos Vecchio, the Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S. appointed by the opposition government, took responsibility on Twitter for the power outage. Activists have prevented him from entering the embassy.

For the last month Code Pink activists have been occupying the Venezuelan embassy in Washington D.C. Not in protest but in support of the government led by socialist dictator Maduro.

With no electricity, activists who have been living inside the building are adjusting to the latest obstacle in their month-long occupation of the embassy.

Getting food inside has been one of the biggest challenges for the past 10 days, with anti-Maduro protesters and Secret Service barricades blocking most of the doors. Then Thursday, activists announced they would be cutting back on their primary source of communication with the outside world: social media. With no power to charge their devices, there will be less tweeting and fewer video streams…

About two weeks into Code Pink’s residency, Venezuelan and Venezuelan American protesters began to gather outside. They have not left since.

Note, the ones occupying the embassy are (liberal, duh) Americans from groups like Code Pink, Answer Coalition, Popular Resistance and Black Alliance for Peace, while most of the pro-opposition protesters are actual, real-life Venezuelans. Who are the nasty American imperialists now, Code Pink?

And of course Max Blumenthal is in the mix too –>