Failure of peace initiatives raises questions over whether British eagerness for political settlement may have been exploited

Hamid Karzai with the Finnish prime minister, Jyrki Katainen, in Helsinki. Photograph: Lehtikuva/Reuters

The CIA and MI6 have regularly given large cash payments to Hamid Karzai’s office with the aim of maintaining access to the Afghan leader and his top allies and officials, but the attempt to buy influence has largely failed and may have backfired, former diplomats and policy analysts say.

The Guardian understands that the payments by British intelligence were on a smaller scale than the CIA’s handouts, reported in the New York Times to have been in the tens of millions, and much of the British money has gone towards attempts to finance peace initiatives, which have so far proved abortive.

That failure has raised questions among some British officials over whether eagerness to promote a political settlement may have been exploited by Afghan officials and self-styled intermediaries for the Taliban.

Responding to the allegations while on a visit to Helsinki on Monday, Karzai said his national security council (NSC) had received support from the US government for the past 10 years, and the amounts involved were “not big” and were used for a variety of purposes including helping those wounded in the conflict. “It’s multi-purpose assistance,” he said, without commenting on the allegations that the money was fuelling corruption.

Yama Torabi, the director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan said that the presidency’s low-key response to the reports had “outraged people”.

“As a result, we don’t know what was the amount of money that was given, what it was used for and if there was any corruption involved. Money when it is unchecked can be abused and this looks like one. In addition, it can be potentially used to corrupt politicians and political circles, but there is no way to know this unless there is a serious investigation into it,” Torabi told The Guardian.

Kabul sources told the Guardian that the key official involved in distributing the payments within the NSC was Ibrahim Spinzada, a close confidant of the president known as Engineer Ibrahim. There is, however, no evidence that Spinzada personally gained from the cash payments or that in distributing them among the president’s allies and sometimes his foes he was breaking Afghan law.

Officials say the payments, referred to in a New York Times report as “ghost money”, helped prop up warlords and corrupt officials, deepening Afghan popular mistrust of the Kabul government and its foreign backers, and thereby helped drive the insurgency.

The CIA money has sometimes caused divisions between the various branches of US government represented in Kabul, according to diplomats stationed in Kabul, particularly when it helped give the CIA chief of station in Kabul direct access to Karzai without the US ambassador’s knowledge or approval.

One former Afghan budgetary official told the Guardian: “On paper there was very little money that went to the National Directorate of Security [NDS, the Afghan intelligence service], but we knew they were taken care of separately by the CIA.

“The thing about US money is a lot of it goes outside the budget, directly through individuals and companies, and that opens the way for corruption.”

Khalil Roman, who served as Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, told the New York Times: “We called it ‘ghost money’. It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

One American official told the newspaper: “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States.”

Sources said the MI6 aid was on a smaller scale, and much of it was focused on trying to promote meetings between Karzai’s government and Taliban intermediaries, as was embarrassingly the case in 2010 when MI6 discovered a would-be Taliban leader in talks with Karzai was an impostor from the Pakistani city of Quetta.

The British payments have also been designed to bolster UK influence in Kabul, in what a source described as “an auction with each country trying to outbid the other” in the course of an often fraught relationship with the Karzai government.

Vali Nasr, a former US government adviser on Afghanistan, said: “Karzai has been lashing out against American officials and generals, so if indeed there has been funding by the CIA, you have to ask to what effect has that money been paid. It hasn’t clearly brought the sort of influence it was meant to.”

…

Karzai’s CIA cash has long precedent in Afghanistan – and a simple solution

30 Apr 2013

Nushin Arbabzadah: Afghans would have to back their own state in order to change foreign powers’ century-old system of buying leaders’ loyalty

29 Apr 2013

Afghanistan’s web of intrigue is a poor basis on which to rebuild a nation

27 Apr 2013

Small Wars, Far Away Places by Michael Burleigh – review

25 Apr 2013

Senator accuses US of ‘intelligence failings’ in tracking Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Hamid Karzai orders ban on ‘un-Islamic’ shows on Afghan TV

25 Apr 2013

President issues vague decree after clerics complain that many stations air programmes that are ‘counter to Islamic values’

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian, Tuesday 30 April 2013

Find this story at 30 April 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

KABUL, Afghanistan — For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.

“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”

The United States was not alone in delivering cash to the president. Mr. Karzai acknowledged a few years ago that Iran regularly gave bags of cash to one of his top aides.

At the time, in 2010, American officials jumped on the payments as evidence of an aggressive Iranian campaign to buy influence and poison Afghanistan’s relations with the United States. What they did not say was that the C.I.A. was also plying the presidential palace with cash — and unlike the Iranians, it still is.

American and Afghan officials familiar with the payments said the agency’s main goal in providing the cash has been to maintain access to Mr. Karzai and his inner circle and to guarantee the agency’s influence at the presidential palace, which wields tremendous power in Afghanistan’s highly centralized government. The officials spoke about the money only on the condition of anonymity.

It is not clear that the United States is getting what it pays for. Mr. Karzai’s willingness to defy the United States — and the Iranians, for that matter — on an array of issues seems to have only grown as the cash has piled up. Instead of securing his good graces, the payments may well illustrate the opposite: Mr. Karzai is seemingly unable to be bought.

Over Iran’s objections, he signed a strategic partnership deal with the United States last year, directly leading the Iranians to halt their payments, two senior Afghan officials said. Now, Mr. Karzai is seeking control over the Afghan militias raised by the C.I.A. to target operatives of Al Qaeda and insurgent commanders, potentially upending a critical part of the Obama administration’s plans for fighting militants as conventional military forces pull back this year.

But the C.I.A. has continued to pay, believing it needs Mr. Karzai’s ear to run its clandestine war against Al Qaeda and its allies, according to American and Afghan officials.

Like the Iranian cash, much of the C.I.A.’s money goes to paying off warlords and politicians, many of whom have ties to the drug trade and, in some cases, the Taliban. The result, American and Afghan officials said, is that the agency has greased the wheels of the same patronage networks that American diplomats and law enforcement agents have struggled unsuccessfully to dismantle, leaving the government in the grips of what are basically organized crime syndicates.

The cash does not appear to be subject to the oversight and restrictions placed on official American aid to the country or even the C.I.A.’s formal assistance programs, like financing Afghan intelligence agencies. And while there is no evidence that Mr. Karzai has personally taken any of the money — Afghan officials say the cash is handled by his National Security Council — the payments do in some cases work directly at odds with the aims of other parts of the American government in Afghanistan, even if they do not appear to violate American law.

Handing out cash has been standard procedure for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan since the start of the war. During the 2001 invasion, agency cash bought the services of numerous warlords, including Muhammad Qasim Fahim, the current first vice president.

“We paid them to overthrow the Taliban,” the American official said.

The C.I.A. then kept paying the Afghans to keep fighting. For instance, Mr. Karzai’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was paid by the C.I.A. to run the Kandahar Strike Force, a militia used by the agency to combat militants, until his assassination in 2011.

A number of senior officials on the Afghan National Security Council are also individually on the agency’s payroll, Afghan officials said.

While intelligence agencies often pay foreign officials to provide information, dropping off bags of cash at a foreign leader’s office to curry favor is a more unusual arrangement.

Afghan officials said the practice grew out of the unique circumstances in Afghanistan, where the United States built the government that Mr. Karzai runs. To accomplish that task, it had to bring to heel many of the warlords the C.I.A. had paid during and after the 2001 invasion.

By late 2002, Mr. Karzai and his aides were pressing for the payments to be routed through the president’s office, allowing him to buy the warlords’ loyalty, a former adviser to Mr. Karzai said.

Then, in December 2002, Iranians showed up at the palace in a sport utility vehicle packed with cash, the former adviser said.

The C.I.A. began dropping off cash at the palace the following month, and the sums grew from there, Afghan officials said.

Payments ordinarily range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, the officials said, though none could provide exact figures. The money is used to cover a slew of off-the-books expenses, like paying off lawmakers or underwriting delicate diplomatic trips or informal negotiations.

Much of it also still goes to keeping old warlords in line. One is Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek whose militia served as a C.I.A. proxy force in 2001. He receives nearly $100,000 a month from the palace, two Afghan officials said. Other officials said the amount was significantly lower.

Mr. Dostum, who declined requests for comment, had previously said he was given $80,000 a month to serve as Mr. Karzai’s emissary in northern Afghanistan. “I asked for a year up front in cash so that I could build my dream house,” he was quoted as saying in a 2009 interview with Time magazine.

Some of the cash also probably ends up in the pockets of the Karzai aides who handle it, Afghan and Western officials said, though they would not identify any by name.

That is not a significant concern for the C.I.A., said American officials familiar with the agency’s operations. “They’ll work with criminals if they think they have to,” one American former official said.

…

Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 29, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the job title that Khalil Roman held in Afghanistan from 2002 until 2005. He was President Hamid Karzai’s deputy chief of staff, not his chief of staff.

April 28, 2013
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG

Find this story at 29 April 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

President believes battle in which 10 children and a US agent died was fought by illegal militia working for spy agency

Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s campaign against CIA operations sets up a heated showdown with the US government. Photograph: S Sabawoon/EPA

President Hamid Karzai is determined to curb CIA operations in Afghanistan after the death of a US agent and 10 Afghan children in a battle he believes was fought by an illegal militia working for the US spy agency.

The campaign sets the Afghan leader up for another heated showdown with the US government, and will reignite questions about the CIA’s extensive but highly secretive operations in the country.

Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said the CIA controlled large commando-like units, some of whom operated under the nominal stamp of the Afghan government’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), but were not actually under its control.

“Some of them are said to be working with the NDS, but they are not armed by the NDS, not paid by the NDS, and not sent to operations by the NDS. Sometimes they only inform the NDS minutes before the operation,” Faizi said. “They are conducting operations without informing local authorities and when something goes wrong it is called a joint operation.”

One of these groups was involved in a battle with insurgents in a remote corner of eastern Kunar province in early April that left several Afghan children dead, Faizi said. Karzai has fired the provincial head of intelligence in connection with the incident.

The US citizen who died during the battle was advising the Afghan intelligence service, and the airstrike that killed the children is believed to have been called in after he was fatally injured.

The US embassy declined to comment on CIA issues, but sources with knowledge of the battle said he was an agent, and his name has not been released, usually an indication of intelligence work.

Bob Woodward in his 2010 book Obama’s Wars described a 3,000-strong Afghan militia working for the CIA, and Faizi said the Afghan government had little information about the teams. “There is a lack of clarity about their numbers and movement,” he said when asked how many men the CIA had on their payroll, or where these large teams might be based.

Woodward said the unofficial commando units were known as counter-terrorism pursuit teams, and described them as “a paid, trained and functioning tool of the CIA”, authorised by President George W Bush.

They were sent on operations to kill or capture insurgent leaders, but also went into lawless areas to try to pacify them and win support for the Afghan government and its foreign backers. Woodward said the units even conducted cross-border raids into Pakistan.

In the wake of the Kunar battle, Karzai has also ordered his security officials to step up implementation of a presidential decree issued in late February abolishing “parallel structures”. Faizi said this order was aimed primarily at dismantling CIA-controlled teams.

“The use of these parallel structures run by the CIA and US special forces is an issue of concern for the Afghan people and the Afghan government,” he said.

…

Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul
The Guardian, Friday 19 April 2013 10.19 BST

Find this story at 19 April 2013
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Discussions on allowing Bulgaria and Romania to join the Schengen area of border-free travel may have been postponed until December, but the EU’s law enforcement authorities will soon start benefitting from easier access to fingerprint and vehicle registration data from the two countries as they move towards fully implementing the Prüm Decisions.

The Prüm Decisions (Council Decisions 2008/615/JHA and 2008/616/JHA, named after the town in which the original treaties were signed) mandate the exchange of DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration data (VRD) amongst EU member states. They also permit the exchange of personal data for the prevention of terrorist offences and for joint police operations.

Last year a Statewatch analysis noted the ongoing difficulties states have had with implementing the “complex, technologically fraught and expensive” Decisions, which are ultimately intended to “overcome lengthy mutual legal assistance bureaucratic procedures by establishing a single national contact point as an electronic interface for automated information exchange.” [1]

The adoption of positive reports on Romania’s readiness to exchange fingerprints and Bulgaria’s readiness to exchange VRD shows that it may be easier for the personal data of Romanians and Bulgarians to cross the EU’s internal borders than it is for citizens of the two Black Sea countries.

On 25 March, the Working Party on Data Protection and Information Exchange (DAPIX) recommended to the Council that it permit the exchange of fingerprint data between Romanian and other EU authorities.

An “overall evaluation report on dactyloscopic [fingerprint] data exchange for Romania,” undertaken by a team from Austria, announced that “the implementation of the Prüm/dactyloscopic data-information flow, both on a legal and on a technical level, has been done up to a satisfactory level in Romania.” [2]

“All conditions are met for Romania to start the exchange of dactyloscopic data pursuant to Council Decision 2008/615/JHA,” says the report.

No date has yet been set for the next JHA Council meeting when it will have to approve the draft Decision. When it does so, Romania will become a part of the networked national systems that ease the exchange of fingerprint data amongst European law enforcement authorities.

It seems likely that at the same Council meeting, Bulgaria’s vehicle registration databases will official become part of the Prüm network.

A recent document summarises the outcome of a visit by a joint Dutch and Belgian evaluation team which concluded that “for the purposes of automated searching of vehicle registration data (VRD), Bulgaria has fully implemented the general provisions on data protection of Chapter 6 of Decision 2008/615/JHA.” [3]

Romania has been exchanging vehicle registration data with other EU member states since 2011 and both countries also exchange DNA data with a number of EU countries. Bulgaria is able to exchange DNA profiles with Slovenia, Austria, the Netherlands and France, while Romania is connected to the systems of Austria, the Netherlands, Slovenia, France, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany and Spain, and is conducting tests with Cyprus and Estonia.

Bulgaria is also part of the Prüm network for exchanging fingerprint data and is connected to Austria, Germany, Spain, Slovakia, Lithuania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Cyprus.

However, it may be possible for one member state to obtain fingerprint data from another even if the two do not have a direct connection by using a state with which they both have connections as an intermediary. The extent to which this practice may or may not take place is, however, unknown.

It seems likely that the next JHA Council meeting will also authorise the exchange of Prüm data from countries other than Bulgaria and Romania. Council Decisions have been drawn up that, when agreed, will permit Sweden to exchange DNA data and Malta to exchange DNA and fingerprint data.

Previous coverage
– “Complex, technologically fraught and expensive” – the problematic implementation of the Prüm Decisions by Chris Jones, March 2012
– “Network with errors”: Europe’s emerging web of DNA databases by Eric Topfer, March 2011
– Searching for Needles in an ever expanding haystack: Cross-border DNA exchange in the wake of the Prüm Treaty by Eric Topfer, September 2008
Sources
[1] “Complex, technologically fraught and expensive” – the problematic implementation of the Prüm Decisions by Chris Jones, March 2012
[2] Presidency, “Prüm Decisions” – overall evaluation report on dactyloscopic data exchange for Romania, 25 March 2013, 7824/13; Presidency, Draft Council Decision on the launch of automated data exchange with regard to dactyloscopic data in Romania, 25 March 2013 7826/13
[3] Presidency, Draft Council Decision on the launch of automated data exchange with regard to Vehicle Registration Data (VRD) in Bulgaria, 26 March 2013, 7942/13

11.04.2013

Find this story at 11 April 2013

Home page | Statewatch News Online | In the News & News Digest | What’s New | Statewatch Journal
© Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X. Personal usage as private individuals/”fair dealing” is allowed. We also welcome links to material on our site. Usage by those working for organisations is allowed only if the organisation holds an appropriate licence from the relevant reprographic rights organisation (eg: Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK) with such usage being subject to the terms and conditions of that licence and to local copyright law.

‘De EU bouwt aan een ruimte van vrijheid, veiligheid en recht. Eenmaal voltooid, zullen onder deze noemer zaken als het EU-burgerschap, de mobiliteit van personen, asiel en immigratie, het visumbeleid en het beheer van de buitengrenzen worden geregeld. Ze zal ook nauwe samenwerking bevorderen tussen de politie-, justitie- en douanediensten van de EU-landen. De ruimte moet ervoor zorgen dat de wetgeving die van toepassing is op EU-burgers, bezoekers en immigranten (en criminelen en terroristen) in de gehele Unie op dezelfde manier wordt toegepast.’ (europa.eu)

De ontwikkelingen op het gebied van de Europese samenwerking van politie en justitie gaan zo snel dat de oprichting van een Europese politie- en justitiedienst binnenkort een feit is. Is dat dan niet goed, een apparaat dat onze rechten en ons leven beschermt? Het klinkt mooi, een ‘ruimte van justitie, vrijheid en veiligheid’, maar zonder rechtsbescherming van verdachten, zonder transparante controle en toezicht op de samenwerking van opsporingsinstanties en zonder een apparaat dat maat weet te houden en de nuances ziet, blijft er weinig over van ons recht en onze vrijheden.

Ook aan de betrouwbaarheid van de gegevens van politie en justitie in allerlei databanken moet worden getwijfeld. Hoeveel zicht hebben burgers eigenlijk op de gevaren die de overheid ons voorschotelt? En zegt het wijzen op de gevaren van de georganiseerde criminaliteit en terrorisme eigenlijk niet meer over het onvermogen van diezelfde overheid adequaat te handelen op het gebied van preventie en de opsporing?

Buro Jansen & Janssen is niet tegen een verenigd Europa, maar zet wel vraagtekens bij de ontwikkeling van de zogenaamde ‘ruimte van justitie, vrijheid en veiligheid’ zoals de regeringsleiders ons die voorschotelt.

Het Europese veiligheidsbeleid is een complexe aangelegenheid. Aan de hand van verschillende artikelen proberen wij inzichtelijk te maken wat de bestaande structuur is, welke plannen er op stapel staan en op welke manieren de samenwerking van politie en justitie gewone burgers raakt.

Find this story at end 2010

In late January, Conservative MP and Minister for Security James Brokenshire led a delegation of nearly 25 “homeland security” firms to India on a trip which, in sharp contrast to the trade mission to India undertaken by David Cameron in February, received no coverage in the press whatsoever.

From 20 to 25 January multinational giants such as Agusta Westland, BAE Systems, G4S and Thales were taken to a number of Indian cities: Delhi, “for the government perspective”; Hyderabad, “the centre of the vast Naxal terrorism-troubled region and the home of a growing high tech industry base” where there was a “round table discussion with local security forces”; and Mumbai, “the focus of safer cities and coastal security initiatives” where attendees were treated to “a conference and round table discussion with local government security agencies and business.” [1]

A number of lesser-known firms were present alongside the major corporations. Evidence Talks attended, which was founded in 1993 and describes itself as “one of the most highly regarded digital forensic consultancies in the UK.” The company supplies tools for the extraction and analysis of data from digital devices and boasts that its SPEKTOR tool is “used worldwide by police, military, government and commercial customers…[and] enables users with minimal skills to safely, quickly and forensicly [sic] review the contents of computers, removable media and even cell phones.” [2]

Cunning Running also went on UKTI’s trip, and claims to provide “threat visualisation for the real world.” The firm say that they “develop high quality software solutions for the defence and homeland security markets,” supplying “direct to governments, law enforcement agencies, and militaries in the UK, USA, Europe and Australia.” [3]

“The security sector in India is vast and desperate to modernise,” said UKTI’s flyer for the mission. “India has approximately 1.2 million police and 1.3 million paramilitary forces personnel. With this, the Central Reserve Police Force, at 350,000, is the largest paramilitary force in the world” – a vast number of personnel who could be equipped with the latest “homeland security” gadgets and expertise.

The flyer for the mission seems to highlight the fact that backing the security industry as it moves into developing economies is seen as a national endeavour. “The [Indian] market is the subject of stiff competition from international competitors such as the US, Israel and France,” UKTI said, “but is simply too big to ignore.”

UKTI highlighted that “the on-the-ground costs of this mission (receptions, ground transport, conference facilities, promotional literature) are being wholly subsidised on behalf of UK companies by UKTI and its partners/sponsors” (emphasis in original). Those partners and sponsors included the Indian Home Ministry and the Confederation of Indian Industries.

Furthermore, companies were “able to avail a government-negotiated rate at the hotels being used throughout the programme.”

The “only charge to companies” was for the UKTI Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) – a “flexible business tool, letting you use the services of our trade teams, located in our embassies, high commissions and consulates across the world, to benefit your business.” [4]

The government has recently made additional funding available in order to encourage wider use of OMIS by UK firms, with a 50% discount (up to a maximum of £750) available to “all eligible companies commissioning an order linked to a UKTI, Scottish Development International (SDI), Welsh Government (WG) or Invest Northern Ireland (INI) supported outward mission or Market Visit Support (MVS).” [5]

While UKTI has clawed back some money from the firms who went on the trade mission to India, the department – described by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) as “a taxpayer-funded arms sales unit” [6] – initially spent over £35,000 subsidising companies. In its response to a freedom of information (FOI) request from Statewatch, UKTI said that “we have also generated income of £13,485 with another £1,170 expected. Therefore the net cost minus the expenses still to come is £20,997.98.”

This amount pales in comparison to the total amount of subsidies it is estimated are awarded to defence and security firms by the UK government every year, but it also highlights the breadth of support given to a highly controversial industry.

Research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that, between 2007 and 2010, total government subsidies for UK arms exports (including both defence and security firms) totalled at its highest £751.2 million, and at its lowest £668.3 million. [7]

A spokesperson for CAAT criticised the mission to India, saying that: “Unfortunately the UK government continues to prioritise promoting corporate interests over promoting human rights and real security – and expects the UK public to subsidise this.”

David Cameron’s February trade mission to India received heavy press coverage and saw the Prime Minister accompanied by a number of CEOs from defence and security firms, including Dick Oliver, the chairman of BAE Systems; Robin Southwell, the CEO of EADS UK; Steve Wadley, the UK managing director of the missile firm MBDA; and Victor Chavez, the chief executive of Thales UK. [8]

…

Sources
[1] UKTI DSO, UKTI homeland security trade mission to India
[2] Evidence Talks, Company Profile
[3] Cunning Running website
[4] UKTI, OMIS – Overseas Market Introduction Service, 25 January 2012
[5] UKTI, Response to FOI request, 22 March 2013
[6] Campaign Against Arms Trade, UKTI: Armed & Dangerous, 8 July 2011
[7] Susan T. Jackson, SIPRI assessment of UK arms export subsidies, 25 May 2011
[8] Kaye Stearman, Cameron’s Indian odyssey – brickbats and cricket bats, fighter jets and on-message execs, CAATblog, 22 February 2013
[9] Global Day of Action on Military Spending

15.4.2013

Find this story at 15 April 2013

Home page | Statewatch News Online | In the News & News Digest | What’s New | Statewatch Journal
© Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X. Personal usage as private individuals/”fair dealing” is allowed. We also welcome links to material on our site. Usage by those working for organisations is allowed only if the organisation holds an appropriate licence from the relevant reprographic rights organisation (eg: Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK) with such usage being subject to the terms and conditions of that licence and to local copyright law.

G4S chief executive Nick Buckles paid £1.19m, up £170,000 on last year
Company lost £88m in Olympics fiasco when they failed to provide security

The chief executive of the company behind the security-scandal at the London Olympics last summer received a record pay packet in 2012, following million pound losses during the Games.

G4S boss Nick Buckles was paid a total £1.19million in 2012, up £170,000 on his 2011 paycheck, despite the company nursing an £88million loss on the London 2012 contract.

The security giant failed to provide the 10,400 guards needed during this summer’s main event and the military was forced to step in.

Big Bucks: Nick Buckles, pictured defending his company in the Commons after G4S’s Olympics blunder, was paid an extra £170,000 in 2012 compared to the previous year

As well as an £830,000 salary, Mr Buckles’ 2012 pay packet included £23,500 in benefits and £332,000 in payments in lieu of pension. Mr Buckles 2012 pay packet was boosted by bigger pension payments.

However, neither he nor other executive directors earned a performance-related bonus.

G4S said in its annual report Mr Buckles’ and other executives’ salaries were frozen in 2012 and will not increase this year – the fourth time in five years their salaries have been frozen.

But it revealed plans to increase potential long-term share bonuses this year to ‘ensure that the directors continue to be incentivised and motivated’.

Mr Buckles’ maximum shares bonus could rise to 2.5 times his salary from a maximum of two times in 2012 – meaning a potential £2.1 million in shares if he hits targets.

Loss: G4S lost £88m in the London Olympics Games contract after they failed to provide all the security guards needed for the Games

Performance-related bonuses will also now depend on factors including organic growth, cash generation, strategic execution and organisation, instead of being tied purely to profits.

G4S’s Olympics failure saw Mr Buckles hauled before MPs, during which he admitted it was a ‘humiliating shambles for the company’. Extra military personnel had to be called in to fill the gap left by G4S’s failure to supply enough staff for the £284 million contract.

Mr Buckles said in the annual report it marked ‘one of the toughest periods in the group’s history’.

…

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 18:12 GMT, 15 April 2013 | UPDATED: 06:42 GMT, 16 April 2013

Find this story at 15 April 2013

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

OTTAWA – Secret RCMP files on Tommy Douglas will remain secret, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday.

The Court dismissed a request by Canadian Press reporter Jim Bronskill to force Library and Archives Canada to release a large part of the file on the former Saskatchewan premier and founding leader of the federal NDP.

…

By Brigitte Pellerin, Parliamentary Bureau

Find this story at 28 March 2013

Copyright © 2013, Canoe Inc.

The Supreme Court said it won’t hear an appeal by a Canadian Press reporter who wants a 1,149-page RCMP file on Tommy Douglas made public.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ended an effort by The Canadian Press to lift the shroud of secrecy over an intelligence dossier compiled on socialist trailblazer Tommy Douglas.

The high court has denied reporter Jim Bronskill leave to appeal in his case to have information in the Douglas file made public.

…

The Canadian Press Posted: Mar 28, 2013 1:33 PM CST Last Updated: Mar 28, 2013 10:32 AM CST

Find this story at 28 March 2013

© The Canadian Press, 2013

The Supreme Court of Canada is being asked to settle a seven-year battle to lift the shroud of secrecy over a decades-old intelligence dossier on former NDP leader Tommy Douglas.

The Supreme Court of Canada is being asked to settle a seven-year battle to lift the shroud of secrecy over a decades-old intelligence dossier on socialist trailblazer Tommy Douglas.

Jim Bronskill, a reporter with The Canadian Press, is seeking leave to appeal the case to the country’s highest court.

According to Bronskill’s lawyer says it’s not just about gaining access to the file.

In essence, the top court is being asked to be the final arbiter on whether national security should trump the public’s right to see historical documents.

“It is about the balance between history and security and when national security information can and should be withheld,” Paul Champ said in an interview.

“Our simple position is that information that’s gathered for intelligence or national security should not be hidden away from Canadians for all time. At some point, that information can and should become available to historians and journalists and the Canadian public so that we can better understand our history.”

In 2005, Bronskill applied under the Access to Information Act to see the intelligence file compiled by the now-defunct RCMP Security Service on Douglas, a former Saskatchewan premier, father of medicare and first federal NDP leader.

Library and Archives Canada, which is now in possession of the file, eventually released just over 400, heavily redacted pages from the 1,142-page file. Bronskill launched a court challenge after the federal information commissioner agreed with the government that most of the file should remain under wraps.
More than 300 pages released last year

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which replaced the Mounties’ security service and advised Library and Archives on release of the Douglas file, has argued strenuously against full disclosure.

Although some information in the file dates back almost 80 years, the agency maintains uncensored release of the dossier would reveal secrets of the spy trade, which could jeopardize the lives of confidential informants and compromise the agency’s ability to conduct secret surveillance.

Last year, just days before the case was heard in Federal Court, the government released more than 300 additional pages from the file.
‘Hundreds of documents about Tommy Douglas – some over 70 years old – will be permanently withheld from the Canadian public.’
—Lawyer Paul Champ

Nevertheless, Justice Simon Noel subsequently ruled that Library and Archives failed to take into account its mandate to preserve historically significant documents and make them accessible to Canadians when responding to Bronskill’s access request.

Having painstakingly reviewed all the pages in the file, Noel attached an annex to his judgment, listing the page numbers which contained information he believed should be further disclosed.

The government appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal which, after hearing three hours of legal arguments last October, issued a brief oral ruling overturning Noel’s decision.

While the panel of three justices agreed that the historical value of documents should be a factor in considering access requests, it also struck down Noel’s annex.
Canadian history ‘seriously damaged’

In an application seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, Champ argues that the Federal Court of Appeal ruling means “hundreds of documents about Tommy Douglas – some over 70 years old – will be permanently withheld from the Canadian public.”

Moreover, he says it means access legislation “will continue to be interpreted in a manner that generally restricts disclosure of historically significant documents. The study of Canadian history, and its salutary influence on the practice of democracy, is seriously damaged by this result.”

Champ also argues the appeal court should not have so “lightly overturned” Noel’s ruling, given the amount of time he’d spent personally reviewing the Douglas file.

The government has 30 days in which to respond to Champ’s application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

…

The Canadian Press Posted: Dec 9, 2012 1:36 PM ET Last Updated: Dec 9, 2012 1:34 PM ET Read 360

(Chris Schwarz/The Canadian Press)

Find this story at 9 December 2012

Copyright © CBC 2013

RCMP spies shadowed Prairie politician Tommy Douglas for more than three decades, according to documents obtained by the Canadian Press.

A newly declassified file on Douglas shows the Mounties attended his speeches, dissected his published articles and, during one Parliament Hill demonstration, eavesdropped on a private conversation.
The RCMP’s file on Tommy Douglas, shown after re-election in November, 1965, contains articles noting Douglas’s concern about rumours of RCMP surveillance of Canadians.
(Canadian Press)

Douglas, a trailblazing socialist committed to social reform, drew the interest of RCMP security officers through his longstanding links with left-wing causes, the burgeoning peace movement and assorted Communist party members.

In the late 1970s, as the veteran politician neared retirement, the Mounties recommended keeping his file open based on the notion “there is much we do not know about Douglas.”

The 1,142-page dossier, spanning nine volumes, was obtained by the Canadian Press from Library and Archives Canada under the Access to Information Act.

Personal files compiled by the RCMP’s security and intelligence branch can be released through the access law 20 years after a subject’s death. Douglas died of cancer at age 81 in February 1986.

Widely hailed as the father of medicare for championing universal health services, the influential Saskatchewan politician was voted the greatest Canadian of all time in a popular CBC contest two years ago.

Daughter Shirley married fellow actor Donald Sutherland. Their son, Kiefer Sutherland, stars in the hit television series 24.

A Baptist minister, Douglas entered politics upon seeing the toll the Great Depression took on families.
Attracted attention in 1939

It appears he first attracted the RCMP’s attention in February 1939 when, as a Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MP, Douglas urged a group of labourers in downtown Ottawa to push for legislation beneficial to the unemployed.

An RCMP constable quietly attended the session, filing a secret two-page account to superiors.

A few years later, Douglas became leader of Saskatchewan’s Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, soon heading up the first socialist government in North America.

As premier, he ushered in public auto insurance, guaranteed hospital care and a provincial bill of rights.
‘Setting people to spy on one another is not the way to protect freedom.’
— Tommy Douglas

The RCMP file reflects Douglas’s interest in anti-war causes, including opposition to nuclear weapons and criticism of UN policy on Korea.

There are also occasional references to allegations that the CCF harboured members with Communist ties.

Douglas was chosen leader of the federal New Democratic Party in 1961 and served for 10 years. The rise to national prominence only fuelled interest in his political associations.

In late 1964, the RCMP received a letter alleging that Douglas had once been an active member of the Communist party at the University of Chicago, where he had done postgraduate studies.

A top secret memo from a senior RCMP security officer to the force’s deputy commissioner of operations indicates there was no reliable information to substantiate the tip.

“We have never asked the FBI for information on the matter because of Douglas’ position as leader of a national political party.”

During a March 1965 rally on Parliament Hill, an RCMP constable “observed a meeting” between Douglas and missionary peace activist James Endicott.

A report notes that Endicott, after congratulating Douglas on his speech, mentioned he had recently been to Saigon, where war would soon boil over.

Douglas asked: “How are things down there?”

Endicott replied: “Terrible, just terrible.”

The secret report records their plans to have lunch the next week, duly noting later that no “information could be obtained” as to whether the meal took place.
Comments about Pearson

In May 1965, a confidential source provided information for an account of Douglas’s appearance at a Communist party meeting in Burnaby, B.C.

The NDP leader took aim at Liberal prime minister Lester Pearson for not opposing U.S. actions in southeast Asia.

“Douglas states that Australia has already ‘been taken in’ and is sending troops to Vietnam,” the memo reads. “He stated that he [Douglas] will fight with every drop of blood in his body against the Vietnam affair.”

The file contains articles noting Douglas’s concern about rumours of RCMP surveillance of Canadians, though there is no indication the politician suspected he was being watched.

“Setting people to spy on one another is not the way to protect freedom,” he wrote while NDP leader.

RCMP security and intelligence officers amassed files on 800,000 Canadians and actively monitored thousands of organizations, from church and women’s groups to media outlets and universities.
More than 650 secret dossiers in ‘VIP program’

Markings indicate Douglas’s file is one of more than 650 secret dossiers the RCMP kept on Canadian politicians and bureaucrats as part of a project known as the “VIP program.”

While many of these files were destroyed, some with historical significance have been retained by the Library and Archives.

…

Last Updated: Monday, December 18, 2006 | 9:39 AM ET The Canadian Press

Find this story at 18 December 2006

© The Canadian Press, 2006

Paul Scott, the late syndicated columnist, was so paranoid about the CIA wiretapping his Prince George’s County home in the 1960s that he’d make important calls from his neighbor’s house. His teenage son Jim Scott figured his dad was either a shrewd reporter or totally nuts.

Not until nearly 45 years later did the son learn that his father’s worries were justified. The insight came in 2007 when the CIA declassified a trove of documents popularly called “the family jewels.” The papers detailed the agency’s unlawful activities from long ago, including wiretapping the Scott home in District Heights. The operation even had a code name: “Project Mockingbird.”

Jim was floored: The CIA really did eavesdrop on Dad.

Now Jim, 64, a retired Navy public relations officer who lives in Anne Arundel County, is waging an operation of his own against the agency. For the past five years, he has sought to declassify and make public any documents Langley might still have on his father and why he was wiretapped.

So far, the CIA has released to Jim a handful of intriguing documents. But Jim has been trying to compel the agency to cough up more. A federal declassification review panel is reviewing Jim’s case and could decide as soon as this month whether to direct the CIA to release more Mockingbird documents.

“I don’t have any animosity for the CIA,” said Jim, whose father died at the age of 80 in 2001. “I respect what they do. But they make it extremely difficult for the average citizen to interact with them. It makes me wonder what they are still trying to hide about my father.”

Not eager to share

It’s not easy penetrating one of the world’s most secretive organizations.

Tourists can’t just show up at its famous headquarters, let alone wander into its museum or browse the gift shop that sells CIA T-shirts and tchotchkes. Even former spies-turned-memoirists need agency approval for their manuscripts before publication and often can’t reveal seemingly harmless or boring details about their careers.

For ordinary people — academics, journalists, relatives of former employees — extracting agency information can be tough. They can file Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requests or mandatory declassification review requests. But the CIA usually isn’t eager to part with much, said Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

“I have a number of requests with the CIA that are more than five years old,” said Aftergood, who has sued the agency a handful of times for documents.

“The message they’re sending is, ‘If you want our attention, sue us,’ ” he said, calling it “a time-consuming and resource-demanding effort.” He usually loses.

Todd Ebitz, an agency spokesman, said the agency received more than 5,400 Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requests, along with mandatory declassification review requests, in fiscal 2012 . The agency doesn’t keep track of how many of those requests come from ordinary citizens, rather than journalists, academics or nonprofit groups.

Since 1995, he said, the CIA has released more than 10 million pages of declassified material. The agency also has used its discretion to release more than 100,000 pages of CIA material, including documents from the family jewels. But just because documents are old doesn’t mean they can be made public.

“CIA information that is decades old may still be sensitive when it mentions methods, techniques or sources which, if they were revealed, could harm our nation’s security or place someone’s personal security at risk,” Ebitz said. “The agency works diligently to make public information no longer requiring protection, releasing what we can and withholding what we must in the interest of national security.”

The CIA declined to comment on the specifics of Jim Scott’s case. But Tom Blanton, director of the George Washington University-based National Security Archive, questioned the agency’s refusal to release the documents about Jim Scott’s father: “There’s nothing truly secret about the wiretapping of Paul Scott now.”

“What this is really about,” Blanton said, “is bureaucracy and power.”

High-level wiretaps

In June 2007, Jim read about the CIA’s decision to release the family jewels. The collection of long-secret documents revealed details about the agency’s activities from the 1960s and 1970s, including a failed assassination plan against Cuba’s Fidel Castro, a Watergate burglar’s search for an expert lock picker, and illegal wiretaps of reporters.

To Jim’s shock, two of the wiretapped journalists were his father, Paul, and his writing partner, Robert S. Allen, who died in 1981. The men once wrote a syndicated column, the “Allen-Scott Report,” that appeared in 300 newspapers. Their column often contained national security scoops, including exclusives about Soviet aid to Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis.

Jim called his mother about the wiretap revelations. She reminded him about the time he complained about hearing strangers’ voices on a phone call with a high school classmate.

“I had heard some clicking in the background,” Jim said, laughing. “I heard someone say, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just two kids talking about homework assignments.’ As a teenager, you kinda just blow that stuff off.”

Once the family jewels were posted online, “I couldn’t go to sleep that night, reading the documents,” Jim recalled. “What startled me was the level of seniority that approved this operation.”

The wiretap on his father was described in only three released pages, each stamped with the words “SECRET” and “EYES ONLY.” Every sentence seemed more tantalizing than the next.

Between March 12, 1963, and June 15, 1963, phone bugs were installed at the Allen and Scott homes and their Capitol Hill office. But this was no rogue operation: CIA Director John McCone approved the operation “under pressure,” the documents said, from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. And Kennedy planned it with Robert McNamara, the defense secretary and Vietnam War architect.

The wiretap identified many of the reporting team’s sources: a dozen senators; six congressmen; 11 congressional staffers; 16 “government employees,” including a staff member at the White House and some at the vice president’s office; and “other well-placed individuals,” the documents said.

The journalists actually got more classified information than they could use, the documents noted, and passed the leftovers along to rival reporters.

But several pages were fully or partly redacted. Jim felt teased. Why, he wondered, did the CIA keep those pages secret after so many years? Are the names of all their sources hidden behind the redactions?

“It felt like a half-written Vince Flynn or Michael Connelly novel,” Jim said. “I wondered how much my dad knew about being surveilled. What was going through his mind? He had to be fearful. It felt like this was a chapter in his life we knew little about, and the release of [more] documents could shed some light.”

So, in 2008, the son filed his first Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA.

Clues from the FBI

Twelve months later, the agency mailed Jim a packet of partially redacted memos about Paul. None touched on the 1963 Mockingbird wiretap, though there was an intriguing account of a visit his father made to South Africa in 1968 to interview a captured Russian spy.

“The CIA gave me stuff that I didn’t know even existed,” Jim said, “but I just wanted to know what articles triggered the wiretap.”

In early 2009, Jim requested the wiretap documents for a second time. “Isn’t it safe to assume that most, if not all, of the key players complicit in this operation are deceased?” he asked in a letter to the CIA.

That summer, the CIA rejected his appeal, ruling that the information still required secrecy.

Meanwhile, Jim had pursued a second route: the FBI.

To his surprise, the bureau was more than happy to play along. Throughout 2011, FBI documents arrived at Jim’s home in waves, packed with new revelations.

Jim learned, according to one FBI memo, that his dad truly alarmed the government at a Feb. 6, 1963, news conference in which he asked Defense Secretary McNamara several questions about Cuban weapons. Paul used precisely the same information in his questions that was contained in secret Navy documents. And the Navy, according to the bureau memos, wanted the FBI to find out who his source was.

But someone very senior at the bureau expressed reservations in a letter to Robert Kennedy that referred to his brother, President John F. Kennedy. Although the FBI official seemed alarmed by “Allen-Scott Report” pieces — published from December 1962 to February 1963 in, of all places, the now-defunct Northern Virginia Sun — he didn’t want the bureau involved.

[A] covert investigation will become known and I understood the President does not want it to become known. [I]t would be far more effective to have the Defense agencies interview people in their own agencies rather than an outside civilian agency do it because there is always a certain amount of resentment . . .

Very truly yours, JEH, John Edgar Hoover, Director

“I was elated when I read all this. These are some heavyweight people,” Jim said. “I figured that I am getting this from the FBI, and it’ll just be a matter of time before the CIA sheds some light as well.

Waiting for word on appeal

But Jim never gained any traction with the CIA.

…

By Ian Shapira, Published: March 3

Find this story at 3 March 2013

Related document

© The Washington Post Company

Former detective Christian Plowman writes book claiming that unit targeted low-level criminals rather than criminals at top of chain

Christian Plowman claims that he often found himself targeting crack addicts instead of dealers and spying on ordinary people. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA

Heroin and crack cocaine bought with taxpayers’ money was routinely given to drug dealers in return for information, a former Scotland Yard undercover officer has alleged.

Christian Plowman, 39, claims that officers from SO10, the elite covert operations unit of the Metropolitan police, would allow dealers to take amounts of class-A drugs as a form of bribe.

Although not illegal, the practice of officers handing over illicit drugs in return for leads is likely to reignite the debate over the ethics of undercover policing and bring fresh accusations of a lack of control over covert operatives.

“We were treading a line. Often we’d buy some drugs off somebody who would be a junkie and he would promise to take us directly to the dealer the next time, but in return for that he’d want some of the drugs he’d bought for us. We had to be careful that if we agreed to that, he took the drugs himself so he couldn’t say that we supplied him,” said Plowman.

But Plowman said they never sold drugs, unlike detective constable Nicholas McFadden of West Yorkshire police, who was jailed for 23 years last Thursday after stealing more than £1.2m-worth of drugs seized in police raids and selling them back onto the streets.

Speaking publicly for the first time about his experiences as a covert operative since leaving the Met in 2011, Plowman also accused the undercover unit of targeting “low-hanging fruit” instead of individuals at the top of the criminal chain. He said some covert operations became focused upon getting “heads on sticks”, which Plowman said meant “let’s bag as many as people as possible for whatever offence we can”.

As a result, the full-time undercover officer claims he often found himself targeting crack addicts instead of dealers and spying on ordinary people.

Plowman spent 16 years in the Met and was one of around 10 full-time covert operatives. He was a close friend of Mark Kennedy, 43, the undercover officer who had at least one sexual relationship with a woman while infiltrating eco-activists. Plowman has written a book about his experiences, Crossing the Line, which is published next month.

Although he praises his colleagues, the former officer describes the culture of SO10 as riven with machismo, to the extent that undercover officers who requested psychological help were seen as not fit for the job.

“You need a culture where you can go and see a shrink and you won’t be blacklisted, but there was a proper locker-room culture,” said Plowman, who now lives abroad and works as a security manager for a fashion firm. Unable to ask for support and struggling to balance his aliases with his own identity, Plowman admits he contemplated suicide.

He reveals that some former colleagues have threatened him since he left. “One of them said ‘next time you’re in London, I’m gonna headbutt you’, but who’d do that anyway? You’re a policeman for starters.”

Plowman’s last job was working at a north London pawnshop called TJ’s Trading Post that was set up by Scotland Yard to trade in stolen goods, but which he believes operated as a “honey trap” that lured people to commit crime. More than 100 people are believed to have been convicted, many for illegally trading their own passports and driving licences.

Plowman claims the store encouraged people in a poor area to commit offences by giving the impression that they could make easy money by trading ID documents. “They were not people whose arrest would make any visible impact on the community. If TJ’s had never opened, those people would not have been in prison for any offence,” he said.

…

The Met declined to comment.

Mark Townsend
The Observer, Saturday 6 April 2013 15.40 BST

Find this story at 6 April 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Dating drug dealers, harassing ex-boyfriends with naked pictures, and pointing guns at pet dogs: these were just a few of the offences committed recently by serving FBI agents, according to internal documents.
Disciplinary files from the Bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility record an extraordinary range of transgressions that reveal the chaotic personal lives of some of America’s top law enforcers.

One male agent was sacked after police were called to his mistress’s house following reports of domestic incident. When officers arrived they found the agent “drunk and uncooperative” and eventually had to physically subdue him and wrestle away his loaded gun.

A woman e-mailed a “nude photograph of herself to her ex-boyfriend’s wife” and then continued to harass the couple despite two warnings from senior officials. The Bureau concluded she was suffering from depression related to the break-up and allowed her to return to work after 10 days.
But the sexually explicit picture was only one of what FBI assistant director Candice Will described to CNN as a “rash of sexting cases”. The network was the first to obtain the logs.

Two other employees, whose genders were not specified, sent sexually explicit messages to fellow members of the Bureau, one a work Blackberry during office hours.

The second employee included a nude photograph which “created office gossip and negatively impacted office operations”.

…

By Raf Sanchez, Washington

4:06AM GMT 22 Feb 2013

Find this story at 22 February 2013

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

After agents arrest a drug cartel chieftain named Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela, he becomes one of the bureau’s most valuable sources of information, according to confidential interview reports.

WASHINGTON — Police and federal agents pulled the car over in a suburb north of Denver. An FBI agent showed his badge. The driver appeared not startled at all. “My friend,” he said, “I have been waiting for you.”

And with that, Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela stepped out of his white 2002 BMW X5 and into the arms of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Over the next several days at his ranch in Colorado and an FBI safe house in Albuquerque, the Mexican cartel chieftain — who had reputedly fed one of his victims to lions in Mexico — was transformed into one of the FBI’s top informants on the Southwest border.

Around a dining room table in August 2010, an FBI camera whirring above, the 34-year-old Miramontes-Varela confessed his leadership in the Juarez cartel, according to 75 pages of confidential FBI interview reports obtained by The Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.

He told about marijuana and cocaine routes to California, New York and the Great Lakes. He described the shooting deaths of 30 people at a horse track in Mexico, and a hidden mass grave with 20 bodies, including two U.S. residents.

He told them about his African lions, which he had acquired as circus cubs. The story about feeding one of his enemies to them was false, he claimed, but he said he had seen plenty of “violence and suffering.” He told agents he was desperate to trade his knowledge for government protection. He wanted a new life for himself and his wife and three daughters.

A week later Miramontes-Varela pleaded guilty in federal court in New Mexico to a minor felony as an illegal immigrant in possession of a firearm. Then he disappeared, almost certainly into the federal witness protection program.

FBI officials in Arizona and Washington declined to comment about Miramontes-Varela, citing bureau policy against discussing informants. But the documents tell plenty.

During the interview sessions, Miramontes-Varela “provided significant information about drug trafficking activity,” the documents said, leading to several successful unnamed law enforcement operations in the U.S. and Mexico.

***

After Miramontes-Varela was stopped in Brighton, Colo., agents took him back to his ranch. They advised him and his wife, Mari, that he was “the subject of an FBI investigation for his involvement in drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, money laundering and the interstate transportation of stolen property.”

In Spanish, they read him his Miranda rights. He called an attorney; they spoke quietly in Spanish. Miramontes-Varela hung up and turned to the agents. “Yes,” he said. “He told me to do as much as I can for you.”

Miramontes-Varela signed the Miranda waiver and looked up at the agents. He asked, “Where do you want to start?”

First, they said, any guns?

Miramontes-Varela mentioned a black 9-millimeter semiautomatic Glock pistol he said he bought after being shot at in El Paso. The agents asked to see it. “Yes, yes, no problem,” he said. He walked to a floor safe in a far corner of the living room, unlocked it and handed the weapon over.

Agents drove the couple to the FBI safe house in Albuquerque. Inside, they pointed to two cameras. One was in the master bedroom, where Miramontes-Varela and his wife would stay. Agents showed that that it was unplugged and that they had covered it with a white plastic bag. “Very nice,” Miramontes-Varela said.

Miramontes-Varela talked to them around the dining room table. That is where the other camera was. It stayed on.

***

His story poured out. He was born the third of 10 children in Terrero, Mexico, and grew up in Namiquipa, northern Mexico. He married when he was 18, his bride 15. They sneaked though Nogales, Ariz., coming to the U.S., he said, “to make money.”

They settled in Denver. Miramontes-Varela installed drywall. But in the late 1990s a brother, Yovany, lost an arm in a tractor mishap, and Miramontes-Varela returned home. He grew apples and traded in cattle.

In early 2002, he said, the Juarez cartel came to Namiquipa. Pedro Sanchez, known as El Tigre, controlled things. He offered Miramontes-Varela a job collecting a monthly $35,000 “tax” from marijuana growers.

Every 15 days, growers carted 20 tons to a local warehouse. It was shipped north through El Paso, the proceeds funneled back to the cartel and the growers.

One day the military arrived and gunfire ensued. “The mayor and town treasurer were killed,” Miramontes-Varela said. Later, El Tigre was arrested.

In 2008, Miramontes-Varela said, he fled with his family to El Paso. When he failed to return, the cartel burned his ranch and stole his cattle, all 120 cows. He was done with the violence, he said.

***

That part, according to the FBI, was not true. Miramontes-Varela shuffled between ranches in New Mexico and Colorado, they said, often in an armored car with bodyguards, and set up his own drug- and gun-smuggling operation.

When a courier was arrested with 18 kilos of cocaine, Miramontes-Varela offered the man’s family the choice of one of his 16 homes in Mexico, including his “big house,” according to telephone wiretaps outlined in the documents.

In March 2010, the FBI listed him as head of the “Miramontes-Varela Drug Trafficking Organization,” tied to the Juarez, Sinaloa and Los Zetas cartels. From two confidential sources and two wiretaps, agents learned that his organization had stolen tractors in the U.S. and driven them to Mexico as payment for lost loads. One debt alone reached $670,000. They learned that one of Miramontes-Varela’s bosses in Mexico, “Temoc,” was tortured and killed by the Sinaloans.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also wanted him arrested. It had tracked $250,000 in illegal gun purchases to Miramontes-Varela and his brother through its ill-fated Fast and Furious gun-smuggling surveillance operation in Arizona.

FBI agents rigged a 24-hour pole camera outside his ranch near Santa Teresa, N.M. But Miramontes-Varela figured it out. Five of his men in two vehicles followed a surveillance agent for 90 minutes, then slashed his tire.

…

richard.serrano@latimes.com

By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times

8:12 PM PDT, April 21, 2012Advertisement

Find this story at 21 April 2012

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times