The Colonels Corner Mafia, CIA&Bush Part 5

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Transcript

0:00 Okay, we're going to get started. Let me go live over here on Rumble. So I did a discussion with three other people earlier today at noon. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I just reposted it. Big brain people, not me, but they were. And I really, really enjoyed the conversation.

0:37 Hopefully you guys will get a chance to watch it. I'm also going to plug the morning daily show with CanCon and Alpha. I think you guys would get a big kick out of it. And I'd like to know your feedback. I'm going to repost it when we get done with space. I just finished listening to it. Oh my gosh, so much crap going on.

1:09 Okay, so we're going to get started. The name of this chapter is Gain Land Savings and the CIA and James Baker. So I just want to put this in perspective before we get started. Many of you guys have heard of the Carlyle Group. We've talked about them throughout this journey. James Baker and George H.W. Bush was part of

1:35 the Carlyle Group going overseas to get investors for it. So I just want you to keep that in the back of your mind as we go through this information. And the Carlyle Group, for those of you who don't know, was a private equity group that got together and basically bought stock in all of the military industrial complexes. And after they had acquired big stakes in all of them, they brought in the corrupt.

2:04 not the MBS part, but the corrupt Saudi government in there as an investor. And so as all of our aid is going to Saudi Arabia to buy weapon systems from the military industrial complex, they were actually being paid dividends for that, which of course then we use everywhere. So little suspect there. So this chapter starts off with an article.

2:35 Written on Mainland. Which is the name of a bank. By the Houston Post. In June of 1987. It was under. Say. And Bruton. The guy that authored this book. It dealt with Mainland's purchase. Of a promissory note. From Pulver's group. We talked about them yesterday. But did not determine. The most important facts. Namely.

3:07 how much Mainland paid for the notes and thus how much it lost on them. No one would say. Not the people who worked at Mainland, not Pulver and his associates, not the FBI or the U.S. attorney. But it was obvious that Mainland and ultimately the taxpayers ended up losing tens of millions of dollars on the deal. Several of the notes went into default just months after Mainland had bought them.

3:38 kind of like a controlled demolition. And then before Mainland could foreclose on them, the owners put their companies into bankruptcy, stopping any foreclosure action. In some instances, Mainland's federal receiver had to pay millions of dollars just to keep the first mortgage current so that the receiver would not lose its second mortgage investment. And in one transaction,

4:08 Found in a Houston bankruptcy court proceeding, the federal receiver for the failed mainland, in other words, us, sold $21 million of the notes for less than $400,000. Less than half a million for $21 million? Hill had tried to convince us that the Pulver deals hadn't contributed to mainland's failure.

4:39 which he claimed had resulted from Mainland's home mortgage loans, which are the most secure loans that a bank can issue. In fact, it was the opposite. Since 1983, Mainland had issued very few home mortgages because that wasn't its purpose. Instead, the SNL had concentrated on loans on commercial property and vacant land.

5:12 Most of the S&Ls in the country that stuck with the traditional home mortgages all survived. So this is money laundering 101. So the investigators, reporters, turned to find out who Pulver and his group were and who their limited partners were. Perhaps that would shed some light on what happened.

5:44 The apartment syndicators from New York consisted of four principals, Pulver, Anthony Pidoni, Stuart Goldman, and Jerome Gladstein, all from New York City. In the late 1960s, Pulver, Pidoni, and Gladstein had been insurance salesmen at John Hancock, together with their early partner, Leonard Malin.

6:13 They formed a partnership that started out selling computer services to physicians. Then Malin dropped out and Goldman, an attorney, joined up several years later. They began selling limited partnerships in precious metal, mines, oil, gas ventures, apartment complexes all over the United States. Malin said most of the money that group used in order to start

6:41 startup came from him. He said he didn't know where the capital came from after he dropped out, but speculated that it came from Padone. Quote, someone told me that Padone had some independent backers. They kept saying that Padone knew somebody in the oil business in Texas, but no one could ever pin it down. Padone's former wife, Bonnie, said anyone who believes Padone had oil investments in Texas is barking up the wrong tree.

7:13 Padone himself had grown up around horse tracks, where his father worked as an agent for jockeys. Later, Padone became a prominent investor in breeding horses. Hover, considered to be the brains of the outfit, grew up in a Brooklyn neighborhood. When he was working for John Hancock, he lived in a very small house in a blue-collar town area of Long Island.

7:47 By the end of 1974, even before the group's limited partnership business had really cranked up, Palmer purchased a mansion on three-acre lot in a wealthy suburb of Long Island called Kingsport. Three years after that, Pidoni bought a mansion in Connecticut. Most of their limited partners, and thus the ones who had received a large chunk of Mainland's money, were leading businessmen and lawyers in New York City.

8:16 including a former U.S. Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, several senior partners with a New York law firm that we all recognize, Sullivan and Cromwell, and executives with IBM and GTE. Other investors were Cesar Kimmel, an ex-Warner Communications corporate officer and former executive of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

8:50 Charles Steen, who was attempting to put a casino in Atlantic City before the FBI bribery investigation, cast a shadow on it. Jim Foxworth, an investment advisor in Connecticut, who recommended that his clients buy into the limited partnerships, told Houston Post that he was surprised that Mainland purchased their promissory notes because he said the project was about to go into foreclosure.

9:21 Again, purposeful money laundering. While trying to determine why Mainland made such a large, obviously bad purchase from the Pulver Group, the investigative reporters got a break. An investigator with Congress General Accounting Office, who was interested in organized crime and knew that the Houston Post had written a story on Mainland, discovered an indictment in Brooklyn that mentioned Mainland savings.

9:51 The Justice Department Organized Crime Strike Force in Brooklyn had gotten a federal grand jury there to indict money brokers Mario Renda and Martin Swimmer for racketeering and fraud in connection with a deposit of union pension funds in financial institutions all throughout the country. One of them was mainland savings.

10:19 knew that defrauding a savings and loan before 1980 was like stealing a car that didn't have an engine. A lot of problem and not worth the effort. But beginning in 1980, Congress and then the Reagan administration made it a whole lot easier to open up the vaults of savings and loans. The process of opening those vaults became known as deregulation. Not exactly the right word. Deregulation.

10:50 loosened the restrictions on the kind of loans and investments savings and loan could make. While it lifted the ceiling on the interest rates, savings and load could pay on their deposits, which were used for the loans and investments. This meant that savings and loan could pay just about anything they needed to get money and do just about anything they wanted with it afterwards. This in combination with the federal deposit insurance in which the federal government

11:20 meaning you and I, pay the losses to depositors on loan and investments that go bad. If deregulation was the engine that made the car easy and worthwhile to steal, then the gasoline was the brokered deposits, which I explained to you yesterday. And I'll just basically say it again. Brokered deposits is when you make a deposit into a savings and loan, and then you get to decide who that money can be lent out to.

11:50 It's basically money laundering made official policy. Mario Renda was the king of broker deposits and linked financing. Beginning on a shoestring in 1980, by 1983, Renda and his company, First United Fund of Garden City, Long Island, were pumping $5 billion a year into savings and loan across the country.

12:20 Renda brokered deposits into some 130 savings and loan, according to author Stephen Pizzo. Every one of them later failed. Mainland was the name in Renda's indictment as one of the 18 savings and loan nationwide and only one of two in Texas, into which Renda and Swimmer

12:49 brokered union funds, and then skimmed the interest off into secret accounts. Renda had a motley crew around him. One of his sidekicks was Salvador Piga, P-I-G-A. He was a mob enforcer and associate to a crime family. His rap sheet included grand larceny, assault, robbery, burglary, first degree assault, carrying a dangerous weapon,

13:20 and criminal possession of stolen property. Renda's partner, Swimmer, whom Renda later turned state's evidence against after they were indicted together, was accused of laundering money for members of the Luishi family and the mobster Morris Schenker, attorney for Jimmy Hoffa, and other associate mafia families that were located in St. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, appear.

13:53 routinely in Renda's business diary. Also, according to Lawrence Arizo, an associate of the Colombo Mafia family, Renda controlled a lot of money being loaned for the benefit of Paul Castellano, the boss later murdered of the Gambino Mafia family. And remember that the Mafia was the initial network for running drugs.

14:26 for the CIA. In 1987, Renda was convicted in Florida with Michael Hellerman, a former Wall Street broker, doing stock scams for the mafia. He too turned state's evidence against several mafia members, got a new last name, and wrote a book called Wall Street Swindler. Bruce Mafio

14:55 A former Brooklyn organized crime strike force attorney who prosecuted Renda and Swimmer said that the two brokered into Mainland several million dollars of pension funds from the sheet metal workers local in New York and a Teamsters local in New York. Renda's deposits were also always linked to loans, according to Mafio.

15:25 That led the investigative reporters to wonder what loans at Mainland had been linked to Renda's total deposits there, which were estimated at that time to be $100 million. The indictment of Renda and Swimmer lists seven wire transfers of interest earned from Mainland to the money broker's account, beginning in 82 and continuing to 84.

15:54 The last date was around the time that Mainland began negotiating with the New York apartment syndicators to buy the promissory notes. Were the payments to Pulver's group linked to that purchase? The reporters went to talk to Pulver. He lived in a three-level stone shingle mansion in a secluded area of Kings Point, New York, an exclusive bedroom community of the North Shore of Long Island.

16:26 Pulver's house sat on several acres with a pond, a glass-domed indoor swimming pool surrounded by hedges so you can't see it from the street. There was a no trespassing sign out by the road. The mailbox still had the name of the previous owner who hadn't lived there for 13 years. When the reporters tried to talk to Pulver, who answered the door in his bare feet,

16:56 He gave them 10 seconds to get off his property. They had initially been looking for connections between Renda and Pidoni or Pulver. In particular, whether Renda's deposit at Mainland were linked to the Pulver's group deals with Mainland. When asked by one of the investigative reporters if Pidoni was connected to the Renda company, Bruce Mappio had this reply. No comment.

17:27 Nice try. However, a document search in the New York area did not turn up any direct connection between the men. One of the things visitors to Mario Renda's office in Garden City, Long Island noticed was that he had elevated his desk onto a platform. So everybody that came in had to look up to him. One of the things visitors to Pulver's noticed in Houston is that he had the same elevated desk.

17:56 So several days after trying to talk to Pulver, we decided to find Martin Swimmer and talk to him. Swimmer was a PhD professor and author who lived in Kings Point too. When they were driving down the road where Swimmer lived, a secluded cul-de-sac, we noticed that you could see Pulver's house from his backyard. He and Swimmer were close neighbors in a very exclusive area.

18:26 and had been so for at least 11 years. When asked about Pulver and mainland savings, Swimmer responded, who? Then when asked about Renda's firm, First United, he said, you'll have to talk to them. I'm not interested in talking and slammed the door. So Renda and Swimmer brokered tens of millions of dollars in deposits into mainland savings, a medium-sized savings and loan in Houston.

18:57 In a scheme where it is known that loans are linked to deposits, and then shortly thereafter, Swimmer's King Point neighbor, Pulver, sells practically worthless property to Mainland for tens of millions of dollars. Meaning he potentially was getting his own money back that had been deposited there. When told of this, Mafia, Mafio, the Brooklyn organized...

19:23 crime strike force prosecutor said, quote, the government appreciates the Houston Post information, unquote. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Smith, in charge of the fraud division in Houston, also said sometimes reporters' investigations can lead to other investigations and tell investigators where to look. He then told the investigative reporters they had hit a home run.

19:50 Mafia later said that two IRS criminal investigators looked into the matter but couldn't find a money trail between Pulver and Swimmer. Of course, if Pulver and Swimmer were both working for a higher authority, then there wouldn't be any such money trail. In that case, the money trail would lead from the two men ultimately to the same place. Was that the Mafia?

20:17 The connections of Renner and Swimmer to the mafia were known. What about the Pulver group, aside from just rumors? Pulver and his group first came to Texas in 1973, but they started out in Corpus Christi, not Houston. They bought one apartment complex in Corpus Christi and then turned to investing in oil and gas leases. These leases were apparently no good.

20:46 And in 1978, they unloaded their investments and leases to a guy by the name of Seymour Lazar, L-A-Z-A-R, who lived in California. The investigative reporters couldn't find him or any information about him. But three years later, when he was researching Castle Bank and Trust, Paul Helliwell's CIA fake bank that was used by the mob and the CIA to hide and launder money,

21:18 One of the authors researching Castle had, at that time, they were researching it because one of the people involved in the $200 million savings and loan deal in Florida had been the bank's in-house counsel, along with Paul Helliwell himself. And there, in a list of the privileged few with accounts at Castle Bank, was Seymour Lazar.

21:48 What? Seymour Lazar was banking at Castle Bank? Lazar, who was an investor and an attorney in Palm Springs, California, had gotten in trouble with the SEC in 1973 during an attempted takeover of Armor Corporation by General Host. One of Lazar's partners in this enterprise was a guy by the name of Richard Pissell.

22:18 He was a close associate, you guys aren't gonna believe this, of Robert Vesco. You guys remember Robert Vesco? We talked about this in the first year. He's a shyster and intimately involved in the CIA. We saw him, he's the guy that was hanging out in Costa Rica too, hiding from the US authorities. He was also,

22:53 involved in Resorts International, which was a mafia casino with ties to Meyer Lansky. Lazar had also purchased shares from Resort International predecessor company, Mary Carter Paints, which was a CIA front. What's more, Lazar was an associate of the mutual fund swindler, Bernie Kornfield, and a friend of Billy.

23:24 Mellon Hitchcock. You know, the Hitchcock that sold all of the LSD to the CIA. He was the grandson of Gulf Oil and nephew of Andrew Mellon, who bounced back and forth between high finance and the LSD market. Hitchcock had become a patron of Timothy Leary.

23:53 who also owned stock in Resorts International and had accounts at Castle Bank too. Lasser was called the head of the California LSD market. Finally, Lasser had worked for Louis Chesler. Uncle Lou is what he was referred to. He was one of the biggest mobsters around. He topped the scale at 300 pounds. Chesler helped Lansky.

24:24 start up the gambling in the Bahamas after the mob was kicked out of Cuba. Another of Chesler's casino partners was Wallace Groves, a mobster, convicted felon, and Lansky associate who had been on the CIA's payroll from 1965 to 1972. He was also in the directory at Castle Bank. Another interesting aspect of the Pulver Group was that almost all of their financial transactions that they had in Houston

24:58 were with Mainland, but the few that weren't were also significant. After Raymond Hill quit as chairman of Mainland in October 1985, Pulver's group immediately turned to Sandia Federal Savings Loan in Albuquerque to finance their next big Houston deal. Now, why would you go to Albuquerque?

25:27 to finance Houston deals. Sandia paid off a $9 million promissory note owed to the Pulver Group by another New York investment outfit, an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald on a downtown Houston office building. This other New York group then defaulted on the loan from Sandia, which later failed, to the tune of $850 million. So in essence, the deal,

25:58 was a $9 million payment from the American taxpayers to the Pulver Group. Sandia was part of a daisy chain of savings and loans centered in Texas that made loans to and had financial affiliations with Mafia and CIA. Another Pulver Group deal in Houston that cost American $35 million was a $47 million loan that the group got on.

26:30 Colonial House Apartments, which was a huge apartment complex in Southwest Houston for swinging singles. The apartment project was notorious in Houston. It was on television commercials all the time. The mortgage on Colonial House was one of the few that Pulver's group didn't sell to Mainland. The $47 million loan came from a Washington, D.C. company called DRG.

27:06 But the loan was guaranteed by HUD. The money was supposed to be for renovation of an apartment complex, but government investigators said less than $10 million was used for that. And the Pulver Group walked away with the other $18 million. DRG and Colonial House loans are still under civil and criminal investigation by HUD and the FBI when the author wrote this book.

27:35 Also entered into some financial transactions in negotiations with the Dallas-based Southmark. Remember, that's the real estate investment firm. And a Houston Savings and Loan subsidiary called San Joaquino Savings. As noted, Southmark was used as a mob dumping ground to buy investments of mobsters.

28:06 such as Morris Schenker and Herman Beebe, when they got into trouble. DRG also lent, the Washington entity, lent $15 million on a piece of vacant land in Houston that was purchased by several of the principal characters, including Michener's former son-in-law. Palmer and his partners also served as middlemen in several Houston land deals between

28:37 two associates of Walter Michener. And at least a couple of transactions, Pulver and his partners bought a piece of land from Joe McDermott, a former employee and partner of Michener. And a little while later, they'd turn around and sell it to Jerry Moore, the strip shopping center king and supposedly the richest man in Houston. It's not clear why they were doing this.

29:06 After the investigative reporters had nailed down Renda's and Shimmer's connection to the mafia, we started looking for other mob ties to mainland savings. The next one we found was Leonard Capaldi, C-A-P-A-L-D-I. He's from Detroit, but he had a house in Houston. He is an associate of the Detroit mafia capo, Tony Kako.

29:38 T-O-C-C-O, whose brother Jack is the boss of the Detroit Mafia, according to the Justice Department. A private investigator close to the FBI, along with a former prosecutor in the Justice Department's Organized Crime Task Force, an FBI agent, and a journalist, an expert on the Detroit Mafia, all confirmed that Capaldi's relationship to Tony

30:09 The Organized Crime Task Force in Houston had a thick file on Capaldi. One of the authorities said that, this is a quote, Lenny is as close as you can get without being blood to the mafia. In 1988, several years before he died of a heart attack, Brian Flanagan told the reporters.

30:41 that Capaldi and Tony Kako were good friends, traveling companions. Capaldi, who had never been convicted of a crime, had a reputation as being suave, jet-setter, traveling frequently between Florida, Las Vegas, and Europe. The document filed in a state district court case in Houston reports that he owns homes in Houston, Detroit, and Florida, as well as several in Europe.

31:09 Capaldi is alleged by law enforcement sources to be a major representative of Houston interest between mob families. He had investments in Houston in the construction business, restaurants, and real estate development. In other words, he was one of their money launderers. McComb Concrete.

31:42 is a Detroit construction company owned by Capaldi's father. He built one of the runways at Houston International Airport in the 70s. After his father died, Capaldi moved the company from Michigan to Houston and changed his name to McComb Contracting Corporation. McComb, for those of you who don't know, is a suburb of Detroit. McComb Contracting went bankrupt in Houston in 1979.

32:14 leaving 19 government construction and paving jobs totaling $99 million unfinished. McComb's bonding company, which had to take over those jobs, paid $35 million to finish the work. These jobs included contracts with the federal government, Harris County, and the city of Houston. More than 50 lawsuits in federal, state, and county.

32:42 courts in Houston was filed against Capaldi and his companies. Most of these suits allege unpaid debts and many of them had monetary judgments recorded. Court documents showed Capaldi rarely appeared for any of the scheduled depositions. One plaintiff in the lawsuit against Capaldi even alleged that he had pulled a gun on him in another dispute. On occasion, process servers

33:12 have found it difficult to even locate him. One stated that he was unable to serve him with legal papers because he had armed guards at his residence. Capaldi leased a house from an oil heiress by the name of Camilia Blaffer, B-L-A-F-F-E-R, for $4,000 a month. Capaldi moved into this house after he purchased a mansion from

33:44 the ex-wife of a noted Houston developer, Kenneth Switzner, and then defaulted on that home loan. Switzner, who has allegedly associated with New Orleans mobsters, said he didn't even know him, but that he and his ex-wife lost a million dollars on the home sale to him. The last address known on Capaldi was right around the corner from Mitchner's mansion.

34:15 In July of 1983, one of Capaldi's Houston real estate development companies, Sunbelt Properties, purchased 491 acres south of Houston from a pandemonium corporation. The name of that corporation was Corporation Financiere Europa America. The purchase was financed with a $4 million loan from Mainland.

34:44 Then in December 84, Capaldi bought himself a 400-acre land from his own company, Sunbelt Properties. Mainland lent him $3.5 million for the purchase. Six months later, Mainland subsidiary bought the property from Capaldi for $4.7 million. The money coming from Mainland, again,

35:14 That's money laundering. You don't make $1.2 million profit on a piece of land that doesn't have anything on it if you're not money laundering. But in a rare case in which Mainland was not left holding a bag, Hill Financial Savings in Red Hill, Pennsylvania, bailed Mainland out of this deal. Hill took over the financing.

35:47 with a $6 million loan. It was only $3 million a little bit ago. In fact, Hill Financial made several loans to Capaldi on land in North Harris County and land in the Dallas area. Hill Financial will reappear many times because they were also involved in a corrupt land deal in Florida with the DuPont family.

36:13 At one time, Hill Financial was trying to arrange for the purchase of some of the Capaldi land by Mike Adkinson, the percher of the Florida land owned by the DuPonts under their company called St. Joe Paper Company. One of Capaldi's foremen with McComb contracting was a man named Charles McGuire. McGuire would later gain fame in Houston as a transvestite.

36:40 After he came out of the closet, McGuire ran for city council and was defeated because back then that wasn't an asset. Then in 1991, he traveled to Europe to undergo a sex change operation and came back to Houston as Catherine McGuire. What? I told you this book has it all. In the early and mid-1980s, McGuire was a big investor.

37:10 at more than $1 million in oil and gas limited partnerships with Houston con man, Ed Baker. In one of the most celebrated murder mysteries in Houston, Baker was allegedly torched to death in his late model Jaguar in a field west of Houston in 1985. His widow claimed that the mob had done it to him, allegedly because he had lost a lot of their money.

37:41 Others believe he faked his death and fled the country. The Houston Post found that Florida mob associate Malvin Malnick, the protege of Meyer Lansky, had invested some money with Baker, but it turned out to be not a lot of money, and one of Baker's accountants claimed that Baker had gotten Malnick more than a million dollars in tax write-offs. Some investigators

38:10 theorized that the mob wouldn't whack anyone over a small loan. Others said they might do it just to make a point. A partner and financial backer of Baker was Houston real estate investor Jack Modesset. Modesset's company had owned land in West Texas, on which part of the landing strip near Big Bend National Park was used by the CIA.

38:41 This landing strip will be discussed later on when we talk about Michener's CIA ties. Medesit also did business with Howard Pulver's group, including promissory notes that were later sold to Mainland. Michener's allied bank lent money to Baker to buy an office building and also lent money to some of Baker's limited partners, including a mysterious Paris, France.

39:11 company called Saudi European. This company had connections to Charles Keating and Lincoln Savings, which also went under. So Baker's murder was never solved. He had a lot of shady people around him. Mainland's business was not all just fun and games with the mafia. They had other clientele.

39:42 In August of 1985, when Mainland handed at least $12 million in cash to Aiden Khashoggi, the infamous arms dealer and founder of the Safari Club, just a week before Khashoggi paid over the initial $1 million of $5 million to, I don't know how you say, Gabbana for, to start the secret.

40:13 Iranian arms deal that became part of Iran-Contra. So here we have mainland giving $12 million in cash to an arms dealer a week before the Iranian missile deal. So tell me that the savings and loan is not involved in Iran-Contra, CIA, and mafia. You can't.

40:47 There's direct connections. Khashoggi first appeared in Houston in 1974 when an American company controlled by him and his two brothers bought 22 acres of vacant land in West Houston, southwest of the Galleria Shopping Center. Khashoggi purchased the land for a little more than $5 million from a Dallas financial conglomerate called Lomas and Nettleton. That is controlled.

41:18 by a wealthy Democrat fundraiser by the name of Jess Hay. They had earlier foreclosed on the property from its owner, John Jamail, for defaulting on his loan. Lomas and Nettleton was very close to M Bank. Just the letter, there's not a space, M Bank. That was the bank that...

41:45 financed many of Herman Beebe's deals, The Mobster. The two companies shared several directors. In fact, the original loan to John Jamel was from the Bank of Southwest, which would become InBank. Khashoggi had a very grandiose expensive plans for the Galleria track. There was going to be a $300 million development.

42:17 with a 40-story hotel and with 10 or more office buildings and retail stores. But nothing happened for several years until 1979 when Dallas oilman Clint Murchison Jr. joined up with Khashoggi to revive the development. They borrowed $15 million from Texas Commerce Bank and brought in a man by the name of Richard Knight to head the project.

42:45 Knight would later be the beneficiary of Michener and President Bush's buddy, a county judge by the name John Lindsay, in a contract for a new jail. Grand announcements were placed in the newspaper, but nothing happened. It appeared that Khashoggi had pocketed the $10 million of the Texas Commerce Bank's loan.

43:15 In 1982, Merchantson had dropped out and Khashoggi was looking to sell the land. Three years later, there was no takers. The real estate market was tanking in Houston. In January of 1985, Khashoggi joined up with San Antonio developer John Roberts to buy a big piece of property in Aspen, Colorado. That was planned to have a large hotel development on it too. Roberts controlled commerce savings.

43:45 and was an associate of several savings and loan crooks, including Jarrett Woods and Ed McBurney. Khashoggi and Roberts borrowed another $44 million from Commerce Savings to buy the Aspen property. Khashoggi then lent Roberts $14 million for his part of the investment. This money came from San Joaquin Savings, where Chicago mobbed was in control of the lending. Through that controlled.

44:14 deposit program. This placed a second mortgage on Khashoggi's Galleria track that was basically not worth a whole lot because he had been trying to sell it for years and couldn't. By the middle of 1985, the wheels were starting to come off Khashoggi's American Ventures. The Aspen deal was not working out. He had $30 million in debt against the Galleria track of property. Then he got in touch with Mainland Savings.

44:51 Khashoggi also had another connection to Mainland through money broker Mario Renda. He used to be a partner with Khashoggi, the guy from New York. Mainland proposed to buy the Galleria track for $68 million. The bulk of the money would come from a $46 million loan from Lamar Savings in Austin. Mainland lent out the other $22 million.

45:20 The $30 million in prior loans from the Texas Commercial Bank and San Joaquin would be paid off. Khashoggi would buy $10 million in preferred stock at Mainland and use $12 million as a down payment to buy foreclosed loans and real estate from Mainland. That's referred to in financial terms as cash for trash. But it boosted its capital and kept regulators at bay.

45:52 That left $16 million for Khashoggi. Mainland was in a big hurry to close the deal before the end of the second quarter, which was the end of the fiscal year, so that its books would look fine to examiners. It went ahead with the purchase of the land to Khashoggi from Shikogi on June 30th, even though the loans were not funded until August 1st. Then,

46:21 Mainland officials found out they had a big problem. They couldn't get an appraisal for the Galleria track to come anywhere near $68 million because it wasn't worth that. Incredibly, Mainland did not get an appraisal until September 11th, and it reflected a value of $55 million. The appraisal itself was a joke. It was only two pages long and had no comps on the appraisal, which is ridiculous.

46:53 meaning it was a fraud. At the same time, the county tax appraiser had it valued at $41 million. So Mainland had to lower the sales price of the track. It dropped it to $58 million, which was still $3 million more than the appraisal. But now it didn't save the $10 million for Khashoggi to use to buy the preferred stock, which left it holding the bag.

47:23 Mainland officials had to figure out some other way to get Khashoggi $10 million. So they bought John Roberts $14 million note to Khashoggi, which was a second mortgage on his Aspen Hotel property that was going nowhere. The hotel track was later appraised at $38 million, but the deal that they ended up making was for $44 million. So you can see the controlled demolition.

47:54 Khashoggi had been buying up tracts of land next to the Galleria property that he owned the big lot next to. He had funded this through a $5 million loan from Summit Savings in Dallas. Who's loaning this man all this money? He's a notorious weapons trafficker. Okay.

48:20 On August 1st, closing of all the loans, Mainland issued Khashoggi two $10 million lines of credit to use to develop the tracks. And finally, on the same day, Mainland signed a $5 million letter of credit to Khashoggi himself. The last letter of credit is very curious. It provided that it could only be drawn on during the first 12 days of November.

48:48 Ostensibly, the letter was in exchange for 20% of the profits of a development track next to the Galleria property. This was obviously something just trumped up at the last minute. There were some internal Khashoggi company documents that indicated that the letter may have been a guarantee to Khashoggi that he was going to get paid for something that he did, not necessarily in this business transaction. But the $5 million...

49:19 letter of credit does have all the earmarks of a guarantee. And according to an investigation by a Houston law firm, quote, they conspired to conceal the issuance of the letter of credit from the board of directors of Mainland, unquote. So what was that money for? Well, weirdly enough, the 5 million figure equals exactly the $5 million that Khashoggi paid to Gorbana for.

49:51 in August and September of 85, for the Iran missile payments. Khashoggi had to worry about getting his $5 million from the Iranians, but there is no indication of any of the Iran-Contra documents or reports that he ever complained about it. However, in 86, there was a big scandal because Khashoggi and his Canadian partners hadn't got paid back for a $10 million deal.

50:24 Khashoggi sent his lawyer, Ray Fermart, to see William Casey at the CIA. Now, why would you do that unless you are the money man and weapons man for Iran? Because he was. The FBI was also curious about this letter of credit. An internal memo dated April 9th, 1986 from Emmanuel Floor.

50:54 one of Khashoggi's top lieutenants, to two other Khashoggi employees was titled, quote, FBI investigation mainland letter of credit, unquote. Floor tells the two employees that he spent an hour that day with two FBI agents in Salt Lake City where Khashoggi's American companies were headquartered. The memo went on, quote, the Salt Lake City FBI agents have

51:24 been asked by the Houston FBI office to ask questions regarding the mainland letter of credit. They were particularly interested in negotiations relating to the letter of credit. They specifically wanted to know who presented the letter of credit to AK Houston Properties, which was Khashoggi's company, and who was involved and were we present when the letter of credit was signed.

51:50 I indicated to them that our discussion through late July did not involve the letter of credit and that the letter of credit developed in late July in Houston. I have given both of them to Riggs, which is one of Khashoggi's employees, name as being the triad, which was Khashoggi's umbrella American company, to talk to about the letter of credit. They were extremely interested in the overall transaction.

52:23 but the focus seemed to be on that letter of credit. I explained to them that under our original transaction, Mainland was to find a buyer for the preferred stock and or a lender, and that when the transaction was modified in late July, the letter of credit was developed as a way to back up Mainland's performance. I wanted you both to be advised of this information. This is my story. I want you guys to know what my story is.

52:52 So several things about the memo. First, Floor is obviously trying to coach them into what to say to the FBI. Second, why would the FBI mostly be interested in a $5 million credit letter in a $72 million transaction that ended up costing us $50 million during the default? The date of the memo, April 9th, 1986, which is five days after Mainland.

53:22 was closed down by the feds. There is no way that such a transaction could have been discovered and investigated in that short of a time. The FBI had to have been working on this for a long time. Why? It is known that the FBI knew about and was investigating the first arms shipment to Iran in August and September of 1985. Perhaps that was the focus of the investigation.

53:52 Or they could have just been following up on criminal referrals made to them by examiners at Mainland. But it's more likely they were focusing on the Iran deal. Khashoggi himself in a press conference in Houston in the summer of 1990 denied that the money for the Iranian arms deal came from Mainland savings. He said the money had came from overseas funds. How many nanoseconds would it take to wire money from Mainland?

54:26 or any other American financial to anywhere else in the world. And in one sense, it can be said that at least some of Mainland's money, and thus the taxpayers' money, was used in the first Iranian arms for hostage deal. Since Mainland's money from the Galleria deal went into Khashoggi's big pot, it became basically indistinguishable from the rest of the money. So when Khashoggi pulled out $5 million for Gurbanov,

54:55 You can guarantee part of it was our money. Mainland, which had taken a $16 million participation in Lamar loan and guaranteed the rest, eventually took the whole loan over. So Mainland ended up with an investment in the entire deal of worth more than $70 million. The track was later sold for $14 million.

55:24 meaning it cost us a grand total of $50 million. In the Houston press conference in the summer of 1990, in which Khashoggi denied the arms for hostage money came from mainland, the actual press conference was called to announce a new oil and gas venture with two Houston men, Jerry Allen and Bill Turney. Khashoggi said that he and nine other friends from the Middle East.

55:57 whom he would not identify, were investing $100 million into the new company. Turney was a bankruptcy workout specialist in Houston, and it helped reorganize businesses, many relating to the now dead Ed Baker. Allen, on the other hand, was well acquainted with the oil and gas business. In 1983, his company,

56:28 Longhorn Oil and Gas went bankrupt in Oklahoma, owing more than $317 million in debts. A good chunk of that was to Penn Square Bank, whose demise was hastened by loans to these people. Before the bankruptcy, Allen had been the financial co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

56:58 Doesn't that make you feel good? That guy that brought down an entire bank with a $300 million loan was the financial guy for the RNC. That's crazy. Allen and Turney told reporters at the Houston press conference that they had been partners with Neil Bush in his Apex oil company, which Neil started in Denver after his...

57:30 JNB Exploration, had went bankrupt. Of course, their new partner, Khashoggi, and Neal's father, George H.W. Bush, was well acquainted. Records and testimony in Khashoggi's 1990 trial with Imelda Marcos showed several telephone calls between Khashoggi and Bush's vice president office in 85 and 86.

58:02 Right in the middle of the Iran-Contra, which is where they would have gotten that $5 million for the loan. Yeah, yeah. Phone calls to Khashoggi, the weapons dealer. Khashoggi's deal wasn't the only mainland financing that tracks into the CIA and Iran-Contra scandal. In the fall of 1983, mainland started lending money to a company.

58:30 that also tracked back to drug smugglers, money launderers, CIA proprietary airlines, and Castle Bank. Beginning in 83, more than a year before the Khashoggi deal, Mainland had lent a million dollars, and in some estimates, it could have been as high as $3 million, to a Cayman Islands company called Sarah Limited. The loans were secured by three tracts of land in Houston.

59:01 at least one having an apartment complex on it. Then in the fall of 84, Mainland refinanced its earlier loans to Sarah to increase its value to 3.5 million. The legal documents on the loan show that the general partner of Sarah Limited was another limited partnership called BC1 Limited. It had a general partner and a Texas corporation.

59:30 called SG Debco. The president and all of the things, treasurer, registered agent, sole director was Houston businessman H. Stephen Grace. SG Debco presumably stands for Stephen Grace Development Company. Mainland also lent Grace and a partner $6.7 million and then another personal loan.

1:00:04 So he could pay off interest that he was delinquent on for another loan. You can't make this shit up. Mainland made a loan to a different Grace Corporation called Dane Development and then used the proceeds of a loan to another company to pay the principal and interest on another loan that he was already in arrears. Before Grace formed the companies that got the loans from Mainland, he had been the vice president.

1:00:32 a finance for Century Corporation, a development company controlled by Michener's friend, Kenneth Schnitzner, another mobster. Another principal in Sarah Limited was a Lebanese guy by the name of Salim Saab, S-A-A-B. He signed some of the mainland documents as secretary of Sarah. He holds a Lebanese, Swiss, and U.S. passport. He's also suspected of money laundering for the mob.

1:01:07 He was known to hang out at one of the restaurants owned by Michener's former son-in-law, Robert Corson. Another listed secretary of Sarah was Paget, Brown and Company, a Cayman Island entity. Both Sarah and Paget, Brown and Company have mailing addresses on the, let's see, on Georgetown in the Caymans. Paget, Brown and Company is controlled by Cayman lawyers.

1:01:39 Ian Paget Brown, who's from England. He has law licenses in Colorado, Washington, and the Caymans. He was also named in a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation on drug smuggling and involved in the $200 million Florida land deal with the DuPonts. The Florida report discusses a letter that DeVos

1:02:13 Bahama attorney Anthony McKinney wrote that shows up later in mainland loans. McKinney's letter is an inquiry into two companies, Carib Holdings in the Caymans and Sea Green Air Transport registered in Antigua. They had controlling interest in both companies.

1:02:39 But neither the letter nor the Florida report indicated why DeVos had interest in them. It is suspected that both of those companies were CIA front companies. He goes on to talk about that the FAA showed no planes registered to see green air transport from 84 to 90. But they had contracts as if they were running an airline.

1:03:17 Seagreen was apparently using a 707 that was actually owned by an El Paso company called Greco Air, which is headed by David Tokov. There's no lease agreement anywhere that that was actually happening, but apparently it was. The Washington Post in 87 wrote that the 707

1:03:50 is the aircraft that flew to Tehran with the missiles on it. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iran-Contra didn't identify the airline. They just called it a CIA proprietary. The chronology of the Iran-Contra affair is loaded with references of St. Lucia and its armed trips all over the world, which makes perfect sense since we got Khashoggi in the mix.

1:04:25 According to a Washington Post article, St. Lucia flew arms to Angola and Iran. And remember, during the Reagan administration, we were actively involved with Cuban exiles from Miami and Angola trying to ensure that the rightful administration in Angola didn't take office because they weren't going to allow the U.S. control of the mineral resources in Angola. So they wanted the corrupt UNINA.

1:04:55 guy in charge. That's just crazy. The New York Times in another article went on to say that this airline was flying missions for the CIA delivering arms to guerrillas in Angola in 86. They then reported three trips to Zaire, which is the Congo, and that's the resources that Angola shares with the Congo is in that general area. All of these facts taken together.

1:05:31 definitely indicates that these companies were working for the CIA. Finally, Paget Brown was involved with a Chicago attorney, Burton Cantor, CIA super operative Paul Helliwell, and their Castle Bank. Penn State Professor Alan

1:05:52 wrote in Masters of Paradise that Helliwell contracted the head of Castle Banks, Cayman Islands office, to tell him that Cantor was going down to go through files. After Cantor inspected them, he instructed the Cayman director to destroy them, put them in some kind of special security so no one could see them.

1:06:19 Halliwell then told the director to buy a secure fireproof filing cabinet, put some special files in it and lock it and take the key to Ian Padgett Brown. This is the same guy that was borrowing money from mainland savings. So there's a little bit more in this chapter. We're not going to finish the whole chapter. It is a very long chapter, but that's a good place to leave it. And you can see how.

1:06:52 Every aspect of the savings and loan debacle is tied directly to the mafia, the CIA, and the Bush family. And none of us that lived through the 80s and lived through this had any freaking clue. Because even though these Houston reporters were writing about this, it never made national news. It never made, at the time, the national news.

1:07:22 Newspapers. That's crazy. Where'd Bridget go? Oh, there she is. Why do they keep dumping her out? Go ahead, SR. Thank you, Colonel, and thank everybody for attending today here on Spaces and on Rumble. Every time I start crawling into some of this stuff, it goes much further than the Bushes. Oh, yeah. It includes Reagan, as a matter of fact, and it goes back to...

1:08:03 Here's a guy I ran across, Guillermo Hernandez Cartagena, who is a Cuban exile and international banker. He spanned the anti-Castro activism. He was protected by the CIA. Big soccer. Exactly. And he played a role in not only the SNL stuff, but Iran-Contra as well.

1:08:34 it is just i mean the more i dig into this the deeper the whole gets yep yep go ahead bridget and for anybody who is interested in digging into the bush connections the colonel has a portion on her sub stack that is very very informative and and interestingly enough thank you for mentioning that bridget um the connections of the same people

1:09:05 And that book that I was writing those articles from is called The House of Bush, House of Sod. You're going to find all of the same characters in those stories. It's just fascinating. You're going to find the guy, the aircraft guy, what's his name? Bath, James Bath. He's in those stories. He'll come up later in the book, in this book that we're doing now. All of the same people come up in all of the same stories.

1:09:35 as we have learned over and over again. Simply amazing. All right. I see Stellar out there. What's she doing? I invited her up to speak. I guess she's busy just listening. All right. How are you doing, Stellar? I'm doing really good. I've missed you. Oh my gosh, totally. And then I didn't know you were on yesterday until it was already done. But these are the same characters because these are some of the same people that I've heard you mention before.

1:10:12 Yep. Yep. Yeah. So again, I had no idea until I read this book. I mean, I know a lot about Khashoggi, his involvement with the Bush family, with Saudi Arabia, and the weapons deals that he was involved in with the CIA. And I knew he was involved in the Iran-Contra deal.

1:10:41 I just had no idea how intimately involved he was in this money laundering through the savings and loan. I mean, it literally cuts through all of the stories that we have been uncovering in the three years that we've been doing this. It's just simply amazing. Not that we would expect anything else at this point. It's a very small community and we're not in it.

1:11:09 Now I'm going to stutter. But like savings and loans, I mean, you're kidding. Wow. Okay, never mind. This is insane. This is insane. This is so beyond insane. Like you said, same people over different parts of the world. It's the same characters over. Yep. What the hell? Yes, exactly. What the hell? Ron, go ahead.

1:11:35 Uh, that's not, isn't that the same Khashoggi? Uh, isn't that his kid who was, uh. No, it's his nephew. Nephew. Okay. Yeah. The one that was hacked up in the Turkish, um, Saudi Arabian, um, embassy. Yeah. Um, good point. Um, and that's why if you understand this network, that guy was not a journalist. Um, he was not a reporter. He was involved in this entire network.

1:12:05 He was also involved in the, I view, just based on all of the information that I have, that he was murdered in retribution because he worked for the people that were responsible for that fiasco in Las Vegas.

1:12:27 which people now view as an attempted assassination on MBS so that he could not play the role in what's going on right now with Saudi Arabia. They wanted that corrupt regime to stay in Saudi Arabia. And they knew if MBS took over and did what he did, which was throw the old regime that was corrupt, that did all this shit with the Bushes, that they wouldn't survive.

1:12:53 And so they were attempting to head that off at the pass. And one year to the day, if you go by Saudi Arabia time or Turkish time, one year to the day from the Las Vegas shooting is when they assassinated Khashoggi in that embassy. Thank you for saying that. I'm glad.

1:13:20 You said that and not me, because that's kind of what I was going to say as well. But so I'm glad you said it and not me. They're very involved in using symbolism and these anniversary so that it sends a clear signal to this corrupt entity. They don't want you to mistake.

1:13:44 what they're doing for something else. And so anniversary dates are very, very important to these people. Oh, 100%. I could think of two. I could think of Waco and Oklahoma City. Yeah. And unfortunately, that's my birthday. I know. I hate that they use that day. But obviously, September 11th is as well. And it's come up over and over again, even before 9-11. There's a lot of things that happened on September 11th in history.

1:14:15 So for some reason, I mean, I know that April 19th is the opening window of some satanic holiday. Yay. And I understand that window. I've never came across an actual explanation of September 11th, but they're definitely into their dates. September 11th is the date that if you go back and you look at the...

1:14:44 I don't know what they call it, the constellations or whatever. Astrology. Astrology, however you want to say it. But there's a guy who wrote a book, and he narrowed down to a one-hour time frame that Christ's birth was on September 11th of BC3. So there's that. Also, another September 11th was the attack on the embassy in Benghazi.

1:15:14 And it even goes back, you remember the Mormon thing that I sent you, I mean, ages ago, about that massacre that happened. And that was 1800. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was 1800. Yeah. Are you talking about the Mormon massacre? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay. My grandmother, when she married my grandfather.

1:15:38 My grandmother's side was LDS. The other side were the Masons in Utah. They prosecuted. It was like, yeah. Very interesting. Yep. It went back that far? I think it goes back. Yeah. I mean, I've seen them in the 1800s, in the 1900s, the use of September 11th for weird things. Well, they use the number 11 a lot.

1:16:10 Apollo 11. Let's see. There's a lot of 11s. What was the first flight that hit the North Tower? It was Flight 11. And another thing, just talking about numbered coincidences, and I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but I stumbled on this, I don't know, about a year ago.

1:16:36 Flight 11 hits the North Tower on the 93rd floor, and Flight 175 hits the South Tower at the 77th floor, and the other two flights are 93 and 77. I've seen that written. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. I think the Flight 11, when it hit, it hit at Cantor Fitzgerald. I believe those were the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald. Interesting.

1:17:15 All right, if we don't have anything else, we're gonna call it a day. And I just wanna thank everybody for being here. And I mentioned at the beginning of the show that I did an interview. I think you guys would enjoy that bantering back and forth about the history of all the stuff that's going on and how it's playing out today. It is a very, very deep thought.

1:17:44 conversation, one you don't get to have very often with really, really smart people. And I was blessed to be asked to be part of it. I will repost it. The guy that did it, Tommy Podcast, put it out about an hour before we started the show. So what do we have coming up? Warhamster has called off the show tomorrow. He is definitely not filling up to that.

1:18:14 And I am planning on having the show tomorrow, although it is first Friday and my husband has asked me to go to a car show with him. So we'll just see what the weather's like tomorrow. We may or may not do that. It's been overcast a little bit here. And I'm not even gonna say that it's been chilly cause I know you guys will yell at me. Chilly for Florida anyway, not snow chilly. So.

1:18:44 I don't know what we're going to do. 19 for the high today. 19, just saying. Yeah. It wasn't 19 here. All right. So I'm not going to complain about the weather. But so there's a question mark for tomorrow. We'll just leave it at that. I may, if I have time.

1:19:10 doing earlier shows so we can at least get the show in because I definitely want to get through this book. We've got so many more to do. But anyway, thank you guys for being here. And I just want to give every single one of you from the bottom of my heart a big shout out. I love the community that we have built here and you guys' words of encouragement.

1:19:36 like manna from heaven for me. So I just want to say that. And I also want you guys to know something. And I mean this. When I find information on X that doesn't make any sense based on all of the information that we have, we don't claim to have all of the information. Obviously we don't. But

1:20:07 I want people to understand that, and I've said this before, I think there is people that put information out as a gauge to how much we have learned. And when they do that, the expectation would be that you're going to push back and provide information that we know. And I believe they use that. Excuse me.

1:20:39 as kind of a barometer. So don't ever interpret me pushing back on someone to mean that I don't respect those people because you cannot make that assumption. I push back on everybody. And that's why I said at the beginning of the show, y'all need to go watch the Badlands Daily with Alpha and CanCon this morning.

1:21:08 That's what they obviously are very, very good friends, but you have to push back on people that say things that you don't agree with. It doesn't mean you don't like them or don't respect them. Active, respectful debate is why we're here. And that's kind of what I expect people to do with this information is to be.

1:21:38 um informed and use the information to inform other people in a respectful manner now obviously you can't have respectful conversations with idiots but um i just wanted to put that out there it doesn't matter who's bringing information if it doesn't make any sense say something um and

1:22:00 That goes back to that whole point that I was trying to explain to you guys the other day about the chain of command and how they're going after the guy at SOCOM when he has no line authority for any of these activities. I just, no one can explain it to me. I've called like four of my best friends and they all say the exact same thing. I'm trying to figure out a articulate way of putting my concern

1:22:31 in tagging a few people because I would like someone to explain to me why he's even in the conversation because he's not in the chain of command. And as soon as I figure out how to do that, I'm going to do that because it just doesn't make any sense. And when it doesn't make any sense to people like us that have been researching this stuff for three years, you know it doesn't make sense to anybody else. So anyway, go ahead, SR.

1:23:04 Thank you, Colonel. I just want to say I sympathize with you when you say it's chilly. For those of us that have lived in multiple climes across this planet, it's very easy to get acclimated. I left Quantico in the middle of February, snow on the ground, got stationed at El Toro there in California.

1:23:35 Everybody there was wearing field jackets and I wanted my short sleeve shirt. Yep. Yep. Well, it took about eight months to climatize. And when everybody wanted field jackets, all of a sudden I wanted one too. So I sympathize with you, girl. Yeah. So that's funny because obviously I grew up in Florida.

1:24:00 and my first duty station was Rantoul, Illinois in the worst winter they had had in 30 years. And it took me about two years of winter times to not feel like I was dying because it's at 50 mile an hour winds when there's like eight feet of snow on the ground. That's bone brittle cold. And when you work outside,

1:24:29 on aircraft, there's not enough clothes you can put on your body. And I tell everybody that. I'd rather live someplace that I could wear a bathing suit because I can take off clothes. You cannot get warm when it's, you know, like 40 degrees below zero wind chill and you have to work outside and you can't touch the metal aircraft with bare skin or you'll stick to it. So I have, as you said, I've lived all over the world.

1:24:59 And the ability of your body, especially as you get older, to accommodate those drastic changes in weather is almost non-existent. And it's funny because we watched these videos. My husband is on Facebook and he was showing me this video of this RV like sliding around backwards in snow.

1:25:24 yesterday. And I was like, that's the reason you don't leave the state of Florida from October to March. So yeah, I'm not all about that cold weather anymore. Not when I can choose to live somewhere where it's not. Okay. So again, thank you. It was, Shelly said it was 30 degrees Celsius. I have no idea, honey, what that means in Fahrenheit.

1:25:54 Although I do love New Zealand, my husband has a high school classmate that moved there, lives there, and she's always posting pictures. One of the most beautiful places in the world. All right, guys, thank you for being here. Thank you for being on X and the support you give us every single day. It means the world to me. So with that, we're going to close today and I'll keep you posted on what we're going to do tomorrow.

1:26:23 Oh, 86. God bless you. It wasn't quite that warm here today. All right. Love you guys. We love and want to thank you. We love all of you guys. Thank you for all of your research and thank you for bringing it out to the public. Thank you again. Thank you, Stellar. God bless you guys. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.

Entities here

Mainland Savings25 Adnan Khashoggi25 Mario Renda15 Leonard Capaldi11 Pulver Group10 Martin Schwimmer10 Iran-Contra affair9 Castle Bank & Trust7 Emmanuel Floor6 Seymour Lazar6 Ed Baker6 Bruce Mafio5 September 11 attacks5 Paul Helliwell5 John Michener4 Jerry Allen4 Saudi Arabia4 Sarah Limited4 Paget, Brown and Company4 Meyer Lansky4 Anthony Pidoni4 Tony Tocco4 George H.W. Bush3 Sandia Federal Savings and Loan3 Gorbana3 Adel Abdul Khashoggi3 Texas Commerce Bank3 Walter Mischer3 Detroit Mafia3 John Kelly3 Brooklyn Organized Crime Strike Force3 Sea Green Air Transport3 Carlyle Group2 Jack Modesik2 Las Vegas shooting2 Lou Chesler2 Turkey2 Ian Paget Brown2 Richard Wright2 San Joaquin Savings2

Claims made here

James Baker member_of Carlyle Group host_asserted ▶ 1:09

“Okay, so we're going to get started. The name of this chapter is Gain Land Savings and the CIA and James Baker. So I just want to put this in perspective before we get started. Many of you guys have h…”

George H.W. Bush member_of Carlyle Group host_asserted ▶ 1:09

Mainland Savings financed_via Pulver Group documented ▶ 2:35

“Written on Mainland. Which is the name of a bank. By the Houston Post. In June of 1987. It was under. Say. And Bruton. The guy that authored this book. It dealt with Mainland's purchase. Of a promisso…”

Jerome Gladstein member_of Pulver Group documented ▶ 5:44

“The apartment syndicators from New York consisted of four principals, Pulver, Anthony Pidoni, Stuart Goldman, and Jerome Gladstein, all from New York City. In the late 1960s, Pulver, Pidoni, and Glads…”

Leonard Malin member_of Pulver Group documented ▶ 5:44

Anthony Pidoni member_of Pulver Group documented ▶ 5:44

Stuart Goldman member_of Pulver Group documented ▶ 5:44

Nicholas Katzenbach member_of Pulver Group documented ▶ 7:47

“By the end of 1974, even before the group's limited partnership business had really cranked up, Palmer purchased a mansion on three-acre lot in a wealthy suburb of Long Island called Kingsport. Three …”

Mario Renda laundered_money_for Mainland Savings documented ▶ 12:49

“brokered union funds, and then skimmed the interest off into secret accounts. Renda had a motley crew around him. One of his sidekicks was Salvador Piga, P-I-G-A. He was a mob enforcer and associate t…”

Martin Schwimmer laundered_money_for Mainland Savings documented ▶ 12:49

Mario Renda laundered_money_for Luchese crime family documented ▶ 13:20

“and criminal possession of stolen property. Renda's partner, Swimmer, whom Renda later turned state's evidence against after they were indicted together, was accused of laundering money for members of…”

Mario Renda laundered_money_for Morris Shanker documented ▶ 13:20

Mario Renda laundered_money_for Paul Castellano documented ▶ 13:53

“routinely in Renda's business diary. Also, according to Lawrence Arizo, an associate of the Colombo Mafia family, Renda controlled a lot of money being loaned for the benefit of Paul Castellano, the b…”

Bruce Mafio exposed Martin Schwimmer documented ▶ 14:55

“A former Brooklyn organized crime strike force attorney who prosecuted Renda and Swimmer said that the two brokered into Mainland several million dollars of pension funds from the sheet metal workers …”

Bruce Mafio exposed Mario Renda documented ▶ 14:55

Seymour Lazar member_of Pulver Group documented ▶ 20:46

“And in 1978, they unloaded their investments and leases to a guy by the name of Seymour Lazar, L-A-Z-A-R, who lived in California. The investigative reporters couldn't find him or any information abou…”

Seymour Lazar member_of Castle Bank & Trust documented ▶ 21:18

“One of the authors researching Castle had, at that time, they were researching it because one of the people involved in the $200 million savings and loan deal in Florida had been the bank's in-house c…”

Richard Russell member_of Pulver Group documented ▶ 21:48

“What? Seymour Lazar was banking at Castle Bank? Lazar, who was an investor and an attorney in Palm Springs, California, had gotten in trouble with the SEC in 1973 during an attempted takeover of Armor…”

Pulver Group financed_via Sandia Federal Savings and Loan documented ▶ 24:58

“were with Mainland, but the few that weren't were also significant. After Raymond Hill quit as chairman of Mainland in October 1985, Pulver's group immediately turned to Sandia Federal Savings Loan in…”

Sandia Federal Savings and Loan financed_via Cantor Fitzgerald documented ▶ 25:27

“to finance Houston deals. Sandia paid off a $9 million promissory note owed to the Pulver Group by another New York investment outfit, an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald on a downtown Houston office bu…”

Southmark laundered_money_for Morris Shanker host_asserted ▶ 27:35

“Also entered into some financial transactions in negotiations with the Dallas-based Southmark. Remember, that's the real estate investment firm. And a Houston Savings and Loan subsidiary called San Jo…”

Southmark laundered_money_for Herman Beebe host_asserted ▶ 27:35

Leonard Capaldi member_of Detroit Mafia documented ▶ 29:06

“After the investigative reporters had nailed down Renda's and Shimmer's connection to the mafia, we started looking for other mob ties to mainland savings. The next one we found was Leonard Capaldi, C…”

Tony Tocco member_of Detroit Mafia documented ▶ 29:06

Jack Tocco member_of Detroit Mafia documented ▶ 29:38

“T-O-C-C-O, whose brother Jack is the boss of the Detroit Mafia, according to the Justice Department. A private investigator close to the FBI, along with a former prosecutor in the Justice Department's…”

Leonard Capaldi laundered_money_for Detroit Mafia documented ▶ 31:09

“Capaldi is alleged by law enforcement sources to be a major representative of Houston interest between mob families. He had investments in Houston in the construction business, restaurants, and real e…”

Leonard Capaldi headed McComb Contracting Corporation documented ▶ 31:42

“is a Detroit construction company owned by Capaldi's father. He built one of the runways at Houston International Airport in the 70s. After his father died, Capaldi moved the company from Michigan to …”

Sunbelt Properties financed_via Mainland Savings documented ▶ 34:15

“In July of 1983, one of Capaldi's Houston real estate development companies, Sunbelt Properties, purchased 491 acres south of Houston from a pandemonium corporation. The name of that corporation was C…”

Sunbelt Properties member_of Leonard Capaldi documented ▶ 34:15

Alvin Malnick member_of Meyer Lansky book_quoted ▶ 37:41

“Others believe he faked his death and fled the country. The Houston Post found that Florida mob associate Malvin Malnick, the protege of Meyer Lansky, had invested some money with Baker, but it turned…”

Alvin Malnick financed_via Ed Baker book_quoted ▶ 37:41

Jack Modesik financed_via Ed Baker book_quoted ▶ 38:10

“theorized that the mob wouldn't whack anyone over a small loan. Others said they might do it just to make a point. A partner and financial backer of Baker was Houston real estate investor Jack Modesse…”

Mainland Savings financed_via Ed Baker book_quoted ▶ 38:41

“This landing strip will be discussed later on when we talk about Michener's CIA ties. Medesit also did business with Howard Pulver's group, including promissory notes that were later sold to Mainland.…”

Jack Modesik financed_via Mainland Savings book_quoted ▶ 38:41

Saudi European financed_via Lincoln Savings book_quoted ▶ 39:11

“company called Saudi European. This company had connections to Charles Keating and Lincoln Savings, which also went under. So Baker's murder was never solved. He had a lot of shady people around him. …”

Saudi European financed_via Charles Keating book_quoted ▶ 39:11

Adnan Khashoggi founded Safari Club book_quoted ▶ 39:42

“In August of 1985, when Mainland handed at least $12 million in cash to Aiden Khashoggi, the infamous arms dealer and founder of the Safari Club, just a week before Khashoggi paid over the initial $1 …”

Mainland Savings financed_via Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 39:42

Adnan Khashoggi paid Gorbana book_quoted ▶ 39:42

Adnan Khashoggi member_of Safari Club book_quoted ▶ 39:42

Adnan Khashoggi financed_via Lomas and Nettleton book_quoted ▶ 40:47

“There's direct connections. Khashoggi first appeared in Houston in 1974 when an American company controlled by him and his two brothers bought 22 acres of vacant land in West Houston, southwest of the…”

Jess Hay secretly_owned Lomas and Nettleton book_quoted ▶ 41:18

“by a wealthy Democrat fundraiser by the name of Jess Hay. They had earlier foreclosed on the property from its owner, John Jamail, for defaulting on his loan. Lomas and Nettleton was very close to M B…”

Lomas and Nettleton financed_via John Jamail book_quoted ▶ 41:18

Bank of Southwest financed_via John Jamail book_quoted ▶ 41:45

“financed many of Herman Beebe's deals, The Mobster. The two companies shared several directors. In fact, the original loan to John Jamel was from the Bank of Southwest, which would become InBank. Khas…”

Lomas and Nettleton financed_via Herman Beebe book_quoted ▶ 41:45

Bank of Southwest succeeded InBank book_quoted ▶ 41:45

Richard Wright headed Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 42:17

“with a 40-story hotel and with 10 or more office buildings and retail stores. But nothing happened for several years until 1979 when Dallas oilman Clint Murchison Jr. joined up with Khashoggi to reviv…”

Clint Murchison financed_via Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 42:17

Adnan Khashoggi financed_via Texas Commerce Bank book_quoted ▶ 42:17

John Kelly financed_via Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 43:15

“In 1982, Merchantson had dropped out and Khashoggi was looking to sell the land. Three years later, there was no takers. The real estate market was tanking in Houston. In January of 1985, Khashoggi jo…”

John Kelly member_of Commerce Savings book_quoted ▶ 43:15

Adnan Khashoggi financed_via Commerce Savings book_quoted ▶ 43:45

“and was an associate of several savings and loan crooks, including Jarrett Woods and Ed McBurney. Khashoggi and Roberts borrowed another $44 million from Commerce Savings to buy the Aspen property. Kh…”

Adnan Khashoggi financed_via San Joaquin Savings book_quoted ▶ 43:45

John Kelly financed_via Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 43:45

Mario Renda member_of Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 44:51

“Khashoggi also had another connection to Mainland through money broker Mario Renda. He used to be a partner with Khashoggi, the guy from New York. Mainland proposed to buy the Galleria track for $68 m…”

Adnan Khashoggi financed_via Mainland Savings book_quoted ▶ 44:51

Adnan Khashoggi financed_via Summit Savings book_quoted ▶ 47:54

“Khashoggi had been buying up tracts of land next to the Galleria property that he owned the big lot next to. He had funded this through a $5 million loan from Summit Savings in Dallas. Who's loaning t…”

Mainland Savings financed_via Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 48:20

“On August 1st, closing of all the loans, Mainland issued Khashoggi two $10 million lines of credit to use to develop the tracks. And finally, on the same day, Mainland signed a $5 million letter of cr…”

Adnan Khashoggi paid Gorbana book_quoted ▶ 49:19

“letter of credit does have all the earmarks of a guarantee. And according to an investigation by a Houston law firm, quote, they conspired to conceal the issuance of the letter of credit from the boar…”

Emmanuel Floor member_of Adnan Khashoggi book_quoted ▶ 50:24

“Khashoggi sent his lawyer, Ray Fermart, to see William Casey at the CIA. Now, why would you do that unless you are the money man and weapons man for Iran? Because he was. The FBI was also curious abou…”

Adnan Khashoggi financed_via Mainland Savings book_quoted ▶ 54:55

“You can guarantee part of it was our money. Mainland, which had taken a $16 million participation in Lamar loan and guaranteed the rest, eventually took the whole loan over. So Mainland ended up with …”

Jerry Allen financed_via Penn Square Bank book_quoted ▶ 56:28

“Longhorn Oil and Gas went bankrupt in Oklahoma, owing more than $317 million in debts. A good chunk of that was to Penn Square Bank, whose demise was hastened by loans to these people. Before the bank…”

Jerry Allen member_of Longhorn Oil and Gas book_quoted ▶ 56:28

Jerry Allen member_of Republican Party book_quoted ▶ 56:28

Bill Turney member_of Neil Bush book_quoted ▶ 56:58

“Doesn't that make you feel good? That guy that brought down an entire bank with a $300 million loan was the financial guy for the RNC. That's crazy. Allen and Turney told reporters at the Houston pres…”

Neil Bush founded Apex Oil book_quoted ▶ 56:58

Jerry Allen member_of Neil Bush book_quoted ▶ 56:58

Neil Bush member_of JNB Exploration book_quoted ▶ 57:30

“JNB Exploration, had went bankrupt. Of course, their new partner, Khashoggi, and Neal's father, George H.W. Bush, was well acquainted. Records and testimony in Khashoggi's 1990 trial with Imelda Marco…”

Adnan Khashoggi spied_on George H.W. Bush book_quoted ▶ 57:30

Adnan Khashoggi member_of George H.W. Bush book_quoted ▶ 57:30

Mainland Savings financed_via Sarah Limited book_quoted ▶ 58:30

“that also tracked back to drug smugglers, money launderers, CIA proprietary airlines, and Castle Bank. Beginning in 83, more than a year before the Khashoggi deal, Mainland had lent a million dollars,…”

Mainland Savings financed_via H. Stephen Grace book_quoted ▶ 59:30

“called SG Debco. The president and all of the things, treasurer, registered agent, sole director was Houston businessman H. Stephen Grace. SG Debco presumably stands for Stephen Grace Development Comp…”

H. Stephen Grace member_of SG Debco book_quoted ▶ 59:30

H. Stephen Grace member_of Century Corporation book_quoted ▶ 1:00:04

“So he could pay off interest that he was delinquent on for another loan. You can't make this shit up. Mainland made a loan to a different Grace Corporation called Dane Development and then used the pr…”

H. Stephen Grace member_of Dane Development book_quoted ▶ 1:00:04

Kenneth Schnitzer secretly_owned Century Corporation book_quoted ▶ 1:00:32

“a finance for Century Corporation, a development company controlled by Michener's friend, Kenneth Schnitzner, another mobster. Another principal in Sarah Limited was a Lebanese guy by the name of Sali…”

Salim Saab member_of Sarah Limited book_quoted ▶ 1:00:32

Ian Paget Brown secretly_owned Paget, Brown and Company book_quoted ▶ 1:01:07

“He was known to hang out at one of the restaurants owned by Michener's former son-in-law, Robert Corson. Another listed secretary of Sarah was Paget, Brown and Company, a Cayman Island entity. Both Sa…”

David Tokov headed Greco Air book_quoted ▶ 1:03:17

“Seagreen was apparently using a 707 that was actually owned by an El Paso company called Greco Air, which is headed by David Tokov. There's no lease agreement anywhere that that was actually happening…”

Sea Green Air Transport supplied_arms_to UNITA book_quoted ▶ 1:04:25

“According to a Washington Post article, St. Lucia flew arms to Angola and Iran. And remember, during the Reagan administration, we were actively involved with Cuban exiles from Miami and Angola trying…”

Burton Cantor member_of Castle Bank & Trust book_quoted ▶ 1:05:31

“definitely indicates that these companies were working for the CIA. Finally, Paget Brown was involved with a Chicago attorney, Burton Cantor, CIA super operative Paul Helliwell, and their Castle Bank.…”

Paul Helliwell member_of Castle Bank & Trust book_quoted ▶ 1:05:31

Paul Helliwell covered_up Castle Bank & Trust book_quoted ▶ 1:05:52

“wrote in Masters of Paradise that Helliwell contracted the head of Castle Banks, Cayman Islands office, to tell him that Cantor was going down to go through files. After Cantor inspected them, he inst…”

Ian Paget Brown member_of Castle Bank & Trust book_quoted ▶ 1:06:19

“Halliwell then told the director to buy a secure fireproof filing cabinet, put some special files in it and lock it and take the key to Ian Padgett Brown. This is the same guy that was borrowing money…”

Guillermo Hernandez-Cartier member_of Iran-Contra affair host_asserted ▶ 1:08:03

“Here's a guy I ran across, Guillermo Hernandez Cartagena, who is a Cuban exile and international banker. He spanned the anti-Castro activism. He was protected by the CIA. Big soccer. Exactly. And he p…”

Adel Abdul Khashoggi laundered_money_for Saudi Arabia host_asserted ▶ 1:10:41

“I just had no idea how intimately involved he was in this money laundering through the savings and loan. I mean, it literally cuts through all of the stories that we have been uncovering in the three …”