CIA Finances Another Group Of Fraudsters: The Venezuelan "Opposition" By Wayne Madsen!!!
(2019-06-28 at 23:47:08 )

CIA Finances Another Group of Fraudsters: the Venezuelan "Opposition" by Wayne Madsen

Once again, the United States Central Intelligence Agency has been caught financing a group of grifters and fraudsters at the expense of the United States of American taxpayers.

In the latest case, just another in the agencys 72-year history, the President Trump administration-appointed ad hoc board of CITGO, the United States subsidiary of the state-owned Venezuelan oil company, PDVSA, stands accused of steering $70 million of escrowed funds, earmarked for PDVSAs fiscal year 2020 bond, to the pockets of Central Intelligence Agency-supported officials of the Venezuelan opposition "Popular Will" party headed by the so-called “"interim president" of Venezuela, Juan Guaido.

In addition to Mr. Guaido, who is accused by the legitimate Venezuelan government of money laundering, treason, and corruption, other Popular Will leaders under investigation by both the Venezuelan Attorney General and the United States Justice Department include Carlos Vecchio, Guaidos envoy in Washington; Rossana Barrera and Kevin Rojas, Guaidos emissaries in Cucuta, a Colombian-Venezuelan border town; Sergio Vargara, Ms Barreras brother-in-law and a Member of the Venezuelan Congress; Mr. Guaidos "ambassador" to Colombia, Humberto Calderon Berti, opposition businessman Miguel Sabal; and Guaidos chief of staff, Roberto Marrero.

Over two dozen other Popular Will leaders are also under investigation for fraud involving money earmarked by the President Trump administration, particularly Iran-Contra scandal felon and current President Trump special envoy for regime change in Venezuela, Elliot Abrams.

Barrera and Rojas are accused of spending money given to the Popular Will by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a longtime Central Intelligence Agency financial pass-through, for "humanitarian relief" for alleged massive numbers of Venezuelan refugees in Colombia.

The Popular Will grifters reportedly used the aid money, including that which was raised by Virgin Groups billionaire founder and obvious Central Intelligence Agency dupe Richard Branson, for expensive hotels, fancy restaurants, nightclubs, prostitutes, and clothing.

It comes as little surprise that Mr. Abrams, with his history of "sticky fingers" around United States and foreign assistance money, has played a hand in the Venezuelan opposition fraud.

As Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs during the Ronald Reagan administration Mr. Abrams was involved in the illegal raising of funds for the Central Intelligence Agency-supported right-wing Contras fighting against the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

In 1991, facing a felony perjury conviction for lying tom the United States Congress, Mr. Abrams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information to Congress about his fundraising activities for the Contras.

In 1992, Mr. Abrams and other Iran-Contra criminals were pardoned by President George H. W. Bush, one of the unindicted Iran-Contra co-conspirators.

Mr. Abrams surfaced again in 2001 in the George W. Bush administration. He was involved in the abortive 2002 Central Intelligence Agency coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as well as in cooking United States intelligence to justify the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Mr. Abramss involvement in any United States covert activities in always an indication of massive fraud.

Mr. Abramss backing of Mr. Guaido and his operatives and recent reports of fraud are not much different than the notorious Republican Party neo-cons sordid record with such Contra leaders as Adolfo Calero, the president of the Nicaraguan Democratic Forces (FDN); Arturo Cruz; Alfonso Robelo; Eden Pastora; and Enrique Bermudez.

United States Central Intelligence Agency funds directed to the Contras for the purchase of weapons soon found their way into the hands of Colombian drug lords, including Pablo Escobar and Carlos Lehder of the Medellin Cartel.

An elaborate scheme was worked out that saw the Contras buying, with Central Intelligence Agency funds, weapons and cocaine, with the former ending up in the hands of the Medellin Cartel and the latter being shipped to the United States with a very handsome financial return.

Everyone made out nicely, including Contra leaders who spent much of their time in Miami donating funds to Republican coffers through the offices of top Cuban-American leaders like Jorge Mas Canosa. Establishing the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF)) in 1981 at the urging of Reagan administration officials, including national security adviser Richard Allen and Mr. Abrams, Mas Canosa soon became a major asset for both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Republican Party.

The CANF would also serve as a convenient Central Intelligence Agency money laundering artifice to assist in financing right-wing terrorist groups in Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, and other Latin American nations.

The CANF remains a potent political force, one that benefits right-wing politicians in Florida and Latin America, including Floridas two Republican Senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both fanatical supporters of Mr. Guaido.

In 1992, the Central Intelligence Agency helped launch another massive fraud when it helped form the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an Iraqi opposition group led by one of Mr. Abrams neo-con friends, Ahmad Chalabi.

More at home in swank London clubs than in Iraqi Kurdish areas where the Central Intelligence Agency was planning for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Mr. Chalabi was also involved in the defrauding of Jordans Petra Bank, which collapsed in 1989.

Mr. Chalabi eventually ensured that bogus intelligence from Iraqi-German fabulist Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, a discredited one-time Western intelligence source derisively codenamed "Curveball" by the Central Intelligence Agency for his untrustworthiness, ended up on President George W. Bushs desk, courtesy of con-artists like Mr Abrams, a National Security Council official.

Mr. Chalabi became Iraqs Oil Minister in the puppet United States government established in Baghdad following the United States invasion.

Mr. Chalabi almost immediately came under investigation for counterfeiting Iraqi currency, grand theft of Iraqi national and private assets, and espionage on behalf of Iran.

Mr. Abrams and his neo-con cabal were also instrumental in launching the career of another Central Intelligence Agency fraudster, General Khalifa Haftar, a defector from the army of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Safely ensconced by the Central Intelligence Agency in northern Virginia in 1990, Mr. Haftar, who became a United States citizen, was involved in several Central Intelligence Agency-supported putsches aimed at overthrowing Mr. Qaddafi.

In 2011, at the outset of the revolt against Mr. Qaddafi, the Central Intelligence Agency inserted Mr. Haftar into eastern Libya, where he eventually became a virtual warlord, governing his armys occupied territory from Tobruk with the assistance of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and the Abu Dhabi-based mercenaries led by Erik Prince, the founder of the Central Intelligence Agencys former favorite mercenary firm, Blackwater, and brother of Donald Trumps Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos. Mr. Haftar is also reportedly enriching himself and his family by pocketing revenue from Libyan oil sales in territory his forces control.

The Central Intelligence Agencys history of support for con-artists and grifters like Mr. Guaido, Calero, Mas Canosa, Chalabi, and Haftar expands to a virtual "rogues gallery" of ne er-do-wells, scoundrels, and other worthies.

General Lon Nol was the Central Intelligence Agencys choice to take over Cambodia after the 1970 military coup against Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

According to a May 26, 1970 TOP SECRET-SENSITIVE-EYES ONLY memorandum from United States national security adviser Henry Kissinger to President Richard Nixon, Lon Nol was summed up as "emotional and not very realistic."

However, that is the sort of person the Central Intelligence Agency has always chosen to embrace, with the neo-cons being among those who have avidly championed such political riff-raff in the United States Congress and the mass media.

Mr. Lon Nol believed himself to be an authentic Mon-Khmer "holy warrior" with mystical powers. "Black Papa," which Lon Nol preferred his followers to call him, died in Fullerton, California in 1985, still on the dole of the Central Intelligence Agency.

After the 1975 fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces, Central Intelligence Agency asset and South Vietnamese prime minister and vice president Nguyen Cao Ky eventually settled in Westminster, California, not far from Lon Nol.

Instead of insisting on being revered as a demi-god, Ky was more practical than Lon Nol; he ran a liquor store.

The Central Intelligence Agencys former head of the anti-Communist Hmong Army in Laos, General Vang Pao, was arrested in California in 2007 for illegally attempting to overthrow the Pathet Lao-led government in Laos.

Central Intelligence Agency pressure eventually led the United States government in 2009 to drop all the conspiracy charges against Vang Pao.

Certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were concerned about what Vang Pao might have said, under oath, during a full trial about his role with the Central Intelligence Agency in smuggling opium from the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia via the auspices of Central Intelligence Agency proprietary airlines like Air America.

Juan Guaido and his gang are merely following in a long line of Central Intelligence Agency crooks and criminals who conduct their illegal affairs with a wink and a nod from Langley and a sizeable financial cut for neo-cons like Abrams, Kissinger, John Bolton, and the other members of that nefarious political clique.

President Trump often decries the "Deep State" as covertly working to undermine him. It appears that President Trump and his friends are doing quite nicely, courtesy of his feared "Deep State."

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