McConnell claims that Haig and his fellow CAI investors adopted the Vancouver Starnet business model (see below) which appears to have used money laundering through the Internet and pornography with graphic images of sadomasochism to entrap and control the bcIMC pension-fund trustees and compromise them with a share in spot-fixing profits based on body counts or some other parameter related to torture killings and bombings.
Prequel 1:
#1586: Marine Links Sister Marcy SBA Pedo-Fem Lesbians to EEOC Decoys for WTC7 Drones
NEW PROOF BOMBS WERE SET IN THE TWIN TOWERS
Nancy with Haig’s fellow CAI special investor, David Johnston, the man who had Russell Williams uniforms burned.
“Official 9/11 death toll grows by 1 nearly a decade later
DAVID B. CARUSO, ASSOCIATED PRESS | June 17, 2011
NEW YORK — A man who died last year of lung disease was added Friday to the official list of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
New York City's medical examiner ruled that Jerry Borg, 63, of Manhattan, who died in December, was killed by complications caused by a lung condition he got from inhaling dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Borg suffered from pulmonary sarcoidosis, a disease in which inflamed cells can make someone's lungs stiff and interfere with normal breathing.
The death brings the official count of World Trade Center attack victims to 2,753.
The ruling is a rarity. Thousands of people have blamed health problems on Trade Center dust, but Borg is only the third victim to be added to the medical examiner's list of victims of Sept. 11, 2001.
Borg was working downtown on the day of the attacks and became caught in the dense cloud of pulverized concrete and glass that billowed over lower Manhattan when the twin towers fell.
Borg's nephew, Joseph Borg, of New York City, said Friday that his uncle worked as an accountant and was doing an audit at a building at Ground Zero on Sept. 11. He said his uncle witnessed "the whole thing." He recalled that his
uncle had some health problems before his death.
"He said something about having a lung problem before he passed away. And that he was waiting for a lung transplant," Joseph Borg said. "It might have been due to the fumes from the 9/11 accident."
He said his uncle was not married and had no children. "He lived an ordinary life. He went to work and came home. That's it," Joseph Borg said.
The other two people who were added to the medical examiner's list also were working downtown on Sept. 11.
Felicia Dunn Jones, a 42-year-old civil rights lawyer, fell ill immediately after the attacks, was diagnosed with sarcoidosis and was dead within five months. Her death wasn't ruled as officially caused by the terrorist attacks until 2007.
Leon Heyward, 45, died in 2008 of lymphoma, an illness that hasn't been conclusively linked to Trade Center dust, but Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch ruled in early 2009 that his cancer was complicated by sarcoidosis.
All victims of the terrorist attacks have been classified as homicide victims.
A spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office, Ellen Borakove, declined to release additional information about the circumstances of Borg's illness or personal biography, citing privacy rules.
Congress late last year created a $2.78 billion fund to compensate people who might have been sickened by exposure to Trade Center dust and ash, and set aside $1.5 billion to fund health programs for rescue and cleanup workers.
Medical studies have found elevated asthma rates among people who were caught in the dust cloud or spent extended periods in the Trade Center ruins.
Fire Department medical experts have documented diminished lung power among an unusual number of firefighters who were at the site.
Fire Department medical experts have documented diminished lung power among an unusual number of firefighters who were at the site.
Hard evidence linking other ailments, such as cancer, to the dust, however, has been elusive or inconclusive, leading Hirsch to resist immense political pressure to add more people to the death count.
He famously declined to add a retired police detective, James Zadroga, to the list after concluding that the lawman's fatal lung condition was caused by prescription drug abuse, not by Trade Center particles trapped in his lungs.
That decision remains controversial, and the sponsors of the health bill that passed in December named it after Zadroga.
Associated Press writer Cristian Salazar contributed to this report.”
“The making of CAI
At or about the same time that Restler was guiding the privatization of Hydro's gas division, he decided to leave Shearson Lehman Brothers. Along with about a half dozen others from business and Wall Street, he started a small, boutique investment firm called CAI Capital Management.
CAI opened its doors in 1989, and began looking for both investors and investment opportunities. It found both in Canada.
MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates [the company which allegedly built the role-play gaming and sprea-bet platform for the CAI bookmaker on the Twin Towers bombing], the Richmond-based firm specializing in satellite imaging, space robotics and environmental monitoring, was one of the earliest companies with which Restler and CAI held discussions. Talks remained exploratory until 1999, when the New York firm and another investor together acquired a one-third interest in the Richmond company [with the other thirds going to Nancy’s pension fund bcIMC and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP)].
Restler soon took a seat on MDA's board of directors, and a year later he was joined by David Emerson -- a CAI investor and, since 2008, a "senior advisor" at the equity firm's Vancouver office.
By 2004, CAI (with a substantial profit) had exited its position in MacDonald Dettwiler, and that same year Emerson won election as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Vancouver-Kingsway. (He crossed the floor days after the 2006 general election to join the victorious Conservatives and retain his seat at the cabinet table. Rather than face his constituents and answer for that controversial decision, Emerson retired prior to the 2008 election.)”
“Informed Capital
CAI is finding new venture capitalists from an old boys network
National Post Business, July, 2000
Rod McQueen
Rod McQueen
In August 1998, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. tried to spin off its only retail food subsidiary, Country Style Food Services Inc., by taking it public, but the Russian currency crisis spooked stock markets and nobody wanted to buy donuts or anything else. Enter CAI Capital Corp., a partnership based in New York that was willing to invest $22 million for an 82% bite of Country Style. Management remained, but rather than the 15 new outlets of previous years, Country Style will open 30 new shops this year and 50 in 2001. The company may also become a sector consolidator by acquiring competitors.
Beyond money, CAI provided Country Style with something even more important - expertise. "I have telephone numbers for people I can talk to that I didn't have before. They can open doors for me," says Garry Macdonald, president and CEO of Country Style. "They're very professional and very astute, they don't charge management fees and their involvement at the board level was very attractive." CAI-designated directors on Country Style's board include Dennis Frezzo, former president of Tricon Canada, Pepsi's franchising arm, and David Culver, former chairman of Alcan Aluminium Ltd. "They don't get involved in the day-to-day running of the business, which is a healthy way to have it."
CAI isn't your average investor/corporate mentor so much as a vehicle for corporate continentalism, raw power and personal networking. CAI was founded in New York in 1990 by seven individuals, including two partners from Salomon Brothers Inc.: Peter Gottsegen, who had been in charge of international investment banking, and Dick Schmeelk, who'd spent 40 years advising governments in Ottawa, seven of the provinces and numerous companies. Also part of the initial group were Peter Restler, former senior vice-president of Shearson Lehman Brothers, Leslie Daniels, former president of Burdge, Daniels & Co., and Culver.
The seven partners pooled US $10 million of their own money and then sought others who would be prepared to invest and advise. Because of their previous interest in Canada and the fact that the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was just coming into effect, they decided to focus on Canada. Their first investment was a 40% stake in Bio-Research Laboratories Ltd., of Montreal, previously part of a money-losing Crown corporation, Connaught Labs. The initial challenge was to change a culture where status depended upon the number of employees. When Culver first visited Bio-Research, the incumbent CEO looked out his office window and said, "That's what I like to see, a full parking lot." Replied Culver, "We like a full bank account and a half-empty parking lot."
Four CAI investors, including Culver and Walter Wriston, the former chairman of Citibank, were placed on the Bio_Research board and oversaw a $6-million expenditure on computerization, a substantial sum given the $29 million in annual revenues the company had at the time. A new marketing campaign was launched and, when CAI exited four years later, the U.S.$11.5 million investment had tripled.
Of CAI's two funds, the $150-million Fund One is now closed. Fund Two has about half its $200 million invested and more target companies are being sought. The original seven partners supplied about $14 million for Fund Two and another 35 individuals kicked in a similar amount. For them, the usual due diligence is almost unnecessary; 12 institutional investors have provided the remaining $170 million. Patient money flows from pension funds for the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta as well as Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, corporate pension funds at Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada Life and Clarica Life, and U.S. funds such as GE Capital Equity Holdings and U.S. Steel Carnegie Pension Fund.
Getting powerful people matters as much as the commitments for cash. "We're a real alternative to mutual fund investing, which is quarter-to-quarter," says Restler. "When we ask people if they want to become investors, we've had very few say 'no.'" Individual investors include such luminaries as Peter Bentley, chairman of Canfor Corp., Paul Cantor, chairman of Russell Reynolds Associates, Lynton Wilson, chairman of BCE Inc., Raymond Garneau, chairman and CEO of Industrial-Alliance Life Insurance Co., General Alexander Haig, secretary of state in the Ronald Reagan administration, John McArthur, former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Business, and Guy Saint-Pierre, chairman of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., former Noranda Forest Inc. chairman, Adam Zimmerman and Michel Fortier, senior vice-president and director, Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. Networking goes well beyond the inner circle. CAI sponsors a dinner every two months for investors and local business leaders. In April, John Roth, president and CEO of Nortel Networks Corp. addressed the seven principals, 20 of CAI's investors and 30 of Toronto's business elite.
In addition to Country Style, CAI's investments have included Livingston International Inc., Canada's largest customs broker, and Sunquest Vacations Ltd. CAI's money allowed tour operator Sunquest to buy two new A320s rather than continue paying a major airline 14 cents a seat mile or a charter operator nine cents. With its own aircraft, Sunquest flies passengers for less than six cents a seat mile, enabling CAI investors to double their money in a year.
CAI also paid $26 million in 1996 for a 75% interest in Zalev Metals Inc., a Windsor, Ont., scrap metal business. CAI investors who joined the Zalev board included Roy Bennett, former chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Co. of Canada, and Darcy McKeough, former treasurer of Ontario. CAI sold its stake in 1998 for about $50 million, a 36% annualized return. "We don't fancy ourselves as managers," says Gottsegen. "We're just there to try and help."
That's good because the payoff is painfully slow. Fund One, now ten years old, has repaid 86% of the investors' contributions but there are still four companies to sell before there is a positive return. "For returns of 20% to 25% annually they're willing to become involved in a lock-up vehicle like this as part of their overall asset allocation," says Restler. For the 35 investors who have each put in an average of about $300,000, that nest egg could become more than $2 million. Not to mention the ongoing networking along with the growing net worth.”
“Former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig resigned from MGM Mirage's board of directors on October 7 after 19 years with the company. It is unclear
why the former secretary of state decided to leave the company.
"We are tremendously honored that Gen. Haig has played a key role in the direction of our company for the past 19 years," MGM Mirage Chairman and CEO Jim Murren said in a statement.
"His knowledge and expertise have been instrumental in the success and development of MGM Mirage and we are deeply indebted to him for his contributions to our company."
Haig is a retired general with a wealth of government experience who later became chairman of Worldwide Associates, Inc., a consulting company.”
September 11, 2000
Hells Angels, Starnet and Crime of the Future
By John William Tuohy
John William Tuohy is a writer who lives in Washingon, D.C.
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Organized Crime in Canada is wearing a new face these days. While the traditional mob remains alive and well in the land of the Maple Leaf, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is quickly and brutally shootings its way to the top spot.
The image of the Angels image as portrayed by Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin in The Wild Ones, as beer guzzling, rude by otherwise shiftless vagabonds on oversized Harley's is a thing of the past.
The ancient past.
The Hells Angels of twenty-first century are organized, ambitious and greedy and no where is that displayed better then in the wide-open spaces of our northern neighbors who have been plagued with by an explosion of Hells Angels chapters in recent years.
The Angels, who are now an international organization, have been slowly and steadily muscling control of Canada's booming money laundering, narcotics and prostitution markets, and the gang is taking traditional steps to defend itself from outside interference.
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….
Police suspect that the gangs are using their vast cash reserves to buy up big hotels and landmark buildings in Canada for their front men to look respectable.
Inspector Kim Clark, in charge of Vancouver RCMP Proceeds of Crime Section, said he could personally identify dozens of such properties and businesses in major Canadian cities, where the front men may not even know where the money is coming from.
Clark said the police work involved in tracking laundered money and financial fraud has become extremely complicated, because of the various jurisdictions into which the money is pumped. By mixing the dirty money with the proceeds of legitimate businesses, the mobsters behind the scenes have succeeded in "muddying the water to the extent that investigators and forensic accountants find it difficult to tell who owns what and why".
This may or may not explain the phenomenal growth of a Starnet Communications, a Vancouver-based Internet Casino software operator.
Before its spectacular fall from grace, Starnet was the pride of Vancouver, where it was hailed as an Internet success story. Its founder, Ken Lelek was hailed as an Internet pioneer. A local boy made good through hard work and dedication to a dream. Even the national government praised their rapid rise to the top. Starnet's stock was considered one of the best buys on the market, and in less then a year its price leaped from 37.5 cents to a high of $29 by July of 1999. At its peak, Starnet's paper value neared $900 million. In fact, the company's stock was selling so well that Starnet applied for permission to trade on the prestigious Nasdaq market.
In 1998 a "Nightline" broadcast about online businesses hailed Starnet as a "reputable pioneer of Internet gambling." Starnet's revenues for fiscal 1999 totaled $9.7 million.
Starnet was the up and comer.
Then it all fell apart. At the break of dawn on August 20, 1999, in Vancouver's seediest neighborhood, several squads of heavily armed members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police kicked in the steel-vaulted security door to Starnet's corporate office and working around the clock over the next three days seized all of the company files, papers and computer equipment.
The Starnet probe, dubbed "Project Enigma," by the federal police, even searched through the garbage at the homes of company executives and impounded their personnel phone books.
The raid on Starnet shocked Vancouver and the Internet business community. However, the raid was the culmination of an 18-month probe of Starnet's operation, which the RCMP was now describing "substantially and fundamentally an illegal enterprise." involved in pornography and money laundering through the Internet. This is no small charge considering the CIA claims that Vancouver is the new center for the illegal sex trade in North America.
Police also said that the company's adult-entertainment Web sites contain graphic depiction's of sadomasochism, which violated Canada's anti-obscenity laws.
The day after the raid, Starnet honcho's tried to empty the company's bank accounts but police had already frozen the accounts. Starnet's once promising stock plunged to its value of less then two dollars a share. It withdrew its application to Nasdaq and quietly, and quickly, relocated its headquarters to Antigua, far beyond the reach of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police or the U.S. Customs Service and the Internal Revenue Service which are now also investigating Starnet.
It turned out that Starnet was far more then the hapless casino software developer it claimed to be. The company had branched out from providing software to running its own on line gambling casinos. Starnet was also selling sex, lots of it including Gay porn, live strip shows and all manner of hard-core pornography with customers in more than 60 countries.
But it was the alleged illegal wagering that brought around a police sting. Officers posing as Canadian and American gamblers approached Starnet and placed bets with them, a violation of Canada's rigid anti gambling laws since Starnet didn't have a license to provide gambling services.
Then new light was shed on Starnet's founder Ken Lelek, who now denied any substantial role in the company, a statement the police flatly dispute. According to the national police, Lelek was close to Lloyd Robnson, whom prosecutors and organized crime experts identified as a leader in the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Clubs Vancouver branch which is noted for its violent behavior and dealing in narcotics.
Further digging showed that Lelek and Robnson ran a booking agency strippers for nightclubs which provided strippers for Starnets live Internet shows. And although the police won't confirm or deny it, the word around Ottawa's official circuit is that the RCMP opened its investigation of Starnet based on the Hells Angels link.
Stay tuned. This one is only beginning to unfold.
Mr. Tuohy can be reached at MobStudy@aol.com
Happy Googling
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