The Informant

by Kurt Eichenwald

  Herndon and Shepard nodded, relief sweeping over them. Griffin was speaking their language.

  On April 8, Kanji Mimoto picked up the phone in his Paris hotel room. He had just received an unusual urgent message to call Whitacre and had few doubts about what was on the ADM executive’s mind. In recent months, Ajinomoto had finally concluded that ADM’s Bioproducts Division was indeed using one of the Japanese company’s proprietary microorganisms. Since 1992—when Mimoto had failed in his attempt to steal ADM’s lysine bug during a plant tour—Ajinomoto had continued developing proof for its suspicions. Evidence had finally turned up with another ADM microbe, used to produce an amino acid called threonine. Two days before, Ajinomoto had filed a federal lawsuit accusing ADM of illegally using the Japanese company’s patented microbe. As Mimoto dialed the number, he could imagine Whitacre’s fevered reaction to the litigation.

  He didn’t have to imagine for long.

  “Kanji, I can’t believe you guys would file a lawsuit without warning us first,’’ Whitacre sputtered. “Mick Andreas is really angry about it.’’

  Mimoto explained that Ajinomoto had to protect its interests, but Eich_0767903277_5p_01_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:56 PM Page 285

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  Whitacre didn’t want to hear it. ADM’s bug had nothing to do with Ajinomoto, he protested; it had been purchased from a Swedish company called ABP. And this suit was going to cause plenty of problems that Ajinomoto hadn’t planned for.

  “What problems?’’ Mimoto asked.

  The next price-fixing meeting was coming up in Hong Kong on April 21, Whitacre said, and because of the suit, Mick Andreas was forbidding him to go.

  Mimoto responded in soothing, reassuring tones, stressing the importance of their meetings. The price and volume agreements had been profitable for both companies; they shouldn’t stop now. By the end of the call, Whitacre promised to be in Hong Kong but continued prodding for ways to work out this lawsuit. Mimoto muttered some reassuring comments before saying good-bye. In Decatur, Whitacre hung up. There was no recording device to shut off. Even though he had been discussing price-fixing meetings with Mimoto, he had decided not to tape this particular call. This was a conversation that he didn’t want the FBI to hear.

  Bill Esposito, head of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, sat at his desk reviewing a communication about Harvest King. For weeks, he had been working to keep his promise to Don Stukey, making sure that bureaucratic snafus in Washington didn’t hinder the case. But still, something about Harvest King bothered him. The cooperating witness, given his position and authority, was unlike any Esposito had ever seen, and he felt perplexed. Why would Whitacre risk so much?

  Before this case went public, Esposito thought, somebody in the Bureau needed to take a closer look at Whitacre, to try and get a better understanding of his motivations. The case agents would never have the time for the assignment; this was a management problem. Esposito called Springfield, suggesting that an agent needed to be assigned to investigate Whitacre’s background. The supervisors were cool to the idea. Esposito knew he would have to ride them a bit to make sure he got a full answer.

  On the morning of April 19, a truck carrying a bomb made of fertilizer and fuel oil parked on the north side of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The driver, Timothy McVeigh, fled the vehicle. Within minutes, the bomb exploded, rupturing support columns Eich_0767903277_5p_01_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:56 PM Page 286 286

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  and triggering a progressive collapse at the front of the building. By the time the rubble was cleared, 168 people would be dead. Five days after the attack in Oklahoma, a mail bomb exploded in the offices of a timber industry lobbying group, killing one person. The device was quickly traced to the Unabomber, the thenanonymous architect of a two-decade campaign of terror. The double-barreled terrorist assaults were unprecedented in American history and triggered a massive response from federal law enforcement. Hundreds of FBI agents from around the country were assigned. Louis Freeh and his division chiefs flocked to the command center on the Hoover Building’s fifth floor. Esposito was there for weeks, eighteen hours a day, until he was dispatched personally to Oklahoma. With two high-priority cases demanding unparalleled resources and attention, other investigations of less urgency were placed on the back burner. Esposito in particular had little time for much else. His desire to investigate the cooperating witness in Harvest King was all but forgotten.

  Shepard and Whitacre sat beside each other in a car parked in the lot of St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur. Whitacre had been to Hong Kong for the latest price-fixing meeting, and Shepard had collected notes and other evidence from him.

  As they wrapped up, Shepard handed Whitacre some tapes and other material that he might need. He suggested that Whitacre put them in his briefcase.

  “That’s okay, Brian,’’ Whitacre said. “My briefcase is kind of loaded with work anyway.’’

  Shepard nodded and said good-bye, pushing open the door and heading to his own car. Whitacre pulled away, relieved. He was glad Shepard hadn’t forced him to open the briefcase. It would have been impossible to explain why it was stuffed with wads of cash totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

  With Shepard assigned for more than two years to a single case, the daily work of the Decatur R.A. had fallen to another agent, John Bruch. Working at a nearby desk in the small office, Bruch was keenly aware of developments in the ADM investigation, but for the most part had little involvement. Instead, he handled other cases that were the lifeblood of the Bureau. The FBI couldn’t shut down in this part of Illinois simply because of one large investigation.

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  At 9:55 on the morning of April 27, Bruch was alone in his office when he heard the hello line ring. He knew it was probably Whitacre calling. He walked over and picked up the phone.

  “Hello?’’ he said.

  There was silence for an instant. “Is this a federal government location?’’ a voice asked. Bruch didn’t hesitate. “You must have the wrong number,’’ he said. The caller hung up.

  Twenty-five minutes later, Bruch was back at his desk when the main line rang. He picked up the phone.

  “FBI,’’ he said.

  Hesitation.

  “I must have the wrong number,’’ the caller said before hanging up. Bruch placed the phone back in its cradle, his stomach churning. The caller’s voice had sounded familiar. It was, he thought, the same person who had just called the hello line.

  Was somebody on to them?

  Bruch dialed the Springfield office. He needed to speak to a supervisor right away. Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 288

  CHAPTER 12

  As he waited for an elevator, Whitacre glanced toward a gourmet delicatessen on the ground floor of a Chicago office building. The lobby was elegant, the space airy. Even though the skies were dark this day, May 18, 1995, a glass ceiling coaxed in light. The elevator arrived and Whitacre stepped in, punching the button for the sixth floor, the new location for the Midwest office of the Antitrust Division.

  The planning for the raids had shifted into high gear. Whitacre was attending numerous meetings to answer the remaining questions. Prosecutors and agents wanted to know the comings and goings of executives, the design of the office, the location of records, anything. And they needed to prep Whitacre for his grand jury appearance, which was anticipated soon.

  Now, on top of everything, the odd call to the hello line had jangled nerves in the government. Maybe someone was suspicious; time might be running out for the covert investigation. The Bureau had placed a pen register on the line, to record the number of anyone else who called. So far, no one had.

  Whitacre stepped off the elevator, walking across a marble floor toward the antitrust office. Inside, he was whisked to a conference room with M
ann and Mutchnik. Whitacre sat at one end of a large wood-veneer table, with Mutchnik on the opposite side. Mann handled the interview, tossing out questions. But Whitacre seemed distracted.

  “Don’t you think, guys, everything will be okay for me?’’ he interrupted at one point. “Don’t you think they’ll recognize I did a good thing?’’

  “We don’t know, Mark,’’ Mann said.

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  “They’ll take out the bad guys, but I’ll be okay, don’t you think?’’

  “We don’t know, Mark. There’s no way we could know. But let’s get back to what we’re doing.’’

  Mann turned to the beginnings of the case. This whole Fujiwara episode, where Whitacre claimed to have received an extortion call from the Japanese, what was that about? “Walk us through the story,’’

  she said.

  Whitacre nodded uncomfortably.

  “Well, we were having production problems,’’ Whitacre replied.

  “And they just didn’t make sense.’’

  While there was no extortion call, Whitacre said, he did believe there was sabotage. But no one would take his concerns seriously, so he had made up the call to get people to look into the problem. Mutchnik said nothing. To him, it sounded like Whitacre had bungled production and come up with this wacky idea to buy time. It had been a dangerous gambit, he figured, one that Whitacre had overplayed. As the meeting broke, Mutchnik glanced out the window and saw it was drizzling. His softball team was scheduled to play that night, and he was planning to be there, rain or shine. He hurried down the hallway, changed into his sweats, and left. As he walked outside through the lobby door, he froze in his tracks.

  Whitacre was beneath an overhang of the office building, staring across the street at a bank. Mutchnik walked up beside him.

  “Share a cab?’’ he asked.

  Whitacre, standing straight, continued staring at the bank.

  “No, I’m meeting somebody.’’

  The rain picked up.

  “You sure?’’ Mutchnik asked. “I’m heading north; we can share a cab.’’

  Whitacre’s stare didn’t break.

  “No, I’m okay,’’ he said, sounding detached. “I’ll see you soon. It’s nice getting to know you, Jim. I think you’re a smart guy.’’

  Whitacre continued to stand motionless as Mutchnik hailed a cab.

  “Okay, Mark,’’ Mutchnik said. “I’ll see you.’’

  As the cab pulled away, Mutchnik looked out the back. He watched as Whitacre moved from his sheltered spot and walked up the street, getting soaked in the rain.

  The sight chilled Mutchnik. With the raids coming, he knew Whitacre’s guts must be churning—about what he had done, about Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 290 290

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  what he faced. That night, Mark Whitacre had to be the most conflicted person on the planet. What a confused, mixed-up guy, Mutchnik thought. Mark Cheviron felt proud. The ADM security chief was to be honored at a special meeting on June 29 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Not only that, but Dwayne Andreas would receive a tribute, too. Cheviron wanted to be sure everything went right. After all, it wasn’t every company that received accolades from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  At the meeting, Cheviron would be named chairman to an advisory board of the FBI National Academy, a Bureau program for local law enforcement. Dwayne Andreas was to be named honorary chairman. On May 31, Cheviron dictated a memo to Claudia Manning, Andreas’s secretary, spelling out details of the Waldorf celebration. He listed the expected attendees, including executives from Merrill Lynch & Co., Johnson & Johnson, and IBM.

  “Thanks for all your help in getting this off the ground,’’ Cheviron dictated. The memo was typed and sent to Manning.

  Cheviron didn’t know it, but he had just inadvertently created the only document that might obstruct the tidal wave bearing down on his company.

  “Bob? I’ve got something you’ll want to see.’’

  Special Agent Alec Wade approached Herndon’s desk in Springfield. Wade was involved with the National Academy and had seen some paperwork for the upcoming celebration at the Waldorf. He had just received a fax from ADM’s security department, saying that Andreas and Cheviron would be attending. The date—June 29—

  jumped out; the raids were scheduled two days before. Herndon scanned the fax and decided that Washington needed to know about this. Already, he had sent several memos about “raid day”

  to Alix Suggs, the Washington supervisor overseeing the case. He decided to include the fax from Cheviron. Suggs, he knew, would get the information into the right hands.

  After his infant son went down for his morning nap, Mutchnik headed to his car. Dressed casually in an open-neck shirt, he drove his black Honda Accord through morning traffic to Interstate 90, getting off at the Cumberland Avenue exit. He pulled into the parking lot of a small office complex.

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  Mutchnik felt nervous as he approached the third building in the complex. He was about to conduct surveillance of the Chicago office for Heartland Lysine, Ajinomoto’s American subsidiary. The office was on the raid list, and prosecutors needed details of its appearance for the search warrant.

  In the lobby, he checked a building index. Heartland Lysine, Suite 650.

  “Who are you here for?’’ a security guard asked.

  “A friend on the sixth floor,’’ Mutchnik replied. The guard nodded. Mutchnik rode the elevator up. He walked past the Heartland Lysine office, paying no attention. Down the hall, he stopped by another office near the bathroom and memorized the name on the door before walking back. He wandered past Heartland Lysine again, glancing inside. Finally, he strolled in. No one was in the reception area. Mutchnik looked around. Desks, offices, filing cabinets, nothing special. He memorized the setup; this was the kind of bland information they needed for the warrant. Suddenly, a young Japanese woman appeared.

  “Can I help you?’’ she asked.

  “Yes,’’ Mutchnik said. He was looking for a friend. He mentioned the name of the company located down the hall, next to the bathroom. The woman struggled to explain the location of the company; her English was poor. Mutchnik thanked her, walked to the elevator, and headed back to his car. Inside, he picked up a pen and small notepad off the seat and sketched the office he had just seen. When he finished, he put away the pad and pen, started the car, and pulled out of the lot. He wanted to get back home before his son woke up.

  Dwayne Andreas was in his sixth-floor office when Jim Randall came in. Randall had recently undergone open-heart surgery but was now back at work full-time. The two men sat, talking business. Suddenly, Randall’s eyes clouded over. “Dwayne, I just wanted you to know, I owe everything I have to you,’’ he said. “And I am loyal to you.’’

  Surprised, Andreas thanked Randall and a few minutes later ushered him out. He returned to his desk, feeling odd. Despite their years together, he and Randall didn’t have an emotional relationship. The display left Andreas feeling uncertain.

  What was that all about? he wondered.

  •

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  •

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  Who should they try to flip?

  That question was debated ferociously among the antitrust team for weeks. There would be only one chance to turn a potential defendant into a witness. If it worked, the government could pursue pricefixing cases in other products. If it failed, there would be no choice but to proceed with the raids. It was an all-or-nothing gamble. The investigators considered Barrie Cox, head of ADM’s citricacid business, but ruled him out. Their leverage with Cox was poor; he had never been caught saying an
ything particularly incriminating. Plus, beyond citric, he was unlikely to know much.

  Wilson was the dark-horse candidate, but the arguments against him were compelling. He was dedicated to the Andreas family; it was hard to imagine he would turn on them. Plus, to use their leverage against Wilson, the agents would have to play a tape. But Whitacre was on all of them. If Whitacre’s role in the case was going to be kept secret as long as possible, Wilson couldn’t hear his own tapes. That left one option.

  On June 22, days before the raid was to take place, Herndon sent a teletype to headquarters, spelling out the plan.

  “On Tuesday, June 27th in the early evening, co–case agents will interview subject Michael D. Andreas,’’ he wrote. “The purpose of the interview is to flip Andreas in order to gather other evidence.’’

  The following Monday, Bill Esposito, head of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, heard about some news in the Springfield information packet: Just two days after the scheduled raid on ADM, top Bureau officials would be attending a ceremony honoring Dwayne Andreas. Esposito called a deputy director at Quantico who was scheduled to go to the event.

  “I’m not allowing you to attend,’’ he said. “I mean, what the hell’s going on here? We’re getting ready to hit this guy’s place.’’

  Esposito headed down the hall to tell Freeh about the development. As Freeh sat at his desk, Esposito described the ceremony.

  “What are they doing that for?’’ Freeh asked.

  The last-minute notification by his senior staff irritated Freeh. For major takedowns, he usually received a full briefing first. He knew about Harvest King but had no idea until now that the raid was coming. ADM was not a company to be trifled with; Freeh wanted to know more.

  The orders went out. Before the raids received a green light, somebody from Springfield had to personally brief Louis Freeh. Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 293