Triple Identity

by Haggai Carmon

  We took separate entrances and went to the seventh floor.

  “Food is here. And it's about time!” said Tom, when he opened the door. I noticed that although we were expected, Tom had a .38 in his hand as he opened the door.

  We went to the table and distributed the food.

  “Eat,” said Benny to Eric, Tom, and Jeff. “Probably your first shot at kosher food. Enjoy it!” It was only the second time I saw Eric smile.

  Eric's mouth was full now, so it was a good time to ask him about the information that the Mossad had given him on DeLouise's contacts with the Soviets. After he heard what I was about to say, he'd choke — an outcome that was not undesirable in my book. “Eric, I was under the impression that while I'm here to help you, you would also provide me with some information on my own case. I am aware that Benny shared information with you on DeLouise and I've been the last to find out about it. Last time I checked, you and I work for the same government.”

  “There was never any such understanding,” said Eric coolly. “The Justice Department had agreed to attach you to our operation because of your familiarity with DeLouise's affairs and your initial contact with Guttmacher. I don't know of any agreement in which I give you what I have. You're the one who's giving, not me.”

  I couldn't believe my ears. The guy had more nerve than I thought. My mother used to call it chutzpah, and I was about to call it quits. I got up and said, “In that case, I'm leaving, and you can call the Justice Department if you don't like it.” Although I had started this tirade as partly genuine and partly staged, I now felt real anger surging in me. Benny, who sensed the storm coming, quickly said, “I'm sorry, it's my fault. I told Dan that I gave you what we have on DeLouise's European activities and his Soviet and other connections. I didn't intend to create a rift. We all need Dan in this matter.”

  Eric swallowed his food. “We do work for the same government, but I can't allow you to use the same information we are working on and potentially risk CIA operations.”

  “Look,” I said, “you have no monopoly on information. The fact that the Mossad has given you whatever they gave you means only that they have that information. I could have developed it independently, and I'm sure others have it as well. I'll run my business, and you'll run yours, but you can't stop me from doing my job. In my asset-recovery work, when I come across information that could be useful to another U.S. government law-enforcement agency, I relay it on. Nobody has ever tried to control me the way you do. You want to work together? Fine. You don't? That's also fine, but I've had enough of your little games.”

  Eric looked almost guilty, conceding that he'd overdone it. He didn't need me walking out on him, reporting to Washington about his tactics and making him look like someone who couldn't coordinate a multi-agency operation. That wouldn't look good on his efficiency report. After all, I wasn't asking him for confidential national-security information. I didn't even ask him to reveal his sources; the source was sitting in the same room with us. So why the bullheadedness?

  “Look,” said Eric, in his best conciliatory voice, which wasn't much to begin with, “I wouldn't mind giving you more information on DeLouise, but you'll have to agree to coordinate with me so that you won't accidentally expose our other sources or interfere with our operation.”

  “I have no problem with that. But coordinate should mean what it really means. Don't expect me to take orders from you when it concerns my work.”

  Eric didn't answer.

  “I'm waiting,” I said. It was now or never.

  “Fine,” said Eric. “Benny, you can tell Dan what you've told me.”

  Benny opened his briefcase, pulled out a yellow pad, leafed through the pages, and began.

  “First I want you to know that substantially all of the information you're about to hear is single-source information. And you know what that means. The single source is DeLouise himself. We interviewed him after he had asked for our help. So if you intend to rely on this information, you should corroborate it from other sources as well. Use it as intelligence, not facts or evidence.”

  “I understand that,” I said. “Go on.”

  “When DeLouise left the United States, he thought he wouldn't be gone for long. It seems that his attorneys knew federal banking law but not enough about federal criminal law, and they assured him that the storm would soon be over.”

  “I've heard this before,” I said. “I've seen how even experienced civil lawyers might simply not understand that their clients had committed federal white-collar crimes. One of them once even said to me, ‘That's just the way we do business.’”

  Benny went on. “So in mid-1990 he settled at the Noga Hilton in Geneva, using his DeLouise name. He was busy having a good time. But as the weeks passed he began to understand that his problems were far from over. First he heard from his attorneys that, once it filed, the U.S. government was likely to win a ninety-million-dollar civil suit against him unless he was present to testify and fight it. Next he heard that the indictment had come down, and he knew that within hours INTERPOL might have every police force in every country in Europe looking for him.”

  “How did he hear that?” asked Ron. “Grand jury deliberations are confidential. He was a fugitive, so the indictment would undoubtedly have been sealed. There'd be no public announcement of it and no public record. Did he tell you that someone was leaking that information to him?”

  “I don't know,” said Benny. “We didn't ask and he never told us. Anyway, he then realized that a Colombian drug cartel was also on his back, and finally he realized that your office was looking not just for his money but for him as well.”

  That was a surprise. I was sure my office maintained tight field security to prevent our targets from knowing we might be after them. I'd have to report this to David and our security officer. Benny paused for a moment, as if he'd read my mind.

  “The last straw was a call from the hotel porter at the Hilton telling him that two men were asking questions about him. DeLouise withdrew $250,000 in cash from his account at the small Credit Suisse branch in the hotel; that was all the cash they had on hand at that time. But he couldn't wait for the bank to replenish its cash, and, therefore, he took only cash. I guess he didn't want to take a bank check that could be traced back to where he cashed it; that would have revealed his new location. He took a cab to a used-car lot in Geneva and bought a Mercedes. He drove directly from the car lot north toward Germany. He didn't even check out of the Hilton, since he didn't want to be seen leaving the hotel with luggage; departing without checking out had its advantages. Anyone looking for him would assume he was still in the area because his hotel room was still under his name. By the time the hotel, or any of his pursuers, had figured out that he'd gone, DeLouise would already be hundreds of miles away. As you know, there are very few border checks within Europe. DeLouise had a U.S. passport and a respectable appearance, so I guess the German border police didn't bother stopping him. He drove through Germany looking for the right spot. Through a recommendation of an acquaintance that had previously used Guttmacher's bank for untraceable money transfers, DeLouise made contact with the bank.

  “The match was perfect. He needed a seasoned banker who wouldn't ask too many questions and who could help him move his money from Switzerland to other locations without making any waves or attracting attention. The complexity lay not only in moving the money out of Switzerland to another country without leaving a traceable paper trail but also in moving it into accounts held under different names.

  “For Guttmacher, too, meeting DeLouise was a blessing. Not only did this new client bring a potentially huge fortune to his bank, he also brought his personal business savvy Guttmacher was doing business with DiMarco, the Italian purchasing agent for the Iranians. Doing business Guttmacher-style meant moving some of the transactions through Bankhaus Bäcker & Haas as well as hiding DiMarco's fat commissions both from the Iranians and Italy's internal revenue service. Apparently the Iranians didn't realize
that in addition to the hefty fees they were paying DiMarco, he was collecting commissions from the suppliers. Their contract with him specifically forbade that.”

  Benny continued. “DiMarco complained to Guttmacher that he was having difficulty supplying the Iranians with the missile technology and the nuclear machine tools and materials they ordered. Many vendors in Europe were reluctant, for various reasons, to deal with the Iranians. There were significant trade restrictions imposed by the U.S. government and many European manufacturers had subsidiaries in the U.S. Therefore, fearing they would have to explain their ties with Iran, they simply gave up. When after a tedious search the Iranian agents found a good source of supply they negotiated the transaction, and then DiMarco was brought in to do the actual placing of the order, masking the identity of the real purchasers. But nothing went smoothly, and the Iranians were blaming DiMarco for the delays caused by bureaucracy. The export-control laws of some of the industrialized nations made it difficult to purchase and ship what the Iranians wanted to the places where they wanted it to go. This wasn't the kind of stuff you'd buy out of catalogues or off the shelf. These were materials and machinery that were complex, expensive, heavily regulated, and easily detectable in border crossings.

  “Hearing DiMarco's gripes, Guttmacher suggested two solutions to help the Iranians and DiMarco. To answer the growing need for suppliers who'd look the other way when Iranians orders were placed, he suggested they look for contacts in the Soviet Union. The shake-up of the Soviet empire during the previous year had opened new opportunities if you knew where to look for them, he told him. Another possibility was North Korea or China, but Guttmacher told DiMarco to concentrate on the Soviet Union first. The second piece of advice was to use private businessmen to front all the nonnuclear orders, to distance Iran even further from the transactions. The Iranians were impressed with Guttmacher and suggested he locate the kinds of businessmen he'd described. When Guttmacher met DeLouise and sized up both his international business experience and his flexibility, he asked DeLouise whether he was available to participate in some ‘interesting business transactions.’ DeLouise, smelling money and needing the available cash, said yes without knowing what he was getting into. How long could he live on the meager $250,000 he carried with him and the one or two million he managed to extricate from Switzerland? That was small potatoes for him.”

  Benny paused to take a drink and I answered for him. “Not too long if you're living the lifestyle to which DeLouise was accustomed.”

  “Exactly,” said Benny. “His big bucks were stuck in Switzerland, where the Colombians, disgruntled minority shareholders of his collapsed bank, were still looking for him. He also needed to remove his money from Switzerland as quickly as possible, before the U.S. government found it.”

  “At this point Guttmacher threw out the bait. He told DeLouise that the government of Iran needed to buy machinery and spare parts for its oil and pharmaceutical industries but the West was giving it a hard time. Therefore, said Guttmacher, the Iranians were looking for private businessmen to front and ‘facilitate’ these transactions. Many of the products and machinery had dual purposes and could pass as benign. If the government of Iran buys steel with military specs, it's a suspicious transaction; if Raymond DeLouise, a private businessman, buys it, it's legitimate business.

  “Also, the Iranians needed U.S. computer technology for the development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons; their shopping list included graphics terminals to design and analyze rockets, and U.S. law prohibited export of this hardware to Iran and other nations known to sponsor terrorism. But it looks as if DeLouise thought that he could at least order the terminals, supposedly for end users in an acceptable country but actually for clandestine transshipment to the Iranians.”

  Ron said, “I've handled parts of some of these cases. European law can be far more accommodating than U.S. law about shipment of dual-use equipment and materials to nations on the State Department's list of states sponsoring terrorism — which of course includes Iran.”

  “They forget their morals when it's time to do business. But that will change,” said Benny. “Terrorism knows no political borders, and terrorists, like extortionists, know how to identify weakness and use it for their own benefit.”

  “Anyway,” Eric stepped in, trying to distance himself from politics, “Guttmacher's deal sounded like a good business opportunity to DeLouise. He was no fool, and with his education and background he immediately understood what kinds of deals the Iranians were trying to make in Europe and why they wanted advanced U.S. computer technology. He thought he could bilk the Iranians while also gaining access to their covert activity in Europe and the U.S.”

  Once an agent, always an agent, I thought. But was DeLouise working only for himself?

  “So DeLouise took a step forward, showing Guttmacher he understood what the transactions were really about, and offered his contacts in the Soviet Union,” Eric said.

  “Did he have any?” I asked.

  “Apparently not. But he read the papers and saw what was going on in the Soviet Union, and that gave him an opportunity to take a lead in a transaction rather than simply lend his name to a shady deal and collect a limited commission. He wanted more than that. Instead of being just a straw man, with no influence or knowledge of the ins and outs of the Iranian purchasing frenzy, he wanted to play center stage. It was riskier but more lucrative, and the leverage he expected this to give him with the U.S. government would be commensurate with the risks: he hoped to trade intelligence on the Iranians’ nuclear program, and their attempts to get prohibited U.S. computers, for a sweetheart deal on his criminal charges.”

  “I would think that DeLouise would have needed a viable U.S. criminal case against someone else, which he could then give up to a federal prosecutor in exchange for a plea bargain,” said Ron.

  “He had it,” answered Eric. “There was an Iranian attempt to acquire proscribed U.S. computer technology.”

  “I don't know who gave him that idea,” said Ron. “Certainly a defendant could trade intelligence data for a plea bargain, but, from my own experience, it seems far-fetched. For one thing, the CIA wouldn't let the federal prosecutors know how good the defendant's intelligence had been, so the prosecutors could not make representations to the court about the usefulness of the defendant's cooperation — thus, there'd be no adequate basis for the court's acceptance of the plea. The prospective plea bargainer almost certainly would have to give up persons whose activity clearly contravened U.S. criminal law.”

  “I don't think it's the case here,” said Benny, “but DeLouise had his hopes; he must have thought that the information he was willing to trade was so valuable that his case would be the exception. In any case, DeLouise's words were music to Guttmacher's ears. But he demanded proof that DeLouise had the right connections before he agreed to discuss anything with him. DeLouise had to deliver, and the nuclear materials were first on the list. So DeLouise made a few phone calls and went to Berlin. Berlin is heavily populated with Russians who have escaped the Soviet Union and are hungry for any kind of business, legal or not. It took DeLouise only a week until he came across Vladimir Tkachenko, a wheeler-dealer in everything, who promised that he had the right contacts in the Soviet Union. DeLouise challenged him to prove it, asking for trace residues of lithium-6. Within two weeks Vladimir delivered the goods wrapped in a plastic bag, stored in a lead container. Happy, DeLouise went back to Munich with the proof. From then on, things moved quickly.”

  “Was it that simple?” I asked, finding it hard to believe you could buy nuclear materials so easily on the open market.

  “No,” said Benny, “not quite. Let's take one step back. First DeLouise wanted to see if Guttmacher was for real — to make sure his offer wasn't a scam, or worse, a sting operation by a law-enforcement agency. So he hired a retired agent of BND, Bundesnachrichtendienst, the German federal intelligence service, to do a background check for him on Guttmacher.”

&
nbsp; “Do you have his name?”

  “Yes, Kurt Hansa. He operates out of,” Benny looked at his pad, “Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse number 311, Munich.”

  I jotted down the name and address. Benny continued. “Hansa reported to DeLouise that Guttmacher's bank was legitimate but that Guttmacher himself had been under increased attention from Germany's federal police over his connections with the Iranians.”

  “I guess Hansa reported to his former employers, the federal police, about DeLouise's inquiries, and from there the information flowed to the CIA and the Mossad,” I said.

  Eric and Benny smiled the kind of a giveaway smile that says I ain't talking.

  “Anyway, Hansa's report to DeLouise that the bank was a genuine institution and that there was no conclusive negative business information about Guttmacher was all DeLouise needed. Apparently Hansa never told DeLouise about the secret ongoing investigation of Guttmacher. DeLouise called Guttmacher and told him that he had the samples that Guttmacher had requested earlier as proof. Now it was quid pro quo time: DeLouise demanded that Guttmacher show his hand and bring his clients in for a meeting. Guttmacher called DiMarco in Italy and quickly arranged a meeting with DiMarco, plus Cyrus Armajani and Farbod Kutchemeshgi, the Iranian agents.”

  “Here in Munich?”

  “Yes, in Guttmacher's office. At the meeting DeLouise gave them the proof: a detectable trace of lithium-6. The Iranians were apparently gratified.”

  “So the meeting ended with DeLouise having the deal he was hoping would extricate him from his problems with law enforcement?”

  “Not exactly,” said Eric. “The Iranians wanted to make sure that they weren't walking into a trap of some sort. They knew that every Western intelligence service was snooping around them. They interrogated DeLouise about his personal background, his business and family connections. They asked him to prepare a family tree, telling him bluntly that they'd first check the accuracy of his family tree and if DeLouise didn't deliver or was discovered to be an agent of any foreign government, they would kill his relatives.”