The Bottens Handelsbank was very active like many Swedish banks in the newly independent Baltic states. It was only ten years or so since those countries had the unexpected good fortune to throw off the Soviet yoke.
The Bottens had set up a branch in Riga, which was engaged in the financing bilateral trade with Sweden and also worked on a number of projects financed by the Berd in London. Holmqvist had curiously accumulated the roles of being the local head of the Bottens and at the same time the representative of the Berd.
Through a complex arrangement, the Berd was to finance indirectly part of the Ciscap project, through a barter arrangement whereby Latvia supplied Russian oil and fertiliser against Cuban sugar. Ventspils, the main shipping port of Latvia had been in the very recent past a major port for the Soviet Union to the Baltic and Western Europe, it continued to be so as the port was connected by pipeline and railways to the Russia networks, bringing bulk products to western markets.
Mika had set the deal up and as middleman would collect a solid commission. The essential however was that Arrowsmith fulfil his engagement with Carlos Gonzales Montero of Sierra Maestra, to help him export his sugar crop and import the fertilisers for his sugar cane plantations. Cuba needed ten million tons of oil a year, therefore the bartered oil would be sold to the state refineries. The old communist system ‘sugar for oil’, with Cuban sugar vastly overpriced, no longer functioned, it was everyone for himself.
The modernisation of the port of Ventspils as well as the investment for the environmental rehabilitation of the port zone after fifty years of soviet pollution was being financed by the Berd as part of their on-going programme in the country.
“You’re friend Kennedy has been up to some monkey business!”
“So you told me,” replied Arrowsmith referring to Mika’s call a couple of weeks earlier.
“Ortega wants the sugar deal.”
“Ortega?”
“Yeah, he has some old friends in the Ministry of Sugar in Havana, he has promised them the deal with a share of the commissions.”
“But what does Kennedy have to do with it?”
“It’s not really clear, but it seems that Ortega has been showing him around his hotel investments in Mexico, treating him like visiting royalty.”
Mika recounted the information that he had obtained from a friend in the Russian Ministry of the Interior concerning Ortega. He had undisputed links with the Latino and Russian Mafiya in money laundering.
He described the explosion of drug addiction in Russia and the how huge sums of money derived from drug trafficking were moved in and out of the country. How heroin, imported from Afghanistan and Tajikistan by the Mafiya, had spread to every corner of the country and how cocaine was becoming the fashionable drug amongst the nouveau riche in Moscow and St Petersburg.
He went on to explain how Ortega laundered money from deals with Russian producers of oil and fertilisers, vast quantities of these commodities were exported, though only part of the payments ever returned to Russia, the lions share going to some offshore tax haven and recycled into other businesses.
“What’s the market price of sugar today?” Mika asked as they turned to the triangular arrangement of oil, sugar and fertilisers.
“Let’s see sugar is around six cents a pound on the Sugarworld NCSE.”
“So half a million tonnes is sixty million dollars. Half a million tons of oil or three million barrels is roughly the same, that’s a combined barter deal of 120 million dollars with say ten percent for Ortega, not bad ten or twelve million dollars.”
“Yeah, anybody who could do that once or twice a year wouldn’t have a retirement problem.”
“That’s nothing for him, just the tip of the iceberg, because he works for the big Russian oil and fertiliser companies trading in millions of tonnes of products and siphoning of huge amounts of money to the offshore bank accounts for the Russians.”
“So, I suppose he doesn’t want anybody muscling in on his territory.”
“Right!”
“I still can’t see why he’s so interested in Kennedy?”
“Respectable investments, laundering money stolen from the Russian people, laundering Colombian drug money! He’s using Kennedy to transform illegal money into legal investments, such as Ciscap or through some other some nice innocent Irish industries!” he said laughing at the thought.
Riga airport looked like any other Baltic city airport in winter, a line of three snow ploughs abreast moved slowly along the runway. The difference to the experienced traveller was the Russian built Tupelov’s of Aeroflot transformed into Lidosta Riga, the national airline, and a bunch of about fifteen Antonov’s lined up at one end of the tarmac.
Arrowsmith passed through the passport control without any problem, but Barton, who had no dollars - only French Francs, was diverted to a visa bureau in the corner of the small cold airport.
Holmqvist wore a slouched Fedora and a long black belted coat. Arrowsmith thought that the Swede was playing out the role of a reborn Baltic Baron.
The road into the city was monotonous; the only distraction was the backbreaking bumps as the car hit the deep potholes in the road or swerved to avoid them. It had started to snow and through the windscreen the swirling white flurries had a soporific effect.
The building housed both the Riga Bottens representative office and that of the Berd. It was in an elegant ornate pre-war building. The stairs were in marble, covered with a purple carpet, on each landing highly polished double doors with carved architraves in dark wood led into the office areas. The reception area was decorated in glass and marble. It was typical of a bank, inspiring confidence and continuity.
Holmqvist was a Swede; he was head of the investment section at the Bottens. His job was to assess businesses and industries for investment; he boasted that in three years he had visited more than ninety potential companies in the three Baltic States.
As far as Koskinen was concerned he was a fagot and Arrowsmith agreed he was un vieux pedal with his fedora, camping his vision of long gone Baltic nobility.
“Our job is to get his money to set-up the barter deal,” said Koskinen his jaw firm with determination, “then we can seriously think about big tits.”
Kutzmenkov was somewhere behind, he had eaten at least the equivalent of the other three at lunch, and several strong dark beers. Arrowsmith had expressed his serious concern that Kutzmenkov would explode splattering them with a mixture of shit and dark beer.
“Let us be serious for a moment,” replied Koskinen. “We need their money.”
“Good morning,” said Arrowsmith, putting on one of his charming smiles for the receptionist, a blond who was evidently bored sitting in front of her word processor all day. At first she put on a severe smile and then relaxed, he was evidently not a serious customer. She called Holmqvist on the phone and a few seconds later he was there - without the fedora.
“Ah, good morning, welcome to the Berd as they say in French or should I pronounce that bird?” as he preferred to refer to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that had been set up to aid the reconstruction of Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union.
They laughed and followed him into the meeting room, which was obviously designed for the formal signing of agreements and large loans, which had unfortunately not been forthcoming contrary to the plans of the bank’s first president, the extravagant Frenchman, Jacques Attali or his successors for that matter, business in the East was much more complicated than had been at first thought by the bank’s creators.
“Look Tony I think you should come back to Moscow with me to look into the Ortega thing otherwise we’re going to have some problems.”
“I didn’t plan on that Mika.”
“Neither did I, but I don’t want to waste my time on this if that bastard is going to steal it from under my nose. I also need a retirement plan!”
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Yaroslav
Offshore Islands Page 71