In a world of uncertainty, a reliable record of shady self-dealing
But SkyWay, which only lost $40 million of investors money, is an absolute paragon of excellence, corporate governance-wise, when compared to the DC9's previous owner...
Genesis Aviation is one of several dozen company fronts, all of which contain the name “Genesis” in the title, controlled by one of the key figures in the Iran Contra scandal, Saudi billionaire and long-time CIA asset Adnan Khashoggi.
Last month the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Khashoggi and Ramy Al Batrawi, his lieutenant for the past 20 years, with stock fraud in U.S. District Court for Central California. The men are accused of orchestrating a $130 million fraud involving the stock price of GenesisIntermedia.
When the helpful Khashoggi worked with Oliver North to sell arms to Iran, Ramy El-Batrawi was there, as president of a Khashoggi company, Jetborne International, indicted for illegally ferrying TOW missiles to Iran, an “enterprise” which netted someone—though not the U.S. Government or the Contras it was supposedly funding—a tidy bit of change.
Apparently neither man learned that crime doesn’t pay, because Adnan and Ramy’s recent pilferage make the Kovars look like kids stealing a candy bar from a 7-11 after school.
“Just three months after the company’s Initial Public Offering (IPO), the nearly $17 million raised in the offering was gone,” read one wire service story.
“The creative dealings of defendant El-Batrawi partly explains how this money disappeared so quickly,” reported the AP.
Making money disappear since before you were born
“El-Batrawi had a side deal called "Trade Your Way to Riches," and he thus arranged to have its mailing lists sold to Genesis for $3.8 million of the proceeds lifted from the IPO. Additionally El-Batrawi gave himself $362,149 for flying himself around in his private plane to promote the deal on the IPO. road show.”
Another area where Glenn and Brent Kovar might learn something from past master Khashoggi is how, in your financial fraud’s aftermath, to make yourself scarce…
“Lawyers for Mr. El-Batrawi and Mr. Khashoggi could not be immediately located for comment,” reported the L.A. Times. “An SEC lawyer, Kara Brockmeyer, said the agency had not determined who their lawyers were. Mr. El- Batrawi has no listed telephone number in Los Angeles, and Mr. Khashoggi's whereabouts is not known, according to the complaint.”
The SEC may be interested to learn what The MadCowMorningNews discovered El-Batrawi doing a year ago. The high-roller was spending millions gambling in Vegas, where he flew by private jet. The TV show “Casino Diaries” even profiled him in action.
The DC9 has also been “owned” by Finova Capital, revealed in the early 90’s as a CIA front which also “owned” the C123 military cargo plane used by notorious drug smuggler and CIA pilot Barry Seal, which was later shot down over Nicaragua with Eugene Hasenfus onboard. |
