Word: bilbeisi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Nonetheless, the department clearly felt pressured to prove it has not been napping. Justice took a step in that direction last week when a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Munther Bilbeisi, a Jordanian coffee dealer who banked at B.C.C.I., on charges that he smuggled Guatemalan coffee into the U.S. to avoid income taxes on profits from the sale of the beans...
...million loan that the bank extended to the country in 1988-89. Government officials told TIME they suspect that some of the money may have gone to pay bribes to stifle a four-year-old investigation of a major B.C.C.I. client, coffee smuggler and arms merchant Munther Bilbeisi. "If the $30 million was given to corrupt public officials and that can be proved, then the loan should be wiped out or reduced," says Fernando Arevalo Reina of the Guatemalan Attorney General's office. (Bilbeisi has denied any wrongdoing...
...Bilbeisi's smuggling scheme, undetected by U.S. authorities, began with bribes to coffee growers in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to obtain beans not subject to tariff agreements. The coffee, available at bargain rates, was ostensibly for domestic consumption or export to nontariff nations. To move the contraband through Central America, Bilbeisi's agents, financed by B.C.C.I. letters of credit, paid bribes to truckers, checkpoint officials and port officials. The coffee was marked for delivery to Jordan or Syria but was routed through Miami or New Orleans, where it was secretly off-loaded. Former U.S. shipping agents who testified before...
...Bilbeisi scheme reaches into corporate America as well. The grand jury is investigating Arthur Berman, who was president of Chase & Sanborn in 1981-84 and Chock Full o' Nuts in 1984-85. The Lloyd's lawsuit contends that the executive, knowing the coffee was smuggled, accepted "substantial commissions" from Bilbeisi and Coffee Inc. to facilitate sales to Chase & Sanborn and Chock Full o' Nuts. Bilbeisi's company ledgers show $160,000 in cash and checks paid to Berman. In a 1988 deposition, Berman denied the payments were illegal commissions, insisting they were merely loans that he used to support...
Lloyd's investigators have also probed Bilbeisi's role as an arms broker. In one transaction Bilbeisi proposed the sale of U.S.-built Jordanian fighter jets and helicopters to Guatemala. According to documents from a Bilbeisi company, three helicopters were delivered at hugely inflated prices, and part of the proceeds was kicked back to high-ranking Guatemalan officers and the brother of former President Vinicio Cerezo. B.C.C.I. financed the deal for a $400,000 commission. Guatemala has brought criminal charges against Bilbeisi, and is seeking his extradition from Jordan...