Word: guatemala
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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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...
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...
Such systems are particularly attractive to governments troubled by civilian unrest. Guatemala, where death squads have been linked to hundreds of extrajudicial executions and "disappearances," purchased computer surveillance software from Israel in the early 1980s. Within the next few weeks, Taiwan is expected to award contracts worth $270 million for its own "residential-information system." Among the bidders: Unisys, Digital Equipment Corp...
...auditors disallowed numerous travel expenses, including round trip airfare from Boston to Guatemala, Panama and Colombia for--a non-Harvard employee and without any documentation showing a connection to grant research...
Belize, formerly British Honduras, enjoys the distinction of being the most obscure country in Latin America. It is tiny: a nibble between the borders of Mexico to the north, Honduras to the south and Guatemala to the west. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was the haunt of Spanish bucaneros and English slavers, of logwood cutters and warm-sea riffraff. In 1981 it achieved independence, and today it is the last fragment of the British Commonwealth on Central American soil, the smallest sovereign state on the whole continent (pop. about 200,000) and politically the least eventful...