Word: jordanians
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
...meet at the end. We certainly favor a Palestinian delegation chosen by the Palestinian people, because you can't have people representing them except those of their own choice. However, if there is a problem there and it can be overcome only by providing an umbrella of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, then we will do that based on talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization and with the Palestinians. A real Palestinian nationalist in my book is somebody who is hanging on to his land, and has been enduring hardship for years and years, much more so than somebody...
...handle his accounts and those of a few other high rollers. His boast was not unfounded. During the 1980s his Coffee Inc. sold millions of pounds of Central American beans to American buyers. A Mercedes, a Porsche and a Rolls-Royce sat in the driveway of the expatriate Jordanian's $1.8 million home...
Bilbeisi is also an arms dealer who has peddled used Jordanian and new East European weaponry to South Africa and Latin America under dubious terms. The $35 million worth of coffee he sold to American companies was contraband smuggled into the U.S. Financing for those deals, including letters of credit and falsified documents, is the sort of business no legitimate bank would touch, so Bilbeisi needed B.C.C.I. He was happy to kick back cash to his bankers for such services, including the laundering of his gains...
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...