Word: meltzer
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...informer, Joseph B. Meltzer, 55, was recruited by the FBI soon after he was convicted in 1978 by a court in West Palm Beach, Fla., for possession of $100,000 in stolen securities. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The FBI sought his advice in conducting the Abscam bribery sting that eventually implicated seven Congressmen and Democratic Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey. While helping the FBI, Meltzer learned that, to lure politicians into the Abscam net, the FBI had set up a phony investment firm called Abdul Enterprises in New York City and invented a fictitious sheik...
...Meltzer soon turned up in California, representing himself as a top officer of H & J Real Estate Investment of Boynton Beach, Fla., which he said was an offshoot of Abdul Enterprises, and began lining up investment opportunities for Sheik Rahman. The sheik, Meltzer told local businessmen, would lend huge sums to entrepreneurs for promising new ventures; he promised $95 million to one businessman for four tuna boats. But Meltzer demanded that the businessmen first pay him finder's fees. He collected...
...Meltzer told some of the businessmen that he was an undercover FBI agent. Those who got in touch with the FBI about him discovered that he did indeed have a connection, if only because Meltzer immediately phoned them back. Several told the New York Times that the knowledge increased their confidence in Meltzer, but some did get suspicious. Meltzer kept summoning them to distant locations-New York City, London, the Cayman Islands-to pick up their money, but produced excuses for not handing it over and for not letting borrowers meet the sheik...
...Gulve, a San Diego financial consultant whose clients gave Meltzer $55,000, told TIME that Meltzer did introduce him to two supposed sons of the sheik in Florida. One was called Prince Ali Ben Ramon, a light-skinned man who spoke with an Oxford accent and drove a Rolls-Royce. The other was Mustafa, a much swarthier man who drove a red Mercedes. Gulve also spoke on the phone to someone who identified himself as Sheik Rahman, and found his accent decidedly Eastern. Says Gulve: "I told him that if he was the sheik, he must own all of Brooklyn...
...businessmen complained to the FBI, and the bureau's San Diego office dutifully began an investigation. It was stopped on orders from the New York City FBI officials supervising the Abscam operation, who feared that any talk about Meltzer would blow the bigger sting. Not until last October was the FBI's information on Meltzer turned over to the U.S. Attorney in San Diego...