[A-List] Financial Scams and The Bush Family

[Jorge Figueiredo <jfgf.consult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Enron scandal is but the tip of the Iceberg. Fully documented by the
US and British media, the Bush family has been implicated in a string of
financial scams since the 980s. 
The following text based on a compilation of press excerpts (first
published in December 2000) is self-explanatory.
The personal links between the Bush and Salinas de Gortiari families are
also documented. The Salinas family was closely tied to the Mexican drug
cartel.
When Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican
State apparatus become criminalised with key government positions
occupied by members of the Cartel.
    The Minister of Commerce in charge of trade
negotiations leading up to the signing of NAFTA was Raul Salinas Lozano,
father of Raul Junior the Drug kingpin and of Carlos the
president.

Financial Scams and The Bush Family

Excerpts from the Western press compiled by Michel
Chossudovsky
Emperor's Clothes, December 2000
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), 
globalresearch.ca,  18  February 2002

The Bush Family and the Savings and Loans (S&L) Scandal
(1980s)
In the 1980s, George W Bush's younger brother Neil was involved in
the Savings and Loan scam. According to the Los Angeles Times, other
members of the Bush family were also involved:
"As a director of the defunct Silverado Savings & Loan in
Denver, Neil Bush [brother of George W] was found by federal regulators
to have engaged in a conflict of interest by
    participating in the approval of loans totaling $132
million from the S&L to his own business partners. In 1990, when
George W. Bush's little-known firm, Harken Energy, was awarded a
    lucrative contract from the Persian Gulf nation of
Bahrain, the deal was widely seen as an effort on the part of Bahrain's
royal family to win favor with the White House.
In 1985, Jeb Bush [brother of George W and Governor of Florida]
interceded with officials of the Health and Human Services Department on
behalf of Miguel Recarey Jr., the owner of a
    health-maintenance organization who later fled the
country after being charged in what is believed to be the nation's
biggest Medicare scandal. Jeb Bush received $75,000 from Recarey for
a
    business deal that never materialized. Likewise,
Prescott Bush [brother of former President George Bush] has been accused
of taking advantage of his brother's sympathetic approach to China to
negotiate business deals in that country." (Los Angeles Times, 10
May 1992)
According to the Dayton Daily News:
"After Silverado, Neil got a $ 2 million loan from the Small
Business Administration and walked on it. Son Marvin Bush also has a
spotty business record, and our own Gov. Shrub
    (George W. Bush) was accused of violating securities
laws governing insider stock sales when he sold his shares of Harken Oil
on the eve of the Persian Gulf war. (Nothing ever came of the
    allegations.)" (Dayton Daily News, 10 May
1992)
The Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) Scandal (1992)
According to the Wall Street Journal:
"Lawyers in class-action suit against Bank of Credit and Commerce
International identify presidential sons George Bush and Jeb Bush as
potential witnesses in their case."(Wall
    Street Journal, 10 March 1992)
In the course of his investigation, Manhattan District Attorney Robert
Morgenthau in charge of prosecuting the BCCI case had looked into Harken
Energy: In a December 1991 story the Wall Street Journal pointed 
out
''numerous links among Harken, Bahrain and individuals close to the Bank
of Credit and Commerce International.'' Stephens is one of them. Several
years ago, the Journal said, Stephens
    arranged for a Swiss bank to provide Harken with $25
million at a time when the bank was a partner with BCCI in another
project. When snags developed, Stephens lined up Abdullah Bakhsh,
whose
    business partners include an alleged BCCI front man
and whose banker had been a large BCCI shareholder. Bakhsh became
Harken's third-largest stockholder -- and also owns 10 percent of
    Stephens's Worthen Banking." (quoted in Common
Cause Magazine, Spring 1992) "Stephens was the investment banker for
Harken Energy, which in early 1990 won rights to drill for oil
    off Bahrain -- surprising since the company had never
drilled an offshore well. Further questions were raised because
presidential son George W. Bush, a friend of Stephens, serves on
Harken's
    board. (The San Diego Union Tribune, 17 January
1992)

The Mexican Drug Cartel:  What links to Raul Salinas de Gortiari?
(1995)
According to the Houston Chronicle and the Ledger (Lakeland,
Florida),  Jeb Bush (brother of George W) --before becoming Governor
of the Sunshine State-- was a close friend of Raul Salinas
    de Gortiari, and brother of former President of Mexico
Carlos Salinas. Raul --who was a leading member of the Mexican Drug
Cartel-- is now serving a 27 year jail term for having murdered a
    political opponent:
"There has also been a great deal of speculation in Mexico about the
exact nature of Raul Salinas' close friendship with former President
George Bush's son, Jeb. It is well known here
    that for many years the two families spent vacations
together -- the Salinases at Jeb Bush's home in Miami, the Bushes at
Raul's ranch, Las Mendocinas, under the volcano in Puebla. There 
are
    many in Mexico who believe that the relationship
became a back channel for delicate and crucial negotiations between the
two governments, leading up to President Bush's sponsorship of
NAFTA."
    (Houston Chronicle, 9 March 1995)
The personal relationship between the Bush and Salinas families is a
matter of public record. Former President George Bush -- when he worked
in the oil business in Texas in the 1970s-- had
    developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas and
his father, Raul Salinas Lozano. According to Andres Openheimer writing
in the Miami Herald (February 17 1997):
"witnesses say former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortiari,
his imprisoned brother Raul and other members of country's ruling elite
met with drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego at a
    Salinas family ranch; Jeb Bush admits he met with Raul
Salinas several times but has never done any business with
him."
According to a report published in The Dallas Morning News, behind the
scam was Raul Salinas Lozano, the family patriarch father of Carlos and
Raul Junior. The former private secretary to
    Raul Salinas Lozano:
"told [US] authorities [in testimony] that Mr. Salinas Lozano was a
leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul
Salinas de Gortiari, his son-in-law, Jose
    Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the
governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and other leading
politicians, according to the documents. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was
    assassinated in 1994." (Dallas Morning News, 26
February 1997).
According to former DEA Michael Levine, the Mexican drug Cartel was a
"family affair". Both Carlos and Raul were prominent members of
the Cartel. And this was known to then US
    Attorney General Edward Meese in 1987 one year prior
to Carlos Salinas' inauguration as the country's president.
When Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican
State apparatus become criminalised with key government positions
occupied by members of the Cartel. The Minister of
    Commerce in charge of trade negotiations leading up to
the signing of NAFTA was Raul Salinas Lozano, father of Raul Junior the
Drug kingpin and of Carlos the president.
And it is precisely during this period that the Salinas government
launches a sweeping privatisation program under advice from the IMF. The
privatisation program becomes a multibillion
    dollar money laundering operation. Narco-dollars are
channelled towards the acquisition of State property and public
utilities.
Richard Barnet of the Institute for Policy Studies, testified to the US
Congress (April 14, 1994) that "billions of dollars in state assets
have gone to supporters and cronies"
    (Dallas Morning News, 11 August 1994). These included
the sale of Telefonos de Mexico, valued at $ 3.9 billion and purchased by
a Salinas crony for $ 400 million.(Ibid). Raul Salinas was
    behind the privatisation programme. He was known as
''Mr. 10 Percent" "for the slice of bid money he allegedly
demanded in exchange for helping acquaintances acquire companies,
    concessions and contracts [under the IMF sponsored
privatisation program"(The News, InfoLatina, .Mexico, October 10,
1997).

NAFTA Negotiations with the Salinas Family
According to the Dallas Morning News report cited above, the Bush
administration was fully aware of the links of the Salinas presidency to
organized crime. Public opinion in the US and Canada was never
    informed so as not to jeopardize the signing of
NAFTA:
"Other former officials say they were pressured to keep mum because
Washington was obsessed with approving NAFTA".
"The intelligence on corruption, especially by drug traffickers, has
always been there," said Phil Jordan, who headed DEA's Dallas office
from 1984 to 1994. But "we were
    under instructions not to say anything negative about
Mexico. It was a no-no since NAFTA was a hot political football."
(Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997)
Michael Levine had confirmed that Carlos Salinas role in the Mexican drug
cartel was known to US officials including US Attorney General Edward
Meese prior to his inauguration as President
    of Mexico.
US President George Bush is regularly briefed by officials from the
Department of Justice, the CIA and the DEA. In other words, at the time
the NAFTA Agreement was signed, both
    Bush and Mulroney must have been informed that one of
signatories of NAFTA had links to the Mexican Drug Cartel.
In 1995 in the wake of the scandal and the arrest of his brother Raul for
murder, Carlos Salinas left Mexico to take up residence in Dublin. His
alleged links to the Drug Cartel did not
    prevent him from being appointed to the Board of the
Dow Jones Company on Wall Street, a position which he held until
1997:
Salinas, who left Mexico in March 1995 after his brother, Raul, was
charged with masterminding the murder of a political opponent, has served
on the company's board for two years. He was
    questioned last year in Dublin by a Mexican prosecutor
investigating the murder in March 1994 of Luis Donaldo Colosio, who
wanted to succeed Salinas as president. A Dow Jones spokesman last
    week denied that Salinas had been forced out of an
election for the new board, which will take place at the company's annual
meeting on April 16? Salinas, who negotiated Mexico's entry into
    the free trade agreement with the United States and
Canada, was appointed to the board because of his international
experience. He was unavailable for comment at his Dublin home last
week."
    (Sunday Times, London, 30 March 1997).
Washington has consistently denied Carlos Salinas involvement. "it
was his brother Raul", Carlos Salinas "did not know", the
American media continues to uphold Salinas
    as a model statesman, architect of free trade in the
Americas and a friend of the Bush family.
Copyright  Michel Chossudovsky 2000 and 2002. 
The URL of this article is: 
   
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO202C.html