Drug Cartels, Managed Violence and the Russian 9/11, Part 2
February 2, 2006

by Peter Dale Scott		print version
		print version (graphics)

[Satya Center is proud to present the second part of author Peter Dale Scott's ground-breaking article on The Global Drug Meta Group, a lengthy investigation of the role of international drug dealers, intelligence services from major powers, Russian bankers and powerful global businessmen in the perpetuation of the global trade in heroin and international terrorism.

Scott reveals that drug dealers enjoy close relations with influential international bankers, weapons merchants, intelligence agents and military officers whose web of interconnecting interests can only be described as a "cartel".

Scott reveals that these drug cartels play a pivotal role in international relations, shaping the geo-strategic landscape in their own best interests while attracting  political and military leaders of major countries around the world into partnerships of convenience designed to further the ideological, military and economic interests of the elites in those countries.

This series of articles focuses on the individuals connected to one global drug cartel, dubbed the Global Drug Meta Group by Scott, and describes a meeting at billionaire Saudi Arabian arms merchant Adnan Kashshoggi's villa in 1999 that arguably laid the groundwork for the terrorist bombings in Moscow called "The Russian 9/11", which triggered massive escalation of the war in Chechnya.

Read Part One of this Series for essential background information!]

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Adnan Khashoggi's Interest in Chechnya

Just as Boris Berezovskii was at one point the richest man in Russia, so Adnan Khashoggi was once (according to his American biographer) "The Richest Man in the World." At one point indeed Khashoggi had an influence in American politics analogous to Berezovskii's in Russia. For example, Khashoggi attended both Nixon inaugurals and contributed money to his electoral campaigns. He admitted to giving $58,000 in 1968, but allegedly told Pierre Salinger he gave $1 million in 1972. [28] He also arranged a fund-raising event for Jimmy Carter's Center in Plains, Georgia, an event which probably originated in both men's connections to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). [29]

Khashoggi is usually thought of as an arms salesman. Although he has never been directly linked to the drug traffic, he was intimately involved in the affairs of the drug- laundering bank BCCI, with which he arranged an arms shipment as part of Oliver North's dealings in Iran-Contra.[30] He also became notorious for flying into Las Vegas from abroad and then rapidly losing vast sums of cash at the casino tables – a traditional form of money-laundering. [31] His name has surfaced in connection with a number of other scandals, from the illicit real estate ventures of the Marcos family in New York to a major defrauding of a Thai bank in 1998, which was followed by the Asian financial crisis of that year.

Khashoggi had had a financial interest in Chechnya, and connections with its leaders, since 1996, from his participation in a consortium called Caucasian Common Market AO. This was designed to raise $3 billion in the West and Japan for investment in Chechnya. [32] A principal organizer was former Chechen First Deputy Premier Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev, in conjunction with Lord McAlpine of the Goldsmith family interests in London, and also American capital. [33] But according to the late Paul Klebnikov, Nukhaev had a background in Chechen organized crime, before developing "a radical ideology in line with the one espoused by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network." [34]

Despite this background, Nukhaev found support and financing in Washington for his Caucasian-American Chamber of Commerce. According to once source, in 1997 Khashoggi introduced Nukhaev to former Secretary of State James Baker. [35]

However Dunlop's inquiry is focused, not on Khashoggi, but on Berezovskii and his representative Voloshin in the Kremlin:

In March of 2002 Interfax reported that, through his long-time business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili, Berezovskii had "supplied Chechen figures Kazbek Makhashev and Movladi Udugov with money to purchase the raid against Dagestan. According to witnesses, Berezovskii contributed 30 million rubles for the purpose." This payment, amounting to more than $1 million, if it occurred, may have been only one of several intended to underwrite a "short victorious war" in Dagestan. [See, "Berezovskii Sponsored Dagestan Raid, Top Policeman's Abduction -- Prosecutors," Interfax, 5 March 2002.]

A well-known journalist for RFE-RL, Andrei Babitskii, who frequently visited Chechnya during this period and was acquainted with a number of leading separatists, writes that he can confirm that Berezovskii did indeed speak by telephone with both Basaev and Movladi Udugov at this juncture. [See Andrei Babibitskii, "Na voine," hro.org, 2 March 2004].

Dunlop is not alone in suspecting the hand of Berezovskii behind Voloshin's meeting with Basaev. So does Cockburn's source Boris Kagarlitskii (about whom we shall have more to say). [36] The Russian observer Lilia Shevtsova reports a rumor at this time that Berezovskii himself, along with his agent Alexander Voloshin, had met in France with Bazayev in the summer of 1999, just before the Dagestan invasion of August 2. [37]

Dunlop's Redactions of His Source Yasenev

Though he says nothing more about Khashoggi or drugs, Dunlop does however make one more reference to the alleged drug-money launderer Alfonso Davidovich:

"It soon emerged," Versiya continued, "that a very frequent visitor to Davidovich was a certain French businessman of Israeli-Soviet origin, a native of Sokhumi [Abkhazia], 53-year-old Yakov Kosman. Soon Kosman brought with him six persons who arrived via Austria carrying Turkish passports. [38] In one of the passports the French [authorities] identified a certain Tsveiba, who is accused by the Tbilisi authorities of having committed genocide during the Georgia-Abkhaz conflict." All of the visitors settled into the villa for a three weeks' stay.

"Soon," the account continues, "the special services succeeded in establishing that Kosman and Tsveiba went to the Nice airport, where they met two men who had arrived from Paris. Judging from their documents, one of those who arrived was Sultan Sosnaliev, who in the years of the Georgian-Abkhaz war served as the minister of defense of Abkhazia. Second there emerged from the airport one more native of Sokhumi -- Anton Surikov. According to rumors, during the years of the war in Abkhazia, he was subordinated to Sosnaliev and was responsible for questions of the organization of sabotage and was friendly with field commander Shamil' Basaev, who at that time headed the Chechen battalion."

The next arrival came by sea: "According to the precise information of the French and the Israelis, on 3 July at the port of Beaulieu a private English yacht 'Magiya' [Magic] arrived from Malta. From it to the shore came two passengers. If one is to believe the passport information, one of the 'Englishmen' was a certain Turk, in the past an advisor to the Islamicist premier of Turkey, [Necmettin] Erbakan, a rather influential figure in the Wahhabi circles of Turkey, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. From sources in the Russian special services we learned that Mekhmet is also a close friend of the not unknown Khattab."

"The second person," the account goes on, "to the surprise of the intelligence officers, was the Chechen field commander Shamil' Basaev. Kosman is reported in the same 17 December 2004 issue of compromat.ru, to live in Nice and to possess German and, possibly, Israeli citizenship.

[On Sosnaliev as Abkhazia's defense minister, see RFE-RL Newsline, 2 November 1993.

On Erbakan, see Shireen T. Hunter, Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 365.]

Dunlop's cited source for information about both Davidovich and Kosman is an article by Yuri Yasenev, "Rossiyu zhdet oranzhevaya revolytsiya" ("An Orange Revolution is in Store for Russia"), on a Russian website, ru.compromat. [39] But Dunlop has significantly edited, one must even say censored, what Yasenev wrote.

In footnote 111 Dunlop says:

“The article "Rossiyu zhdet oranzhevaya revolytsiya," compromat.ru, 17 December 2004 reports that Davidovich lives in Munich and enjoys both German and Venezuelan citizenship. He is also said to be personally acquainted with international arms dealer Khashoggi.”

Thus radically curtailing Yasenev's description of Davidovich:

“Alfonso Davidovich – (1948), Venezuelan, lives in Munich. Has German and Venezuelan citizenship. Speaks Spanish, English, French, German, and Russian fluently. In the 1970s went through special training in the USSR (Privol'noe, Nikolaevskaya oblast) and East Germany. Owns companies and banks in Barbados, the Caymans and other off-shores. Has friendly relations with Hugo Chavez, and is acquainted with Fidel Castro, Marcus Wolf and Adnan Khashoggi. Has many contacts in Colombia, including FARC. In 1999 Davidovich was alleged to have engaged in arms trafficking for guerillas in Chiapas, Mexico and in money laundering for the Colombian drug mafia. Finances antiglobalization movement in Europe and Latin America." [40]

With respect to Yakov Kosman, Dunlap says: "Kosman is reported in the same 17 December 2004 issue of compromat.ru, to live in Nice and to possess German and, possibly, Israeli citizenship."

Compare this with what Yasenev wrote:

Yakov Abramovich Kosman (b. 1946), resides in Nice, France. Has German and, possibly, Israeli citizenship. Involved in real estate operations and banking. Has contacts with Kosovo Albanian criminal societies in European countries. In 1997-2000 he served as financial consultant to Hashim Thaçi, the chief commander of KLA." [41]

Consider that "In 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA – formally known as the Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves, or UCK – as an international terrorist organization, saying it had bankrolled its operations with proceeds from the international heroin trade and from loans from known terrorists like Osama bin Laden." [42]

The Khashoggi Villa Meeting, Drugs, and Kosovo

It would appear that Davidovich and Kosman were in Khashoggi's villa to talk about more than just Chechnya, but that Dunlop did not wish to explore this possibility. For example, he acknowledges the presence of no less than four men of Abkhazian origin and/or influence at the meeting – Kosman, Tsveiba, Sosnaliev, and Surikov -- and yet offers no explanation whatsoever for their presence. (A glance at a map will show that Abkhazia is irrelevant to the subsequent events in Dagestan and Chechnya.)

It seems likely that a drug-route was discussed involving Abkhazia, which now "has become a key heroin transiting point." [43] Its drug-trafficking importance is noted by none other than Surikov himself:

“In general then, the Chechen [drug-trafficking] group has allotted a very important place to Abkhazia in its plans. This is due firstly to the strong position of local field commanders after the end of the Georgian/Abkhazian conflict....Secondly...a large number of `volunteers' [notably Basaev] came from Chechnia and other North Caucasian republics....Amongst these people were a number of criminals whose presence facilitated later contacts with local undesirables....As a result of these developments Abkhazia today is one of the most criminalised areas of the former Soviet Union.” [44]

Note that in this passage Surikov makes no reference to his own Abkhazian origin, his involvement as a GRU officer in the Russian-backed Abkhazian insurrection, and his friendship there with Basaev (referred to by Dunlop). Here and elsewhere in his text it would appear that the "Chechen group" he describes is one overseen by his own meta-group.

Russian observers have pointed out that the meeting(s) in France, which took place in June and/or July 1999, came shortly after the unexpected entry of Russian troops into Kosovo.

On June 11, 1999, 200 Russian troops in SFOR drove from Bosnia to Prishtina and secured Slatina airport. Gen Wesley Clark then ordered [UK] Gen. Sir Mike Jackson (who on June 9 had signed technical agreement for withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo) "to seize the airport. Jackson responded, famously, that he would not start World War Three for him". [45]

Following two days of talks directly between Clinton and Yeltsin, the crisis was averted.

Instead there followed weeks of "protracted negotiations on Russia's role in the Kosovo peacekeeping mission." [46] In the end, under circumstances still not fully understood, the United States and NATO agreed that the Russians could stay.

The Russian troops finally withdrew from the airport in July 2003. [47] Significantly, a chart of Russian drug-trafficking prepared by one of Surikov's partners, Sergei Petrov, indicates that in 2003 Kosovo ceased to be a main point of export for Russian drugs, its place being taken by the Black Sea oil port of Novorossiysk. [48]

Within a year of the troops' arrival, by 2000, according to DEA statistics, Afghan heroin accounted for almost 20 percent of the heroin seized in the United States – nearly double the percentage taken four years earlier. Much of it was now distributed in America by Kosovar Albanians. [49]

It is significant therefore that:

The `Pristina dash' by Russian parachutists in 1999 during the Kosovo crisis (the purpose of the `dash' was to force NATO to guarantee for Russia a separate sector of responsibility in Kosovo) was organized by the head of the General Staff, Anatoly Kvashnin, and his deputy, Leonid Ivashov, without the knowledge of minister of defense Igor Sergeyev and most likely without Yeltsin's knowledge. [50]

Yasenev says nothing about this, but does assert that Kvashnin was the Russian Army connection of two leading drug traffickers (Vladimir Filin andAlexey Likhvintsev) in the Saidov-Surikov group.

……………

[27]Khashoggi's connections to U.S. intelligence date back to his involvement in Lockheed payoffs to Saudi politicians in the 1960s. These tended to overlap with CIA patterns of corruption; and the USAF actually ran a similar program with Lockheed, "code-named 'Operation Buttercup' that operated out of Norton Air Force Base in California from 1965 to 1972" (San Francisco Chronicle, 10/24/73, 22)." For the pattern of Lockheed payoffs tracking the CIA's, see Anthony Sampson, The Arms Bazaar (New York: Viking, 1977), 134, 227-8, 238.

[28] Anthony Summers with Robbyn Swann, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (New York: Viking, 2000), 283.

[29]Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most Corrupt Financial Empire (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 84.

[30]Robert Parry, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq (Arlington, VA: Media Consortium, 2004), 136, 139. A Portuguese newspaper article alleged that Khashoggi was a director of BCCI, and this claim has often been repeated. The best sources confirm only Khashoggi's profitable arms deals with the bank as co-investor, and his cousin Yassin's participation in a BCCI affiliate, Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty (Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 108-09, 129, 135-38).

[31] Ron Kessler, The Richest Man in the World , 181-83.

[32]"Separatism, Islam and Oil," . Cf. "The tendencies of interregional and international integration in North Caucasia," Caucasian Knot, eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/reginfotext/ engreginfo/id/560578.html: "One of the projects of Caucasian integration is called "Caucasian Common Market". It was offered in 1997 by Chechen politicians with the support of the western states – USA and Great Britain. This project is on the stage of implementation: in Georgia a branch of Caucasian Common Market is established, a company for insurance of foreign investments is established, an industrial construction consortium "Caucasus" is organised that apart from renovation of the port Poti plans to construct motorways and railways in Chechnya. The executive bodies of Caucasian Common Market are also represented in Baku. Caucasian-American chamber of commerce and as part of it Caucasian investment fund were organised in the USA. These organisations are going to collect 3 billion USD as the initial capital for the projects of Caucasian Common Market."

[33] Jamestown Foundation, Monitor, Vol. 3, Issue 206, 11/4/97. Another interested party before his tragic death with Princess Diana was Dodi al-Fayad, the owner of Harrod's and Khashoggi's nephew.

[34] AFP, "From criminal to Islamist: US journalist traces the life of a Chechen rebel," JRL 7252, 7/16/03, http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7252-17.cfm#top. Nukhaev's criminal background was known in the West before his dealings with Lord McAlpine and (allegedly) James Baker. See A. Zhilin, " The Shadow of Chechen Crime over Moscow," Jamestown Foundation, 3/22/96, search=1&volume_id=3&issue_id=128&article_id=15.27; Paul Klebnikov, Razgovor S Varvarom Besedy S Chechenskim Polevym Komandirom Khozhakhmedom Nukhaevym O Banditizme I Islame (Talks with a Barbarian). . This background did not deter Margaret Thatcher from posing in a photograph with Nukhaev.

[35] "Caucasian diamond traffic" (Moscow, 2005), http://www.civilresearch.org/pdf/7.pdf: "In spring 1997 Adnan Khashoggi introduced Hozh-Ahmed Nukhaev to James Baker."

[36] Boris Kagarlitskii, "S terroristami ne razgovarivaem. No pomogaem?" Novaya gazeta, 24 January 2000; Boris Kagarlitskii, trans. Olga Kryazheva, "We Don't Talk To Terrorists. But We Help Them? A version of apartment explosions in Russia," Novaya Gazeta, 1/24/00, ).

[37] See Lilia Shevtsova, translated by Antonina Bouis, Putin's Russia (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), 279, fn 15; citing Profil', 11/27/00, 18-20.

[38] For the complex story of Turkish involvement in the Chechen War, see e.g. "Turkey and the Chechens," BBC News, 3/16/01;. Hunter, Islam in Russia, 362-71.

[39] Yuri Yasenev, "Rossiyu zhdet oranzhevaya revolytsiya" ("An Orange Revolution is in Store for Russia"), .

[40] Yuri Yasenev, "Rossiyu zhdet oranzhevaya revolytsiya" ("An Orange Revolution is in Store for Russia"), ru.compromat. This and other discrepancies between Dunlop and his source Yasenev were first pointed out by the Russian research group burtsev.ru at http://left.ru/2005/10/burtsev127.html .

[41] Yuri Yasenev, "Rossiyu zhdet oranzhevaya revolytsiya" ("An Orange Revolution is in Store for Russia"), ru.compromat..

[42] "KLA Funding Tied To Heroin Profits," Washington Times, 5/3/99.

[43]SIDA/Cornell Caspian Consulting, "The South Caucasus: A Regional Overview," 2002, http://www.cornellcaspian.com/sida/sida-cfl-2.html.

[44] Anton Surikov, Crime in Russia, 38-39.

[45]Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven: Yale UP, 2002), 279, 284-85.

[46] Toronto Sun, 6/27/99.

[47] Pravda.ru, 7/3/03, http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/365/10389_peacekeepers.html.

[48] The map was allegedly shown by Surikov's partner Sergei Petrov to a Russian businessman in Geneva while discussing a drug deal (http://www.compromat.ru/main/surikov/a.htm).

[49] Peter Klebnikov, "Heroin Heroes," Mother Jones, January/February 2000, ; Peter Dale Scott, "Deep Politics: Drugs, Oil, Covert Operations and Terrorism," http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/911Background.htm.

[50] Shevtsova, Putin's Russia, 285, fn. 11.