Global Economic Brinkmanship

by Paul Collin

PMC Secret Background Functionaries U.S.A., Virginia, McLean - March 13, 2003: Further up the international foodchain from rebel mercenaries of the 1960s and '70s, lie what are called, Private Military Companies or PMCs. PMCs have actually been doing more than security team work for international banks, gold and diamond mining enterprises, and petrochemical firms though. And, contrary to popular belief, PMCs aren't just being used to accomplish so-called humanitarian relief effort missions as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) for the United Nations to help feed the poor and heal the sick that remain in war ravaged and economically distressed third world countries. If the modern style of Private Military Companies (PMC) began from anywhere, it's usually from within the womb of a tightly knit membership club that has been organizing and globally trading for close to 40-years now. From just outside the rear door of London's famous department store, i.e. Harrods, is an exclusive and shadowy club, i.e. Special Forces Club, in Herbet Crescent, near where Britain's mercenary and 'risk consulting' trade firms thrive. The club's Victorian building dwelling has no name placard to identify it to passersby. The club's membership is limited to current and former members of the military and intelligence elite from Britain, the United States, and select allied countries sympathetic journalists, ex-SAS, British secret service, Central Intelligence Agency or U.S. Special Forces who call there can check in to the "Donovan Room," named after "Wild Bill" Donovan, founder of the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. Halls and walls of the Special Forces Club are lined with the history of spies, espionage, and sabotage with notable placards from the CIA's Counter-Terrorist Center, former French resistance knickknacks, painting of Ronald Reagan's CIA chief Bill Casey, and other special wartime memories. Within a tight radius of about one (1) kilometer or so in London's prestigious district of Kensington and Chelsea are major mercenary suppliers who trade under business names of "security firms" and "risk assessment firms" who go on to proclaim their "hundreds of employees" who are nothing more than their contracted "risk consultants." Risk consultants are distanced from governments only by the fact that they use a private business name, which for plenty of governments makes them able to operate or sanction a full spectrum of 'special operations' - from those that can be admitted - while the firms go on to primarily maintain the appearance of purely private. The shadowy collusion of government, private, and intelligence interests in the Kensington and Chelsea area have been in place in Britain since the 1950s, and its history reveals the long relationship between private mercenaries and public institutions. Some PMC 'agents' come equipped with a - little known about - tradecraft. These new hybrid agents don't wear battle fatigue uniforms and carry machine guns. The newer elite paramilitary agents don Brooks Brothers suits, degrees from the finest universities in the world, strong work backgrounds in either economics, banking, science or, whatever occupational field of expertise that the PMC may assess their special agents specialty in to satisy a successful outcome mission for the PMC's client-contractor. Private military company agents are intelligently creative and especially equipped with a sinister mission in mind, designed to fool bankers, accountants, lawyers, officials, regulators, legislators or anyone else because, they've been assigned to use their special talents on secretly planned campaigns for either promoting or disinforming projects that will eventually spell a mission well done by the hired PMC. PMC agents of this higher order may have been indirectly hired by a PMC firm for client-contractors such as banks, insurance firms, Fortune 500 organizations, industrial conglomerates, automobile manufacturers, defense firms, and others. 'Risk management' is an unobtrusive term, used by not only insurance, accounting and audit firms but, by PMCs too. While a myriad of politically correct vernaculars may be used by corporations, it may define an entirely new set of objectives. No longer does risk management necessarily mean a financial consultant who advises on executive security protection for board members or that a building alarm be simply installed. Some risk consultants could be a competitor's worse business nightmare. Viewed by some as 'business battlespace soldiers' donning 3-piece suits. PMCs are at a premium compared to run-of-the-mill consultants and in many cases, agents may place their egos, friends, and necks on the line. It's not totally unheard of for a PMC agent to land in jail as a result of being ensnared in a complex money-laundering operation where the left hand of the law, doesn't know its right. Worldwide, both PMC agents and foreign federal agents sometimes stumble on one another nation's task force money-laundering sting operations. 'Money-laundering parties' such as these are infamous for law enforcement mistakes where hungry PMC and federal agents show up and wind up being stung by each other. The comedy of errors range from plain stupidity and embarrassing to absolutely ridiculous, but in most all cases are rarely (if ever) publicized. Financial and business venture risk-takings, while to be kept at bare minimums, might find some traditional business dynasties succumbing to plain corporate dirty tricks where they may perceive their own survivability at risk over some new competitor's sales tactics. It's not unusual for tycoons to request private attention in the handing of such matters by PMC risk management consultants. These new hybrid PMC agents are basically 'financial business triggermen', ingeniously capable of either toppling an organization that might be threatening to shift regional financial stability. The PMC agent may be required to use their expertise in order to place the correct balance back in place. A mission might be as simple as passing information by word of mouth to a respectable associate. Someone who may already be in-place or in the right circle of influence so as to stimulate-by-favorable mention or dampen-by-cautioning some newly eyed investment opportunities. Upscale PMC firms may have great war plans operations for their client-contractors. Plans are well thought out, drafted like engineering blueprints, and carried out with surgical-like precision akin to that of a special forces military strike team. Some PMCs more so than others, continually conduct these types of clandestine business missions worldwide, manipulating small third world government economies and without any public knowledge or media publicity about them, their agents, client-contractors or, what their plans ever entailed. PMC intelligence operatives may quietly approach older more well-established organizations or businesses who may then go on to drop smiles or head shakes that may make the difference to a plethora of many more who are quite simply, less knowledgeable on the facts. Firms may be 'encouraged' to spread disinformation to people like corporate lawyers, insurance underwriters or, a select few others to begin a treacherous mission. It is not uncommon for well-placed informants and agents of the PMCs to leak erroneous reports or rumor information through talk at local meeting places, like bars that are frequented by public officials or news reporters. In Washington, D.C. a famous cafe eatery in 1986 by the name of "Talk Of The Town" was used for this purpose during business lunch periods when major U.S. network television newscasters like Sam Donaldson and others would visit there frequently with extreme regularity. Eventually a well-placed rumor within earshot of a government aide who wants to ingratiate themselves with their agency directors, will carry their version of bar room disinformation on what they supposedly heard, back to their governmental heirarchy. Well-established directors, businessmen, and advisors begin to start asking ridiculous questions based on these same rumors questions, which then have a habit of eventually becoming headlines by ambitious news publishers that then sell more papers and advertising. PMCs have been known to use a variety of pretexts that are specifically designed to disrupt, aggravate and complicate the lives of many new small independent banks, investment firms, international business companies, representatives, brokers, and their agents. To such an incredible extent is this done and so much so that anyone involved or having been associated in some way with the target of the PMC, like for example a depositor or investor who doesn't want to seem foolish to their friends, decide to leave the new institution and take their money to the next firm, which in most cases of tiny nations, turns out to be the firm or informant used originally by the PMC to start the rumor. The end result is that there is a 'run on the bank' so-to-speak, and the firm winds up either going bankrupt, which is rarely the case or, fights to the death trying to locate suitors that might be interested in taking over the firm for the sake of remaining investors or depositors. But, in most all instances the later turns out to be futile because, the firm crashes quickly dwindling with many customers still on investment ledgers. Click: HERE, for more. Newcomers who seemingly start out as quite successful businesses - entering a new world market with all their education and previous business experiences - somehow fall victim to what is more commonly said to be the age old 'good ole boy syndrome' whose wrath is rumored to have somehow been disturbed by the newcomer as the new kid on the block as its nemisistic competition. Many newcomers to tiny nations who wind up falling from grace like this, are convinced that someone had already and apparently determined that their business commodity was already allocated leaving no room for any competition in the region. The successful end result is that most businessmen are 'run out of town on a rail' or cast out for the wolves to feed on with ensuing court actions that more than likely will include indictments or arrests that will beseige and follow the newcomer like a plague the rest of their lives. The remaining investors and depositors wind up being left with nothing after the partnered auditors of the PMCs charge an arm and a leg to supposedly 'recover assets' from the failed business entity or institution. In 2001, one such case out of twenty-four (24) banks - on the tiny island of Grenada - had world investors and depositors begging and pleading with the government and the court-appointed liquadator to 'not liquidate the assets of their bank' for pennies on the dollar but, to let a reorganization plan take hold instead, which was ignored. Click: HERE, for more. What happened was that the press was having such a field-day selling rumors to the world, that the liquadator held a public auction in the town to the highest bidders, which went lose some of the valuable assets of the bank for all its depositors and investors, who still remained on the bank ledgers. The liquadator, acting on recommendations of PMC advisors and informants to the government, decided to discard any of the banks assets that were worth $10,000 dollars of less. And, then turned around and socked all the depositors and investors with an enormous service fee charged against what was left of the banks assets that were left. The end result left depositors and investors with absolutely nothing whatsoever. The name of that bank who like so many others (24+) crumbled in Grenada in just 2 short years was, the First International Bank of Grenada, Ltd.. See, e.g. "SEGMENT 3." Now, the favorite way to manipulate a tiny nation's government economy is for a PMC to target a group of small businesses, usually banks or investment firms that are new upstarts in one smaall portion of a booming financial region, like the Caribbean. In the West Indies of the Caribbean, on the tiny island of Grenada, within just 2-years from 1999 to 2001, over 24 banks were closed. Most were rumored to have been fraudulent enterprises but, how many 'were not' who just fell as victims to the PMC hired guns of multinational firms in order to manipulate the Caribbean banking establishments and curb Western investments outside their homeland territories? Who can blame people from large Western economies for taking their hard earned money there, to offshore banks when trillions have been lost on domestic investment markets in just a few short years? Who was trying to protect whom here, by using PMC agents in the Caribbean, in the Pacific island territories, and other legitimate tax-free zones around the world? And, 'who' decided to legislate laws in the U.S. to make offshore capital gains taxable? Well some fingers seem to be pointing directly to Kroll Associates, Inc. for the United States, with the vast majority of their employees being scooped up into U.S. federal government agency positions every year. PMCs ingeniously crush firms along with their customer bases and are quite adept in planning every stage of the battle, which is 'won before it is ever fought'. The headace for the newcomer usually turns out to be nothing a huge European industrial conglomerate that hired a PMC to fix many newcomers in the region, once and for all. All over the UK and especially in London, and scattered throughout the U.S. in places like New York and the Washington, D.C. metroplex area to include the States of Maryland and Virginia, are PMCs designed to do just that. PMCs maintain their roles in globally important centers for Western expansionism. Looked upon by some unfamiliar with the history of where PMCs began is their common misnomer of just being new stylish commercial security companies and organizations, such as Kroll Associates, Inc., Vinnell Corp., Saladin Security, Ltd., Control Risks Group, Defence Systems Ltd., and Sandline International, to name just a few. See, e.g. PMC CHART (below). Major General Stephen Carr-Smith of Defence Systems Limited explains: "Our clients include banks, multinationals, petrochemical companies, mining or mineral-extraction companies, embassies and so on. Very often the sort of `first-in'-type companies that are trying to get things going. We provide them with a 'service', which allows them to operate wherever they are." Private security companies are 'not' a new phenomenon, and not to be confused with the mercenaries of the 1960s and 1970s. PMCs claim they are not just guns for hire, but "the advance guard for major business interests engaged in a latter-day scramble for the mineral wealth of Africa." Sierra Leone is an example that has wider application. Although forming a judicial state, Sierra Leone's rulers appears to the West to have increasingly adopted warlord strategies and tactics as a means of political survival. Valentine Strasser, who came to power in 1992, invited foreign companies to take charge of Sierra Leone's diamond mining. During the first half of the 1990s, several such companies attempted - with some success - to use their own security forces to police their concessions. In 1994, the firm Sierra Rutile (a subsidiary of U.S.-owned Nord Resources) explored the possibility of using the British firm, i.e. Gurkha Security Guards, to provide protection for its mining activities. Such acts of "privatisation" satisfy a number of different agendas. For rulers, they secure hard currency while denying resources to opponents. Lending institutions, seem to be somewhat satisfied that resources are being efficiently exploited and that debts can be repaid. Policymakers, now regard private security companies or PMCs as having a comparative advantage over United Nations (UN) peacekeepers. To a former military officer on the London circuit, the advantage is clear: "The Third World War has already started. It's these fragmented little scraps in everyone's backyard - you can't name a part of the world where there isn't one. It's gone full circle, nuclear deterrence is old hat. We're back to bullets, bayonets, clearing trenches and repressing the local-tribesmen-type scenarios - which requires exactly our types of skills and our type of people." Part of the comparative advantage of private protection is that it is not governed by international laws and conventions. Astute security companies have realised that the scaling down of Western armies and the negative public opinion arising from combat deaths can help garner political support for an expanding role for themselves. Many private security companies are thus able to bridge two distinct agendas. They can support ruler survival strategies in the South while at the same time satisfying donor demands for privatization and efficiency. For some donors, the promise of political stability and the efficient exploitation of resources, together with reconstruction, represents the ultimate technical fix. That it also entrenches illiberalism and undermines international conventions is a detail that will probably be missed. Globalisation is as much concerned with heterogeneity and division, including new processes of inclusion and exclusion, as it is with the levelling effects of market forces. These broad changes are affecting both the North and the South. They are part of the processes of "normal" everyday life. But while there are several similarities at a global level, the opportunities open to Northern and Southern rulers differ greatly. In the North, one response to globalization has been the concentration of the conventional world economy into several transregional productive systems, a measure aimed at sustaining comparative advantage. This has been accompanied by a growing deregulation of welfare services and labour markets. In contrast, in the South, the conventional economy has contracted, to be increasingly complemented by a largely unrecorded mixture of parallel and grey activities. Linked to this development is the emergence of new political projects based on non-state and post-adjustment state actors, projects which are often associated with illiberalism in the form of religious fundamentalism, ethnic exclusivism, political separatism, and so on. Rather than regional integration, such developments underpin regional tensions and schism. Moreover, illiberalism of this nature easily translates into the collapse of the rule of law, authoritarianism, widespread human rights abuse and extensive social dislocation. Such occurrences are not a temporary aberration from the path of development. They are a reflection of embedded and long-term processes. Mainstream aid policy is at a disadvantage in understanding and effectively responding to this world. Not only does its view of internal war remain state-centred; it is also reliant on an understanding of conflict as stemming from a combination of poverty, ignorance and weak institutions. Rather than being the result of international economic inequality and external interference, conventional wisdom holds that protracted instability in countries stems from the ready availability of firearms or population growth or unemployment or rapid urbanization or environmental degradation. Questions of justice and responsibility tend to play a subordinate role in this model. In other words, conflict is depoliticized. Policy springs directly and intuitively from this definition. It becomes a mixture of sustainable development, conflict resolution and civil society support measures; an ideological "one size fits all" approach equally at home in both Africa and the European East. Within this framework, the role of aid is to restore the balance that aberrant and irrational conflict has upset. Its mission is to relaunch society towards the functional harmony (assumed to be the natural or normal state of society) of liberal democracy. However, with its tendency to underplay and entrench illiberalism, one wonders how effective - or even safe - this enterprise is. A number of British firms are engaged in the contract military business. These include Saladin Security, Control Risks Group, Integrated Security Systems, and Defence Systems Ltd. (DSL). According to its promotional brochures the 'core business' for DSL, which was founded in 1981 by a team of ex-SAS (Special Air Services) officers, 'is devising and implementing solutions to complex problems through the provision of highly-qualified specialists with extensive international experience in practical security'. DSL has joint-venture arrangements with British construction companies Tarmac-Wimpy and Hunting, as well as some more surprising contracts; the U.S. Embassy in former Zaire was guarded not by U.S. Marines but by DSL personnel. It is two United States firms which have set the highest standards in military commercial ventures for the New World Order. Braddock, Dunn and McDonald Inc. (BDM), which has its headquarters in McLean, Virginia, is chaired by former us Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. Chief Executive of the company is Philip Odeen, who worked for Henry Kissinger on the White House National Security Council in the early 1970s and ran the Pentagon's Future Years Defense Plan study for the Bush administration. The company counts former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and former White House budget chief Richard Darman among its directors and consultants. In 1995 BDM employed 8,000 people and maintained over 80 offices worldwide. Listing its key business areas as 'systems and software integration; computer and technical services; enterprise management and operations', BDM's annual revenue in 1995 was $890-million. 37% of that revenue was earned in services to U.S. Defense contracts; 25% was earned in defense contracts overseas. One of four (4) BDM International subsidiares is the Vinnell Corporation, a construction company founded in 1931. Through experience gained in managing military assignments during World War II, Vinnell expanded into a booming construction business in Asia. Vinnell won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts and employment for 5,000 personnel during the war in Vietnam. Among its activities there were covert military operations. A Pentagon source described Vinnell as "our own little mercenary army in Vietnam ... we used them to do things the U.S. either didn't have the 'manpower with legal entitlement' to do themselves." In February 1975 Vinnell secured a $77-million contract with King Fahd to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), the military arm of the House of at-Saud. Today, Vinnell's advertising depicts the firm as 'providing a broad spectrum of professional and technical services to government clients in multiple areas of management and training. Client requirements have led Vinnell to a vast array of challenges, from Malaysia to Mexico to the Middle East, often to the very heart of international conflict areas'. Vinnell has subsidiary operations in Egypt, Oman, and Turkey, but the key area of responsibility remains with SANG. The contract for its 1,000+ team of advisors was extended in January 1994 to the year 2000 at a cost of $819-million. Other U.S. military firms working in Saudi Arabia include: Booz-Allen & Hamilton, which trains the Saudi Arabia Marine Corps and maintains the Saudi Armed Forces Staff College; Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) of the United States, which provides guidance for the Saudi Navy; and, O'Gara Protective Services (aka) Kroll Associates, Inc.), who was directly hired by the Saudi Defense Minister to provide security for the Saudi Royal Family. Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI), of Alexandria, Virginia, was founded in 1987 by former special forces personnel 'to perform worldwide corporate contractual functions requiring skills developed from military service'. MPRI has over 350 employees and can draw on a database of more than 6,000 former servicemen of the United States armed forces. MPRI is currently engaged in 20 contracts (17 domestic and 3 international) worth more than $90-million in total. Twenty-two (22) corporate officers of MPRI are former high-ranking military officers that include: U.S. Army Chief of Staff during the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War, i.e. General Carl Vuono.; U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, ex-Chief, i.e. Ed Soyster.; and, General Frederick Kroensen, former Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. Its mission statement claims that 'MPRI can perform any task or accomplish any mission requiring military skills (or generalized skills acquired through military service), short of combat operations'. MPRI picked up the contract to train the Angolan Army after EO pulled out in January 1996. Its main focus of operations today is in the Balkans. MPRI training prepared the Croatian Army for its successful counter-offensive against the Serbs in 1995. The head of the Croatian Army Headquarters, Zvonimir Cervenko, stated 'We can create by ourselves a new and efficient army. But why lose time if there are in the world institutions which can be paid so that they can transfer very quickly their maximum know-how'? Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, who brokered the Dayton peace accord, spoke favourably of MPRI in testimony to the U.S. Congress. In March 1996 James Perdew, the Pentagon's point man at Dayton, flew to Sarajevo to urge the Bosnian government to contract MPRI or one of its competitors for the training of the Bosnian armed forces. In May MPRI Won the contract over rivals Vinnell and SAIC. Its $400-million program is being paid for largely by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Brunei and Malaysia. Private Military Companies (PMC) or Non-Governmental Security Forces (NGSF)? Why is the U.S. government so keen to incorporate the services of private military firms in its international policy? The shadow of the disastrous Somalia operation looms over U.S. peace-keeping operations. Cooperation with professional outsiders enables the U.S. State Department to keep a distance from potentially dangerous or compromising situations in the conduct of foreign policy. 'We will not be able to leave unless the Bosnian government is armed and prepared to defend itself', says Senator Joseph Biden (Democrat, Delaware), 'That's the ticket home for Americans'. MPRI has provided the most expeditious means of achieving that aim whilst maintaining the facade of official us neutrality in the region. Similarly, Saudi Arabia, despite maintaining military contracts with U.S. companies valued at over $60-billion (US), officially does not sanction the stationing of U.S. troops in the country. Vinnell training helps link SANG with the Office of the Program Manager (OPM), an agency of the U.S. Army Material Command responsible for maintaining weapons programs. SANG shares its headquarters with OPM. Muslim nationalists in Saudi Arabia recognize this link as being a key connection between the Saudi and U.S. governments, which is why the building was targeted in the November 13, 1995 car bomb attack, which killed five (5) Americans and wounded thirty (30) more. The growing number, expertise, and legitimacy of professional military firms are an unexpected consequence of the post Cold War 'peace dividend'. The burgeoning opportunities provided by the 'New World Order' may eventuate in the mercenary contract being recognized as the standard means of warfare in the 21st Century. Alvin and Heidi Toffler think of this development in positive terms: Why not, when nations have already lost the monopoly of violence, consider creating volunteer mercenary forces organized by private corporations to fight wars on a contract-fee basis for the United Nations ... Governments unwilling to send their own young men and women to die in combat ... might have fewer reservations about allowing the UN to contract with a non-political, professional fighting force made up of volunteers from many nations-a rapid deployment unit for hire. Or one under contract to the UN alone. On the eve of the first of six scheduled French nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific atoll of Mururoa in September 1995, Greenpeace, an offshoot of Prince Philip's World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), carried out a series of violent protests. A Greenpeace team somehow managed to penetrate the highly militarized nuclear test zone. French authorities revealed that the team was led by two (2) highly trained retired professionals from the British Army's Special Air Services (SAS), its elite paratrooper and commando arm. "They are people use to operations which have nothing to do with ecology," commented the French Security Services commander on the scene. The incident points to the fact that SAS is active in international terrorism today, and that the motives behind its deployment are different than those of its patsies. As this report will show, SAS deployment is a key component of the "afghansi." SAS has a special role derived from the fact that it operates outside the British government command structure, and is directly beholden to the Sovereign. Formed in 1941 by Lt. Col. David Stirling, it has always drawn on the highest levels of the Scottish oligarchical families for its officer corps. Stirling himself was from the Fraser family (the Lords Lovat), one of the oldest and wealthiest of the Scottish Highland families. According to the British Army handbook, the SAS is "particularly suited, trained, and equipped for counter-revolutionary operations," with a specialization in "infiltration," "sabotage," "assassination," as well as "liaison with, organization, training, and control of friendly guerrilla forces operating against the common enemy." From its inception in World War II, Special Air Services was detailed to run sabotage behind enemy lines and to organize popular revolt, at first in North Africa, and then in the Balkans, where another Stirling cousin, Fitzroy Maclean, ran British operations. At the end of the war, SAS was disbanded, but it was soon revived to crush the Malay insurgency in Malaysia, and the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya. The principle employed was to take over the insurgency from within, and use it to destroy the native population. In his 1960 book Gangs and Countergangs, Col. Frank Kitson boasted that the British were covertly leading several large-scale Mau Mau units, and that many, if not all Mau Mau units had been synthetically created by the colonial authorities. As a result of this practice, 22 whites were killed during the insurgency, as compared to 20,000 natives. Today, there are three (3) known SAS regiments, comprising 4,500 highly trained commandos in total. Training exercises for 15-man teams simulate terrorist assaults, in order, it is said, to "know the mind of the terrorist." Such teams are often sent abroad, to train British Commonwealth and other military units in the techniques of terrorist assault, as well as the use of tribal auxiliaries in covert warfare. Through such means, SAS has built an extensive terrorist control capability, especially in its former colonies. Its soldiers currently serve officially in some 30 countries. In order to facilitate its role as a disavowable arm of royal household covert operations, the SAS has spun off a series of private security and mercenary recruitment firms led by its retired or reserve-status officers. Among these are Keenie Meenie Services, whose name is taken from the Swahili term for the motion of a snake in the grass. During its heyday in the 1980s, KMS shared offices with "Saladin Security," another SAS firm, next door to the 22nd SAS Regimental HQ in London. The firms were run by Maj. David Walker, an SAS South American specialist; Maj. Andrew Nightingale of SAS Group Intelligence; and Detective Ray Tucker, a former Arab affairs specialist at Scotland Yard. Others SAS firms include: Kilo Alpha Services (KAS), has been run by former SAS Counter-Terrorism Warfare team leader Lt. Col. Ian Crooke; Control Risks, run by former SAS squadron leader Maj. Arish Turtle; and, J. Donne Holdings, was run by SAS counterespionage specialist H.M.P.D. Harclerode, whose firm later provided bodyguards and commando training for Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. SAS operations under KMS label have been particularly important. In 1983, U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North, who was assigned to assist the U.S. National Security Agency (N.S.A.) in the Iran-Contra scandal, hired KMS to train the Afghan mujahideen, simultaneously mine Managua harbor in Nicaragua, and to train the Nicaraguan Contras. At the same time, KMS was detailed to provide personal security for the Saudi ambassador to the United States, i.e. Prince Bandar, a close associate of then Vice President George Bush, Sr. who helped supply tens of billions of Saudi dollars for "Iran-Contra" operations internationally. KMS has a long history in the Arab and Muslim world. One of its first known assignments, back in the 1970s, was to aid Oman in repressing a revolt in its province of Dhofar. Oman remains a de facto British colony; its officer corps is dominated by British officers on secondment. KMS has also worked in Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, all of which are de facto British colonies, and all of which include numerous former SAS officers in their security apparatus. The current security chief in Bahrain, Ian Henderson, for example, was an SAS officer in Kenya during the Mau Mau period. The Omani chief of security is a former SAS officer, as is the case in Dubai, where KMS official Fiona Fraser, another Stirling relative, resides. These oil sheikhdoms are key hubs for British covert 'financial operations' internationally. Dubai, for instance, is the center of the illegal flow of gold to Asia, while Kuwait has been a major bankroller of Afghan and Pakistan opium cultivation. The emirates' gold trade, which is integral to the drugs-for-arms trade, is overseen by the British Bank of the Middle East, a Dubai-based subsidiary of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., a centuries-old leading financier of the opium trade dominated by Stirling's cousins, the Keswicks. Abu Dhabi, similarly, was the headquarters of the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, the now-defunct narco-bank. BCCI, which was run by WWF activist and funder Hassan Abedi, was a major conduit for bankrolling the Afghan War. See, e.g. X-CIA FILES, under "Political or Economic Intelligence." The relations of these SAS firms with the Iran-Contra narcotics trafficking, emerged dramatically in August 1989, when reports surfaced in the British and Italian press that the Colombian Cali illegal drug harvesting and transborder distribution Cartel, which has been reportedly tied to the former U.S. President George Bush, Sr. Administration, had hired SAS veterans to assassinate Pablo Escobar of the rival Medellín Cartel. On Aug. 16, three (3) days after the story broke, Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, a fierce opponent of the drug trade, was assassinated, some Colombian government sources say, by these British mercenaries. Among the individuals identified as working for the Cali Cartel were Col. Peter McAleese, a former SAS officer in Malaysia; Alex Lenox, a former member of the SAS Counter-Terrorism Warfare task force; and David Tomkins, a veteran of Afghanistan. In July 2002, Dutch Radio - based on reports leaked by a Dutch military analysis firm - had accused the U.S. government of aiding and abetting terrorists in Macedonia. Not for the first time, Americans were rumored to have hired the services of Military Professional Resources Inc. (aka) MPRI, to train and assist the rebels of the NLA, the Albanian National Liberation Army, which skirmished for months with the Macedonian police and military throughout 2002. MPRI is a leading Private Military Company (PMC) whose presence was espied in other Balkan trouble spots, such as Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia. The absurdity is that MPRI has been training the Macedonian army -- to little avail it would seem -- since 1998 under a "Stability and Deterrence Program." Croatian former Foreign Minister, i.e. Tonino Picula, described to http://www.InternationalReports.net MPRI´s role as thus: "We started at the beginning of the 1990s lacking all kind of assistance. We faced a war of aggression. We needed all kinds of friends to enhance our capability to keep a schedule. I know that it (MPRI) did a significant job in Croatia as a part of U.S. assistance to Croatia during the 1990s." Other governments - notably Colombia´s and Nigeria´s - were less sanguine about the utility of MPRI´s services. Colombian officials complained "the MPRI´s contributions were of little practical use," while according to the Center for Democracy and Development, the vociferous objections of the Nigerian military led to the dismissal by the president of senior army officers, among them General Malu, the Nigerian chief of staff. The end of the Cold War spelled the termination of many an illustrious career in the military and the secret services as well as the destabilization and disintegration of many states. The Big Powers are either much reduced (Russia), militarily over-stretched (Europe), armies ill-prepared for rapid deployment and low intensity warfare (everyone) or, lost interest in many erstwhile "hot spots" (United States). Besieged by overwhelming civil strife, rebellions and invasions, many countries, political parties, politicians, corporations, and businessmen seek refuge and protection. More than 5-million soldiers were let go all over the world between 1987-1994, according to Henry Sanchez of Rutgers University. Professional soldiers, suddenly unemployed in a hostile civilian environment, resorted to mercenariship. A few became rogue freelancers. The role of the Frenchman Bob Denard in the takeover of the Comoros Islands is now mythical. So is the failed coup in Seychelles in 1981, perpetrated by Colonel "Mad" Mike Hoare, a British ex-paratrooper. Private armies for hire proliferated in the 1990s. Executive Outcomes (now defunct) acted in Sierra Leone, Congo and Angola, Sandline International in Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea, DynCorp in Colombia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Bosnia and, of course, MPRI in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and, lately, Macedonia. Aviation Development Corp. flies surveillance planes for the CIA. Its involvement was revealed when, in Peru, it misidentified a civilian light plane as carrying narcotics, which was shot down by the Peruvian air force. But these are only the tip of a growing iceberg. A quick survey of company Web sites, annual reports and news clippings reveals Vinnell Corp. was established in the United States during the Great Depression and currently is owned by TRW. It has coached militaries, operated facilities and provided logistical support in more than 50 countries, starting in Saudi Arabia in 1975 where it won a controversial $77-million contract to train oilfield guards. BDM International, Betac, Logicon and SAIC are competitors. Kroll Associates, Inc. of New York and Saladin Security, Ltd. of London are primarily involved as PMC intelligence gatherers. Brown and Root of Houston, Texas, provides logistical support to peacekeeping operations, for example in Kosovo. Pacific Architects and Engineering furnishes logistical support and private security to armies the world over, mainly to the ECOMOG West African multilateral peacekeeping force. Control Risks Group offers corporate security, research and intelligence solutions. It specializes in hostage situations and boasts having advised in more than 1,200 kidnappings and extortion cases in 80 countries. Armor Holdings was founded in 1969 as "American Body Armor and Equipment" and incorporated in 1996. It is a private security company that was taken over by Jules B. Kroll of Kroll Associates, Inc. Its London-based subsidiary, Defense Systems Ltd., guards industrial and other sensitive sites, such as embassies and the headquarters of international organizations, mainly the United Nations. Armor (owned by Kroll Associates, Inc.) manufactures police and other "non-lethal" equipment. It is a leading maker of armored passenger vehicles (Hummer or Hum-V) and the prime contractor to the U.S. military for the supply of armoring and blast protection for high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles. Gray Security is another private security company with clients in both Africa and among the Latin American immigrants in Florida in the United States. Some private military companies are ethnically pure. Succumbing to market realities, the legendary Gurkhas now offer their services through Gurkha International. The oil-rich region of Cabinda is air-patrolled by Airborne Surveillance and Security Services (aka) AirScan. Big money is involved. The Los Angeles Times (April 14)quoted an, Equitable Services, security industry analyst. In 1997, it predicted the international security market would mushroom from $56-billion (US) in 1990 to $220-billion (US) in 2010. This was long before the boost was given to the sector by the September 11, 2002 incident. "The top five (5) executives at Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego made between $825,000 and $1.8-million (US) in salaries in 2001, and each held more than $1.5-million in stock options," the L.A. Times further reported. Control Risks Group´s turnover last year exceeded $50-million (US). Armor Holding´s 1999 revenues exceeded $150-million (US). Prior to its controversial demise, Executive Outcomes of South Africa was said by Corporate Watch, The Weekly Mail, the British non-government organization, The Corner House, and Toward Freedom Magazine to have earned between $55 and $80-million in its last 4-years - excluding the $1.8-million 'per month' contract it has signed with Sierra Leone, most of which went unpaid. There were unsubstantiated allegations of securing a share of the diamond trade in the ravaged country as well. The Sandline firm contract with Papua New Guinea amounted to $36-million for the first 3-months with just under $1-million for any consecutive month - or a total of about $45-million the first year. The country´s new government at first refused to honor the commitments of its predecessor - hurling at it vague corruption charges, but then compromised with Sandline and agreed to dole out $13-million. MPRI, now in its 14th year, employs more than 800 people, most former high-level U.S. military personnel, draws on a database of 12,500 freelancers, former defense, law enforcement, and other professionals from which the company can identify every skill produced in the armed forces and public safety sectors. Many of its clients work under the government´s Foreign Military Sales program and abide by U.S. General Services Administration tariffs. A subsidiary of the Hogg Robinson insurance group, i.e. Control Risks Group (aka) CRG, was founded in 1975 and claims to have had "more than 5,300 clients, including 86 of the Fortune 100 companies, in more than 130 countries, 83% of the firms comprising the FTSE (UK traded market exchange) where 100 use one (1) or more of CRG´s services. CRG has 400 employees in 16 offices around the world and recently acquired Network Holdings Ltd., the U.K.´s largest private forensic laboratory. The Armor Holdings Products Division is made up of nine (9) operating companies in eight (8) geographic locations. It offers its branded security products through a network of more than 500 distributors and agents internationally. ArmorGroup employs 5,500 people in 38 countries. Modern private military companies, such as Sandline, are veritable -- though miniature -- armies, replete with staff military ranks, uniforms, doctrine, training syllabi, cohesion, unit spirit and discipline. Smaller, ad hoc outfits from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, France, the United Kingdom, Israel, Croatia, South Africa, the United States and other nations scour the Earth for emerging conflicts. One fact often overlooked is that just any PMC is 'not capable' of undertaking just 'any operation'. While these firms 'can' undertake 'small-unit operations' in developing world conflicts, it is unlikely that they would be capable - or called upon - to undertake large-scale (battalion size+) operations outside of the developing world. There are differences even in the composition of the PMC sector. While the strongest companies exist along permanent, corporate lines (such as EO, Sandline, DSL, and MPRI), there are many others who while operating internationally, call themselves Private Military Companies or PMCs that may probably be little more than upscale mercenary operations comprised of an interesting and unweildly cadre of personnel who may exist for only short periods of time. Examples of these might include: Stabilco, Secrets, Security Advisory Services Limited, and Special Projects Services, Ltd. Examples of modern mercenaries include the "White Legion" during the 1996-1997 Zairian conflict; dispossessed former combatants flooding out of conflicts in the fSU and Balkans; Ukrainians in Angola and Sierra Leone for both sides; specialist pilots in Zaire, Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau; Israeli, British and American former special forces personnel in Mexico, Colombia and the Iron Triangle training security forces of drug cartels; and, former Spetznazsi and KGB (now FSB) personnel involved with Russian mafiya. Private Armies/Militias and Warlords These groupings of private forces represent the next rung up the foodchain from mercenaries. Although such forces can include mercenaries in organized numbers, such as the "5 Commando" group in the Belgian Congo during its wars of the 1960s, these groupings do not always have a national outlook to their conflict; indeed, these groups can often be transnational, supported by whatever country they can obtain funds and hardware from at any given time, and fight simply for control of a region or resource. Such diverse entities as transnational terrorist organizations, religiously-motivated combatant groups, such as those supported by the Islamic Brotherhood, and leaders such as John Garang in Sudan all fall into this category. They do, however, fight with more organization than lone mercenaries. Their efforts are better networked worldwide and more directed over longer periods of time as is seen in the al-Qaeda group. Private Military Companies (PMCs) are the ultimate evolution to all non-governmental security force groups. The clear differences in their operations is that they are organized along corporate lines (including boards of directors, share-holdings, and corporate structures). Their work has a clear contractual aim and obligation to their clients, and they engage in military operations - across the spectrum where necessary - something most Private (Commercial) Security Companies (PSCs) will not undertake. PMC - Western Government Covert Wings Much of the negative attention that has surrounded PMC operations has been a question as to whether PMCs (and PSCs) are covert wings of Western government foreign policies. In many respects, this is the privatization of Western special forces and intelligence capabilities; however, this comparison must not be taken too far. It has appeared though that the U.S. government is more inclined towards using such firms for clandestine or non-disclosed operations overseas (one U.S. writer observed that the U.S. governments use of PMCs represented the "covert proxyization of U.S. foreign policy"). The UK government has stated clearly that - while it sees a usefulness for such firms in operations relating to protection for its embassies overseas, military support and training services to HM Armed Forces and governments friendly to the UK, and protection to UN and NGO (non-governmental organizations) humanitarian intervention missions - it will continue to use, and even increase its use of, UK government agencies and forces for such operations 'where required'. The reality is that, while special forces and intelligence operations are the clandestine or covert wing of foreign policies, PMCs simply fit or fill a foreign policy need; this does not make them the covert wings of Western governments - in most cases. There have been suggestions that many Western governments, including the UK, have used PMCs in place of national assets in that just as much as allegations surrounded Sandline International's relationship with the UK intelligence community. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had once been rumored to call the Virginia U.S. firm, i.e. Vinnell Corporation (a subsidiary of TRW and BDM International), "our own private mercenary army in Vietnam." While PMCs may assist in the furtherance of foreign policy objectives, they leave very little (if any) 'evidence' that they are as closely linked with Western governments as some would believe. This then makes detecting their operations almost impossible, let alone being able to identify their agents worldwide. The effectivity of these firms in replacing governmental national military forces in regional humanitarian and peace support operations is another question not yet fully agreed upon, worldwide. In considering regulatory frameworks for private military, intelligence and security industries, Western governments need to consider a number of factors. The first is differentiating between 'mercenaries' and PMCs/PSCs. This consideration is impacted upon by issues such as the transparency of the industry (keeping commercial proprietary considerations in mind) and the need for accountability when operating out of Western countries; the fact that PMCs profess to fill a gap left by Western governments unwilling to contribute forces to contemporary peacekeeping operations or to utilise their special forces in a regional role; the fact that PMCs can provide no more than a band-aid solution to any problem, never long-term stability and security (this must be provided by the international community); and, finally, the fact that developing world states continue to have a need for these firms regardless of any vestiges of international condemnation. Over all of these considerations, the difference in activities (mercenaries versus PMCs; commercial security and training versus combat, etc.) must be kept in mind when distinguishing roles if ever eventually regulated. The second factor is whether PMCs are capable of undertaking traditional peacekeeping operations in place of national military forces. In many respects, PMCs (and some PSCs) currently undertake missions which are the traditional domain of peacekeeping operations; these include protection of humanitarian assistance, demining, child-soldier repatriation, paramedical clinics, and other factors. PMCs can continue to provide military assistance (an example of this being DSLs MATTs) in a peacekeeping environment where international peacekeeping forces are not present; these companies could also provide rapid-reaction forces to intervene, on behalf of the UN, OAU, OAS or ASEAN, to halt aggression or stop genocide when Western governments are unable or unwilling to act. Finally, PMCs are also capable of supporting the execution of international arrest warrants, conducting hostage-rescue operations, or serving as counter-narcotics/-terrorism forces. The way forward may be clear now. Effective regulation, at both national and international levels, and not prohibition is the key. PMCs will continue to operate, as they always have done, and cannot be banned; mercenaries is another things entirely. By introducing effective legislation which differentiates between mercenarism and PMC/PSC activity, the industry can be rendered more transparent and gain more legitimacy. The world security services market has a projected annual rate of growth of 8% for 1995 to 2000. Projected total revenues for the security services market world-wide for the year 2000 is expected to grow to US$61.8 million and continue to $87.9-million by the year 2005. This increased demand for more private security and military business service-related activities is due to growing economic activity in developing countries. Overall, the private security sector generates more than $50-billion worldwide annually, including arms sales and services. In Asia-Pacific alone, the security services industry represented a $5.4-billion market for private security services in 1995, which represents the 3rd largest in the World just behind North America and Western Europe. PMCs should not be allowed to become supplemental covert wings of any foreign policy. Effective national regulation, twinned with international regulation, is required to ensure public transparency. The South African initiative to regulate foreign military assistance, while laudable as a starting point, is problematic and has resulted in the lessening (rather than enhancement) of transparency into these activities - the individuals and companies are mobile, as is being demonstrated currently in South Africa. Provision of foreign military assistance is a commodity and should be treated as such; under such an understanding, arms-control initiatives provide a basis for regulation. The current UK guidelines on arms-control and the European Union (EU) Code of Conduct on the arms trade provide a starting point for examining potential ways forward. What is the future of PMCs? In the short term, PMCs will continue to operate, albeit not on the same scale as EO did throughout the middle of this decade. The U.S. government often pushes for its national companies to obtain contracts; Britain does the same, albeit much more quietly. France uses its intelligence services to facilitate such operations by French firms. In Israel and South Africa, parliamentary and popular international pressure and condemnation has forced the governments to place controls on the provision of such services. There is however, no fixed lifetime for these companies; as long as conflict persists, so will the PMCs. The international community, as has been witnessed once again in Kosovo, has demonstrated time and again its unwillingness to become involved in regional conflicts where Western foreign policy concerns are not threatened directly, and so it seems this gap will continue to be filled by the Private Military Company (PMC).

PMC Risk Network Legacies

U.S.A., Washington, D.C. - February 28, 2003: To understand the strength and power that PMC contractors and agents possess, the pre-World War II German defense and logistics programs using Switzerland and Italy in 1926, now begins with complex illuminations.

Secret plans were developed by German defense industrialists and tycoons prominent in social hierarchies, to circumvent prohibitions that had been purposely fabricated within the Treaty of Versailles, an instrument that was designed to prevent individual country war machine expansionism.

So cleverly designed and intricately woven in and out of many other national government and secret financial structures, Germany's defense plans never skipped a beat before, during or after World War II and it goes on even to this ver day in some pretty interesting places in many foreign countries, including the United States.

Little effect did that Treaty have on stopping Germany's war machine from expanding, as various means were used to circumvent what it was supposed to do.

World War II had the entire world witness an unbelieveable swift rise to power for German control in lieu of the Treaty because, of secret deals going on between both Swiss and German banks, business financial consultants, trustees, and accountantants using agents who instantly recognized how to profit ingeniously by secretly supporting Germany and its war.

Support initially began with economic mechanics within powerful industrialists and their tightly knit manufacturing facilities that would stimulate their privately held market investments, which had all along been controlled by only a select few very affluent families in Europe.

Although old World Wars and their machines may now seem to be of no real significance, they are far from ever having gone out of business. Much is long forgotten about where the original economic mechanics stemmed from, which are still very much alive and in existence today.

Industrial and manufacturing facilities that supported the German war effort decades ago, moved around, changed names, and passed on old World War II business and derived financial gains to heirs, now controlling conglomerates that affected world economics with significant shifts in international financial marketplaces.

From clever economic assaults by agents of these tycoons on small offshore tax haven banks and international business companies (IBC) of the Pacific and Caribbean islands, to other disadvantaged tiny foreign nation economies, these heirs still continue to exude a considerable amount of pressure on governments, whenever and wherever they wish to pursue and focus their concentrated goals.

Much of these old firms economic and financial mechanics still remain secret to this very day. Unsung and unfamiliar stories are still at work though, and in cleverly designed new economic wartime strategies that involve hired consultants working as contract agents for Private Military Companies (PMC). Agents who don't wear battle fatigues but, who now wear business suits since they are operating in a business environment today.

Business and financial tactics have become more sophisticated today and as time goes on, continues to be for most, an uncharted territory unfamiliar to most individual firms and organizations who are struggling in todays international marketplace. Many companies are totally unaware and in some cases turn out to be nothing more than unsuspecting victims of the nature and degree by which they may have been targeted by an international conglomerate.

Today a hired PMC agent may use any number of pretexts in interesting combinations and configurations to exact economic and financial capitulations of banks and business targets. Unfortunately, these cleverly devised anti-economic formulas directed toward specific financial institutions and businesses in most all instances, serve to also disrupt, hundreds of other people who have deposited and made investments within targeted entities. And, in many more cases, the percentage of the business directors are clueless as to their having been already targeted. The target firms clients and customers then turn on the target itself. The target has no clue of having even been target in the first place. Complaints are filed with any government agency that will file a complaint after enough negative news publicity ensues, causing them to stretch even further budgets that create tax increases locally on citizens. Everybody in this regard loses except whoever hired the PMC agent and the PMC firm.

Disappearing threats may sometimes be based on small regional areas that have tried to stimulate tiny nation economies by inviting corporate, financial, and accounting firms in. Those firms become targets of the hired PMC when the amount of money they begin to manipulate becomes significant.

Today, fleets of PMCs are able to send out their economic special agents that circumnavigate the globe indirectly working on behalf of giant firms, holding sinister financial war goals.

Large corporation boardrooms can actually have a flip side to them by becoming nothing more than window dressings for economic war rooms, where contracted PMC firms are hired from in order to carry out business war plans operations.

The commander-in-chief of a business conglomerate is typical a wealthy heir who has become a knowledgeable war strategist who is well briefed by a long time trusted family business trustee. Such a trustee is typically seated at home in a small discrete residential office but, who deals with many others who are typically cloistered away within a bank group insurance firms financial risk management subsidiary.

The trustee is well acquainted with drafting and sanitizing basic economic war plan outlines for the tycoons conglomerate advisory board, and others who the trustee may call upon whenever the need for such a plan arises.

The trustee may act as a go-between for notifying the tycoon of a conglomerates advisory board findings based on corporate or from other information sources that are presented to it.

The trustee may also secretly act to discover or carry out the best interests of the tycoon or heir apparent with any member firm within the conglomerate.

Too, such a family business trustee may serve to even act as a go-between on behalf of whats been decided by the tycoon to act in his best interests based on any decision to eliminate a potential business threat based on information he may also become aware of from the conglomerates member firms advisory board and go on to independently act on behalf of the tycoon by interacting with various other outside professionals, i.e. barristers, accountants, market analysts, CEO of a member firm and/or, with the chairman of the conglomerates advisory board.

The trustee may certainly be capable of drafting an economic war plan operation based on reports he obtains and analyzes from a host of trusted advisors who have reviewed and placed their own professional recommendations in reference to any particular portion of the plan for the trustee or others to review.

The trustee may even counsel the tycoon and provide re-drafts of an amended economic war plan outline, which is then re-submitted in a more sanitized version to one of the tycoons conglomerate firms economic war plan general as chief of staff of a board of directors who may be entrusted to hire a PMC to see that certain phases of the economic war plan is carried out.

The PMC is to use what it hopes to be, a discrete economic intelligence agent, who is sent out knowing little (if anything) of the overall plan but whom does have only one section of what he only needs to know for accomplishing his objectives as outlined by the PMC.

While many steps may be cut out of this chain, the keys to accomplishing goals are the tycoon, trustee, advisors to the trustee, a PMC, and a reliable PMC agent hopefully who is equipped with enough versatile talents such that are specifically chosen to complete the economic war objective and knows how to defeat specific targets by using his other contacts within government agencies, professional organizations, and news media arenas.

PMC economic intelligence agents may also be specifically assigned to only one trustee as a contract agent who is then sent directly out into business battlefield areas throughout the world to carryout actual economic wars by setting into play a series of circumstances that will continue to automatically affect the results of his mission on the designated target(s), either by collapse or acquisition.

Economic targets may be no more than specific simple business competitors in any given market, which have either knowingly or otherwise presented themselves via their own or representative business activities as a threat to a larger conglomerate that may stand to suffer some type of economic loss or other negative impact that goes contrary to the wishes of the larger firms continued good business or financial relations anywhere in the world, albeit known or not by the target.

Ensuring that the plans of tycoon-run dynasties continue unruffled in their overall business affairs means that certain commodities may very well have been allocated within specific global frameworks so that other dynasty-run conglomerate firms currently in-place may not be significantly impacted so as to create a war of unparalleled proportions worldwide. Such as that may be, the targeted firm may actually have no idea how or what it is actually doing to other markets from what their independent international business plan may be.

Private contract business and financial agents, who may go on to act like PMC agents, may be found to utilize a plethora of their own privately held existing alliances and acquaintances within other business firms or go on to see new ones created wherever they may need to be established.

Precision planning is used where economic wars are won, before they are ever fought in business arenas so as to ensure operational effectiveness with perfect success ratios and reliable patterned histories.

'Old wealth' dynasties take decades to build and perfect. Many are kept on the books of a family's trustee, even though the firm may no longer be in business, just for the sake of traditions and keeping it all in the family name.

In order to begin dispelling rumors and getting to the crux of a business attack, it is not easy to dissect how a competitive firm was 'taken out' of the global picture.

More often times than not. Such an investigation requires considerable talents albeit information collection and operational pretexts to be carried forward with power and/or, wealth in order to best determine where originally the attack even came from on the target. And, in some cases it must be done before it can even be decided on whether a counter-assault can even be approached let alone accomplished.

If the counterattack is to be used on a dynasty-run firm the assault had better be able to dredge up huge sums of money and be discrete enough in ordering-up a PMC economic agent specialist to be able to mount a counter manipulative operation.

Targets are sometimes caught-up between tiny third world nations who in their haste for their own economic survivability sometimes influence global economic markets, when they purposely invite financial and business growth therein from more economically stabile countries around the world. It is not unfair to then determine that larger more developed countries then may view this encroachment as a threat or attack to their own survivability in the global marketplace. Hence, third world wars and political uprisings may ensure when PMCs working for governments inject paramilitary forces, supplies, and provide logistics that serve to overthrow certain regimes.

Many insurance companies around the world secretly utilize PMC agents to bring about corrective measures for a wide variety of clients who wish to stabilize their own economic infrastructures.

A most interesting example where all the aforementioned financial and business economic war tactics, strategies, professionals, PMC agents, and tycoons might best be viewed in a case that also provides historical significance, which remains as ongoing operations throughout the world today.

More than adequate descriptions serve as an important part in understanding that roles individuals have played.

Prior to World War II, heading up Germany's largest defense establishment industrial programs, was the Dornier Family dynasty and its industrial aircraft and flying boat firms.

A dynasty that stretched westward from Italy to the United States, and from the upper reaches of South America and the Caribbean islands to the Pacific and Southeast Asia over a time period of nearly seventy-six (76) years., See, e.g. Photos.

One of the senior Dornier family dynasty brothers, Claude, forged a family alliance that began with the early 20th Century German government, which continued well beyond the reign of Adolph Hitler.

Claude Dornier cleverly used his brother, Peter, along with a little known about outsider, i.e. Claudio Caroni, a Swiss Italian, in order to maneuver the Dornier family dynasty of industrial and financial programs around the world that became critical economic elements protected from two (2) World Wars to firms today.

Some of the Dornier firms while having changed their names are well entrenched in the United States although they are rarely (if ever) mentioned by any public news organization in America. But, some of the other heir apparent Dornier firms are very familiar and well recognized throughout the business world with absolutely no news background coverage ever mentioned in America.

Hitler's plan was ingenious and depended on the cooperation of the Dornier Brothers, which depended later on the Caroni Familys dynasty in working their financial and economic talents and experiences with Swiss politicians, banks and trustees, all efforts that wound up forging a business alliance larger than General Motors, and more secret than what was found to be running their defense aircraft facilities around the world.

The plan was difficult for Dornier and the German government to obtain a solution to, without violating World War I impositions designed within the Treaty of Versailles, which had to somehow be circumvented. This is where Claudio Caroni entered the Dornier plan. Such would be done however, by positioning the Dornier industrial plants of Germanys war defense mechanism, outside, in Italy and in Switzerland so that few would ever suspect Germanys rise to world power so fast.

Decades later, the United States Office Of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) - later to become known as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A) - found out about the plans, thanks to documents seized by the U.S. Army, toward the end of World War II.

As the O.S.S. began its transition to the C.I.A., it inherited a special intelligence division that had only been operating for a short time within the O.S.S.. It was called the Economic Intelligence Collection Unit or, ECONIC.

ECONIC is secretly rumored in the hallways of some special U.S. government agencies as the predecessor of today's U.S. Treasury Department organization called, FinCEN.

Hailed as the parent group for U.S. economic intelligence gathering, ECONIC was initially headed up by a man by the name of John A. Mowinckel, who reported the status and findings of ECONIC directly to the Director of the O.S.S..

[NOTE: The Offshore Informant news publication, i.e. "ECONIC," was named after this unit.]

On June 26, 1945 Peter Dornier was interrogated by the O.S.S. (see file #29-703-705), and the floodgates of German defense secrets, along with Hitler's technology and economic business plans became known by the U.S. government, which used the information to mount more than just military assaults. The Dornier brothers began being used by the U.S. for many years and in many ways in order to build up the U.S. war machine and U.S. world economics.

One of many secrets divulged by Peter Dornier was the Dornier Family's Swiss aircraft firm secret supersonic jet fighter-bomber, the P-16, which the U.S. had no knowledge of until Dornier folded under U.S. questioning.

Primarily the P-16 was one of many hidden defense assets of Hitlers, which was never found 'inside' Germany because, it was headquartered at Dornier's manufacturing facility in Switzerland, which was called, Flug und Fahrzeugwerke Altenrhein (F.F.A.).

The P-16 held a multi-defense capability that few knew about Hitler's experimental defense programs because, it was actually the first 'jet' aircraft fighter-bomber, specifically designed as a S.T.O.L. (short take off and landing), and had broken the sound barrier setting high history marks for aviation history.

Decades later, the P-16's 'wing design' was adopted by a U.S. post-World War II test pilot, i.e. Bill Lear, who later became the founder of the Learjet aircraft firm in the U.S.. Today, aircraft aficionados are familiar with the novel shaped 'pod-like wingtips' on his Learjets.

Hitler's original wing designer(s) for the P-16 was a man named, Dr. (an Economics and Technical degree doctorate) Claudio Caroni, who with an assistant, i.e. Dr. Ing. (an Engineering degree doctorate) Hans L. Stüder, went on to build an empire.

Claudio Caroni, born on January 20, 1907 in Locarno, Switzerland, was quite a fortunate young man to have matriculated from the World famous school, known as Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.

Boccino University was famous for its having combined economics and technology programs under one roof.

In 1932, Claudio Caroni published his book, "I buoni di godimento nelle società anonime" ("The Bonds Of Enjoyment In Joint-Stock Companies").

Dr. Caroni was adept at engineering, design, manipulating company ownership, financing, and investment strategies. A talent said by some to be magically 'genetic' with his father's directorship of his bank, i.e. Battiste Bank.

Claude Dornier and Claudio Caroni became friends and soon, Dr. Caroni's skills were set in motion for Adolf Hitler in Switzerland at the Dornier defense aircraft firm (F.F.A.) as its chief aircraft wing foil designer of the P-16 and eventual owner of that firm as well.

In 1948 after World War II, Dornier sold his Swiss air firm (F.F.A.) to Dr. Claudio Caroni who then began building up the Swiss air firm into an almost overnight commercial success.

In just four (4) short years (1952), Dr. Caroni made what seemed at the time to be a rather 'odd' purchase. A commercial and residential 'elevator' company, i.e. Aufzüge AG Schaffhausen.

Six (6) years later in 1958, the Swiss Federation brought a halt to FFA's aircraft production and so, the facility then 'instantly' began producing railroad trains for SSB (known today as the Schindler 'elevator' company), along with other private railway firms, buses, aerial tram cabs, military technical products, and satellite communication firms too.

Claudio Caroni had one (1) elder brother, i.e. Arrigo Caroni, who was born July 1, 1903 and was an accomplished international lawyer who studied all over the world and went on to become a rather prominent congressional politician for many years in Switzerland. Arrigo, a stellar conservative citizen in the local community, passed away on December 13, 1985 in Locarno, Switzerland, about nineteen (19) months after his brother, Dr. Claudio Caroni, died on May 2, 1984 in Zug, Switzerland.

Claudio's Son, i.e. Dr. (Ing. ETH; an Engineering degree doctorate) Luciano Caroni, inherited the Caroni Family fortune.

Dr. Luciano Caroni's obligations included Claudio's now historically famous Swiss-based F.F.A. aircraft firm located near the Altenrhein Airport in Staad, Switzerland.

Luciano Caroni sold the F.F.A. firm to, the Schindler elevator company, which was well involved in rail car and rail transportation system productions all over Europe.

Luciano, although selling to Schindler, was placed on the board of directors of Schindler, which branched out his involvement in Daimler (formerly Daimler-Benz, now Chyrsler-Daimler) Rail Transportation Systems.

Dr. Luciano Caroni holds other positions for corporations of influence such as the worldwide firm, i.e. Lista International. (see further below)

In the early-1990s Dr. Luciano Caroni sold one of his businesses, which was an import-export trading business, i.e. Palepo AG, Palepo Trading und Consulting AG, and Palepo Trading and Consulting, Ltd. to another interesting person and friend, i.e. Gabriel MacEnroe (Secondary Residence: Feldlistrasse 29a, TEL: +41-071-220-18-18 and +41-071-278-65-87; Primary Residence: Egham, Surrey, UK).

Gabriel MacEnroe was the Son of the late London barrister and close personal friend of John Paul Getty (Getty Oil), who was assigned the task of Trustee for Getty's empire. MacEnroe traveled with his father during his visits to the Getty mansion in Surrey, UK.

Through a mutual aquaintance of Dr. Luciano Caroni and Gabriel MacEnroe, a man by the name of Max Broder, another Trustee and owner of the firm, i.e. Asamina Treuhand in St. Gallen, Switzerland (Zwinglistrasse 6, TEL: +41-071-223-42-40; with his Residence that is geographically positioned in the building directly behind his office, lives at: Redingstrasse 4, St. Gallen, Switzerland, +41-079-223-42-11, CELL: +41-079-689-36-68), went on to arrange the transfer of ownership for all three (3) Palepo companies of Luciano Caroni over to Gabriel MacEnroe.

Intrestingly enough, Asamina Treuhand, also happens to be at the exact same address for the famous Winterthur-Leben insurance firm in St. Gallen, Switzerland (TEL: +41-071-226-49-49), a division of the Credit Suisse Group.

It was Max Broder who handled the Caroni Family Estate matters for years, and he went on later to assist MacEnroe with yet another firm, i.e. Commercial Capital Finance AG in St. Gallen, Switzerland (10 Kornhaustrasse 3, TEL: +41-071-223-42-41), which also intrestingly enough happens to be located at the exact same address for the offices of BDO Visura (TEL: +41-071-228-62-00), a subsidiary of BDO International.

Both Broder and Broder's older Brother continue to be very close personal friends of MacEnroe, with Max acting as personal business Trustee and accountant for Gabriel or whomever or whatever Gabriel may be representing at any given time.

Broder handles various transactions involving stocks, finance, and liquidation, and it was Broder who was earmarked to handle the takeover of a bank in the Caribbean, i.e. First International Bank of Grenada, Ltd..

The bank however, later collapsed after Gabriel MacEnroe arranged to have the bank divest itself of its assets before the 'new European owners' under MacEnroe's plan were to takeover F.I.B.G., Ltd..

Unfortunately for the bank, its depositors, and investors, MacEnroe just disappeared and left the bank hanging in the breeze until the government of Grenada took possession of it. Oddly enough, even the government of Grenada had plans to restore the bank but, even it couldn't do it. It was as though a black cloud hung precariously over this bank and no one could ever figure out why so, speculations abounded and rumors started.

Subsequent to Gabriel MacEnroe's disappearance, the government of Grenada assigned a liquidator who publicly auctioned off each item of the banks and its director's property that was estimated by the liquidator to be worth less than $10,000 dollars for pennies on the dollar.

What larger assets the bank did have left after it had complied with MacEnroe's purported European consortium who was to have supposedly taken over the bank in MacEnroe's scam, were then sold to pay the auditing and accounting service fees by a man named Marcus A. Wide, the local island accountancy group director for Price-Waterhouse-Coopers in St. George's, Grenada. Meanwhile, the bank's depositors and investors cried fowl on the bank and all its current (at that time) and past directors and filed complaints with the F.B.I. and anyone who would listen.

At the current time, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Portland Oregon is proceeding with indictments on federal criminal charges against the bank and its directors, which are scheduled to be unveiled in 2003.

While the one of the original founding fathers of the bank and chief financial architect was the former CEO, i.e. Van Arthur Brink, a new CEO, i.e. Mark Kennedy, traveled to meet with Gabriel MacEnroe at his office in St., Gallen, Switzerland.

Upon arrival and once inside MacEnroe's office Kennedy was verbally threatened, badgered, and extorted unmercifully by MacEnroe.

By a source close to Kennedy, MacEnroe's intimidation tactics worked to the point that Kennedy could no longer function as the CEO of F.I.B.G., Ltd..

Shortly after Kennedy's return to Grenada, the bank fell with no information about MacEnroe's scam ever being revealed to authorities. Consequently, no complaint was ever filed against MacEnroe.

Gabriel MacEnroe was later arrested on October 31, 2000 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (USA) by a federal money-laundering task force of F.B.I. agents from Florida, on another investment scam but, not on the First International Bank of Grenada, Ltd. case and seems apparent that MacEnroe got buy the FBI on that one.

To date, the federal criminal case against MacEnroe has not gone to trial but, is set preliminarily for 2003.

Meanwhile, all of MacEnroe's criminal co-defendants have been convicted and imprisoned on other criminal charges yet, MacEnroe who spent about 1 week in a federal detention center, successfully had his bail lowered from $800,000, down to $200,000, which was then posted for him. MacEnroe was then permitted to leave the United States and oddly enough, without any U.S. federal probation supervision. MacEnroe has continued to fly around the world dealing with financial investment matters pertaining to International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans.

It was learned from court testimony at an earlier case that MacEnroe openly admitted to another individual that he was a collector of information for the F.B.I. as was his Father who was assisting John Paul Getty (Getty Oil) in the UK. MacEnroe went on to admit that he works as a contract agent for numerous intelligence agencies and even a Trustee for the C.I.A., but this was never verified.

MacEnroe seems to have had a tendency to brag-up his auditing connections, which founded nothing more than his personal relationship to Satiris "Sonny" Galahad Fassoulis and his firm, i.e. CIC (Commerce International China, Inc., a California firm 1930-1950) International, Ltd..

Fassoulis went on to become the Chairman of Africa ONE, a title that one of his sons, i.e. Steve, also held according to news reports.

Africa ONE and CIC became enthralled with technology being applied to fiber optic telecommunication systems and a broadband internet satellite constellation program, i.e. Teledesic Holding, Ltd. (UK) that Bill Gates of Microsoft, private Saudi Arabian interests, Daimler Aerospace AG, and many others have been actively interested in funding efforts on.

MacEnroe cleverly confused potential investors by spreading a rumor to one person, i.e. David Alan Morgenstern, who promoted to other investors that his "contact in Switzerland" had "United States N.S.A. auditing capabilities" on a fifty-one (51) satellite program that they would be investing in, which may have related to Teledesic.

Pretexts used by MacEnroe have been reportedly used to 'stimulate' his associate's potential investors who trust MacEnroe to handle for them and their investors, significant amounts of monies on project investments like the satellite program.

Another MacEnroe scam was with other investment potentials that were supposedly affiliated with IMF-backed loan funding he has and continues to use, time and time again.

Some claim MacEnroe actually works for his close friend Sonny Fassoulis, working behind the scenes to make funding arrangements for CIC International, Ltd. in order for it to broker armament from other sources it uses like ITT and others. Supposedly, MacEnroe would use his contacts within German insurance escrow offices in Switzerland to underwrite financial deals of CIC International, Ltd. so it could barely survive as a front company for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which may actually support CIC International, Ltd. so it remains in business as one of its many brokers for arms, technology components, logistics on transactions significant to intelligence operations where MacEnroe then brings in his closely associated European clients that stand to make a sizeable amount of money in precentage points for underwriting such projects.

Others rumors have been continuing to circulate that MacEnroe does in fact work for the C.I.A. solely to develop intelligence on any project that he sees fit to go after on his own, whereby any unsuccessful bids by MacEnroe then categorizes such as adversaries of Western policies resulting in the foreign country's firm being collapsed through secret pretexts known only to MacEnroe and perhaps a few others.

While such rumors have never been proven in a court of law nor would they ever, only MacEnroe's aversion to be flamboyant when it only comes to business deals, has him currently labeled by many as a rogue agent elephant running out of control for the C.I.A. by in part, MacEnroe's own admissions to another that did go on the record in a cort of law in the United States a few years ago. Perhaps, MacEnroe is only used as an intelligence informant stooge by governments whenever and whatever financial deals he's working on, turn sour.

To date rumors have been plentiful about Gabriel MacEnroe and are just anyones guess to date, but there are some things that aren't rumors, innuendos or, compliments either about his sidelines too.

MacEnroe has never been known for doing anything 'small' in his life. Just the history of his European financial business bedfellows and those he represents, reads like something out of War and Peace or a good John Le Carre spy novel.

Before MacEnroe abandoned First International Bank of Grenada, Ltd. with his careful and calculating plan toward its eventual collapse, Gabriel was a very busy money man.

MacEnroe established a firm out of Vaduz, Liechtenstein, i.e. Commercial Capital, Establishment (TEL: +41-075-232-44-80) that became quickly acquainted in New York with an investment broker by the name of Ivo George Caytas (an Austrian).

Caytas' Son, i.e. Fikret Caytas, runs the business as the firm's Finance Manager, at: TEL: +90-216-348-8322; and CELL: +90-532-366-3439, E-Mail: [email protected]). The business, i.e. George Ivan Catas Associates is listed at: 146 West 57th Street, new York, NY 10019-3301 (TEL: 212-265-1166, FAX: 212-586-4085, E-Mail: [email protected]).

In 1983, Ivo Caytas received an award from The Hague Academy in Wein (Vienna), Austria.

In 1986, Caytas attended Yale University and went on to also attend the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland in 1990 where he met Gabriel MacEnroe.

From August 1995 through November 1998, a client of Ivo Caytas, i.e. Raymond Keith Richards (a British citizen, living in Monaco), successful business tycoon of the European machine company INSULPAK and a group of music businesses was unfortunately ensnared with a 3-part ($20,000,000 each) sequential $60,000,000 investment fraud in the United States, as a customer of the Union Bank of Switzerland.

Initially Ivo George Caytas, become a financial broker for Raymond K. Richards (a British tycoon of the giant European machinery firm, i.e. INSULPAK). Richards was a client of the Gabriel MacEnroe firm, i.e. Commercial Capital, Establishment (Liechtenstein).

Joining in with the aforementioned parties in a federal civil case out of New Jersey along with Caytas was Arthur Thompson (London, UK), Edwin D. Wilkinson (London, UK), and Willy Farah (an Israeli of Palestinian origin who worked as a department store manager in the United States). Oddly enough, both MacEnroe and Caytas slipped past any criminal prosecution but, they 'did' collect their 'fees'. And, oddly enough, only a 'department store manager' (Farah) wound up being blamed and convicted of the criminal fraud against Richards and three (3) other victims in that case.

The scam was what is more commonly referred to as a High-Yield Investment Program fraud that represented 'project and trading funding programs' sold to Richards and 3 other victims. But, it was MacEnroe who brought Richards to the Caytas' financial investment advisory slaughterhouse where Farah and others were perched.

While MacEnroe may have pulled the wool over the eyes of FBI agent Robert J. Chiaradio from the FBI's Orlando, Florida office and FBI agent Kevin P. Donovan of the FBI Newark, NJ office, MacEnroe continues to go on unscathed with no criminal charges ever sticking on him.

Raymond K. Richards was reported to have recovered about $56-million of the $60-million dollars he invested, which it seems had been cleverly taken from him and then laundered through several banks in the United States and abroad.

Richards is still hard pressed to recover the remaining $4-million through the federal civil case in New Jersey, which PNC Bank and Dime Bank, (formerly Lakeview Savings Bank) in New Jersey are heavily engaged in disputing their defenses against Richards. See, e.g. U.S. District Court District of New Jersey (Newark) # 00-CV-1268.

For Richard's subsequent federal civil claim for "diversity fraud," See, e.g. U.S. District Court District Of New Jersey (Newark) # 00-CV-952 (2000).

Two (2) of the total four (4) investors defrauded (including Richards) were interestingly enough from Caytas' homeland in Wein (Vienna), Austria.

Dr. Johann Fontanessi (contact information available on request) a customer of Credit Suisse Union Bank (Switzerland) and another victim used Bankhaus (Wein, Austria). The remaining investor was a bank customer of Nations Bank out of Dallas, Texas.

All of Gabriel MacEnroe's court cases though, aren't over yet.

MacEnroe has a Securities and Exchange federal civil case still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District (San Diego) of California. See, e.g. # 01-CV-1085, and other cases too.

MacEnroe's friend, Dr. Luciano Caroni, who lives in Teufen, Switzerland (Grunaustrasse 4, TEL: 071-333-11-40; [email protected]), and whittles away his tough life's hours as a Swiss Bridge Federation champion card player along with his wife, held key critical positions with major German conglomerates.

Today, MacEnroe remains in constant contact with his two (2) of his closest friends, i.e. James Anthony (London, UK) in-person. And it seems on a weekly basis with his dear friend Satiris "Sonny" Fassoulis (via cellular phone), while he continues to fly around the world, like a gnat, wielding so-called big financial business deals.

James Anthony may be found visiting in St. Gallen, Switzerland frequently, more so than at his office in London. Anthony handles MacEnroe's private business and investment ventures today. Most of MacEnroe's investments today, are in the film industry but, now has a secret internet business deal on the horizon.

Sonny Fassoulis along with his son, Steve and Robert, operate an extremely large worldwide defense logistics armament company, at: 5 Marine View Plaza, in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA (TEL: (201) 792-1800; FAX: (201) 792-5755) where Robert Fassoulis holds down the position of Chief Financial Officer while a man by the name of Michael Kane, is the firm's CEO there.

CIC International, Ltd. is said to employee 714 employees and claimed year 2001 revenues in excess of $750-million (USD).

Another acquaintance of Gabriel MacEnroe, i.e. Shaikh Khalid Al Ahmed Al Subah, with namesake family ties to the Kuwati Royal Family, moved from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to a Greek section of Cyprus a few years ago where MacEnroe visits him frequently. According to sources, Khalid was a director of a bank in Bahrain and in Kuwait.

Gabriel MacEnroe's brother, i.e. Geoffrey "Geoff" MacEnroe, has been involved for years with the European Union, Irish Business and Employers Confederation, Conference Bureau of Ireland, Ambrose McLernon Partnership, European Union Trade and Business Development Program, EURES (European Employment Services) Cross-Border Partnership, and maintains close ties with select members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Gabriel MacEnroe is a 59-year old caucasian man, standing about 6-feet tall, weighing about 175-pounds (trim build), has red hair and is a natural born citizen of the Republic of Ireland. MacEnroe travels with legitimate passports for Ireland, England, and Switzerland in his briefcase.

One of MacEnroe's Washington, D.C. law firm associations pointed in 2002 to a man by the name of Donald O. Clarke, who was with the Reed Smith law firm until recently, and who supposedly speaks to MacEnroe whenever he's in town.

Other firms of MacEnroe's included, the following: Fenchurch Trust, Ltd. (UK), Georgian Consultants, Ltd. (UK), and Abbey Finance and Mortgage Company, Ltd. (UK) all, which operated out of: 185 Uxbridge Road, Hampton Hill, Middlesex, UK.

MacEnroe has maintained previous United States offices in Beverly Hills, California and in Stamford, Connecticut where CIC International had also at one time, maintained some additional satellite offices.

MacEnroe was reportedly employed by the Continental Insurance company during the mid-1970s, although this has never been very well documented.

The Caroni Family Estate was reported as owning MacEnroe's closest business associate's (Max Broder's) office building although which one was never specified.

MacEnroe has used the following banks throughout the world:

Liechtensteinische Landesbank (Liechtenstein), Deutsche Bank (Germany), VP Bank (Liechtenstein), Liechtenstein Global Trust (formerly Bank In Liechtenstein), St. Gallische Kantonalbank (St. Gallen, Switzerland), Credit Suisse (Zurich, Switzerland), United Bank of Switzerland (Zurich, Switzerland), HSBC, National Westminster Bank, and a few others.

MacEnroe's wife's maiden name is Tiffany Scales who represented herself in Miami, Florida as Miss Ireland, in 1968. Today, Tiffany attends the Royal Holloway College at a campus of the University of London, located in Egham, Surrey, UK. She spent her pastime there studying an Irish Poet by the name of James Clarence Mangan who lived between 1803-1849. She is a member of the Oscar Wilde Circle on campus.

MacEnroe's Son, i.e. Simon MacEnroe, is reported to be operating a franchised Century 21 Real Estate office today said to be out of Kennsington in a district of London, UK.

MacEnroe has been financially advising individuals for a few decades now and recently began telling people to dump U.S. dollars on the market in exchange for a better position that Swiss Francs, shall hold since the U.S. attacks on September 11, 2001.

Swiss-German

Industrial Defense Mechanisms

History

The Dornier Family was certainly by far the richest of all Germans, what with its airplanes Claudius "Claude" Dornier, gave the Dornier family a fortune. Spectacularly estimated at approximately 2.4-billion Marks to have in accordance with honor, was above all the merit and service bequeathed by the Martine-Dornier-Tiefenthalers.

Friedrichshafen, Germany was the old headquarters and home of the Dornier defense center before and during World War II.

After allied bombers pounded this city with 11 bombing raids, it finally fell. French troops then came in and occupied what was left of the whole town. There was virtually nothing left of it on April 28, 1944. The city was for all intents and purposes, shelterless.

The decision to found the aircraft plant "Aktiengesellschaft für Dornier-Flugzeuge Altenrhein" was originally taken by professor Claude Dornier after he had been entrusted with the development of a flying boat.

The foundation activities for the new plant were started in 1926. The development contract for the new flying boat was concluded in 1928. This is reason enough for the Dornier GmbH to recall that historic date.

The Altenrhein airfield celebrated the anniversary on the occasion of the "International Bodensee Airshow," August 6th through the 9th, in 1998.

Today, Daimler Benz Aerospace AG is the majority owner of the Dornier company with its focal points of activities in the fields of 'satellite and communications technology' as well as defense electronics abound.

Dornier Unleashes Huge Flying Boat - The "Do-X"

Building the giant commercial flying boat Do-X with its exceptional dimensions required the construction of fabrication and assembly halls at suitable locations.

After World War I, the construction of aircraft was still subject to tight restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. For that reason, the plant had to be planned abroad.

The long distance to the Friedrichshafen, Germany plant at Manzell and the fact that the Wal flying boats were manufactured at Marina di Pisa in Italy at that time had an inhibiting effect on the development activities. The foundation of a plant on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance at Altenrhein near Rorschach presented itself as the appropriate solution.

A terrain of about 100 hectares was bought for the plant and the airfield. Since the terrain was flooded when the lake's water level was high, it had to be silted up, drained and leveled.

Further soil analyses revealed that it was necessary to bed in more than 12,000 meters of armored concrete piles for the foundations of the buildings. After that expensive delay of the construction time, the plant was available with a built-up area of approximately 20,000 square meters about one year later.

At that time Altenrhein complete with assembly halls, welding shops, forge, paint shop, joiner's workshop, saddlery and anodizing facility was considered the most advanced aircraft factory in Europe.

The plant provided employment for 700 to 800 employees in single-shift operation. After this new plant had enabled Dornier to carry out construction and assembly near Manzell, the company decided to give up the Marina di Pisa plant gradually, the German employees returned to Manzell and Altenrhein.

The Do-X Amazes The Entire World

Work on the flying boat Do X was started in late 1927. 12 engines, mounted in tandem nacelles on the wing were to provide the giant aircraft with the necessary flight power.

In July 1929 the time had come. A flying boat with dimensions, which had not been seen so far, was floating on the waters of Lake Constance.

The Do X technical data was, as follows: Length 40 meters, height 10 meters, wing span 48 meters, all-up weight 48 tons, cruising speed 175 km/h and maximum speed 210 km/h.

The crew consisted of 14 people and the fuselage was equipped with luxurious facilities offering 66 passengers all amenities.

With the twelve engines roaring the gliding tests were started. After a short while the engine speed increased, the flying boat picked up speed and took up out of the water - the Do-X took off for staggered flight. An extensive trial program began. The flying boat had to prove its performance capability in all weathers on water and in the air.

On October 21, 1929 the Do-X proved its reliability. It took off for a one-hour flight over Lake Constance at Altenrhein, Switzerland with 169 passengers on board. The world looked at it in amazement.

At the beginning of 1930 the air-cooled Siemens Jupiter engines of the Do-X were replaced by the more powerful water-cooled Curtiss-Conqueror engines.

After more than 140 take-offs and landings the Do-X took off for its demonstration flight over four continents. The world was to witness the capabilities of the new flying boat.

The route of the Do-X world flight followed the river Rhine down to Amsterdam, and from there continued to Calshot, Bordeaux, La Coruna and Lisbon. Via the Canary Islands it went along the African coast.

On June 20, 1931 after crossing the South Atlantic Ocean, the flying boat reached Rio de Janeiro. From there its flight was continued to New York where the Do-X remained in the winter quarters for several months and was admired by thousands of people.

In May 1932, the crew took off for the flight back home and landed on Müggelsee in Berlin on May 24. A voyage of more than 43,500 kilometers including 2 flights across the Atlantic had been concluded.

While the first flying boat on behalf of Germany was being built, 2 further units could be delivered to Italy.

On account of the worldwide economic crisis no further flying boats could then be built.

After World War II had broken out, the Dornier company increasingly carried out licence productions for the Swiss air force at Altenrhein. The factory was renamed "Dornier Werke AG," in Altenrhein.

On the insistence of the Swiss authorities the factories in Germany and Switzerland were later separated. In 1984, Dr. Claudio Caroni took over the Dornier factory and called it "Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke AG Altenrhein" (FFA).

[NOTE: Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke (Translation: Flight and Vehicle Factories)

Aktiengesellschaft für Flugzeugunternehmungen Altenrhein (Translation: Altenrhein Corporation for Airplane Enterprises)

Flug-Und Fahrzeugwerke AG (FFA) was actually first located in Staad, Switzerland although very few people even to this very day know this small fact.

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1926 - 1927 Establishment of the Dornier aircraft plants AG at the Pratteln, Swiss address placing the Dornier aeronautical and aircraft works plant from Friedrichshafen, Germany to where the Industrial Union Park (IG-Park - Altenrhein) is now located today (2003).

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1987: Alfred F. Schindler purchased the majority interest in FFA (Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke AG, Altenrhein). Rolling stock manufacturing was integrated into Schindler's own rolling stock activities and renamed "Schindler Waggon Altenrhein". Aircraft manufacturing was sold off to "Justus Dornier Holding AG." which continued under the name FFA (Flugzeugwerke Altenrhein AG) in 1987.

In 1987, Schindler acquired the majority interest in the Japanese Nippon Elevator Industry Co. Ltd in Tokyo, Japan. In 1987, the establishment of Schindler Hissi Oy, Finland occurred. In 1987 the international issue of 200,000 bearer participation certificates was issued to strengthen the company's entrepreneurial flexibility.]

In 1988, with Schindler's acquisition of the majority interest in ALSO Holding AG, Schindler entered the personal computer distribution business.

ALSO Holding AG, the Swiss based and independent computer distribution company, is Schindler's second division.

ALSO is Switzerland's leading PC distributor and service provider with a turnover of more than 1.7 billion Swiss Francs (approx. $ 1000 million).

ALSO deals with the major IT manufacturers in the world as well as with major manufacturers of the telecommunications business.

The ALSO distribution center near Lucerne, Switzerland. ALSO expanded the Distribution business to Germany in 1995, introducing the same know-how that has made the company the largest IT (Information Technology) distribution and service company in all of Switzerland.

In 1999, ALSO was elected "Best Distributor" by the German specialist trade. ALSO focuses on 2 key businesses: Systems and Distribution.

In 1988 contracts began between Schindler and Westinghouse Electric Corporation for the acquisition of the entire elevator and escalator business of Westinghouse in North America (annual sales approx. US $ 500 million, 5,500 employees).]

In 1989, Schindler Holding AG took over the entire elevator and escalator business of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decides not to proceed with an objection. Schindler Enterprises Inc., the new holding company for the USA, is established.

In 1990, The former Schindler Service Division, and the previously independent service companies of Westinghouse, are merged under a single name, and with effect from January 1, 1990 they trade as the "Millar Elevator Service Company." Millar, has its headquarters in Toledo, Ohio and is now a division of the Schindler Elevator Corporation, and is today the largest elevator company in the United States having activities exclusively in service and modernization.

In 1990 with its Hungarian partner, Ganz Aufzügefabrik, Schindler Holding AG established the joint venture Schindler-Ganz Lift GmbH, Budapest. Schindler holds 75% of the shares.

In 1990, The joint venture Schindler Mosmontash Lift, Moscow, USSR, in which Schindler holds a 51% interest, is established.

1993: Activities of the Altenrhein and Pratteln, Swiss plants are combined into the new operating company Schindler Waggon AG, Pratteln. Both plants of Schindler Waggon are awarded the SQS quality certificate corresponding to the ISO 9001 international standard. With a global market share of more than 20%, Schindler becomes the world leader in the escalator business.

1995: The Annual General Meeting elects Alfred N. Schindler as new Chairman, and Luc Bonnard as Vice Chairman. An Executive Committee of the Board is newly formed whose members are Alfred N. Schindler (Chairman), Luc Bonnard, and Alfred Spörri. Raymond Beaudelet is newly elected to the Board of Directors, whereas Dr. Uli Sigg and Walter Hess give up their Board membership. And, Schindler Waggon AG celebrates its 50th anniversary.

1997: Stadler Fahrzeuge AG establishes Stadler Altenrhein AG in Altenrhein, and takes over the small series, maintenance, and repair activities from Schindler Waggon.

1998: Schindler separates from the rolling stock business. The activities and workforce of Schindler Waggon AG in Pratteln, Switzerland are taken over by Adtranz.

1999: At the end of May, Alfred N. Schindler inaugurates the Schindler Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. factory in the presence of the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Yang Amat Berhormat Dato' Seri Abdullah Hj Ahmad Badawi. The factory will produce escalators and elevator cars for the Southeast Asian markets.

2001: The new Schindler 700 high-performance elevator reaches the speed of 10 meters per second in first test runs in the telecommunications tower of Deutsche Telekom in Frankfurt. It is the first Schindler elevator to break this "sound barrier" and will be brought onto the market in fall 2002.

Because of changes in the IT market which cause poor utilization of capacity in the systems business, the ALSO Group undertakes a realignment of ALSO COMSYT AG. The focus on providing high quality IT services in Switzerland's major business centers requires redimensioning of the branch network.

On January 14, 2002 in the USA the operational integration of Millar Elevator Service Company into Schindler Elevator Corporation is announced.

2002: On November 6, 2002 Schindler presented its new Schindler 700 (Schindler 700 is driven by an FM560, FM630, or even more powerful FM710 machine.) high-performance elevator at a technology (asynchronous motor technology) presentation held in the telecommunications tower in Frankfurt on November 6, 2002.

The elevator program, which contains a large number of technical innovations, can be used worldwide for travel heights up to 500 meters, accelerating a mass of up to 45 metric tons, and at speeds up to 10 meters per second and then brake it without the passenger feeling the forces involved by use of its ceramic brake linings as are also used on the U.S. Space Shuttle and Formula 1 racing cars.

Schindler will launch its new product onto the market in mid-2003, and thereby further expand its position in the high-performance business in Asia, the USA, Europe and elsewhere.

Typical residential apartment elevators travel at about 1-meter per second. Since it travels at a supersonic speed (breaking the sound barrier) a new form of lightweight construction is used in combination with an improved insulation concept.

The Schindler 700 uses laser-aligned guide rails in the hoistway with precisely adapted springs and dampers on the chassis and car. These reduce the noise level to as low as 50 dBa, and vibrations to as low as 10 mg (the physical unit in which vibrations are measured).

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1945: Schindler Waggon AG, Pratteln, Switzerland, is founded.

1946: Schindler Elektromotoren- und Apparatefabrik AG in St. Gallen is founded.

1946: Schindler Fabbrica di motori ed apparecchi SA, founded in Locarno, Switzerland.

1948: Schindler Ascensori e Montacarichi established in Genoa, Italy.

1948: Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke AG Altenrhein (FFA); Aktiengesellschaft für Dornier-Flugzeuge Altenrhein

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Schindler Waggon, Ltd.

AS Aufzüge AG (Head Office) TEL: 41 71 282 1100 FAX: 41 71 282 1141 Schachenstrasse 2 CH-9016 St.Gallen

WWW: http://www.schindler.com/man/webgefi2.nsf/web/Switzerland3

Schindler Technik AG TEL: 41 61 825 6211 FAX: 41 61 825 6564 Postfach Hohenrainstrasse 10 CH-4133 Pratteln 1

Schindler Waggon Ltd. Pratteln 1 CH-4133 Switzerland TEL: 41 61 825 9111 Fax: 41 61 825 9205

WWW: http://www.schindler.com/man/webgefi2.nsf/web/Switzerland110

SchindlerConsulting AG Zugerstrasse 13 CH-6031 Ebikon / Lucerne TEL: 41 (0)41 445 32 09 FAX: 41 (0)41 445 46 36

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LISTA INTERNATIONAL

President - Gerhard Frey: Municipality President (Mayor) of Teufen, Switzerland, and Verwaltungsrats President; Telecom FL AG.

Vice-President - Fredy Lienhard: President and delegates; Lista Holding.

LISTA INTERNATIONAL

Board Members

Regula Lienhard: VR member; ALID Holding AG.

Dr. Luciano Caroni: Entrepreneur (donations and advice)

Dr. Hubertus Schmid: VR member; Lista Holding, delegates; IHK St. Gallen - Appenzell

Rudolf Mueller: Management Consultant

Paul Kunz: Member Management Lista Europe, Operations Director

Dr. Juergen Adam: CFO and Controller; Lista Gruppe

Hanspeter Hafner: Entrepreneur, Managing Director; Lista Innovationspreis

Dr. Kurt Furgler: Former federal councillor, honorary President; Lista Innovationspreis

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History - from the Dornier aircraft plants to the building of railroad cars

1926 - 1927 Establishment of the Dornier Flugzeugwerke (aircraft plants) AG in Pratteln, Switzerland (where the Industrial Union Park, i.e. IG-Park - Altenrhein is today) having moved out of the Dornier aeronautical and aircraft plant factory in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1928 - 1931 Building of three large-capacity aircraft DO-x (capacity 170 persons)

1946 - 1951 Establishment of new branches of industry: Construction and production of vehicles for rail and road.

1948 Transition to a purely Swiss enterprise with change of name to FFA, Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke AG, located at the Altenrhein facility.

1952 - 1958 Self-development and production of the ground-combat engagement airplane P-16.

1987 Assumption by Schindler Waggon AG resale of the divisions aircraft construction and maintenance, airfield enterprise as well as surface refinement to the Justus Dornier Holding AG, Zurich.

1997 Sales ranged from small series and repairs to the Stadler Fahrzeuge (of vehicles) AG.

01.01.1998 Separating all remaining activities of Schindler Waggon (railroad cars) came the creataion of Schindler Technik (technology) AG.

01.01.1999 Sub-activities of marketing, sales and development of technologies at Schindler Technik AG went to Alusuisse Airex AG.

01.01.2000 Activities of technique/construction work of Schindler Technik AG went to Alusuisse Road & Rail AG.

01.02.2000 Sub-activities of production work technology of Schindler Technik AG went in to Alusuisse Airex AG.

01.04.2000 Sub-activity detail production, building and carpenter's workshop of the work equipment components as well as the personal and accounting system activity services of Schindler Technik AG went to Schlegel Swiss Standard AG.

01.01.2001 The further out-training center of Schindler Technik AG went to Schlegel Swiss Standard AG.

Establishment of the Dornier Flugzeugwerke (aircraft plants) AG.

The Dornier Flugzeugwerke AG plant of 1926 is now located where todays IG-Parkes (Industrial Union Parks) is. This came from the Zeppelin (airship) and aircraft manufacturer, i.e. Claude Dornier, had once based his operations in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Dornier, as a former aircraft builder in Germany, had been prohibited from building aircraft and related machinery due to the Treaty of Versailles. This then caused him to seek an alternative location in Altenrhein, Switzerland, outside the scope of that Treatys provisions.

Dorniers accomplishment of establishing an extremely more economical logistic location in Switzerland paved the way for him to continue his goals of building seaplanes away from a considerable distant sea-based marina in Italy, to a closer location for production supply areas within Germany. Altenrhein in Switzerland proved to be an excellent location on land, which also ran right into Lake Constance (Bodensee), providing Dornier a sea-based facility. However, the development of seaplanes led to later included fighter-bomber land-based defense aircraft.

The production halls, which developed thereby, were at that time famous for their modern conception. In these buildings after its completion the look up-exciting giant flight boat Do-X was manufactured already bring admittedly at Altenrhein, Swizerland for the whole world made, which was ahead of its time and still today the acknowledgment of the professional world finds.

Establishing this large of an enterprise that required metallurgy supplies in an underdeveloped eastern geographic location to that of Germany, made Switzerland at that time, also of economical great importance. By 1927, Dornier was furnishing the Altenrhein location with several types of workshops.

In the years 1932 to 1939 - among many accomplishments by Dornier A highly prized choice of seaplanes came into existence with his prototype development of a multi-purpose (land and sea) fighter, i.e. Do-22. The Do-22 was later called the Amphibium Do-12 Libelle (spirit level). A later development saw a bomber aircraft emerge, i.e. Do-Y, and the development of a sea-bomber, i.e. Do-20, which was sold from the Altenrhein-built facilities and distributed internationally. During World War II, the work on these types of aircrafts was almost exclusively designated for the Swiss army. This was the first time that a larger series of airplanes and training was being conducted by were built from.

FLUG- UND FAHRZEUGWERKE AG (FFA)

After the war in 1946, Dornier had already begun to look around for new branches of industry for economic reasons, and began to enter construction and production of vehicles for both rail and roads, which was an ideal new market for him. In the years that followed, it became noticeable that many Swiss-based regional areas required a series of large public transportation vehicles such as trolley buses, light alloy course tram cars, etc.. Dornier realized his firms could be used to manufacture rail cars within the Swiss federal railroad railway course system.

In 1948, Dornier sold his company (FFA Altenrhein) to his former design engineer who had become that facilitys director, i.e. Claudio Caroni. It was Caroni who had earlier, purchased an elevator car company. FFA had then become a sole Swiss-owned enterprise at Altenrhein.

The previous Caroni-Studer designed novel wing style pod - seen on the P-16 fighter-bomber aircraft wing - provided a novel nozzle aerodynamic pod shape that became attractive to the commercial aircraft marketplace between 1952 to1958, owing much to the rich defense design experiences of previous years at Altenrhein. From that wing style designed under the direction of Claudio Caroni and Hans Studer, William Bill Lear took it for his own development copying the same pod-like wing for his own small business-class jet aircrafts development.

Schindler Waggon AG Becomes FFA Major Stockholder

On January 28, 1987, a contract was concluded, where Schindler Waggon AG acquired a majority participation in the firm Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke (flight and vehicle works) AG in Altenrhein, Switzerland. Cooperation between Schindler and FFA began viewing economic stabilizations and increased the competitive ability of combined business affairs with railroad cars and what was contained in the execution of orders for military technologies. Claudio Caronis son, i.e. Dr. Luciano Caroni, remained as President of the board of directors for FFA and on the board of directors for Schindler Waggon AG.

At the same time Schindler Waggon AG sold-off portions of FFA divisions such as its aircraft construction and maintenance department at the Altenrhein airfield facility. Schindler also engaged in FFA surface refinements of Justus Dornier Holding AG, in Zurich.

Justus Dornier Holding AG took over the existing personnel and resumed FFA operations at Altenrhein. FFA, by 1990, had already become known as Swissair (and Swiss air traffic school) in Altenrhein. An east-Swiss consortium took over Swissair and turned the Altenrhein building complex guidance management over to be performed by Gautschi AG. Today FFA is dedicated to amongst other things, busy with its civil aircraft revisionings.

Prior to the assumption of FFA by Schindler, it had completed large orders of the Swiss federal railway railroad course cars, e.g. Beispiel Einheitswagen (unit vehicle) IV, for the Zurich rapid-transit railway in consortium with the firm SIG, i.e. now known as FIAT-SIG Schienenfahrzeuge (rail mounted vehicles) AG and BBC, now known as, Daimler Chrysler Rail Systems AG, in Switzerland.

Today, Orgama AG owns IG-Park at Altenrhein, Switzerland under operations by its director, i.e. Pierino Piffaretti, of Schindler Waggon AG.

Schindler Waggon AG today, builds railroad cars and is held within the Schindler Group. Schindler Waggon AG consists of comprehensive coordinated efforts of its business activities and investments in Pratteln and Altenrhein, Switzerland today.

The goal was to acquire an improved competitive position and increase efficiencies in order to more fairly manage increased requirements of the rail car material markets. A uniform purpose was established in making divisions with which to expand railroad car production locations in Pratteln and Altenrhein, thusly decartelizing (un-monopolizing) their activities in the ever-watchful marketplace.

Over a period of 10-years, Schindler decisions were based on their envisioning of a large restructuring of European railroad courses, rail cars, and railroad manufacturing in their involvement with such activities by the end of 1997 and a sales involving Mega-Player Adtranz with ABB Daimler Benz Transportation AG (Switzerland), i.e. now, Daimler Chrysler Rail Systems AG, in Switzerland.

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IG-Park Altenrhein LIST OF FIRMS:

Alcan Airex AG Alcan Alesa Engineering AG BWB-Altenrhein AG EnDes Engineering und Design AG FUJI Electric GmbH GRASS AG IG Informatik GmbH Koch Transport AG pf Bürgler AG PUR-Tech Qualitech AG Schindler Technik AG Schlegel Swiss Standard AG STA Strukturwerkstoffe AG Stadler Altenrhein AG STM Stahl Vinzens & Partner

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IG-Park - Altenrhein Contact List:

Eigentümerin (Owner):

Pierino Piffaretti

ORGAMA AG Postfach 9423 Altenrhein Email: [email protected]

Management:

Schindler Technik AG

IG-Park Postfach 9423 Altenrhein Email: [email protected]

Kontaktpersonen Vermietung + Auskünfte (Leasing Space Contact):

André Martin TEL: 071/858 43 18 FAX: 071/858 44 45 E-Mail: [email protected]

TEL: 061/825 62 21 FAX: 061/825 65 64 E-MAIL: [email protected]

Sicherheit/Technische Dienste (Security and Technical Services):

Walter Rohner TEL: 071/858 44 49 FAX: 071/858 44 48 E-MAIL: [email protected]

Pierino Piffaretti Andre Martin Evelyne Nussbaumer

WWW: http://www.buss.ch (see firm, e.g. Georg Fischer)

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Schindler Waggon Ltd. (a division of the Schindler elevator Group) Pratteln 1

CH 4133 (Switzerland)

TEL: 41 61 825 9111

FAX: 41 61 825 9205

Locations in Pratteln, near Basle, and Althenrhein Switzerland

Today, Schindler manufactures about 120 new elevator and tram vehicles per year and generates an operating income in excess of CHF (Swiss francs) 270-million. Schindler employs approximately 1,100 personnel.

History: The factory in Altenrhein was founded in 1925 as Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke AG Altenrhein (FFA).

During 1931-35 the first funiculars (elevators) and suspension (aerial tram) cars were built, and the rail car carriage department began in 1945-47. At the start of 1987 FFA was taken over by Schindler and in the following June its railway vehicle building and general engineering were separated from its aircraft manufacturing facility. FFAs new activities took on its new title as Schindler Waggon AG at Altenrhein.

Schweizerische Wagons- und Aufzügefabrik Schlieren was a former independent manufacturer of coaches.

Shindler products in Switzerland today are passenger coaches, driving trailers, traction units, tilting trains, and light-rail vehicles (LRVs).

What could possibly be so interesting about a Schindler building elevator coach?

Schindler has designed, produced, and are delivering specific high technology elevator coaches for use in extremely tall buildings that are 'laser-guided', 'exceed the speed of sound', and use 'ceramic brakes' to bring passengers to a swift, gentle, and safe stop at each floor.

The sheer determination, intelligence, unity, and fortunes that these legacies and others have amassed within their network of managing business and financial risks is demonstrated by accomplishments.

Industrial conglomerates like these that have held a reign of power for almost 80-years, which they have managed successfully to pass down through their subsidiaries controlled by selected siblings and close family associates is incredibly significant.

One may only ponder the projects they have yet to complete. What their timetables might be. And, where they will go throughout the world, searching for insatiable business satisfaction.

With a century of proven world history demonstrations, legacies like these may never stop, much less ever be slowed .

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