AP: Ghost firms hinder oil-for-food probe

[rainbow4321]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SADDAM_GHOST_FIRMS?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=INTERNATIONAL&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT



GENEVA (AP) -- The U.N.-ordered probe into oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the $60 billion program, a top investigator said.

Some front companies in this global oil trading center and elsewhere that dealt with Saddam have been liquidated or have hidden ownership, complicating the search for evidence of financial improprieties, said Swiss criminal lawyer Mark Pieth. He's one of three commission members leading the probe headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

Major oil trading companies and individuals - from American businessmen to French, Chinese and Russian politicians - are suspected of benefiting from lucrative Iraqi oil contracts that involved kickbacks, according to the independent panel's initial findings.

Those who profited may have been able to hide behind a web of fiction by making transactions through ghost firms that exist mostly on paper, Pieth told The Associated Press. Pieth said that more companies around the world will certainly be fined after the Volcker investigation ends. A preliminary report on findings is expected to be released in January, but the $30 million probe isn't expected to be finished until well into 2005. "We're not going to do diplomatic soft talk," Pieth said. "If there's something to be said, we are going to name these people involved."

[pfitz59]

1. Bush, Baker, Botts, Cheney et al......

"Ghost" corporations have real-life benefactors. past time to name names....

[truthseeker1]

3. Don't forget Albright

Heard she was part of it too

[elehhhhna]

2. Offshore accounts. They'll be the smoking gun.