The Enron Black Magic, Part One

by Sherman H. Skolnick
December 2, 2001

In the often evil world of oil and natural gas, and other energy, they became the seventh largest of the Fortune 500. What has happened to put them as the largest of the No Fortune 100? How did they become, so far, the biggest loser?

The real operators of Enron Corporation are, to some, great sorcerers. They have waved their magic wand, and turned paper promises into black gold and vice versa. Sort of latter day alchemists. Later in this series we will explore the role of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. Now just look at some of the other names.

A Director of Enron has been Wendy Gramm, wife of U.S. Senator Phil Gramm [R., Texas]. A former Professor, supposedly adept in economics and banking, Senator Gramm has been the Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and member of the Budget and the Finance Committees. He has blocked laws against money laundering. Convenient to the Enron mess, he decided ahead of time not to run for re-election.

For some twelve years during the Reagan/Daddy Bush Administrations, Wendy was Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As a highly corrupt federal regulatory agency, CFTC wields great power and influence over markets, often little understood by commonAmericans.

Spreading out in the 1980s worldwide was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI. Some called them, with their hundreds of branches round the world, the Bank of Crooks and Criminals International. They were actually a huge money laundry for political assassination and dirty tricks funding, as well as espionage proprietaries, for the American CIA, British MI-6, French CIA, and The Mossad of Israel.

BCCI had or were planning some five branches in the US. For their US agenda, they needed to put the arm on the US government. Elsewhere in the world, BCCI had already honed the real world specialty of buying and bribing public officials.

BCCI as a foreign entity not only dealt in secret transactions in banking but were a highly mostly covert player on the world markets, particularly the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, and on markets such as LIFFE in London. Through six La Salle Street brokers, BCCI bribed and blackmailed its way into the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. Key law-makers were invited to come to Chicago, all expenses paid, to supposedly give a speech for the CME, or "Merc" as some call it, and the CBOT. While in the Windy City, the law-makers were informed that their hosts, the market honchos, were opening "courtesy" accounts for them. And, that they would be informed of the good results that developed. In some instances, the so-called "courtesy" account was not told to the Representatives and Senators, but was set up in their name anyway as a blackmail device on the date of their Chicago visit.

Through a hocus-pocus series of transactions, the Chicago accounts showed a supposed loss while the London accounts showed a huge profit. In the lingo of the markets, it was called a "straddle." The Senators and Congressmen themselves, or most often their known agents, from time to time personally picked up the huge profits in London. On other occasions, someone identifying themselves with credentials as their known agents, likewise picked up the heavy profits from the "courtesy" accounts, in the British money center. It was either a direct provable bribery payment to the law-makers or verifiable record-kept blackmail. Either way, twenty five per cent of both houses of the American legislature were "hooked."

By the time BCCI supposedly collapsed in the summer of 1991, some five billion dollars had disappeared. It was used in great part to buy, that is, to bribe, 28 US Senators and 108 members of the US House of Representatives. The Bank of England, by a series of circumstances, became the kingpin in supervising and overseeing the supposed demise of BCCI. [BUT, see Foonote One, how BCCI rose from the ashes under another name.]

Notice the strange happenings. For only thirty days, the Bank of England had as an open record, the list of those bought and bribed, whether directly or through the blackmail devices, of the legislative branch of the US Government. A major media correspondent got wind of this and before secrecy was clamped on the records, got a copy of the entire list of bribery/blackmail.

Part of one of the largest media operations worldwide, he went to his media editor with the details. The editor was thunder-struck. Here was documented proof that twenty five per cent of the House and Senate were bribed. "We cannot publish the list and the details that go with it," the journalist was told. The media mogul added the obvious, "It would cause the scandal downfall of the American Government," as the journalist later related the editor's statements to an independent-minded confidant.

As a last resort, the journalist gave the list and the corroborating details to our group. [This type of thing has happened again and again during the forty years our group has operated to open up deeply censored stories. I, as head of the group, have been jailed some eight times for contempt of court, wheelchair and all, for refusing to divulge witnesses and sources.]

Using the list and substantiating details, we began directly confronting members of the House and Senate. We began receiving threats of great harm to us after the time when we confronted Senator Phil Gramm, who was on the list and we brought up about the apparent bribery cover up of his wife Wendy, as head of the CFTC.
In going over the specifics, we discovered that BCCI was a sizeable secret funder of Ted Turner, making possible his idea for a television super-station via satellite from Atlanta, Georgia. And, that this was done through part-owner of Turner's empire, the then cable monster, TCI of Denver. In an interview with the former chief accountant of one of the La Salle Street brokers arranging the bribery, we learned that TCI also owned part of the brokers fronting for BCCI in Chicago.

We learned plenty in the process of exploring the details. We found out, for example, that BCCI, through their Chicago branch, greatly funded the television campaign commercials for the 1988 Presidential campaign for Democrat candidate Michael Dukakis. To cut off money for the badly needed television ads for Dukakis, his opponent, GOP Presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush, at the time Vice President, arranged on a holiday, Columbus Day, right before the Election, to mysteriously close up BCCI's Chicago branch, source of the television money for Dukakis, claiming "corruption" but not disclosing details.

In putting the complex matter together, we found out about the threat of an internatinal scandal. GNP Commodities, headquartered in Chicago, wanted to merge with French entity, Bank Indo-Suez. The merger was opposed by CFTC Chairperson, Wendy Gramm, and the head of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan. At a hearing in Chicago as to the merger, an attorney for GNP was heard hollaring outside the CFTC office, that if Wendy Gramm and the Fed do not get off GNP's back, there would be an "international incident." GNP, then headed by the former chieftain of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, was reportedly in a position to know about the BCCI bribery of both houses of Congress covered up not only reportedly by Wendy Gramm but by Alan Greenspan as well.

A watered down version of the GNP Commodities incident was published in the Wall Street Journal in November, 1989.

From long past experiences, I knew only one publication would run my exclusive story about the BCCI bribery of Congress. I turned it over to the populist paper, Spotlight, headquartered in the nation's Capitol. I gave them the Bank of England BCCI bribery list. In October, 1991, they ran my story minus the list which they had but the list nevertheless began circulating elsewhere anyway.

Here are some of the names from the Bank of England's reported BCCI bribery list, that included 108 members of the House and 28 US Senators:

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES-
Congressman DAN ROSTENKOWSKI (D., Ill.) [Two of his daughters supposedly worked in the Chicago markets
although apparently not doing much actual work. Rosty as he was called for many years headed the House tax-writing committee and put through a near-private law for the markets as a tax-loophole as to "straddles". He has been a major owner of Garfield Ridge Trust & Savings Bank of Chicago, a reputed transit point for CIA dope money from Mena, Arkansas, headed for laundering disguised as soybean and currency trading through the Chicago markets. Rosty was later sent to federal prison for defrauding the private bank of the House of Representatives.]

Congressman MARTY RUSSO (D., Illinois).
Congressman THOMAS FOLEY (D., Washington).
Congressman GLENN ENGLISH (D., Oklahoma)
Congressman CARDISS COLLINS (D., Illinois)
[As to her, see our website series on the "Secret History of Airplane Sabotage." She apparently went along with the cover up of the Watergate Plane Crash, Chicago.]
Congressman E (Kika) de la GARZA (D., Texas)
Congressman RICHARD GEPHARDT (D., Missouri.) [For 2004, is he planning to run for President? What does HE know about the murder of Mel Carnahan on the eve of the year 2000 Election debate? Carnahan had records that would have scandalized
Presidential Candidate George W. Bush at a presidential candidate debate in St. Louis.]
Editor's note: Gephardt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations Congressman JAMES WRIGHT (D., Texas)
[He left Congress later in another scandal.]
Congressman DAN GLICKMAN (D., Kansas)
[In the Clinton administration he became head of the Department of Agriculture.
BCCI/Banca Nazionale del Lavoro were implicated in a huge Atlanta scandal where billions of US dollars disguised as "Agriculture" loans, were used by Daddy Bush to supply weapons to Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. Glickman was reportedly part of the cover up.]
Congressman ROBERT MICHEL (R., Illinois)
[When faced with an apparent Chicago US Bankruptcy scandal also involving his son, he left Congress.]
Congressman RICHARD DURBIN (D., Illinois)

US SENATE:
Senator THOMAS DASCHLE (D., South Dakota)
[Does HE plan to run for President in 2004?]
Senator JAMES JEFFORDS (R., Vermont.) [In 2001, he changed from Republican to Democrat, upsetting the GOP control of the US Senate.]
Senator LLOYD BENTSEN (D., Texas)
[Big-time bank owner leading up to Enron.]
Senator ALFONSE D'AMATO (R., New York)
[Law enforcement personnel contended D'Amato was the mafia's man in the US Senate.]
Senator JESSE HELMS (R., North Carolina)
[Records seem to support the claim that Senator Helms receives funding from international terrorist groups.]
Senator RICHARD LUGAR (R., Indiana)
Senator ROBERT BYRD (D., West Virginia) [There is strong reason to believe that he and some of his staff members know a lot about the murder in 1991 of Journalist/Author Danny Casalaro in West Virginia, also about the apparent frame-up of computer wizard Michael Riconosciuto.]
Senator DONALD RIEGLE (D., Michigan)
Senator PATRICK LEAHY (D., Vermont)
[He has been the long-time Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. See BCCI/BNL details at listing of Congressman DAN GLICKMAN.]
Senator ALAN DIXON (D., Illinois)
[He previously had been Illinois Secretary of State, issuing auto and drivers licenses. Some of his family members reportedly ran stolen auto parts businesses, called "chop shops" which he covered up by fake auto registrations and such. Dixon also arranged for the mafia to slow down FBI investigations in that mafioso, through Dixon, got untraceable auto tags.]

Reputed experts on covering up high crimes have been Federal Reserve Commissar Alan Greenspan (we call him REDSPAN) and former CFTC Chairperson Wendy Gramm, a Director of Enron. Through complicated dealings, were billions sucked out of Enron to try to prop up the failing US Stock Markets?

[FOOTNOTE ONE- Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI, did NOT actually disappear despite monopoly press accounts stating so. BCCI re-emerged as PINNACLE BANC GROUP, with their flagship the highly corrupt, gangster-linked FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF CICERO (Cicero being the long-time mafia-enclave adjoining Chicago, known as Al Capone Land.)

Lots of details about this on our website in prior stories. For example, dominating the bank in Cicero has been Bishop Paul Marcinkus, until 1991, head of the Vatican Bank, recently identified as a major criminal money laundry for mafia/CIA and others. To confuse matters, the bank in Cicero has changed their name several times since 1991.]

See Part II next.
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Since 1958, Mr. Skolnick has been a court reformer and since 1963, Founder/Chairman, Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts. Since 1991 a regular panelist and since 1995, Moderator/Producer of the one-hour weekly public access Cable TV program, "Broadsides", cablecast WITHIN CHICAGO, to some 400,000 viewers, each Monday evening, 9 p.m., Channel 21 Cable TV. For a heavy packet of our printed stories, send $5.00 [U.S.funds] plus a stamped, self-addressed BUSINESS size envelope [#10 envelope, 4-1/8 x 9-1/2] WITH THREE STAMPS ON IT, to Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts, Sherman H. Skolnick, Chairman, 9800 So. Oglesby Ave., Chicago IL 60617-4870. Office, 8 a.m. to midnight most 7 days BUT DO NOT BOMBARD THIS LISTED PHONE WITH "JUST ROUTINE" CALLS: (773) 375-5741. For updates of our work on a taped message, NOT AN EXPENSIVE CALL (773) 731-1100. WEBSITE: http://www.skolnicksreport.com [NOTE "s" after name in website address.] E-MAIL: skolnick@ameritech.net