Tag: fbi

Interview with Retired FBI Agent Myron Fuller on ABSCAM & New Jersey Corruption

by plasticscreen, posted in Interviews, True Crime, Corruption & Deep Politics

I reached out to retired FBI agent Myron Fuller regarding the notorious ABSCAM case involving political corruption, international money laundering and mafioso, ties between New Jersey municipal corruption and the Philly mob and more in preparation for my upcoming book about the Kai the Hitchhiker case. If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend checking out the interview he did with former FBI agent, podcaster, author and consultant Jerri Williams about the case that the movie American Hustle was (very, very loosely) based on.

Myron Fuller, fmr. SAC FBI Honolulu Division



Philip Fairbanks: The ABSCAM case, I assume, was considered a source of pride and a successful operation at the time, but Congress and the media seemed none too pleased. Was it frustrating seeing the operation skewered?

Myron Fuller: Among several crisis that occurred during the three years running (July 1977 – January 1980) of Abscam, the US Congress was the most threatening to the FBI’s use of Court accepted “Agent Provocateur” Undercover technique against subjects who were accused of asking or accepting large sums of money in exchange for the use of their Government position and power to benefit themselves and bypass the legal methodology of granting or supporting contracts.   

Although I did not create the Undercover operation to target Public Corruption, when we were led to that opportunity by a subject of Organized Crime with relative ease, the FBI did not hesitate to recognize and pursue corruption. Based on existing evidence, I set up Abscam to penetrate the criminal relationship between sophisticated White Collar Crime conmen and members of the Five Families of Organized Crime in the New York Metropolitan area.    I had learned that conmen and Gambino members had taken over Iverson Cycle Co. in Queens.   

When our first opportunity to meet with Public Officials was presented to myself, as undercover Myron Wagner, and Cooporative Witness Mel Weinberg, we followed the trail of evidence.    The term “predication” has always been used in the FBI to open a case.    Being in New York City, neither myself nor my superiors were discouraged by Congress nor the media, as long as what we did was within the Rule of Law.    When the media begin to attack Weinberg, our main witness, it was a huge concern because if he is impeached, then Abscam would be tainted in all of its’ 25 separate cases leading to the prosecution of more than 50 subjects from the ranks of Mafia, Conmen and Public figures in approximately a dozen Federal Districts located in 10 States.

The countries of Canada, United Kingdom and Switzerland were also in the mix, which would have felt the failures of the FBI.    As to Congress, the FBI was cleared following their Hearing on FBI Undercover Operations.    The complaint was that the FBI had commenced a “political” investigation against Congress and was targeting Democrat Representatives.    That presumption was due to a FBI Supervisor in New York that lied to FBI HQ on the mission of Abscam, falsely advising that Abscam only begin when we had the opportunity to investigate Public Officials.   

I cleared that up when I testified before the Congressional Hearing and so advised James Neal, who was leading the Hearing investigation.    I explained that Abscam was initiated against the Mafia and Conmen some eighteen months before myself and Mel met a Mafia/Conman named Bill Rosenberg in Manhattan, who led us directly to Angelo Errichetti, Mayor of Camden, NJ.    All of the Public Corruption subjects in NJ, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC, North Carolina and Florida, who accepted bribes and prosecuted were linked directly back to Errichetti, either directly or through one or two other persons. While some media was critical, I gave information directly to a reporter who ran front page articles in Philadelphia and Miami, who was factual and not critical. The most threatening crisis was when the media reported that Mel had made money by peddling counterfeit bank notes to Mayor Errichetti and others.    I became embroiled in this as did the DOJ and the Federal Court in Brooklyn.    It is a long story, but it came down to my decision to not raise the matter to OPR FBI or nor DOJ, which could have sabotaged the integrity of the FBI and a US Attorney in Brooklyn.     



Philip Fairbanks: ABSCAM played a major role in the primary elections once the story broke. Was it surprising to see that Lederer and Murtha for instance managed to still win reelection despite their being embroiled in bribery and money laundering?        

Myron Fuller: I was not surprised that Lederer and Murtha were forgiven for attending a meeting in which unlawful activities were discussed, since they declined to accept the bribe.    When high ranking Public figures became subjects in Abscam, the FBI at the Headquarters, including the Director, and DOJ became the “supervisors”.      No bribe payment was made without a request made by FBI NYC, Newark, Philadelphia, et al, and approval at the Director level was confirmed by teletype, which was the immediate paper communication back then.    I did not follow the political fallout of Abscam that closely, and did not see the case as being for nor against either party.    To me they were subjects of an investigation, period.   

Philip Fairbanks: Did you see the movie American Hustle? If so, what did you think about it? Felt like a wasted opportunity personally turning such an engaging case into a highly fictionalized love triangle movie.

Myron Fuller: Regarding “American Hustle”, as a retired Agent, I was the “FBI consultant” and spent time with Asst. Producer Richard Suckle, Script Writer Eric Singer, Actors Christian Bale, Bradly Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, et al.    I read the scripts before they were decided on the final cuts.    I wanted the movie to be more accurate, but that would have presented legal problems for the Attorneys.    I agree that it wasted an opportunity to tell a “one of a kind” historic story.   

No FBI Agent(s) before Abscam and none since    have accomplished what Abscam was able to do.    I happened to be in the right place (NYC) at the right time (1977) when developing events and factors enabled myself to use informants, wire taps (Title III), undercover operation, searches, etc, as well as backstopping from a VP at Chase Manhattan Bank, a former Department of State employee, and on-demand access to $3.2 Million in cash at CMB in my undercover name.    As it turned out, the movie did quite well, making some $250Million and received 10 nominations for Emmy awards.    Hollywood knows what sells, which is usually fiction over facts.

Philip Fairbanks: How often are cases of wire fraud involving judges, politicians and other people who can trade on their positions of power a sign of bribery?

Myron Fuller: On how often do cases of wire fraud involving pubic officials become a sign of corruption, I do not know.    You might call the White Collar Crime Division at HQ for that information. In Abscam, it was the conmen frauds against US banks that led us to the involvement of the Mob, in particular members of Colombo, Gambino and Lucchese families.    The efforts by undercover Agents Jim Wedick and Jack Brennen, who developed Operation Fountain Pen investigations, came to NYC and helped us obtain probable cause for a Title III against Fred Pro and Phil Kitzer, who owned Seven Oaks Finance in London, a sham bank that was used against hundreds of banks in the US.   

I encouraged David Howard to writhe the book, “Chasing Phil”, in which Agents Wedick and Brennen are featured, along with my assistance on the NYC part. The Euro-Afro-Asiatic Trust in Liechtenstein, also a fraudulent bank, was used by Andy D’Amato to defraud the largest bank in Connecticut.    I met D’Amato in an undercover scenario and he was charged under Abscam in the SDNY, NY .    He and Donald Trump discussed purchasing the Fountainbleu Hotel in Miami, using Euro-Afro-Asiatric Turst as a source.    I interviewed Trump regarding this (see Newsweek for article), and be admitted that he had an interest, but chose not to purchase the hotel. (Trump later became a source for someone in the FBI office in NYC). Your question on fraud is a big one and covers a wide area.

Philip Fairbanks: Seems there have been multiple connections between the Philly mob and cases of New Jersey corruption, how long has this connection existed and what are some reasons for it?

Myron Fuller: You are correct on the criminal relationship between NJ and Philadelphia.    My personal knowledge is due to our encounter with Camden Mayor Errichetti.    When he saw that we were in the business of paying politicians for favors, he took us directly across the Delaware River to the ubiquitous target rich arena of Pennsylvania.    It appeared to us back in the 1970’s and ’80’s, that the corruption and Mob control from the Families of NYC, had direct ties to NJ, and that NJ had the same connections with Pennsylvania.    We saw the same connection between NYC and Connecticut.   

Apalachin meeting, November 14, 1957

This practice had historic connections by the Mob.    As you know, there was a meeting of some 70 Mob leaders in Appalachin, NY in 1957, at which they discussed how to work together when necessary across state lines. I am currently working on a matter in Louisiana and Mississippi regarding the Dixie Mafia, and it is clear that there underground connections between criminal groups that rely on other like-minded to advise and assist. One of the characters is Larry Thompson of Shreveport, Louisiana, who was hired by a insurance agent in Tom River, NJ to kill his wife in efforts to collect on a million dollar life insurance policy.    The interworking of those who with to engage a Mob to do their dirty work is usually only one or two phone calls away.

Philip Fairbanks: What can ordinary people do to combat corruption in the system?

Myron Fuller: As we see every day on the news, people tend to believe what they see and hear when it satisfies their need, comfort and often political beliefs.    Given the decades of fraud, betrayal of truths, law enforcement answers to questions on crime, public service channels on crimes against people, banks and governments, I do not know of a panacea, because the smart crooks come up with new angles to fit the connections between the desperate and the desperado.    The phrase, “a sucker is born every minute” seems to remain true.    I am not totally cynical on this matter, and I do think that most frauds could be prevented by being patient, taking the time to look vertically and horizontally and then bounce it off others, attorneys, accountants, etc, before failing to blink and taking the bait.    If people would remember that fraud is usually successful if the salesperson is likable.   

       

FBI Fingerprints On Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination

by plasticscreen, posted in True Crime, Corruption & Deep Politics

For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Covert Action Magazine, home to some of the best national security state reporting there is, has published a mammoth piece, “Did J. Edgar Hoover Order the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr?” Despite the supposed rule about headlines making bold claims, this lengthy piece actually brings the goods. It got me to thinking about some of the recent news related to Sirhan Sirhan, where a steady trickle of new JFK assassination documents continue to slowly leak to the public the last few years. As well as some of the strange events surrounding news related to Malcolm X’s assassination, a cover-up or conspiracy involving, among others, NYPD and the FBI.

Just as in the case of RFK, JFK and Malcolm X, the MLK case begins to project a shadow of a doubt at the least upon closer inspection. Once some of the details that weren’t available until the last decade come changes everything we thought we knew about the story.

In 2012, for instance, G. Robert Blakey, staff director to the House Senate Committee on Assassinations, said he had been lied to by the CIA. They never revealed the CIA background of George Joannides. Blakey told the Clarion-Ledger in Jacksonville, Mississippi, that “thoughtful people today, not just nuts, think that more people than James Earl Ray were involved [in King’s killing].”

In addition to that, in 1999, a mixed-race jury came to a unanimous verdict. Martin Luther King Jr. they ruled, was assassinated in a conspiracy involving the U.S. government. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King made it clear how she felt, saying “there is abundant evidence of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband.” The jury found that the mafia and various local, state, and federal government agencies were involvement. They also found involvement of organized crime, local, state and federal government “were deeply involved in the assassination…. Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.” If this sounds a little crazy you likely aren’t aware of, for instance, the FBI’s plans to pit the mafia against Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

That time the FBI tried to get the Mob to attack CPUSA pic.twitter.com/tuVuHgi9hf— Robert Skvarla (@RobertSkvarla) January 16, 2022

Ray, the likely patsy, already had some shady government ties similar to Oswald’s connection to Bannister, Ferrie and company’s Services Unlimited front. Once he was sentenced, Ray fired his lawyer (who also had ties to the mob). Percy Foreman, he claimed, ahd pressured him into pleading guilty. Then there’s the conflict of interest, Foreman had 60% royalty rights on a book about Ray by William Bradford Hule, but who would have bought a book about James Earl Ray the exonerated patsy. Especially in comparison to James Early Ray “the man who shot MLK.”

Similar to the cases of JFK and RFK, there is forensic evidence that calls Ray’s involvement into question, from lack of fingerprints to not being able to match the bullet to the rifle that Ray allegedly left on the steps of the Canipe Amusement Company. A decoy Mustang in the area, Add to that the fact that the “star witness,” Charles Quitman Stephens, had been arrested 155 times related to alcohol abuse and was quite sauced when the shooting occurred.

John Larry Ray said at the time of the shooting his brother was waiting in his Mustang, not the decoy’s, for his handler, Raoul. Raoul, was allegedly Ray’s Cuban handler drug trafficking, not unlike many of the characters who come up again and again when looking at the Kennedy assassinations Cubans . Not just Ray’s family though, the King family also believed Ray was framed.

Similarly more and more evidence has come to light regarding FBI involvement in the assassinations of Malcolm X and Fred Hampton as well. Just months ago, Malcolm X’s daughter, Malikah Shabazz, was “found dead” in her home. I found the timing instantly suspect considering earlier that year there was a supposed letter from a police officer confessing to being part of a conspiracy to kill Malcolm X that the NYPD claimed was fake.

Yes, the same NYPD that was complicit in covering up Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. And it was that same NYPD who instantly commented that there was nothing suspect about Shabazz being found dead days after the FBI finally admitted their involvement in the X assassination leading to two men who had been held for decades in prison being freed. A few weeks later, the medical examiner would echo what the police had speculated initially. That it was “a natural death of undetermined cause and there is no suspicion of foul play.”

Busta Rhymes and T.I. shared a screenshot from a fake news story about a supposed ex-CIA agent “Bill Oxley” confessing on his deathbed to the assassination of Bob Marley. No record of any Bill Oxley working for the CIA. He is listed as either 76 or 79 at time of death. No hospital records or even a photograph, the picture on the site being a simple stock photo.

Regardless of lack of a smoking gun revealing CIA fingerprint in Marley’s death, there is a good deal of information in John Potash’s The FBI War on Tupac Shakur: state repression of black leaders from the Civil Rights Era to the 1990s. That coupled with more information appearing bit by bit about multiple civil rights leaders being targeted by a conspiracy comprised of feds, local law enforcement and, often, organized crime elements such as the mafia, KKK or motorcycle gangs like the Hell’s Angels.

Ray definitely had to have some help in order to not only have money to live on but enough to afford fake identities, a new face care of plastic surgery and classes from bartending and dance to hypnosis. His motive was said to be pure racist hatred, but friends say that doesn’t square with the man they knew who was no stranger to interracial relationships between black and white himself. They also claimed the “evidence” proving he was a racist was planted by police. Add to that the fact that, like the patsy Oswald, Ray just wasn’t a very great shot as evidenced by their military records. Ray had even been recruited into Wild Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. Even the base he served at in Frankfurt was, oddly enough, housed in an I.G. Farben building that was somehow spared the Allied bombing.

Add to that lumbar punctures by Army doctors allowing for parenteral drug administration, his claims that he was strongly affected by an incident involving him shooting a Black soldier accused of beating up Jews and raping an officer’s family member. This turned out to be untrue.

Covert Action Magazine points out that mysterious gaps in Ray’s military record also make it seem like he could potentially be an MK-Ultra candidate. Both the Army and the CIA began experimenting with LSD and various other powerful drugs, hypnosis and other methods of “mind control” or behavior modification in the early 1950s.

In addition to that, FBI documents prove that Ray didn’t just take hypnosis classes, he saw a couple hypnotists himself in L.A. just after his Army stint had ended. One, Xavier von Koss, wonder of wonders was an Army intelligence officer who was a possible Operation Paperclip ringer. Yes, that’s right, if you weren’t aware, the CIA helped Nazis escape justice at Nuremberg and then recruited them in our space program, in intelligence and pretty much doing most of what they were already doing under Hitler, just for the USA rather than the NSDAP.

Ray was even ordered to Montreal to the Memorial Institute at McGill University to be hypnotized while in the service. This is where Dr. Ewen Cameron, responsible for depatterning and other cruel experiments Cameron engaged in caused lifetime damage in many.

There’s also Dr. Donald B. Peterson, head of psychiatry at the Army’s Far East Command during the Korean War. In case you weren’t aware, the connections between the Korean War, biowarfare and the MK-Ultra program are manifold as well. Dr. Louis Jolyon West, for instance, interviewed the pilots supposedly “brainwashed” in Korea. Peterson prescribed Ray with Librium after a failed attempt to escape from prison. Librium was listed as a compound of interested regarding deepening and strengthening the effects of narco-hypnosis (drug aided hypnosis was a major part of the early years of Project Artichoke and MK-Ultra).

When Ray escaped he was given the identity of a Canadian asset of U.S. Army intelligence, “Eric St. Vincent Galt.” Galt ran a warehouse for Union Carbide which, again, like I.G. Farben ties back to both the Nazis and the CIA. Raoul, who some speculate was actually J.C. Harden, Raoul Coelho or Raoul Esquivel, initially helped Ray flee the scene before jumping out of the car and leaving Ray to be captured.

Like Timothy McVeigh (until MK-Ultra Doc “Jolly” West cured him), he was convinced that Feds were “messing with his mind.” And his father believed him to have been drugged. So in addition to pre-CIA intelligence activities, we know Ray was working undercover for the FBI from 1949 to 1952. There was even an intelligence asset in the boarding house Ray was staying in at the time of MLK assassination.

There’s even a grassy knoll type situation. Two associates of King who were present when he was killed say the body lurched upward when he was shot, meaning the shot would have had to come from below, perhaps in the bushes rather than from above where Ray supposedly was stationed. Multiple witnesses reported seeing a man crouching in the bushes and running away after hearing a bang. One described the person as wearing a high-necked white sweater with a long gun in his hands. Another witness saw a fireman standing near the wall below the bushes yelling at the police that the shot came from the bushes, but the police ignored him.

The Kennedy coincidences don’t end there though. Jack Ruby’s Vegas Club’s phone number was found in a phone book of H.L. Hunt. Funny thing is, the number is listed as “Raul J” followed by the Dallas phone number of the club run by Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald. Ruby, by the way, also met with MK-Ultra doctors and believed that they were giving him “crazy pills” and strange injections before he would die of cancer. Another piece of paper had Raul’s name and a date for payment, a third had the phone number and extension for Atlanta’s FBI field office.

There’s also the fact that the Memphis Police Department just happened to have pulled off several security units which would expedite the flight of those responsible. Ed Redditt, a black detective with MPD was pulled off his post just an hour before the shooting and placed in “home confinement” after the FBI warned MPD of an assassination attempt directed against him (as it turns out, no such assassination attempt existed, but it did serve to get his eyes off the scene).

Another scare was called in another scare just before the shooting, again diverting police away from the area where King would die. Lloyd Jowers, owner of Jim’s Grill, where Ray said he met Raoul, would eventually make the claim that he was paid $100,000 by Frank Liberto via Liberto, Liberto and Latch Produce Company in Memphis to set up the hit. Liberto was a member of the Carlos Marcello crime family. Douglas Valentine in his book CIA as Organized Crime or Potash’s Drugs as Weapons Against Us give many examples of federal agencies, law enforcement and intelligence working arm in arm with organized crime on such dirty deeds as gun and drug running, assassinations and other illicit activities.

It’s well known that FBI stalked even the likes of John Lennon, but the vitriol and constant infiltration and subversion of the COINTELPRO strategy seemed especially personal with King. There was even a letter sent in 1964 alleging him to be a fraud, “a grim farce” and urging him to commit suicide. There is even verifiable COINTELPRO activity, a “memo” by G.C. Moore, chief of the “racial intelligence” division of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program:

The fine Hotel Lorraine in Memphis is owned and patronized exclusively by Negroes but King didn’t go there after his hasty exit [from] the demonstration of March 28. Instead, King decided the plush Holiday Inn Motel, white-owned, operated and almost exclusively white patronized, was the place to “cool it.” There will be no boycott of white merchants for King, only for his followers

Add that to the many links tying the FBI and MPD and there seems to be at least enough evidence to cast more than a bit of doubt on the official narrative.