By Kelly Patricia O'Meara
During an eight-month secret investigation in the United States last year by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), two of its top national-security investigators focused their probe on a former high-ranking Justice Department official alleged to have been involved in the theft of the PROMIS computer program. Subsequent modifications of this software are believed to have yielded secret backdoor access allowing widespread computer espionage. In this, the third of a four-part exclusive series, Insight continues to follow Mounties Sean McDade and Randy Buffam as they pursue allegations that Canada's intelligence and law-enforcement agencies have been operating the stolen version of PROMIS and that their most secret computer systems have, as a result, been compromised. Much of the investigation centered on two men - Michael Riconosciuto and Peter Videnieks. The former is a convicted felon who has claimed that he modified a stolen version of the Inslaw-developed PROMIS. The latter is the man fingered by Riconosciuto as a high-ranking Department of Justice official involved in the theft of the software. In Part II of this series (see "The Plot Thickens in PROMIS Affair," Feb. 5), Insight took an in-depth look at Riconosciuto and allegations he has made involving PROMIS and other national and international intrigue, including development of a new line of guns and night-vision goggles and a joint venture between a little-known band of American Indians called the Cabazons and the Wackenhut Corp., an international security firm. Other trails led to government-sanctioned drug deals and claims that another former Justice lawyer was involved with the Cali drug cartel. Riconosciuto's stories had been dismissed by federal investigators, but the RCMP unearthed evidence that gave them credibility. What's more, Insight confirmed that Riconosciuto had provided just such startlingly detailed information to an FBI agent well before it had become publicly known. For the Mounties, whose still-secret investigation continues, each layer they peeled back on Riconosciuto's stories revealed a path to yet more information that might confirm their country's worst fears: that key government computer systems were using stolen software that had been modified to allow complete access for espionage. In a 1991 affidavit to William and Nancy Hamilton, the owners of Inslaw who had developed PROMIS, Riconosciuto not only swore that he put the backdoors into a stolen version of the software but also claimed that Videnieks, the Department of Justice official who in the early 1980s oversaw the PROMIS-software contract, participated in the alleged scheme along with a man named Earl W. Brian. Both men, Riconosciuto swore under penalty of perjury, visited him often at the Cabazon/Wackenhut facilities. As with other Riconosciuto stories, the Mounties looked for confirmation and focused intensely on a U.S. Customs Service internal investigation of Videnieks, a contract specialist who was on loan from Customs. Customs conducted a two-and-a-half-year probe of Videnieks because of suspicion he had committed perjury in 1992 while giving testimony in the trial of Riconosciuto, who had been arrested for drug offenses. In an attempt to enter the federal witness-protection program, Riconosciuto told federal investigators that he was set up on phony charges because of the affidavit he gave the Hamiltons. Videnieks has denied any knowledge of such schemes, the first time in sworn testimony during the Riconosciuto trial in Tacoma, Wash., in January 1992. Asked if he knew either Riconosciuto or Brian, and if he ever had been to the Wackenhut/Cabazon joint venture or heard of it, Videnieks responded, "No, I don't. i No, I don't. i No, I haven't." Customs soon thereafter launched a far-reaching internal-affairs investigation of Videnieks. However, it is allegations of government interference in the Videnieks case and contradictory conclusions about the basic facts in the legal saga surrounding the Hamiltons' allegations of official wrongdoing that the Mounties seem intent on clearing up. For instance, in a January 1988 decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge George Bason (Inslaw, Inc. v. United States of America and the United States Department of Justice), the jurist concluded that Justice Department and unnamed U.S. government officials "engaged in an outrageous, deceitful, fraudulent game of `cat and mouse,' demonstrating contempt for both the law and any principle of fair dealing." These harsh words came at the end of a long trial in which Inslaw had filed for bankruptcy as a result of not being paid for its PROMIS-related work for Justice. This work was, in essence, to establish a computer-software system that could track the status of cases in all U.S. attorneys' offices and federal courts. Justice appealed Bason's ruling and, in November 1989, U.S. District Court Judge William Bryant found in favor of Inslaw, stating: "It is not necessary to duplicate the bankruptcy court's exhaustive findings of fact here. i There is convincing, perhaps compelling, support for the findings set forth by the bankruptcy court i [that] the government acted willfully and fraudulently to obtain property that it was not entitled to under the contract." End of dispute, right? Wrong. For the Hamiltons the case has yet to be resolved since they have not been paid. While the Inslaw case wound its way through the courts, Congress also got into the act in the late 1980s as the House Judiciary Committee launched a far-reaching probe of its own. And in September 1992 it issued a report that forcefully stated that "there appears to be strong evidence, as indicated by the findings in two federal-court proceedings as well as by the committee investigation, that the Department of Justice acted willfully and fraudulently and took, converted and stole Inslaw's ENHANCED PROMIS by trickery, fraud and deceit." The reference to "ENHANCED PROMIS" was to a proprietary version the Hamiltons had developed that they alleged later was stolen by the government. The result of the Judiciary Committee report was that in 1993 Attorney General William Barr appointed Nicholas J. Bua to investigate and prepare a report on the Inslaw matter. The results of this investigation, the Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw Inc., found: "There is no credible evidence to support the allegation that members of DOJ conspired with Earl Brian to obtain or distribute PROMIS software. There is woefully insufficient evidence to support the allegation that DOJ obtained an enhanced version of PROMIS through `fraud, trickery, and deceit' or that DOJ wrongfully distributed PROMIS within or outside of DOJ." And still another Justice probe, launched by Attorney General Janet Reno when she took office, concluded in September 1994 that the Bua report was correct - there was nothing to the now-convoluted charges that PROMIS was stolen and sold illegally or that the Hamiltons were due any monies. Moreover, the Reno report concluded that Riconosciuto's stories were not confirmable and that Videnieks was not involved in the alleged schemes laid out by the convicted felon. Canada also conducted a probe in the early 1990s and concluded that allegations concerning its use of a stolen version of PROMIS were lies. The Reno report affirmed Canada's conclusions as well. So it was with great surprise that Insight learned last year about the secret RCMP investigation. McDade and Buffam were on the trail of PROMIS anew and were reviewing all the machinations that have accompanied this exotic story for more than a decade. It is unclear what sparked the Mounties' probe except that it involves Canada's national security. And of keen interest to the RCMP investigators were Riconosciuto and Videnieks, two men concerning whom the Mounties spent considerable time, money and effort to secure information about their alleged roles in the theft of the PROMIS software. In dozens of interviews with those who came in contact with McDade and Buffam, Insight has pieced together the trail the Mounties blazed in the United States from coast to coast. Clearly, as they told others, they did not believe the official U.S. and Canadian reports and conclusions. And, McDade reportedly told people many officials in both governments had indeed lied, cheated and covered up a significant and dark story. Insight has learned the two RCMP investigators plumbed the old Customs probe of Videnieks, the former DOJ official who was investigated for possible perjury. And what the Mounties found, according to some of those they interviewed, very well could confirm Riconosciuto's claim that he knew Videnieks. For example, months before McDade and Buffam came looking for answers in the United States, they had established a working relationship with John Belton, a Canadian living in Ontario who had become involved with PROMIS as a result of a 1980s securities-fraud scheme in Canada allegedly involving Earl Brian and companies he owned or controlled, such as Hadron Inc., Clinical Sciences Inc., Biotech Capital Corp. (renamed Infotechnology Corp. in 1987); and American Systology Inc. Belton's securities-fraud claims resulted in a 1986 RCMP investigation and civil litigation that are ongoing today. Belton, who met in person with the RCMP investigators at least 31 times and talked on the telephone with them dozens more, reportedly steered the Mounties to previously unknown information involving the Customs probe of Videnieks. And this led McDade to Scott Lawrence, the agent in Customs' Boston office who was in charge of the investigation of Videnieks. What information Lawrence may have passed along to McDade is anyone's guess, as neither Lawrence nor the Mountie will say. But Insight has confirmed Lawrence and McDade talked. And, based on documents obtained by Insight concerning the Customs probe, the investigation was wide-ranging in its subpoena request. For example, according to a Nov. 15, 1993, letter to Justice Department Assistant Attorney General John Dwyer from Lawrence's boss, John T. Kelly, Customs' acting regional director in Boston: "Concerning the Peter Videnieks investigation, I believe that to properly complete this investigation, the assistance of federal grand juries in a number of locations will be required." Locations of the requested grand juries included Seattle, the District of Columbia and the Northern District of Illinois. And the purpose of impaneling these grand juries was, according to the Kelly letter, to obtain testimony and documents from about 22 people connected to the Inslaw/ PROMIS affair, as well as the CIA and the Wackenhut Corp. How this tied in to a simple case of suspected perjury by Videnieks is unknown. A former high-ranking federal law-enforcement official told Insight that "Videnieks was under investigation by an internal-affairs unit at the Customs Service and that the investigation, which included other matters, centered on an allegation that Videnieks committed perjury at the 1992 trial of Michael Riconosciuto." According to this source, "Customs' internal affairs ultimately dropped the probe because Videnieks no longer was an employee of the agency." This former official, who asked not to be identified, further said that Kelly and Lawrence had tried unsuccessfully to get a Boston-based U.S. attorney on the case but failed. Main Justice got involved because of its then-ongoing probe into Inslaw that Reno ordered. Kelly had hoped that main Justice would authorize the requested grand juries but, ultimately, he was told to seek authority elsewhere; impaneling the three grand juries would not be authorized by Washington. Finally, after many attempts, Customs dropped the case because Videnieks no longer worked for the agency. To Jimmy Rothstein, a retired New York City policeman who worked with Kelly on the Videnieks matter, that's not quite what happened. The investigation came to a dead end "right after Lawrence interviewed Alexander Haig," Rothstein tells Insight. "I was sitting in an Irish pub in Boston with Tim Kelly," he explains, "and we were waiting for the call from Lawrence. The thing got shut down. Tim Kelly responded by saying, `They ain't gonna screw my guys over.' Nothing ever came of it, though, and I told them this from the beginning." Why Haig, a former secretary of state, White House official and Army general would be interviewed as part of a Customs investigation could not be established. Haig couldn't be reached for comment. Videnieks long has denied any involvement with Riconosciuto or Earl Brian, or being involved in any conspiracy or illegal scheme to sell or convert the PROMIS software. In a brief telephone interview with Insight, Videnieks recently claimed that he couldn't recall the specifics of the investigation by Customs but warned that Insight "had better get the story right or I'll have my attorneys up to see you." Because Customs agents Lawrence and Kelly have declined Insight's requests for interviews, it's difficult to know the ins and outs of their probe, let alone what they found to prove or disprove the allegations of perjury. However, this much is clear: Videnieks' denials never have been contradicted. And, as a result, this key portion of Riconosciuto's claims remains in question. But, as Insight reported in Part II of this series, other Riconosciuto stories appear to have been confirmed by the RCMP investigators and by documentary evidence obtained by this magazine. This may explain why the Mounties spent so much time on the portions of Riconosciuto's claims involving Videnieks. If they could show the alleged links did exist, that might begin to unravel a string of deception that could lead to the highest levels of the U.S. and Canadian governments. Belton kept copious notes of the conversations he had with the RCMP investigators. In one such note, dated June 8, 2000, Belton wrote that McDade told him "the `Drug Tug' captain Calvin Robinson was the Videnieks driver to the Cabazon - ties to Earl Brian and Michael Riconosciuto." This was followed by a June 16, 2000, notation about McDade informing Belton that "they [McDade and Buffam] have determined a second material definitive connection between Peter Videnieks and Michael Riconosciuto. i `Drug Tug' captain Calvin Robinson - Videnieks has always denied an association with Michael Riconosciuto. I confirmed it, I can put Videnieks with Michael Riconosciuto now." The reference to the "Drug Tug" concerns the 1988 seizure of a barge hauling 157 tons of hashish and marijuana into San Francisco Bay. The skipper of the boat was Calvin Robinson, a man who long has maintained that he and his company were the victims of a government setup. According to Belton, "Sean told me that he interviewed Calvin Robinson and that Robinson was the driver for Peter Videnieks to the Cabazon Indian Reservation." This is about what McDade also told Inslaw's Bill Hamilton in one of many conversations, also noted for the record. "McDade said that he could prove that Videnieks committed perjury when he testified against Riconosciuto, that he had interviewed the man who drove Videnieks to the reservation," Hamilton recalls. Then there's Harry Martin, a journalist with 32 years of experience, publisher of the weekly Napa Sentinel and is a city councilman in that picturesque California township. He recently told Insight that, in the process of doing preliminary work on Riconosciuto years back, "I spoke to Peter Videnieks in either 1990 or 1991 - before Michael had been arrested -and Videnieks admitted that he knew Riconosciuto." Martin also says that he spoke to Riconosciuto prior to the now-infamous March 1991 affidavit given to Inslaw outlining alleged illegal schemes and before the now-convicted felon was arrested on illegal drug charges. Martin says he was interested but wanted to check out individuals Riconosciuto had mentioned he'd known to verify the man's general veracity. "That's how I got to Videnieks," Martin says. "I just called the guy up and asked him if he knew Riconosciuto and he said yes, he did. That was before his [Riconosciuto's] arrest." If accurate, this places Videnieks on a collision course with what he has testified under oath and in sworn statements to federal investigators. It also gives credence to one of the wilder aspects of another Riconosciuto story which the RCMP spent considerable time tracking down. Because Videnieks is a central player in the Hamiltons' allegations that the DOJ stole their software, whether Videnieks did know Riconosciuto is key to connecting the two men to the Cabazon Indian reservation, where Riconosciuto claims to have modified the software. If McDade's statements to Belton and Hamilton are true and Martin's recollections of his conversation with Videnieks are correct, it would appear the connection has been made. In turn, it could revamp not only the Inslaw case in the courts and in Congress, but it would raise complicated issues in Canada where the RCMP probe continues. When and how the Mounties' investigation will end is a mystery. But this much is certain: It is having reverberations in security circles around the world. To be continued.
PROMIS Spins Web of Intrigue
By Kelly Patricia O'Meara
The dejected officer shakes his head. "We got further than anyone else ever did on this case," he says, "and nobody outside of law enforcement will ever know what we found because no one in law enforcement can ever tell anyone what we found." The speaker was talking about a case on which he had worked most of last year with Sean McDade and Randy Buffam, officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) who conducted an eight-month secret investigation in the United States in search of the truth about decades-old allegations concerning stolen software called PROMIS and its relation to suspected breaches in Canadian national security. Insight carefully has tracked the Mounties' ongoing investigation, code-named Project Abbreviation, a far-reaching international probe extending well beyond the theft of the breakthrough PROMIS computer software created in the late 1970s by Bill and Nancy Hamilton, owners of the firm Inslaw Inc. As a former congressional investigator tells Insight, "There is a putrid stench that reaches across party lines [in Washington] and involves cover-ups by governments which have spent millions of dollars pretending to investigate the Inslaw affair only to end up with nothing to show for it. You don't have to wonder why so many investigations failed; you only have to look at the evidence that shows there is more to the [alleged] theft of PROMIS than meets the eye. And powerful people don't want it out." This also is what the RCMP investigators have told people interviewed by Insight about what the Mounties discovered as their probe quickly expanded from PROMIS to include a cast of characters engaged in or suspected of involvement in high-level espionage, organized crime, illegal-drug shipments, arms smuggling, murder and money laundering. In fact, McDade and Buffam are continuing to look at a case that has thwarted investigations by many others, including two congressional committees, the U.S. Justice Department, a special prosecutor, swarms of federal law-enforcement officers and prosecutors, a special commission in Canada and many journalists. But until the RCMP probe got under way, investigators were unable to solve the myriad of riddles and conundrums surrounding the Inslaw matter. Many told Insight that as soon as anyone began to turn up answers about these shadowy figures and international intrigues, promising investigations suddenly were shut down on higher authority, witnesses disappeared and careers of experienced cops and seasoned federal prosecutors were ruined. In the first three installments of this exclusive four-part investigative series, Insight tracked the Mounties and reported what they had said about their inquiries. We learned that the Mounties came to the United States in search of answers to two central questions. First, they wanted to confirm that it was Inslaw's PROMIS software that Canada's law-enforcement and intelligence agencies were using and, second, whether the software had been modified with backdoor access to facilitate secret espionage against Canada. Because of the highly sensitive nature of such concerns, the RCMP investigators were careful not to make official contacts with government agencies in the United States, including those which years before had looked into the PROMIS caper. McDade and Buffam began by centering their investigation on people reportedly involved in the alleged theft of the computer software. Of great interest to the Mounties were the roles played by Peter Videnieks, a former U.S. Customs Service official on loan to the Justice Department in the 1980s who was accused of facilitating the theft of PROMIS, and Michael Riconosciuto, a computer genius convicted and jailed in an exotic drug case who claims to have been hired to put the backdoor in PROMIS for the purpose of international espionage and money laundering. Although Canada long has denied having Inslaw software, and Videnieks has denied any involvement, the secret investigation by the Mounties was blessed from the highest levels of the RCMP and thousands of man-hours and great sums of money were expended to get to the bottom of what some see as a gravely serious breach of Canadian security. As with all of the other probes, this one started with PROMIS and, having discovered a shadowy network of bizarre criminal operations, branched out to include very serious allegations of wrongdoing beyond PROMIS. Details of these discoveries never were revealed in earlier public reports by Congress and the Justice Department. Yet there is proof positive that those probes delved into such areas and the American public was never told. What appears to have made the RCMP probe different is that sources approached by the Mounties tipped Insight, leading to a cross-country investigation to determine why the national-security division of the RCMP was operating secretly in the United States and making inquiries about PROMIS and a series of international money-laundering schemes used by intelligence agencies and criminal enterprises. Consider this item: In September last year, a thick plain manila envelope was sent by the RCMP to a California address. In it was a transcript of a recorded 1992 conversation between Riconosciuto and an FBI agent. Riconosciuto had been arrested but not yet convicted on drug charges and he was offering information to the FBI agent in exchange for admission to the bureau's Witness Protection Program. The details contained in this transcribed tape recording were explosive. The envelope had been sent for a specific reason to Cheri Seymour, a former journalist turned private detective whom McDade and Buffam had contacted six months earlier because of her work on stories about illegal-drug operations, gunrunning schemes and money laundering. In the transcript of this tape-recorded phone call (one of several obtained by the RCMP and Insight), Riconosciuto offers the FBI information about bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas, at Castle Bank and Savings, and the Workers Bank in Colombia (Banco de la Troba Hadores) in which he claims to have "set up virtual dead drops." Riconosciuto explains that this "is a way to get around reconciliations on ACH's [automated clearinghouses]," an interbank network for electronic fund transfers. The transcribed telephone conversation contains references to legal and illegal enterprises and a diverse cast of characters, including Robert Booth Nichols, a self-proclaimed CIA operative, licensed arms dealer and partner with Riconosciuto in a company called Meridian Arms, which was a weapons- development firm. The transcript also refers to Michael Abbell, a former Department of Justice official now serving time in a federal penitentiary for money laundering in connection with the Cali drug cartel. In detailing these activities, Riconosciuto pulls no punches. In fact, many of the claims he makes to the FBI agent later are confirmed, often years before any had been publicly known, such as the Abbell matter and a DEA sting operation in Lebanon (see "The Plot Thickens in PROMIS Affair," Feb. 5). As far as Insight has been able to learn, the FBI never followed up on what Riconosciuto told their agent. One reason may have been that Riconosciuto had told similar stories to others in a desperate attempt to get out of prison but dared not provide corroborating evidence. Another reason may be that, prior to the RCMP probe, people fingered by Riconosciuto flatly denied his allegations or said they never had heard of him. But by tracking the Mounties and obtaining or reviewing originals or copies of much of the data they collected, Insight confirmed that the RCMP investigators found substantial evidence to confirm many of Riconosciuto's claims. Much of this data had been overlooked by previous investigators, including documents and computer tapes secreted for years in storage and in a house trailer in the middle of Death Valley. The transcript sent by the Mounties to Seymour takes on special significance because none of the information in it dealt with the alleged theft and modification of the PROMIS software. Or did it? Was the RCMP sending a cryptic message about a change in the focus of the RCMP investigation, or was it signaling Seymour that the PROMIS software was being used in the international banking system for illegal activities? If the latter is true, the Mounties aren't the first investigators to run into the proposition that PROMIS has been manipulated for other nefarious purposes in addition to international espionage. Take, for example, the 1992 House Judiciary Committee investigation of the Inslaw affair. John Cohen, one of the lead investigators on the committee, suspected that there was much more involved with the PROMIS case than a contract dispute or alleged software theft. His committee was conducting its hearings when Seymour and Cohen first got together; she was pursuing a story about illegal-drug trafficking and money laundering and wrote to him about her findings and possible links to the panel's probe. "Cohen," recalls Seymour, "was very much on top of this; he knew what was going on." The two investigators explored the idea that PROMIS was being used for illegal activities in the banking system. According to Seymour, Cohen "didn't mince words. He told me that he had a theory about why PROMIS was taken and that it was because it could be modified to track money laundering -and that it therefore could be modified to control hundreds of accounts and move money invisibly through the international banking system." Seymour further says that Cohen said "what a lot of people don't realize is that there are two banking systems. There's CHIPS and SWIFT, and the phrase `Swift Chips' has been spread throughout this whole investigation without a lot of people realizing what that meant. Swift Chips is a referral to those two clearinghouse systems. They do $2 billion worth of banking transactions per day and, if one was able to move accounts through there [undetected], you could move money invisibly around the world." Notwithstanding that its chief investigator had pursued such theories during the panel's investigation, in the end there was no mention of money laundering in the official report the Judiciary Committee issued on the Inslaw matter. Cohen tells Insight that the committee was "strictly focused on the Hamiltons' allegations about the theft of their software. Drugs and money laundering certainly were topics, but it wasn't part of what the committee reported. That type of information was collected as part of the information provided by people interviewed by the committee." But it was never fully pursued, he says. "Another area," Cohen continues, "was this whole MCA element" that Riconosciuto had said was part of the larger PROMIS story. "We were able to support that Robert Booth Nichols had connections with organized crime because he was someone who was identified on a FBI wiretap. That investigation [of MCA] for some reason was shut down. We're not talking about wackos; we're talking about assistant U.S. attorneys and FBI agents who felt very strongly that the investigation was shut down because they started looking at the wrong people." Cohen is referring to the early 1980s FBI investigation of suspected drug trafficking by Nichols and Eugene Giaquinto, then-president of MCA Home Entertainment and a partner with Nichols in Meridian International Logistics - the parent company of Meridian Arms, in which Riconosciuto also was involved. Wiretaps had been placed by the FBI on selected phones which recorded Nichols, Giaquinto and many others speaking with or about reputed Mafia figures allegedly trying to move in on the movie industry. In transcripts of many of these wiretaps, which Insight has obtained, there are references to the FBI probe and how friends in Washington, including at the Justice Department, would see to it that nothing ultimately would happen. Learning of this no doubt alarmed the FBI and federal prosecutors. One of these investigators was FBI agent Thomas Gates, the lead investigator on the MCA case. He was brought into the House Judiciary Committee's investigation because of his knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the 1991 death of freelance journalist Danny Casolaro and information concerning Nichols, et al. Like that of the Mounties, Casolaro's investigation focused on the theft of PROMIS software and grew to encompass other criminal activities, including drug trafficking and money laundering. One of Casolaro's sources was Nichols and, according to telephone records from that time, Casolaro spent hundreds of hours speaking with the shadowy figure in the months leading up to the journalist's death. At the same time that Casolaro was using Nichols as a source, he also was in contact with FBI agent Gates, whose case ultimately was shut down. Just days before his death, Casolaro allegedly was warned by Nichols to drop his investigation. Casolaro reportedly had learned of the connection between former Justice official Abbell and Nichols and their alleged links to the Cali drug cartel - information provided by Riconosciuto that, at least as related to Abbell, proved accurate. Days later, Casolaro was found dead in a hotel room in Martinsburg, W.Va., where his arms had been savagely slashed nearly a dozen times. The death was ruled a suicide; the material resulting from his investigation disappeared. Another investigator who followed parallel paths was U.S. Customs agent Scott Lawrence. He was the lead investigator out of the Boston internal-affairs office looking into allegations that Peter Videnieks had committed perjury when he testified in the 1992 trial of Riconosciuto. Videnieks had been fingered by Riconosciuto as having facilitated the theft of PROMIS and of having visited Riconosciuto often at the Cabazon Indian reservation where Riconosciuto worked on his various technical projects. At the trial, however, Videnieks denied knowing Riconosciuto or having any dealings with anyone associated with him. Others called to testify also denied knowing Riconosciuto. Despite the denials, Lawrence spent more than two years investigating Videnieks and interviewing many of the same characters who had been questioned by other investigators, including the Judiciary Committee. And, like those before him, Lawrence obtained much of the same information about the connection between Nichols, Abbell and the Cali drug cartel, and reportedly collected information that confirmed other Riconosciuto stories. Among those Lawrence contacted was Seymour, to whom he confided details of his probe, such as that Nichols would be testifying in Los Angeles in a 1993 lawsuit he had filed against the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for pulling the weapons licenses necessary for his work with Meridian Arms. At this trial Nichols stated under oath that he was a CIA operative and, according to news accounts of the trial, Nichols' defense was that "he toiled quietly and selflessly for nearly two decades on behalf of the shadowy CIA keepers in more than 30 nations, from Central America to Southeast Asia." The Customs agent was so fixed on the claims made by Riconosciuto about Abbell, Nichols, Videnieks and others that he had Seymour give a statement under oath about her knowledge of the convicted felon's claims. But Lawrence's investigation came to a sudden end when the Justice Department declined a request to impanel several grand juries in the United States, including one in Seattle, to depose officials from the CIA. Videnieks never was charged with any wrongdoing. Officially, Insight was told, Customs shut down its probe because Videnieks no longer was an employee of the service. And Videnieks tells Insight that he did nothing wrong, but can't remember much from that time. Although Insight made repeated attempts to speak with Lawrence and his then-supervisor, John (Tim) Kelly, neither agent would provide details of their investigation. Lawrence did say during a brief telephone conversation that "it's a good thing that you're working on this; it's a good thing to follow." RCMP investigators must have thought so, too, since they tracked down Lawrence, who now is working in California, and obtained valuable assistance from him, Insight has been told. Now back in Canada, McDade and Buffam are keeping mum about what they ultimately found. The RCMP has confirmed that Project Abbreviation exists and that it remains ongoing. Officials of the Canadian Parliament, the Canadian solicitor general and even the prime-minister's office have declined, however, to talk about the RCMP case, including any aspect involving assistance provided to the probe by Great Britain's domestic-security (MI5) and foreign-intelligence (MI6) services, which Insight has been told provided substantial assistance to McDade and Buffam. The State Department is supposed to have filed a formal complaint with Canada about the secret treks into the United States by the RCMP investigators, and Insight has confirmed the FBI has launched a national-security investigation. On orders from Washington, special agents of the bureau quietly have been interviewing people contacted by McDade and Buffam and asking what the Mounties were after and what they got, including computer tapes long sought by prior investigators that could establish convincingly that secret copies of PROMIS indeed were bootlegged, modified and sold illegally. Meanwhile, Riconosciuto remains in prison on what he believes were trumped-up charges to keep him silent about PROMIS and his related activities. Until now his claims have been dismissed as rantings from a lunatic or a pathological liar. But, as the RCMP investigators discovered, major elements of Riconosciuto's stories appear truthful. And, if so, his other claims and documentary evidence obtained by the RCMP could open a can of worms. The question now remaining is this: Will the secrets of this strange case ever be made public? Investigators of the House Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees have begun to ask questions as a result of the Insight series, as have officials at the Justice Department. And, based on what the RCMP has told Insight's sources, areas ripe for investigation include, in addition to illegal drugs, arms-smuggling and money-laundering schemes, the role of the Russian Mafia in international banking transactions and links to intelligence agencies, transfers of intellectual property and penetration of Canadian and U.S. corporations. Then there's the matter of potential backdoors to the classified computer systems at the U.S. nuclear-weapons laboratories where data continues to disappear. McDade and Buffam stumbled into more than a simple theft of computer software, say senior authorities on Capitol Hill. They uncovered a network involving friend and foe alike that may be using PROMIS and systems like it for a variety of illegal activities worldwide. Stay tuned.
Nothing Is Secret
By Kelly Patricia
O'Meara
Good morning, Mr. McDade. The
Royal Canadian Mounted Police has reason to believe that the national security
of Canada has been compromised. A trojan horse, or back door, allegedly has
been found in computer systems in the nation's top law-enforcement and
intelligence organizations. "Your mission, should you decide to accept
it, is to establish whether this is the PROMIS software reportedly stolen in
the early 1980s from William and Nancy Hamilton, owners of Inslaw Inc., and
reportedly modified for international espionage. As always, should you or any
of your associates be caught, the governments of Canada and the United States
will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This recording will self-destruct
in five seconds. Good luck, Sean." Sounds like the opening taped message
from an episode of the 1960s TV action series Mission Impossible. But just
such a mission was offered - and accepted - by two investigators of the
National Security Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The
Mounties then covertly entered the United States in February of last year and
for nearly eight months conducted a secret investigation into the theft of the
PROMIS software and whether and by whom it had been obtained for backdoor
spying. PROMIS is a universal bridge to the forest of computer systems. It
allows covert and undetectable surveillance, and it and its related successors
are unimaginably important in the new age of communications warfare. In this
exclusive investigative series Insight tracks the Mounties and explores the
mysteries pursued by the RCMP, including allegations involving a gang of
characters believed to be associated with the suspected theft of PROMIS,
swarms of spies (or the "spookloop" as the Mounties called them),
the Mafia, big-time money laundering, murder, international arms smuggling and
illegal drugs - to name but a few aspects of the still-secret RCMP probe. But
the keystone to this RCMP investigation is PROMIS, that universal bridge and
monitoring system, which stands for Prosecutor's Management Information System
- a breakthrough computer software program originally developed in the early
1970s by the Hamiltons for case management by U.S. prosecutors. The first
version of PROMIS was owned by the government since the development money was
provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ), but something went awry on the
way to proprietary development. For more than 15 years the story of the
allegedly pirated Hamilton software, and how it may have wound up in the hands
of the spy agencies of the world, has been hotly pursued by law-enforcement
agencies, private detectives, journalists, congressional investigators, U.S.
Customs and assorted U.S. attorneys. Even independent researchers have taken
on the role of counterespionage agents in a quest to uncover the truth about
this allegedly ongoing penetration of security. But each new U.S.
investigation has failed fully to determine what happened. While the Mounties
encountered a similar fate, officers Sean McDade and Randy Buffam have been
the most successful to date. Last May, with the assistance of Hercules,
Calif., detective Sue Todd, the Mounties walked away with a package of
startling evidence that many believe will solve the case of the pirated
software and its reported continuing use for international espionage and a
host of other illegal activities. Insight has spent months retracing the steps
of the two RCMP officers and interviewing their sources, poring over copies of
documents they secured, listening to tape recordings of meetings in which they
were involved and reviewing scores of reports and depositions that have been
locked up for years. The result is this first installment of a four-part
investigative report about how the Mounties conducted their covert border
crossings and investigation that ranged across the United States and back
again before returning to Canada where they discovered their cover had been
blown. By late summer of 2000 the Canadian press was reporting not only the
existence of this secret national-security probe - "Project
Abbreviation" - but that if the reported allegations prove true "it
would be the biggest-ever breach of Canada's national security."
Confusing official comments about the probe added further mystery. But Insight
has confirmed many of the details, including the fact that the investigation
is continuing. And it's serious stuff. McDade began his extended trip into
international espionage early last year. It began at least on Jan. 19, 2000,
with an e-mail that said: "I am looking to contact Carol (Cheri)
regarding a matter that has surfaced in the past. If this e-mail account is
still active, please reply and I will in turn forward a Canadian phone number
and explain my position and reason for request." This communication, from
e-mail account simorp (PROMIS spelled backward), was the first of hundreds
sent during an eight-month period from "dear hunter," also known as
Sean McDade. It reached Cheri Seymour, a Southern California journalist,
private detective and author of a well-regarded book, Committee of the States.
Seymour became one of the most important of McDade's contacts during the
Mounties' continuing investigation. Although she had agreed to remain silent
about their probe until McDade filed a report with his superiors, she changed
her mind when news of the probe began to leak in the Canadian press. It was
then that the Southern Californian contacted Insight and offered to share what
she knew about the investigation if this magazine would look into the story.
And what a story it is. A petite, attractive, unassuming middle-aged woman,
Seymour looks more like a violinist in a symphony orchestra than an
international sleuth. But one quickly becomes aware of the depth of her
knowledge not only of the alleged theft of the PROMIS software, but also of
other reported illegal activities and dangerous characters associated with it.
Seymour's involvement with PROMIS began more than a decade ago while working
as an investigative reporter on an unrelated story about high-level corruption
within the sheriff's department of the Central California town of Mariposa,
near Yosemite National Park, where deputies reportedly were involved in
illegal-drug activity. The dozen or so who were not involved repeatedly had
begged the journalist to conduct an investigation. When she learned that one
of the officers had taken the complaints to the state attorney general in
Sacramento and within weeks was reported missing in an alleged boating
accident on nearby Lake McClure, she launched her probe. The owner of the
local newspaper, the Mariposa Guide, in time contacted ABC television producer
Don Thrasher and the story of the corruption within the Mariposa Sheriff's
Department ran in 1991 on ABC's prime-time television news program 20/20.
Seymour's investigation is chronicled in a draft manuscript called the
"Last Circle," written under her pseudonym Carol Marshall but made
available anonymously on the Internet in 1997. PROMIS then was only a sidebar
to the larger story, but it was this obscure Internet posting that led RCMP
investigators McDade and Buffam to Seymour's living room two years later.
According to Seymour: "Nothing [previously] came of the work I did. Even
though in October of 1992 I had sent a synopsis of my work to John Cohen, lead
investigator on the House Judiciary Committee, looking into the theft of
PROMIS and its possible connections to the savage death of free-lance
journalist Danny Casolaro. But by then the committee had completed its report
and published its findings. It was a closed case. Nothing ever happened with
the connections I was able to make among the players involved in the theft of
PROMIS and illegal drug trafficking and money laundering." That is, until
McDade sent his first cryptic e-mail. Within a week the Mountie had arranged
to meet Seymour at her home to discuss aspects of his own secret investigation
and begin the laborious task of copying thousands of documents Seymour had
collected from an abandoned trailer in Death Valley belonging to a man at or
near the center of the PROMIS controversy, Michael Riconosciuto, a boy genius,
entrepreneur, convicted felon - and the man who has claimed that he modified
the pirated PROMIS software. The documents provided specific information about
Riconosciuto's connections to the Cabazon Indian Reservation, where he claims
to have carried out the modification, but they also painted a clear picture of
the men with whom Riconosciuto associated, including mob figures, high-level
government officials, intelligence and law-enforcement officers and informants
- even convicted murderers. Before McDade focused on a three-day copying
frenzy, the Mountie gathered Todd, Seymour and an impartial observer invited
by Seymour to corroborate the meeting around Seymour's dining-room table and
began to tell a dramatic tale of government lies and international espionage.
"I sat there with my mouth wide open and my eyes practically popping out
of my head - you know, that deer-in-the-headlights look," Seymour
recounts. "I couldn't believe what this guy was telling us. It wasn't
anything I anticipated or even was prepared to hear." She says, "McDade
told us his investigation had to do with locating information on the possible
sale of PROMIS software to the RCMP in the mid-1980s. He had found evidence in
RCMP files that PROMIS may have been installed in the Canadian computer
systems, and he said an investigation was initiated by his superiors at the
RCMP." According to Seymour, "McDade said that the details of his
findings in Canada could conceivably cause a major scandal in both Canada and
the United States.i He said if his investigation is successful it could cause
the entire Republican Party to be dismantled - that it would cease to exist in
the U.S." Hyperbole, perhaps, but bizarre stuff from a professional
lawman. "Then," continues Seymour, "he said something that was
just really out there. He stood in my dining room with a straight face and
told us that ... more than one presidential administration will be exposed for
their knowledge of the PROMIS software transactions. He said that high-ranking
Canadian government officials may have unlawfully purchased the PROMIS
software from high-ranking U.S. government officials in the Reagan/Bush
administration, and he further stated that the RCMP has located numerous banks
around the world that have been used by these U.S. officials to launder the
money from the sale of the PROMIS software." Seymour was stunned.
"First," she says, "I wondered if this guy was for real and,
second, did he have something against Republicans." Just when she thought
things couldn't get any weirder, "McDade detailed a December 1999 meeting
at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico attended by the heads of
the intelligence divisions of the U.S. [CIA], Great Britain [MI6], Israel [Mossad]
and Canada [CSIS]. McDade said the topic of the discussion was UNIQUE
ELEMENTS, and that during this meeting it allegedly was revealed that all four
allied nations share computer systems and have for years. The meeting was
called after a glitch was found in a British computer system that had caused
the loss of historical case data." McDade continued with this scenario by
telling the astonished group: "The Israeli Mossad may have modified the
original PROMIS modification [the first back door] so it became a two-way back
door, allowing the Israelis access to top U.S. weapons secrets at Los Alamos
and other classified installations. The Israelis may now possess all the
nuclear secrets of the United States." According to Seymour, he concluded
by saying that "the Jonathan Pollard [spy] case is insignificant by
comparison to the current crisis." This was pretty heavy stuff for a
foreign law-enforcement agent to be bandying with complete strangers. And it
made those present uncomfortable. Was McDade making up wild tales for some as
yet unrevealed purpose or was he, in fact, reporting what he knew to be true
based on information he had gleaned from his investigation? Insight has tried
repeatedly to contact McDade and his superiors to discuss the Mountie's
accounts of espionage and other crimes only to be rebuffed through official
channels. But in carefully assembling and independently checking disparate
pieces of the McDade story line Insight was able to confirm that there was
indeed a December 1999 meeting at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the
topic of the meeting was, indeed, code-named UNIQUE ELEMENTS. Seymour never
learned further details about that meeting, though she tried, alerting several
U.S. senators, including Charles Robb, D-Va., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and
Richard Bryan, D-Nev., about what McDade had told her in February - nearly
four months before the public was made aware of massive computer problems at
Los Alamos (see "DOE `Green Book' Secrets Exposed," Jan. 1).
Ironically, Congress was probing such lapses, but only Bob Simon, Bingaman's
staff director on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee,
responded. Simon advised that he would show the letter to the senator and
possibly refer "some or all of the information in the letter to Ed
Curran, director of the Department of Energy's [DOE] Office of
Counterintelligence." Seymour never had any further communication from
Bingaman's office, the DOE or any federal investigator seeking to discover
which "foreign agent" had told her of severe computer leakage from
Los Alamos long before it became public knowledge. How McDade knew what he
claimed may never be made public. But what is known can be pieced together
from the many contacts he had with individuals having historical knowledge of
the allegations surrounding PROMIS and a host of other seemingly unrelated
criminal enterprises and crimes. For instance, in January 2000 McDade
contacted PROMIS developers and owners Bill and Nancy Hamilton, explaining
what his investigation was about; what, to date, had surfaced; and what the
implications might be. "McDade said my government made two untruthful
statements in 1991 [the year congressional hearings were held on the theft of
PROMIS]," Bill Hamilton tells Insight. "The first was that they
[Canada] had developed the software in-house. McDade said that wasn't true, it
just materialized one day out of nowhere. The second untruth was that they
[the Canadian government] had investigated this. McDade said that his
investigation was the first." Hamilton further explained that "McDade
believed PROMIS software was being used to compromise their [Canada's]
national security." Needless to say, this was interesting news to
Hamilton, given that it was "the second time the Canadian government has
said they have our software, only to retract the admission later." The
first time was in 1991, he recalls. "They contacted us to see if we had a
French-language version because they said they only had the English version -
which, by the way, we did not sell to them. At first we didn't take it
seriously because it was before we were aware that the software was reportedly
being used in intelligence. We just knew that the U.S. Department of Justice
acted rather strangely, took our software and stiffed us. It never occurred to
us that the software was being distributed to foreign governments,"
Hamilton tells Insight. "When they [Canada] followed up their call with a
letter saying PROMIS software is used in a number of their departments - 900
locations in the RCMP, to be exact - Nancy and I said `Hey, wait a
minute.'" Of course, laughs Hamilton, "when one of our newspapers in
the U.S. got hold of that information and printed it, the Canadians retracted
and apologized for a mistake. They now said the RCMP never had the
software." It is important to note that the alleged theft of PROMIS
software was well investigated. However, no investigation by any governmental
body, including the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which made public its
findings in September 1992, the Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to
the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw,
Inc., completed in March 1993, nor the Justice Department's Review of the Bua
Report, which was published in September 1993, confirmed that any agency or
entity of Canada had obtained and used an illegal copy of the Hamiltons'
PROMIS software. A Justice report commissioned by Attorney General Janet Reno
concluded the same but did confirm that a system called PROMIS was being used
by Canadian agencies but claimed that this system was totally different - it
was just a coincidence that the two software programs had the same unusual
name and spelling. So what happened over the course of 10 years to lead the
RCMP's top national-security investigators to probe the matter anew and to do
so with such secrecy throughout the United States and Canada? Why would McDade,
by all accounts a seasoned and well-respected Mountie, tell whopping tales to
so many people, including not only Bill Hamilton but strangers Seymour, Todd
and others? The answers may be found in the pattern of people who were
questioned by the Mounties. The information for which they were asked and
which they reportedly provided, may reveal that the alleged theft of the
breakthrough PROMIS software was not, in fact, the focus of the investigation,
but was secondary to how the software has come to be used. In August 2000,
McDade told the Toronto Star's Valerie Lawton and Allan Thompson, "There
are issues that I am not able to talk about and have nothing to do with what
you're probably making inquiries about," which centered on PROMIS. Was
the Mountie revealing that his investigation had reached the level he had
unguardedly revealed to Seymour and friends? Surprisingly, McDade did not
focus his investigation on interviews with government officials who were
involved with the PROMIS software. Rather he focused on people who claimed to
have knowledge of the purported theft, many of whom also have been connected
to other illegal activities, including drug trafficking and money laundering.
And Michael Riconosciuto was at the top of McDade's list. With the help of
Detective Todd, who had facilitated the Mounties' meetings with the hope of
also obtaining information about the 1997 execution-style double homicide of
Neil Abernathy and his 12-year-old son, Benden, McDade was given access to
Riconosciuto and people and information that even few law-enforcement officers
in the United States have secured. In fact, the assistance the Mountie
received secretly from U.S. authorities was stunning and included access to
information from highly confidential FBI internal files and case jackets
(including the names of confidential witnesses and wiretapping information),
U.S. Bureau of Prisons files, local law-enforcement reports and reportedly
even classified U.S. intelligence data. It was with this kind of help that
McDade was able to walk away with what many believe to be key material
evidence in the PROMIS software legal case - material evidence of which only
Riconosciuto had knowledge. After extensive interviews with Riconosciuto in a
federal penitentiary in Florida, McDade in May 2000 made a $1,500 payment on a
defaulted storage unit in Vallejo, Calif., that belonged to Riconosciuto.
Poring through floor-to-ceiling boxes, McDade hit pay dirt when he found six
RL02 magnetic tapes that Riconosciuto said were the PROMIS modification
updates - the boot-up system for PROMIS he claimed to have created. Coupling
those storage-unit files with the thousands of pages of documents Seymour had
obtained some years earlier from an abandoned trailer Riconosciuto had rented
in the desert, McDade walked away with the whole kit and caboodle without so
much as a peep out of U.S. law-enforcement or intelligence agencies. At least
until now. Today, that evidence is in the hands of foreign agents - our
neighbors up north in Canada. When questioned about the magnetic tapes, the
RCMP would neither confirm nor deny that they were in its possession. Michele
Gaudet, the RCMP spokesman, did tell Insight that the investigation is ongoing
and it is very much about the PROMIS software - software that may or may not
involve back-door entrance into the most secret computer systems in the
Western world. ****OVERVIEW OF INSIGHT'S FOUR-PART SERIES**** This four-part
series is about how a foreign law-enforcement agency, the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP), covertly entered the United States and for nearly eight
months conducted a secret investigation about the alleged theft of PROMIS
software and the part it may play in suspected security breaches in Canada,
the United States and other nations. In Part 1, Insight tracks the early
movements of two RCMP national-security officers - Sean McDade and Randy
Buffam - to contacts throughout the United States, including private detective
Cheri Seymour, an author and former investigative journalist. Seymour has
spent years investigating the alleged theft of PROMIS and illegal activities
reportedly associated with it. McDade outlined the nature of his investigation
and what is at stake. He described potential security breaches in his country
and detailed top-level secret meetings at U.S. national laboratories about
similar security problems in the United States. Here, readers also will learn
how with the help of a small-town California detective, Sue Todd, the Mounties
managed to leave the United States with material evidence that may be crucial
to solving a major espionage puzzle. In Part 2, Insight follows the Mounties
to the California desert in search of confirmation of allegations made by
Michael Riconosciuto, the boy genius who reportedly modified the stolen PROMIS
software for international espionage while working as research director of an
alleged Cabazon/Wackenhut Joint Venture on the Cabazon Indian Reservation in
Indio, Calif. It also is at Cabazon that other "characters"
reportedly involved in the theft of the software were revealed and
Riconosciuto's connections to them confirmed. It is a strange mix of alleged
players - the Wackenhut Corp., government officials, mob-related goodfellows
and murderers. Insight also will look at claimed arms deals and government
research at the Cabazon reservation, including a secret weapons demonstration
in Indio attended by many of the same cast reportedly key to the theft of
PROMIS. In Part 3, readers will watch as the Mounties begin a lengthy review
of a U.S. government official, Peter Videnieks, the Justice Department
employee overseeing the PROMIS contract, who allegedly made the theft of the
software possible. The U.S. Customs Service began an investigation of
Videnieks based on its suspicion that he committed perjury when he testified
at a 1991 trial of Riconosciuto. Based on documents obtained from federal
law-enforcement agencies, Insight looks at a U.S. Customs Service
investigation of Videnieks, which ultimately was dropped. The Mounties also
probed a Customs investigation of reported drug trafficking and technology
transfers over the Maine/Canadian border. In Part 4, Insight will review the
numerous investigations conducted by law enforcement, beginning with the
Mounties, concerning the alleged theft of the PROMIS software and individuals
reportedly associated with that theft. Readers will see how each investigation
began with review of the "theft" but quickly led into other
suspected illegal activities, including technology transfers. This last part
also will review how each new investigation has overlooked key evidence and
seen careers threatened. By Paul M. Rodriguez
Special Report
Canadian Border Open to Terrorists
Posted Nov. 23, 2001
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
|
The new legislation is referred to in Canada as Bill C-36. But to terrorism experts it is better known as the Ahmed Ressam Act of 2001, after an Algerian-born disciple of Osama bin Laden who eluded Canadian authorities for more than five years and was caught, only by chance, just two weeks before a planned attack intended to kill hundreds of Americans.
Ressam, trained in bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, has become known in the United States as the "Millennium Bomber." But to government officials in Ottawa he is worse than just a terrorist: He has become the face of Canada's failure to confront terrorism.
"The issues surrounding [Ressam's] ability to operate in Canada have been addressed," Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley boasted to New York City's Foreign Policy Association on Nov. 5. "Do we believe that terrorist sympathizers have operated on Canadian soil? Unfortunately, yes, this is probably the ugly truth ÷ as it is in the United States, Germany, Britain and many other countries around the globe."
The French judge who pursued Ressam across the Atlantic to his safe haven in Canada warned that the bin Laden-trained terrorist was extremely dangerous and bent on mayhem. But the Canadian government didn't seem to care. It refused to act on a Rogatory Letter ÷ a formal, 40-page arrest warrant sent by the French judge on April 7, 1999 ÷ that spelled out his violent crimes in minute detail.
Sensing that Ressam was preparing to act, the French judge and the head of the French counterespionage service paid a high-profile visit to Ottawa in October 1999. Yet Canadian authorities refused to arrest the suspect. "The Canadians have been less than forthcoming," French terrorism judge Jean-Louis Brugui¸re told Insight laconically in a recent interview in Paris.
Canada has a problem and the government in Ottawa knows it. Lax immigration and political-asylum laws have made America's neighbor to the north a safe haven of choice for international terrorists of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. But while the government now seeks to close some of the legal loopholes, it may be too late.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) claimed in a report released in May 2000 that it was watching some 50 terrorist organizations and 350 "individual targets," but that liberal policies governing foreigners claiming political asylum prevent them from cracking down. In that report, CSIS Director Ward Elcock noted: "With perhaps the single exception of the United States, there are more international terrorist groups active here than in any other country in the world."
Although none of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks came through Canada, there is mounting evidence that bin Laden has established a spider's web of support networks to America's north. These networks raise money, acquire valid travel documents for would-be terrorists, provide backup for operational cells and, in the case of Ressam, serve as the staging ground for attacks on the United States. Until now terrorists have been able to come and go in Canada as they please.
Rene Mercier, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), the equivalent of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, says Canada now posts immigration-control officers overseas "to check out foreign sources of forged documents" used to apply for immigration visas. "Since 1995," he tells Insight, "we have denied entry to 35,000 people who have shown up at ports and airports with improper documents."
The important thing, he adds, was to catch people who posed a potential security risk before they entered the country. "Once they gain entry, they're in."
Ressam was picked up by U.S. Customs agents on Dec. 14, 1999, five years after he faked a claim for political asylum. When he drove off the car ferry from British Columbia, an alert officer at Port Angeles, Wash., became suspicious from his nervous behavior and poor English. She ordered Ressam out of his car; then the terrorist tried to flee. A search of his rented Chrysler turned up 130 pounds of explosives, homemade detonators and plans of the Los Angeles International Airport stashed in the spare-tire compartment of the trunk.
The Canadians never alerted U.S. authorities that Ressam was about to cross the border, and his name was not on any U.S. watch list. "He was arrested totally by chance," Brugui¸re says. "The Canadians knew about him two months earlier, but they let him slip through their fingers. If your Customs people hadn't been lucky, there would have been a major attack in America, with many dead."
Ressam told U.S. prosecutors he was planning to blow up the Los Angeles airport as part of a broader plot to wreak havoc in the United States during the millennium celebrations. He had picked it as a target because he had flown through Los Angeles on a return flight from Pakistan. "An airport is sensitive politically and economically," the terrorist told a New York court last July.
He said he had been trained in explosives, sabotage and assassination techniques in a camp near Khalden, Afghanistan, run by a Palestinian named Zeineddin Abu Zoubaida, identified by French intelligence in 1998 as a deputy to bin Laden. He returned to Canada from Afghanistan with small amounts of hexamine, a chemical that boosts fertilizer bombs, and plans for mixing explosives from commercially available fertilizer and nitric acid.
Despite detailed information presented to the Canadian government on two separate occasions in 1999 by the French, Ressam never was arrested or even questioned. And he was just one of a much broader network of bin Laden associates who found safe haven in Canada thanks to lax immigration and refugee laws.
Another accomplice, Bouabide Chamchi, was arrested by U.S. authorities after driving across the Canadian border into Vermont on Dec. 19, 1999. Chamchi was accompanied by a 35-year-old mother of three from Montreal named Lucia Garofalo, whom U.S. prosecutors tied to more Afghan-trained Arabs who had gained asylum in Canada. They were planning separate millennium-night attacks.
In Brooklyn, police picked up 31-year-old Abdel Ghani and accused him of providing "material support" to the plot. Ghani's name and phone number were in Ressam's pocket when he was arrested. Through Ghani, police found 29-year-old Abdel Hakim Tizegha, another cell member who had sought refuge in Canada. He was arrested on Dec. 24, 1999, after sneaking across the U.S. border through the bushes near Blaine, Wash.
An even more important member of the bin Laden terror networks, Fateh Kamel, had obtained Canadian citizenship. The French managed to grab him ÷ not with any help from Canada, but only after they learned from their own sources that he was in Saudi Arabia and planning to cross the border by car into Jordan to commit a terror attack.
"I informed the Jordanian authorities and they arrested him as he tried to cross the border," Brugui¸re says. Then the French judge went to Amman, Jordan, and got the Jordanians to extradite Fateh to France where he was convicted of plotting a terrorist conspiracy.
But neither Brugui¸re nor the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), the French equivalent of the FBI, got such cooperation from the Canadians. Instead, their appeals were ignored.
"There have been many changes since Sept. 11," says Canadian immigration board spokesman Mercier. "We have become more vigilant. Going through the border now is more difficult; we ask more questions. But we have to achieve a balance. We are not going to shut the door to legitimate political refugees, only to people with bad intentions," he tells Insight.
Distinguishing between the two is a form of art the Canadians do not appear to have mastered. "We have an appallingly out-of-control immigration and refugee situation," David Harris, the former chief of strategic planning at CSIS, told Maclean's magazine recently. "We've seen the legacy of that in the Ressam case." Ressam originally claimed refugee status when he first arrived in Canada in 1994 but was turned down. Despite that, he stayed in Canada illegally.
Mercier tells Insight that Canada will not expel Algerians caught in Canada illegally because they could be subject to persecution in their native land. A similar policy applies to natives of Afghanistan.
Under existing law, no security check of foreigners applying for refugee status is carried out until after they have been granted refugee status. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan has proposed changes which are expected to become law by the end of the year, but clearly has put the focus on attracting new immigrants, not screening those already in Canada.
Mercier believes "terrorism is not an immigration problem. When you've got people fancy enough to do 9/11, you're not talking about your average refugee claimant." Nevertheless, he adds, "as soon as we get information on a specific case of someone who is believed to be a threat, we take action."
In the case of Ressam, Mercier hinted that the information from Brugui¸re never had been passed on to Canada's immigration authorities. So Insight called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who would have been responsible for serving an arrest warrant on Ressam. "Certainly I've heard that the French judge and the head of the DST came here, but they never came to us," says Leo Monbourquette, an RCMP spokesman in Montreal who handled the investigation after Ressam's arrest in the United States.
He suggested we try the Ministry of Justice. There, a spokesman explained the complexity of the Canadian system, which requires that valid extradition requests be presented to a Canadian court to determine if the proof would be sufficient to convict the suspect had his crime been committed in Canada. "If the court agrees, then the extradition request goes to the Minister of Justice, who again listens to both sides in the case before issuing an order of surrender," spokesman Patrick Charette tells Insight. "In the meantime, the suspect can appeal the decision all the way to the [Canadian] supreme court. It can take years."
Brugui¸re first learned about Ressam in 1996, three years before he sought his arrest in Canada. The judge was investigating a terrorist cell that came to be known as the "Roubaix Group," after the suburb of the northern French city of Lille where they assaulted a police station using AK-47 automatic rifles and RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades.
"The Roubaix Group committed acts of an extreme violence we rarely see," Brugui¸re says. "After fleeing the police station, they turned their automatic weapons on the driver of a passing car, slaughtering him in cold blood. A few weeks later, they held up an armored car, blowing a huge hole in the side with an RPG-7 rocket. They supported themselves through holdups."
It was a pattern that Ressam and other bin Laden operatives would repeat in Canada and elsewhere as they resorted to credit-card fraud and petty theft to support terrorist activities.
Eventually, the Roubaix killers holed up in a safe house, where they were assaulted by a French SWAT team. The gun battle was so fierce, Brugui¸re recalls, that it set the house on fire. "In the cinders we found the charred corpses of four of the terrorists."
Two members of the cell escaped and crossed the French border into Belgium, where they got into a fresh gun battle. Belgian police officers killed one of them, a Bosnian Muslim. The other, Omar Zemrime, was arrested carrying fake Canadian, Turkish and Belgian passports. As Brugui¸re did his detective work, he traced Zemrime to other bin Laden operatives in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and China ÷ and to Ressam in Canada, who was one of the "live links" to bin Laden's command headquarters in Afghanistan.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Canadian counterpart, Lawrence MacAulay, met in Washington on Oct. 2 and promised to tighten border security to prevent terrorist infiltration. Both countries pledged to increase the number of agents at ports and airports, as well as the border guards who are responsible for patrolling the 4,000-mile shared border.
The United States currently has 965 INS personnel at the northern border and some 9,000 on the border with Mexico, and has asked Congress for funds to hire an additional 550 Border Patrol agents, many of whom now will be moved to the north. Canada has asked for an additional 100 immigration officers to complement the current force of 560, whose job is to examine the 110 million travelers and refugee claimants who cross Canada's borders each year.
Canada's proposed new antiterrorism bill now is before the Canadian Parliament. It can be viewed on the World Wide Web at www.canada.justice.gc.ca/en/terrorism/index.html.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight magazine.
