A MadCowMorningNews investigation has revealed that San Diego defense contractor Titan Corp is at the center of a private intelligence network engaged in a broad range of criminal activities with seeming impunity, everything from drug trafficking to white collar crime that includes massive stock fraud cumulatively totaling billions.
The network involves elements from the military, as well as intelligence agencies like the CIA and Mossad, in combination with Gulf and Saudi financiers like the notorious Adnan Khashoggi, and individuals who give off more than a whiff of international organized crime.
However, with the recent conviction and sentencing of California Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the influence-peddling scandal involving a nest of San Diego defense and intelligence contractors that includes Brent Wilkes, Titan Corp. and SAIC may be losing momentum before getting anywhere close to the dark heart of corruption beating just below the surface.
A cabal of Republican Congressmen from Southern California that remain unscathed have culpability: Duncan Hunter, Dana Rohrabacher and a man who may be doing more long-term damage to American national security than any of the others, current Chairman of the SEC and former Republican U.S. Rep. from Newport Beach, Christopher Cox.
Another in-the-closet Republican 'Patriot'
One of the biggest potential benefits of a major Democratic victory in the mid-term elections may be an increased enthusiasm for confronting the epic fraud which has been taking place since the 9/11 attack under the umbrella of “Homeland Security.”
Because if the FBI’s investigation peters out, as seems possible, before reaching them, it will go down in history as the biggest cover-up in America since the prematurely-halted Iran-Contra and S & L Scandals of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
Even though San Diego defense contractor Titan Corp is currently being investigated by more federal agencies at once than any company since the heyday of Lockheed in the 1970’s, despite the company's history of running afoul of the law it is still scoring big federal contracts.
One current highly-sensitive $3 billion Titan contract, for example, is to supply radios, signal repeaters and related communications equipment to federal law enforcement agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the FBI.
Double-dip me, heavy on the secret sauce
Company executives may eventually be able to listen-in to intra-agency law enforcement communications discussing Titan's own illegal activities. And if they do, few will be surprised…because "being connected means never having to say you're sorry."
The companies involved market products to businesses and consumers that were originally developed for grandiose defense schemes like the U.S. Stars Wars program, or dreamed up in the labs of the CIA, Mossad and other intelligence agencies.
No one plays this “double-dipping” game better than the Titan Corporation. Their subsidiary Surebeam’s “anthrax-killing” machines cost the U.S. Post Office $40 million, from technology originally developed and paid for by the U.S. Defense Department as part of the U.S. Star Wars program under President Reagan.
Surebeam’s ‘solution’ was so ineffective that the Post Office quietly gave them away.
But the $40 million contract paid for some really nice corporate bonuses.
Rose colored glasses for us, please
Need a pair of sunglasses fitted with a fiber-optic video camera? How about a bullet-proof umbrella? A baseball cap strong enough to repel a hatchet blow?
Everyone can use shirt button that is actually a surveillance microphone, right?
All were originally created for professional spies by a company which Titan helped (with seed money to company principal Michael Farkas) called CSS International, that makes them available to weekend spooks, like you or me, in their famous Counter Spy shop in London.
The money involved in this “global network” we are attempting to describe is big enough to warp the galaxy's space-time continuum and distort reality in some truly amazing ways. We'll take a peek at two examples…
All you need is love… and a good divorce lawyer
You wouldn’t expect to find one of the principals in this global network, Saudi arms dealer and long-time CIA fixer Adnan Khashoggi, up to his, er, eyeballs in Sir Paul McCartney’s divorce.
But the sordid past of McCartney’s wife, Heather Mills, and her secret sex games with Khashoggi (and an apparent slew of Saudi princes) surfaced with a vengeance in London in their divorce proceeding, splashed across the front pages of every London tabloid.
Khashoggi paid her more than $11,000 to have sex, said the tabs. And a Saudi prince shelled out $9,000 to have her join in a three-way with another woman.
"I mean it… the greasy one costs extra."
It can’t be pleasant to read that your wife was a hooker for Adnan Khashoggi.
When lawyers for Heather said she “strongly denies the allegations,” a man identified as Khashoggi's former private secretary contended in the News of the World that "she has repeatedly lied. She was a hooker. I know. I paid her."
Ouch! The recollections of Heather’s former workmates were even more vivid…
“The prince was tall and greasy and I wanted to leave but I knew that to get my money I'd have to have sex with anyone in the room who picked me,” said one. “Heather, on the other hand, was bubbling over with enthusiasm."
Boeing 707 vs. Hard Rock Neon Guitar
Another example of the global network for which Southern California Republican Congressmen run interference:
If you happened to be in Miami on a hazy day in late July of 1997, you might have seen a 707 Boeing jet threading its way between skyscrapers downtown, and barely missing the Hard Rock Cafe's giant neon guitar.
“The case of the weaving, wobbling Boeing 707 just grows more curious,” reported the Miami Herald on July 26, 1997.
“A Boeing 707 cargo jet that flew out of Miami in such spectacular, scary fashion Thursday afternoon — wobbling and weaving between downtown buildings, nearly buzz-sawing the and skimming Biscayne Bay at an altitude usually occupied by pelicans — sat safely on the tarmac last night in Gander, Newfoundland.”
The plane, it turned out, was owned by the partner of Titan Corp’s most curious partner, Miami attorney Michael D Farkas. Allen Beni had quite a colorful curriculum vitae, even before his Boeing jet started bobbing and weaving its way through downtown Miami.
"We forgot about the Ecuador thing, honest."
Today Farkas and Beni own a company attempting to market Israeli anti-missile technology to U.S. airlines and owners of commercial aircraft.
The 707 belonged to Beni’s cargo airline, Florida West Airlines, said the story. Beni claimed to be in the dark about why his aircraft had dodged disaster with daredevil maneuvers over downtown Miami. But that’s what spies do, isn’t it.
The story's next line pretty much tells you everything you need to know about how the “global network” operates:
“The 707 was registered in Liberia and was being leased and operated by a company called Shuttle Transporteur Aerier, with offices in Belgium and the Congo, formerly known as Zaire.”
The Herald reported dryly, “The incident followed a slew of mishaps, starting in April 1994, when the airline failed to tell shareholders that one its jets was seized after cocaine was discovered on board during a drug raid in Ecuador.”
Ouch!
"Let's steal one for the Dukester"
Titan has a ringside seat in the unfolding military procurement scandal, and in the coming weeks we’ll go as deep as we can into the company’s lead role in what we’re calling Dukegate.
Titan was the single biggest campaign contributor to both convicted former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, as well as the recently-announced Presidential candidate (and as-yet un-indicted) Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter.
The company faces numerous federal investigations for work done in Iraq and around the world. The Army recently suspended 10% of Titan's payment for work in Iraq pending an audit of employment practices.
The company was hit last year with a record-breaking $28 million fine after its conviction for fixing a Presidential election in an unlikely location: the African state of Benin.
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the company is being investigated in Bangladesh and the Philippines.
But wait! There's more…
Titan contractors have been accused of complicity in the torture and prison abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
Rounding out the rap sheet, according to corporate watchdog CorpWatch the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently investigating bribery charges against Titan in at least five separate countries: Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe.
And we’ve already extensively reported on (so we won’t beat it to death here)
Of course, it is Titan’s still-unexplained involvement with both Michael Farkas and the company he founded, SkyWay Aircraft of St Petersburg, FL., which is ultimately the firm's most intriguing criminal connection…
Skyway is the company recently in a spotlight of unwanted media attention (okay, a flashlight of attention, from only the MadCowMorningNews) as the owner/operator of “Cocaine One,” the DC9 caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine in Mexico in April for which no one, apparently, is responsible.
Titan’s cumulative history of running afoul of the law should land it a slot in the U.S. Bureau of Prison's Florence Supermax.
What's holding it up? And who?