How Cheney's firm routed $132 m to Nigeria via Tottenham lawyer

[JoFerret]

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=568271

How Cheney's firm routed $132m to Nigeria via Tottenham lawyer
By Solomon Hughes and Jason Nisse
03 October 2004

A lawyer, based in offices in a run-down part of north London, worked with three British executives from the US construc- tion group Halliburton to pay at least $132m (£73m) in "unjustified" fees to contacts in Nigeria.

These payments, many of which occurred when Halliburton was being run by Dick Cheney, now the American Vice-President, helped a consortium including the US group to win a $12bn contract to build a gas terminal at Bonny Island in Nigeria.

In court documents submitted to a French corruption investigation, Halliburton has admitted it paid $132m to Jeffrey Tesler, a UK lawyer. Mr Tesler's firm, Kaye Tesler, is based on a run down high street in Tottenham, north London.

Mr Tesler would not return calls but his French solicitor admits Mr Tesler received the money, which he said was for advisory and other legitimate fees.

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[TexasProgresive]

1. Cheney fell for the Nigerian email scam! n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. UK Private Eye magazine had this story a couple of weeks ago

a section (it's not online):

Tesler, a specialist in conveyancing law, says he was paid such generous fees for his expertise on Nigerian politics and his influence with local lobby groups. This is remarkable as he has visited Nigeria just once (on a date he can't recall though he says it may have been in the mid-1980s).

He did, however, enjoy extremely close relations with senior officials in Halliburton's wholly-owned subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR); so close that, Tesler says, he parcelled out some of his near-$180m in consultancy fees to one Albert Jack Stanley, president and chief executive of KBR, and to a senior consultant, William Chaudan.

According to transcripts of his interview with Van Ruymbeke, Tesler eventually revealed that Mr Stanley was the ultimate beneficiary of an account in the name of "Amal". He also admitted paying Mr Chaudan via an account in Jersey. Tesler said he paid Chaudan because "he introduced me to more than 20 potential sub-contractors" for the project - a curios arrangement, meaning that Chaudan was being paid by Tesler for identifying potential subcontractors, when it was Chaudan's consortium that was paying such a large sum to Tesler to help, er, identify potential subcontractors.
...
Awkwardly, Stanley's appointment as president of KBR in 1998 was ratified by Cheney and his then number two, David Lesar, who has headed the company since Cheney returned to active politics. More awkwardly still, the French investigation notes that one of the payments to Tesler - $37.5m - was agreed to on 18 March 1999, just 12 days after TSKJ, Halliburton and Technip's consortium with Italy's Snamprogetti and the Japanese Gas Corporation signed up for another $1.4bn of work on the Nigerian project - and after Halliburton had bought Kellogg.

[thecrow]

3. I'm confused. What does all this mean? n/t

[Green Lantern]

4. Personally

I think it means Cheney is as crooked as a hound dog's hind leg. Halliburton is evidently using bribes to get work.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. Didn't the yellowcake docs come from Nigeria?

WOnder if this was the front money to the forgery artists.

[thecrow]

6. I was wondering that, too. n/t

[bagnana]

7. yellowcake was from niger