Death of a Bankster

by David Bishop

  * * *

  “Have you learned anything new from Sam Crawford’s computer and phone?”

  “Not really,” Ryan said. “I had a local man I can trust help me take a look. It’s on the way back to you so you can have some of your experts turn back the covers, but I doubt you’ll find any secret compartments in there. Sam Crawford is not some agent trained in the backchannel use of a computer. For him, I think it was merely a working tool, a few encryptions, but my guy here got through those. A few more names I didn’t have, but mostly just support and confirmation about stuff I already knew. Sam Crawford was carrying the water for his boss, Maxwell Norbert, the top dog at Nation’s First Bank & Trust, a Phoenix bank wholly owned by a holding company in L.A. I need you to look into the holding company, its officers and shareholders. Sam was the point man for bringing money into the U.S. banking system in large amounts, without reporting it to the IRS or Treasury.”

  “For the group we suspect?”

  “Al Salaam Fi Al Hamilani, which translates from Arabic as Peace for the Lambs. It’s an Islamic Foundation headquartered in Pakistan. Their website claims they exist to raise money to care for and educate the children of innocents killed by bombs dropped by CIA drones. I remain way short of the evidence you’d need to get the right agency to shut the bank down and make arrests, if that ends up being the best course of action. I think we’ll be better off turning the bank into a way station from which we can monitor their whole operation: the movements and uses of this cash. Who gets it and where they pass it on, how it’s ultimately used.”

  “Clearly,” Ryan’s boss said, “this Peace for Lambs Foundation is a vehicle used to bring money into the States. Once the money is in this Foundation’s bank account, the funds are dispersed out to fund sleeper cells, and plan and prepare for terrorist activity in this country. Sam Crawford and his accomplices at the bank aid and abet those activities, at least the funding for them, by easing the undetected flow of their funds. I’ve asked some of our friends at the DOD for what they have on the foundation, but, to date, the Department of Defense has not gotten back to me. So far, we have not been able to prove any of the amounts brought in have been paid out to fund terrorist cells and sleepers, but that’s got to be what this is all about.”

  Ryan Testler reported that he had just convinced Sam Crawford to pass on the identity of each check payee, also the identity of who cashed each check. “Of course,” Ryan's control said, “that step can't be taken now that someone has stepped on Sam Crawford. If all this was really about legitimate charity toward children, neither the bank nor the Islamic foundation would feel a need to avoid reporting to our government their bringing in or moving around of these funds.”

  “Sam Crawford responded to my earliest contacts because he wanted to build a get-out-of-jail-free card in case these large unreported transfers of cash became known. Whoever put Sam down did so at just the right time—for them, not for us. A good guess is someone learned that Sam had been talking to us—with me.”

  “What’s your next move?”

  “First,” Ryan said, “I need to determine if the murder of Sam Crawford disrupts the activities of this Peace for Lambs Foundation. If it does, then it’s likely the foundation killed Crawford. If not, if things continue pretty much unchanged, then the foundation was likely not involved in the murder. I’m also working on a plan for substituting the bank president, Maxwell Norbert, for Sam Crawford to keep this mission running. If I can do that, we move up the food chain. A perfect result would be for Norbert to be leveraged into hiring one of our finance whizzes to replace Sam Crawford. That would likely get us direct contact with the Pakistani foundation, and give us real time knowledge of each disbursement from the bank account.”

  “How you going pull that off?”

  “Like Crawford, this Maxwell Norbert likes the respect and recognition of being a big-shot banker. They like the side money they get through these illegal actions. The idea of going to jail for these types is incomprehensible. To know this, all we need do is remember that virtually none of the fat-cat bankers went to jail for the activities which led to the enormous taxpayer-funded bailout of the banks. Crawford had made it clear that Norbert was the guy pulling his strings. Crawford had no other firsthand knowledge of anyone else other than Maxwell Norbert, and the bank in Pakistan which transfers over deposits documented as donations. Crawford had the names and addresses of the local Islamic charities in various cities to which he hand-carried funds drawn on his bank. When you trim off the fat, Crawford functioned as a glorified mule, packing money with a sufficient imprimatur to make it all look right inside and outside his bank.”

  “That all fits, Ryan. Pakistan is one of the countries which does not have a financial information unit (FIU) holding membership in the international Egmont Group. Pakistani banks are not required to report cash moving between their and U.S. banks. This means our only look-see on such funds is the reports filed by the receiving U.S. bank.”

  “Crawford admitted to me that he blocks those very reports from going to our government. Without Pakistan being in the Egmont Group, no transfer-out report comes from Pakistan, and with no transfer-in report made by Nation’s First Bank & Trust, we have no knowledge of the flow of these funds. Someone, the foundation it would appear, is paying executives at Crawford’s bank to not report these transfers in.”

  Ryan’s boss in Washington, D.C., went on to say, “I’ve had my staff put together a log of Sam Crawford’s travel itinerary. He made regular stops in Washington, D.C. where neither the bank nor the Islamic foundation has facilities. We figure those trips were to pick up cash brought in through diplomatic pouches into the Pakistani Embassy in D.C. I had a copy of his itinerary left at the drop. You should have it by now.”

  “I do, sir. The D.C. stops could explain how Sam Crawford and this Maxwell Norbert skim their personal payoffs. Through bifurcating their payoffs from the foundation funds Crawford and Norbert cannot be caught through a trail of money moving into the foundation account and then into their own pockets. Smart.”

  “From surveillance cameras here in D.C., I’ll try to identify the Pakistani with diplomatic immunity who had been passing cash directly to Sam Crawford for himself and Norbert. If that is how it went down. If we’re right about that, with Crawford dead, for the time being Norbert has no way to receive his booty. He’ll have to replace Crawford or begin making the D.C. runs himself.”

  “I’ll make it a priority to help Norbert choose the right man to replace Crawford.”

  “Okay, Ryan. Keep me posted. Anything you need from this end?”

  “Absolutely, sir. Gene, the man heading up the surveillance team on Sam Crawford’s home, and the one who went to the Crawford home right after the shooting, presented himself to be SAIC Dennis Powell. The woman accompanying him used the name Agent Ann Withers. As Dennis Powell, he told the widow, Paige Crawford, the bureau had been keeping her husband under surveillance for money laundering. It might have been better had he not referred to the laundering, but time was of the essence. As you know, under such conditions the use of as much truth as possible reduces the amount of improvisation which must be formulated on the run. It was absolutely essential he take control of the situation to get the widow out of the house, take possession of Crawford’s computer and smart phone, search the house, and remove the body to give us time to plan the best course of action. A third man who was part of my team played the local medical examiner and took the body from the scene.”

  “This was necessary?”

  “My man on the ground made a snap decision of yes. I won’t second guess him. If he hadn’t done anything, the local cops would have had to come out to collect Crawford’s body. That would have put them in the middle of the scene. The locals would have ended up with the dead Crawford’s laptop and smart phone, and likely our operation would have been shut down. We saw keeping open our window into the movement of this money inside the U.S. as priority one.”

  “Why did
he take the body? Couldn’t he have gotten the devices without removing the body?”

  “The way he did it, sir, the widow and a second witness agreed to remain quiet about the event for the rest of the weekend so, as they represented it, agents could approach neighbors and the employees at the bank without them having prior knowledge that Sam Crawford was dead. They promised to return on Sunday to bring the widow current on the initial work of the investigation. They promised to inform the local cops on her behalf, saving her from contacting the Phoenix PD. Gene promised her she would hear from them on Sunday. Our first objective was to scrub the scene of any reference to the terrorists and money laundering so as to keep the murder disconnected from our operation. On Monday, the widow, wondering why she hadn’t heard from the bureau or the locals, went to the Phoenix PD.”

  “What happened then?”

  “The widow told the local cops about the FBI being there, also gave them the card my man gave her showing him to be FBI working out of the D.C. office. The cops will want to talk to Agents Powell and Withers. When they contact the bureau they’ll learn there are no such agents. At that point, the bureau will and may already be dispatching a team to find those who falsely claimed to be agents of the FBI. That will put them in the middle of a local homicide case which has occurred right in the middle of our sting. They’ll hear money laundering and head for the bank where Crawford worked. The police will assume those imposters were the killers. The imposters were my team protecting our operation and securing the scene to remove Crawford’s electronic devices, not the killers as the locals will assume. I need you to shut down any such inquiry by the FBI. Keep them out of this matter entirely.”

  “I’ll take care of that. The bureau will truthfully report to Phoenix that we have no agents by those names. The rest of it I’ll control through the CT division.” [counterterrorism] “Don’t worry. The FBI will make no inquiry whatsoever. However, I’ll need you to send back a detailed report as to what happened and why this misrepresentation was necessary.”

  “Thank you, sir. My next report will come as scheduled.”

  Chapter 8

  Maddie spent part of Tuesday morning reviewing and bringing together the reports from Bill Molitor’s evidence work at the Crawford home. Another hunk of time was absorbed by a detectives’ meeting called by her boss, Lieutenant Adam Harrison. These meetings, which were held about once a week, were used, in part, to provide each detective the opportunity to maintain a superficial familiarity with the cases being worked by the other detectives. Maddie knew these meetings were worthwhile, but frustrating because they absorbed an hour or so of each detective’s time away from the cases each were working.

  When Maddie’s turn came, Adam Harrison asked her about the sting she had planned for today at two in the afternoon. “Is that set? Is it going to work?”

  “Yes sir. We fully expect it will. The Phoenix Suns have cooperated by letting us use their name and a friendly leasing agent is letting us set up in a vacant storefront. The Suns are providing paraphernalia so it all looks cool. Officer Gonzales is a real camera buff. He’s been going along, playing the cameraman for the Suns publicity department. He’ll take pictures of our suspect when he comes to pick up the two free Suns season tickets he thinks he’s won.”

  “Seems like a lot of work for a simple arrest,” one of the detectives said.

  “We haven’t been able to find this guy. One person told us he’s a real Suns fan and the witness who saw him run from the scene of the murder said he wore a Suns’ t-shirt. Detective Martin and I have been going around with Officer Gonzales carrying his camera. We lightly canvassed the apartment which is his last known residence, and went to his last known job. We passed out a couple free tickets, courtesy of the Suns, along with some signed autographed pictures of a few players. We had cards from the Suns publicity department made up with the number on a blind cell phone I’m carrying. We spread it around his old neighborhood and job that this was all we were going to do. If we didn’t hear from the suspect by five yesterday we’d draw another name to see who got the tickets.”

  “And?”

  “The suspect called me yesterday. He couldn’t meet then, but he agreed to be at our made-up Suns publicity office at two today. The guy’s a big Suns’ fan. He should be there.”

  “Greed’s a wonderful thing,” Amun Grant said.

  Maddie shook her head. “He said he wouldn’t miss it for anything. We plan to deliver him a ticket for a seat and a bed in a stadium he won’t be leaving for many seasons.”

  “That’s what I call imaginative police work. Good job, Sergeant.” Then Lieutenant Harrison moved on. “People killing people never go out of season. We rely on it for job security.” After the polite chuckles died out, Harrison said, “Now, Sergeant Richards, update us on this Crawford case you just picked up.”

  “The No-Corpse Murder,” Sergeant Doyle Brackett said with the disrespectful tone he used for most everything he said to women. Brackett loved the needle, but never more than when he used it to poke one of the female officers.

  Maddie swallowed her desire to toss her coffee in Brackett’s face and kept her composure, at least outwardly. “Other than the blood traces that confirmed someone had bled on the ceramic tile foyer of his home, Bill Molitor’s people found little in the way of physical evidence. The prints they did find in the office in their home were traced back to Paige or Sam Crawford, Paige’s mother, Barbara Davis, or the neighbor, Carla Roth, who was there at the time of the alleged murder. All of these people provided their prints for the purpose of our identifying the latents. We’re currently working on linking the blood traces found to Sam Crawford specifically. Bottom line: we believe this went down the way the witnesses reported, but as of this moment it is still supposition.”

  “Sergeant Richards, have you independently confirmed that Sam Crawford, if he is dead, was murdered?”

  “Sir, my judgment tells me that Sam Crawford was murdered, but if you are asking if we can establish this with evidence? No. Not yet. Two eyewitnesses claim he died as reported, but we have no further corroboration.”

  “Sergeant, you’re repeating yourself.”

  “That’s because the question was repeated, sir.”

  “Are we looking into these two witnesses to determine their credibility?”

  “Yes. Both Mr. and Mrs. Crawford appear solid citizens, the same for their neighbor, Carla Roth. I cannot conjure up a reason for them to fabricate this event.”

  “A life insurance scam?”

  “They’re under no pressure for money. Credit’s good. Home mortgage current, etc.” The Lieutenant bobbed his head and shoulders side-to-side. His way of saying that Maddie should pick up the pace. That they were drifting into too much minutiae for this kind of meeting. “Sir,” Maddie said laboring the point, “I don’t see it. The only insurance on Mr. Crawford was his policy through his employer, the bank. The beneficiary on that policy is the bank. They have no kids, no dependents of any kind, so they never took out other insurance.”

  “That comes from Mrs. Crawford, does it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Have your partner contact the state insurance commissioner for a list of life insurers authorized to sell in Arizona. Check ‘em all. Okay. That it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “So,” Sergeant Brackett interjected, “you still got a maybe murder.”

  “Okay, Doyle,” Lieutenant Harrison said, “can it.” Then the lieutenant turned to Maddie. “I’ll okay a couple more days. If you don’t have it nailed when you wrap up Thursday, Friday morning you’re to send the wife to missing persons. After that, I’ll reassign you and your partner to another case.”

  “But Lieutenant—”

  “No buts, Sergeant Richards.” His hand went in the air like he was stopping traffic at an intersection. “If it weren’t for the respect I have for your instincts, I’d pull you off this morning. Understood?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Keep
me posted. The leash on this one just got short. As for your Phoenix Suns sting, let me know when that wraps.” Maddie nodded.

  Next, the Lieutenant turned his attention to a rare homicide case within the vice squad headed up by Sergeant Doyle Brackett.

  Brackett started with one last indirect dig at Maddie. “There’s no maybe about my murder. We found the corpse, a former local college hoops star, on the bed in an upscale hotel room. Based on the female lingerie he was wearing, his choice of a room with a queen bed had been appropriate. His days of running up and down the court are over. He had a rail spike through each hand pinning him to the nightstands left and right of the bed. This guy had a huge wingspan. I remember his playing days. He could palm a basketball in either hand, but ended up palming two rail spikes.”

  Maddie stopped listening closely, returning her thoughts to her own case.

  After Lieutenant Harrison’s meeting broke, Maddie filled her partner in on the Lieutenant’s order to pull the plug at close-of-business Thursday. “We got till then to prove we have a murder. I really can’t blame him, but my gut tells me Sam Crawford is dead and it went down just the way we’ve been told.”

  Sue shook her head. “We need a body.”

  “That’s about it. Nothin’ says murder like a dead body with a real bullet in the head.”

  Sue had spent the morning setting up the murder book and attendant files on the Crawford case. They both knew that if they didn’t get lucky and quickly, they’d be stamping it: CANCELLED. REFERRED TO MISSING PERSONS.

  Maddie hated the paperwork and recordkeeping associated with investigations. Sue, who prior to joining the force, had been in charge of case files for one of Phoenix’s most successful criminal law firms, maintained the files on the cases Lieutenant Harrison had assigned to Maddie. Sue quickly downloaded a list of life insurance companies eligible to do business in Arizona from the insurance commissioner’s website. After lunch, Sue started calling the insurers on that list. While she did, Maddie called and spoke to a deputy commissioner to be sure there weren’t any recently approved insurers not yet added to the online list, or recently decertified underwriters who had been dropped from the list. There were none of either.