No matter. I was the one who’d signed the petition seeking my appointment as the administrator of the estate of the late Philip Montreau, aka Christopher Gonda. Wasn’t that enough?
A week later the surrogate’s clerk called me. “You have indicated in the petition a Swiss address of the decedent.”
“Yes.”
“Did the decedent have any assets in Switzerland?”
“I think he just had bank accounts.”
“You will most probably need ancillary letters of administration for a Swiss court. The Swiss banks will not honor a New York court’s order. You’ll have to convert it to become a Swiss court order as well.”
Nonetheless, he said, my appointment had been confirmed, and he faxed me a copy. In short order, I dispatched a locksmith to meet me at Nazeri’s apartment. The locksmith opened the door, replaced the lock, gave me a key, and left.
I entered the spacious three bedroom apartment. Nazeri had spent a lot of money on decor. Not to my taste, all these pink figurines and lace, but still expensive. I searched the apartment. It was clean. Too clean. I put on plastic gloves and looked around. I opened drawers and closets. Nothing. It was like a model apartment in a development for people of middling taste. There was nothing personal in the apartment, and there were no documents whatsoever, not even an old phone bill. The apartment was neat and tidy, as if the maid had just left, removing everything personal or made of pulp. I sighed. I’d have to send lab people to search for fingerprints.
I returned to my office and wrote a report to the file. Two days later the surrogate’s court issued the additional documents to be sent to Switzerland. After we had them approved with an apostille, that antiquated but still-necessary method of authenticating documents for transmission to foreign authorities, I sent them to Switzerland by registered mail. Boring, formal, but necessary.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A week later Dr. Liechtenstein, our Swiss attorney, faxed me the court’s decision. It took me some time to decipher the archaic German they used. I read it again and again until I understood that in fact the Swiss court had authorized the request of the New York City Surrogate’s Court to order Tempelhof Bank to open their archives and provide the New York Surrogate Court’s appointed Administrator Herr Dan Gordon with copies of records of deposits and other transactions of the late Philip Montreau, also known as Christopher Gonda, who resided in Wehntalerstr. 215, CH-8057 Zurich, made or occurring between January 1, 1980, and December 31, 2005, at Tempelhof Bank, or for which Tempelhof Bank acted as a banking correspondent.
The order contained additional conditions and details, but I was already celebrating in my heart. I had managed to make another small step forward.
I called Dr. Liechtenstein in Zurich and asked to arrange my visit to inspect the documents.
“I’ve already talked to them. It will have to be at their storage facility,” he said. “I’m sorry-they tell me that the physical conditions there aren’t so good.”
Five days later I was in Zurich, my court-authorized appointments and travel documents having been fully vetted. “You never know with the Swiss authorities,” Bob Holliday had said. “They’re extremely fussy when U.S. government agents visit their country, even when the visit complies with a Swiss court’s order.”
I met Dr. Liechtenstein with the bank’s lawyer, and we traveled to Bern’s Manheim Document Storage company. There were an hour and a half of formalities, which included my execution of a confidentiality agreement, in case during the course of my search I was exposed to documents unrelated to Mr. Montreau, and therefore not included in the court’s order. I signed. Why should I care if I stumbled on secret deposits of this dictator or that thug? I raced through the formalities. I had one agenda: Chameleon and his Atashbon cohorts. I wouldn’t be distracted, not even by the bureaucratic hurdles put up by the young blond man who was assigned by the bank to help me. I knew he was in there to make sure I wasn’t sidestepping my court-approved gangway, which was like the one used to herd cattle to the slaughter. My gangway here was fitted with virtual sides, railings, and other means of protection, to prevent me from looking at any other documents. Here, I thought, I was the cattle.
I’d come prepared. Before leaving New York I had met with Special Agent Matt Kilburn of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Unit, whom I’d first met at the conference in Giverny, France. Matt had been working on the investigation of Nada Management, previously known as Al Taqwa, and provided me with excellent written and oral reports on the methods of its operation.
Heinrich Andrist, my chaperone, appointed by Tempelhof Bank, was a gentle person with a very polite demeanor.
“OK,” I said as all the lawyers left. “Let’s start with 1981. Can you tell me how these cartons are cata loged?”
“By account number and by our client number index.”
“Can I see the index?”
“I’m sorry, you can’t. It contains names and details of the bank’s customers, and that is protected by Swiss law.”
“Of course. Let’s look up by name. The decedent’s name was Christopher Gonda, and then Philip Montreau. He may have also used Reza Nazeri.”
“Of course, Herr Gordon,” he said patiently. He went to the third row of the eight-foot-tall heavy metal shelves, climbed a small stepladder, and pulled out a carton case.
“That’s Mr. Gonda’s file for 1981.”
I chose that year to begin my search, although I was almost certain I’d find nothing. But just in case, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss anything.
I quickly ran my eyes over the yellowing documents. There were bank statements and deposit slips, telegraphic transfers and other documents. But there was nothing to quench my thirst or satisfy my hunger for pertinent facts. They were just old papers, seemingly irrelevant to my subject of interest. I need to see the buzzword Al Taqwa, or other similarly exciting leads telling me where the money went. An hour later I closed the box and shook my head.
“Nothing here,” I said. “Please bring the next box.”
Heinrich brought me 1982, then every year through 1987. Nothing. The documents represented typical bank accounts of a businessman who liked to travel and buy expensive gifts for himself. There were many transfers or withdrawals, but with all deposits made in cash, it was impossible to trace their origin or the source of his income. I made a record of significant outgoing transfers, all of them to other banks in Europe and the U.S. Hours went by. Heinrich looked at his watch; it was four thirty p.m. But he still said nothing.
“Please get me the 1988 box, and we’ll call it a day,” I said. He seemed relieved.
That box was bigger than the rest. As the flying dust reached my nose, I sneezed, and then, getting a better look, restrained myself from crying aloud. Lying atop the pile was a printed envelope of Al Taqwa. Inside were copies of seven wire transfers made from an Al Taqwa account in Lugano, Switzerland, through Tempelhof Bank to a McHanna Associates account at Manufacturers Hanover bank in New York. I quickly added up the amounts. They totaled approximately $7 million. The transfer orders were signed by Gonda. That was a strong indication that he had signature rights at Al Taqwa to move funds around.
I frantically leafed though the other documents in the box and felt like Ali Baba in the children’s story, breaking into the cave of the forty thieves and finding heaps of silver and gold, bales of silk and fine carpets. An inch deeper into the box, I found additional documents showing wire transfers from Gonda to Al Taqwa and from them to McHanna Associates, using Tempelhof Bank as a correspondent bank. Heinrich made me copies of the documents I selected. I signed a receipt and left.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven A.M.,” he said.
I returned to my hotel, ordered room service, and concentrated on reading the documents.
An alarm bell sounded. “ Feuer, evakuieren Sie bitte alle Raume…
Fire, please evacuate all rooms.” I opened my room door. People were running in the hallway. I didn’t see or smell f
ire or smoke. I looked out the window: there was no fire engine or any special activity in the street.
“Another fire drill,” I muttered. I’d already been through one in Islamabad-I should have been considered exempt. I was in shorts and a T-shirt and didn’t feel like leaving my room again. I had no intention of playing. I closed the door. Seconds later came a series of strong bangs on my door. I opened it.
A man with a flashlight and fireman’s hat said in a thick German accent, “You must to leave now.”
“What?” I asked, pretending not to understand.
“You must to leave,” he repeated.
Reluctantly I stepped into my pants, took my laptop and my personal documents, and went to the door. I stopped, turned around, and took the copies of the bank documents I’d had made at the storage facility. Maybe I could find a corner to go over them while this stupid, untimely drill was going on. The elevator door was blocked, and I had to use the stairs.
About a hundred people were in the lobby, some in night clothing and some wrapped in blankets. Twenty minutes later I heard, “Falsche Warnung” -false alarm, said the guy who had ousted me earlier from my room, as he entered the lobby. “Somebody pressed the alarm button. We shall report this to the police. It’s illegal to do that,” he announced in German, then repeated it in English. I had no patience or interest to hear the rest of the things he had to say and ran first to the elevator.
I opened my door and took a step back. My room had been ransacked-every drawer thrown open, the suitcase shaken out. I opened the door wide, placed a shoe to stop it from shutting, and gingerly walked inside. If the intruder was still inside my room, I didn’t want to be locked in with him. He could be armed, and there could be more than one intruder. I checked the bathroom and the closet. They were empty. I looked around. The bed linens were thrown on the floor, and my clothes in the closet were piled up in the corner. Somebody had pressed the fire-alarm button to get me out of my room.
I called security. The same “fireman” came over. He must have been their jack-of-all-trades. “Mein Gott,” he exclaimed when he saw the mess. “Is anything missing?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I was still holding my laptop computer and the stack of documents. “Please check to see if other guests were victimized as well,” I said. If I was the only one, then the conclusion would be clear: I’d been singled out. Someone wanted something I had. And the only things I had were the papers and my laptop. It wasn’t my fashionable attire.
“I need another room,” I told him. “I can’t stay here.”
He went to the night table and used the phone. A few minutes later a chambermaid came and gave me a room key for a room on a different floor. I quickly packed and moved there. I left my luggage in my new room and went to the twenty-four-hour business center, still carrying my laptop computer and the documents. I faxed the documents to my New York office and shredded the copies I had, taking the confetti-like pieces with me.
Whoever had broken into my room was either interested in the documents because he didn’t have the information they contained, or he wanted to see how much I’d found. I could have been wrong, of course, but so far there was nothing to contradict me. The alarming conclusion was that someone knew to expect me in Switzerland, knew where I had gone that day, knew where I was staying, and had used the alarm-bell button to get me out of my room. Had my talents for identifying followers rusted? I hadn’t noticed anything unusual. Frankly, though, I hadn’t been paying much attention. For once I’d arrived in Switzerland for something that was so aboveboard that I was relieved to not have to constantly look behind me. And of all my cases, this visit-the perfectly clean one-had to be marred by a hostile entry? I threw the confetti into the fireplace in the lobby and waited to see it blaze.
I called Casey Bauer to report. He was more alarmed than I had been. “Dan, leave the hotel immediately. Cancel tomorrow’s meeting at the ware house. You may have to return to the U.S., but not just yet. We need to arrange security before you can return to the ware house.”
I called Lufthansa Airlines using my room telephone, asking the switchboard operator to connect me. I spoke with the airline representative and bought a one-way ticket to Frankfurt. I asked the desk to prepare my bill and send up a bellman, although all I had was one small suitcase. I told the bellman I was going to Frankfurt and asked him to get me a taxi. I paid the hotel bill and mentioned I needed to fly urgently to Frankfurt.
At the airport, when I’d made sure I wasn’t observed, I took the elevator down to the arrival hall, pressing all the buttons to make the elevator stop on every floor. I was alone in the elevator, but anyone looking at the lit numbers above the elevator door wouldn’t see on which floor I’d exited. I went to the taxi line and took a taxi to Zurich, where I checked into the Hilton hotel using my Anthony P. Blackthorn documents.
I called Casey Bauer, reported my new location, and fell asleep in front of the television. I was angry and surprised that I’d been spotted. Field security was lax somewhere. Next time the consequences could be more serious.
Two hours before my scheduled meeting with Heinrich Andrist, my chaperon at Tempelhof Bank’s ware house, I called with my cell phone to apologize. “I had to fly unexpectedly to Frankfurt to meet another client. I’m sorry for any inconvenience I may have caused you.”
“Will you be back?”
Now he misses me? “In a few days. I’ll call ahead.”
Casey Bauer called my cell phone. “There’s no question there was a security leak,” he said. “Did you tell anyone where you were going?”
Sometimes I feel like kicking the bureaucrats who ask stupid questions. But Casey didn’t qualify-he was a trained CIA officer covering all bases. “Nobody in New York but my office administrator.”
“Weren’t you involved with the courts in New York and in Switzerland?”
“Yes, but they didn’t know if and when I was coming to Switzerland. My contacts at the bank didn’t know where I was staying. That leaves only Dr. Liechtenstein, the Swiss attorney I hired to help me get the Swiss court order. He knew when I was arriving, and knew where I was staying.”
Casey sighed. “Let me check on him,” he said grimly. “But it seems whoever it was wanted something from your room, and not you personally. Otherwise they’d have been waiting for you inside your room.”
Once stretched on the sofa in my spacious room I was finally able to analyze the documents I had retrieved from the bank’s ware house. I turned on my laptop and logged into my New York office. In less than one minute I was connected, passing through four sets of different username and password screens. I opened the data files and read the documents I had faxed my office computer earlier.
The conclusion was unavoidable. In 1988 Reza Nazeri, aka Christopher Gonda, aka Philip Montreau, had moved millions of dollars between Switzerland and the U.S., and back. During that time money-laundering laws had been reserved for drug lords and corporate frauds, and the phrase terror financing hadn’t been coined yet or thought of. Most of the transfers had gone through Al Taqwa in Lugano and Tempelhof Bank in Zurich, and in all of them the name used was Gonda, not the two other names, Nazeri and Montreau. But although I found 1988 records, he’d had an account with Tempelhof Bank at least as early as 1981. Was there an explanation?
Perhaps the answer was simple. Since he’d used the stolen identity of Christopher Gonda to open the account, and Gonda disappeared at about the same time, I assumed that 1981 was in fact the year the account was opened. Why had Nazeri/Gonda needed the account before the banking scams had begun? Since my first quick review of the earlier files at the ware house didn’t reveal anything suspicious, I went on to the next year. I was locked into an assumption connecting Nazeri/Gonda to McHanna. Therefore, I may have overlooked Gonda’s activities before his account was used to launder money transferred between McHanna and Al Taqwa. I’d have to go back to the ware house to look again in the files, including those I’d already reviewed, but definitely tho
se of the years subsequent to 1988.
Casey called me again. “There’s no point in your hanging around in Switzerland until we resolve the security issue. We can’t get you much protection without drawing unnecessary attention.”
I was really eager to return to the ware house and solve the puzzle, but as instructed, I returned to New York the following morning. I went straight to the office, where Bob Holliday was waiting for an update.
“Did you have a good flight?” he asked, wryly avoiding the crisis at hand.
“Excellent,” I replied. I gave him a quick summary of my findings, and the need for more work.
“We have a meeting tomorrow morning with Robert Hodson, assistant director in charge of the FBI field office in New York,” he told me.
When I entered Hodson’s office, Casey Bauer and Bob Holliday were sitting on the leather sofa opposite Hodson’s huge desk. I joined them as Hodson dragged a chair over to sit next to us.
Holliday started. “I went through the documents that Dan brought from Switzerland, and I tend to believe that Reza Nazeri was a member of Atashbon. We don’t know exactly what role he played until 1988, but there’s no question that in 1988, and perhaps in later years, he moved millions of dollars between the U.S. and Switzerland, mostly through the notorious Al Taqwa, a known terrorist-financing institution.”
“I saw the documents and I concur with Holliday,” said Casey. “Here’s what I think we should do next: send Dan back to Switzerland to get more documents from later years. We also need to look at the transfer of documents from the other end-Al Taqwa, later named Nada Management.” He looked at Hodson. “We’ll need your staff to help us on that. We must also develop additional information as to what was done with money, or from whom it was received. We’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg.”
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