Tony Rezko's billionaire buddy

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

On a spring day in 2004, Nadhmi Auchi, one of the world's richest men, flew in to Midway Airport on a private jet. Met by a welcoming party that included Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (there at the request of the Blagojevich administration) and businessman Tony Rezko, Auchi was brought to a downtown hotel where he was the guest of honor at a reception hosted by Blagojevich.

The Iraqi-born billionaire -- who lives in London -- had come to Chicago on business. He would go on to invest nearly $170 million in a prime piece of vacant land in the South Loop -- 62 acres along the Chicago River that Rezko wanted to develop.

Nadhmi Auchi joined by Gov. Blagojevich in 2004 during an attempt by the governor to get the Iraqi-born tycoon, one of the world's richest men, to invest in Illinois.


Now, Auchi is surfacing in Rezko's corruption case, set to go to trial Monday. Auchi is mentioned by prosecutors in the court filing that got Rezko's bail revoked and landed him in jail.

Rezko was indicted in October 2006 in a scheme to shake down firms seeking state pension business to enrich himself and Blagojevich's campaign fund. He got $3.5 million from Auchi's company in April 2007 but never told a judge about it, raising concerns that Rezko, a native of Syria, might flee the country.

Auchi wasn't accused of wrongdoing regarding Rezko. But he had faced legal troubles in Europe, prosecutors noted, having been "convicted several years ago in France on fraud charges" and sentenced to 15 months in prison, "but the sentence was suspended as long as Auchi committed no new crimes."

They raised the possibility that, even though Auchi's Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holding has taken control of the valuable South Loop property from Rezko, Auchi might be barred from entering the United States. "In November 2005, after Auchi was unable to enter the United States, Rezko directly appealed to the State Department to permit Auchi to enter the United States and, it appears, asked certain Illinois government officials to do the same," prosecutors wrote.

So how was Auchi not allowed in the United States in November 2005 but able to come here in 2004 -- despite his criminal conviction in France in 2003?

Auchi's London-based lawyer, Alasdair Pepper, wouldn't answer that. State Department and Homeland Security officials said they couldn't comment.

But Pepper did say Auchi maintains his innocence and is appealing the conviction "through applying to the European Court of Human Rights." Also, he said by e-mail that Auchi didn't authorize "Mr. Rezko to appeal to the State Department or to contact 'Illinois government officials' to help him obtain a visa."

Prosecutors haven't said which "Illinois government officials" Rezko contacted. Rezko was a longtime fund-raiser for Blagojevich and for Sen. Barack Obama, but aides to both said Rezko never reached out to them about Auchi.

Blagojevich did pose for pictures with Auchi at the April 2004 reception. Obama, now the leading Democratic presidential contender, wasn't there.

"The senator doesn't recall ever meeting Auchi," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Said Pepper: "My client has no recollection of meeting Sen. Obama."

Those 62 Acres sure are making news.Here's a October 2007 story from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Why did Ald. Edward M. Burke vote to approve Tony Rezko’s plans to develop the South Loop’s biggest piece of vacant land even as he was working for Rezko on that same deal?

Burke says: I forgot to abstain.

The much-conflicted alderman says he meant to sit out the vote. He’d even sent a letter to the Chicago Board of Ethics in August 2003 saying he would abstain from any Council votes on Rezko’s plan to put as many as 5,000 homes and stores on a 62-acre site along the Chicago River at Roosevelt Road.


But then Rezko’s project came before the City Council on March 31, 2004, and Burke cast his vote — in favor.

“An error occurred,” the alderman said in a written response to questions, “and Rule 14 was not invoked.”

That would be the Council rule under which aldermen are supposed to abstain from a vote when they have a conflict of interest.

Of course, it’s up to the alderman who has a conflict to invoke the rule.

Burke’s legal work for Rezko’s Rezmar Corp. is referenced in records on the 62-acre site Rezko wanted to develop with $140 million in city subsidies. The project fizzled, and Rezmar sold the land.

No word yet from Alderman Ed Burke on the Rezko "situation".

Obama's Auchi Problem

The Beachwood Reporter reports on billionaire and "friend" of Tony Rezko :

Auchi is apparently still appealing a 2003 fraud conviction in France. He visited Chicago and Detroit in 2004, but wasn't allowed back in the country in 2005.

"Prosecutors in Mr. Rezko's case have said that Mr. Rezko asked Illinois officials to help obtain a visa for Mr. Auchi's visit to Chicago," the Times says. "The officials have not been identified, and Mr. Obama's campaign has said he was not involved in that effort."

Let me ask you a question: You're Tony Rezko and you've bankrolled Barack Obama's entire political career. You helped him buy his house and you and your wife socialize with him and his wife. You've held a reception for a potential investor in which you invited Obama, who had just been elected to the United States Senate, to impress your business partner. And you appeal to Illinois officials to help him get a visa. Are you telling me you do not ask for Obama's help?

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Obama's campaign says the senator "does not recall" meeting Auchi. There's a lot he didn't "recall" about Rezko either for quite awhile. You know, like actually knowing him.

*

Via RezkoWatch:

"Rick Moran of Pajamas Media reminds us that, during his March 14, 2008, exclusive interview with the editorial board and reporters of the Chicago Sun-Times, "Obama denies helping Auchi in any way with his visa [in 2005] but can't vouch for his staff":

Q: Did you ever help Auchi enter the country?

A: No.

Q: Or your office?

A: Not that I know of.

The ethics of the one.Steve Rhodes summarizes the situation:

Tony Rezko pimped out Barack Obama to impress Nadhmi Auchi, a bad operator who found the political culture in Chicago and Illinois amenable to his kind of investment acumen. The only problem was that Rezko's deal was in trouble, and Rezko himself was caught up in, among other scandals, a minority-contracting scam with the Dalely administration. At the same time, Rezko was wheeling and dealing with the Blagojevich administration and everyone in the political universe knew he was under federal investigation for it but Obama asked for his help buying a $1.6 million mansion and appeared at a couple of events to help Rezko impress Auchi and others.

Now Obama's memory is faulty because there's that pesky question of judgement, as well as the stain on his meticulously burnished image as a beacon of hope and reform because his relationship with both Rezko and the Machine and politics-as-usual is deeper than he's ever cared to admit.

REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 1of 3)

Former Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security John A. Shaw has a three part series of articles in Illinois Pay to Play. Here's an extract from part one:

The kingpin of Iraqi corruption, Nadhmi Auchi, and his Chicago henchman, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, built a well-financed network of political influence in Chicago over several decades. Barack Obama is its most famous beneficiary.

There's more:

Nadhmi Auchi is an Iraqi-born billionaire who relocated from Baghdad to London in 1980 where he adopted British citizenship. Auchi is the engineer who designed a new political railroad that connects the Middle East to the Middle West, with tracks that run through Washington. Auchi financed it all. Think of him as the empire builder for the Chicago, Washington & Baghdad Railroad, with Tony Rezko as Conductor, and Barack Obama as its favored Passenger.

The world of Barack Obama.

Lehman Brothers: Obama’s Rezko-Auchi conflict of interest

Canada Free Press reports:

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was quick to blame the bankruptcy of Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers on Republicans’ “failed philosophy”. Obama’s September 15 comments were repeated throughout the media--yet reporters have not noted Obama’s glaring conflict of interest—the Lehman debt owed to a bank owned by the financier who loaned millions of dollars to Tony Rezko.

Jockeying among the other debtors seeking repayment under Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules is BNP Paribas, a large French bank whose largest single private shareholder is Nadhmi Auchi’s General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH). BNP Paribas is owed $250 million by Lehman.

Nadhmi Auchi is an Iraqi whose Baathist ties go back to 1959. A formerly high-ranking official in Iraq’s Oil Ministry, Auchi left Iraq at the end of the 1970s. His wealth then grew exponentially as a procurer of arms for Saddam Hussein’s government during the Iran–Iraq war. He is now one of the richest men in Britain. Saddam Hussein in 1995 selected BNP, which later merged with Paribas, as the sole conduit bank handling Oil-for-Food transactions. This Clinton-era arrangement was changed in 2001 by the incoming Bush administration.

You'll want to read this one.

Lawsuit says billionaire Auchi owes investor for Rezko's stake in South Loop site

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

A Wilmette investor alleges that Iraqi-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi cheated him out of the proceeds from the sale of Antoin Rezko's stake in a large South Loop development site.

Mr. Auchi, chairman of conglomerate General Mediterranean Holding SA, already owned 50% of the sprawling, 62-acre site in a venture that included Mr. Rezko, who was a top fundraiser to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Mr. Auchi structured his purchase of the rest of property so that Mr. Rezko could avoid paying Semir Sirazi, according to a complaint filed last week by Mr. Sirazi in Cook County Circuit Court.

At one time, Mr. Rezko’s development firm had planned to build about 4,600 residential units and 670,000 square feet of retail space on the site at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street. Instead, General Mediterranean put the site on the market earlier this year, although the litigation is likely to complicate efforts to sell it.

No word yet from Chicago Mob linked Alderman Ed Burke on this story.

Q&A: Barack Obama and Tony Rezko

The London Times reports:

Who is Tony Rezko?
Antoin “Tony” Rezko, 52, a long-time friend and fundraiser for Barack Obama, is a Syrian-born property developer, pizzeria entrepreneur and political fixer in Chicago. Hillary Clinton has made him a campaign issue by denouncing him as a “slum landlord”. Mr Rezko faces two criminal trials as well as dozens of civil lawsuits.

How does he know Barack Obama?
Mr Rezko approached Mr Obama in 1990 after reading that he had become the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Mr Rezko and two real estate partners offered Mr Obama a job building inner-city homes in Chicago. Mr Obama declined, but remained friendly with Mr Rezko, who became one of his earliest and biggest fundraisers. Mr Obama says that he met Mr Rezko “once or twice a year” for lunch and the Rezkos and Obamas have dined together as couples perhaps “two to four times” since they have known each other. As a lawyer, Mr Obama did six hours’ work for partners of Mr Rezko’s company in state-subsidised apartment rehabilitation projects.

Why are they linked in a property deal?
The Obamas bought a mock Georgian mansion in Chicago in June 2005, after he was elected to the US Senate. Mr Rezko’s wife, Rita, bought the adjacent garden on the same day from the same seller. The sellers say that Mr Obama and Mr Rezko toured the property together before the transaction. At the time, it was already known that Mr Rezko was under criminal investigation. Mrs Rezko paid the full asking price of $625,000 (£315,000) for the garden. The Obamas paid $1.65 million for the house – $300,000 below asking price. The garden could be accessed only through the Obamas’ property, and Mr Obama’s gardener mowed the lawn. In January 2006, Mrs Rezko sold a 10ft strip of her garden to the Obamas for $104,500 and a fence was erected between the two lots. Mrs Rezko has since sold the remainder of the garden to a lawyer for her husband’s business.

Why is Mr Rezko on trial?
Mr Rezko went on trial in Chicago this week for money laundering, fraud, aiding bribery and attempted extortion. He is accused of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking to do business with two Illinois state boards controlled by his friends – the Teachers Retirement System, which manages a $30 billion pension fund, and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which must approve all building permits involving hospitals.

Is Mr Obama involved in the case?
Mr Obama is not accused of any wrongdoing. However, money from one of the many alleged kickbacks appears to have ended up as a $10,000 donation to his campaign. There is speculation that Mr Obama could be called as a defence witness at the three-month trial. Mr Obama has donated to charity $150,000 in political contributions linked to Mr Rezko.

Where does Nadhmi Auchi fit in?
Mr Rezko ended up in prison in January for violating bail by failing to declare a $3.5 million loan from Nadhmi Auchi, a British-Iraqi billionaire who was convicted of corruption in the Elf scandal in France in 2003. Mr Auchi was involved with Mr Rezko in a pizzeria business in the Midwest as well as a 62 acre property development in Chicago, and had lent millions of dollars to him.

An earlier $3.5 million dollar loan to Mr Rezko was made only weeks before Mrs Rezko bought the garden next to the Obamas’ new house. Mr Auchi says the loan was for business reasons.

Obama and the Chicago Way.

Obama and Rezko's Iraqi-British Billionaire Nadhmi Auchi Gets Website to Takedown Articles

MND reports:

Documents recently made public by the Internet site Wikileaks reveal that several large newspapers have removed or censored content related to the Iraqi-British fraudster Nadhmi Auchi, who has been publicly linked to Barack Obama via payments to former fundraiser, Antino “Tony” Rezko . A Guardian article, which no longer exists, stated that Auchi is also linked to senior members of the UK Labour Party.

The struggle against the historical blackout.For more information on Auchi with several blog entries click on this.

Did Rezko Ask Obama For Help With Iraqi Billionaire?

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

It was a business owned by one of Rezko's partners in that deal, British-based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, that paid Rezko the $3.5 million. Auchi, sometimes described in press reports as a financial associate of Saddam Hussein, was convicted of fraud in a French court in 2003 in an oil company kickback scheme.

In a tantalizing aside, Rezko prosecutors said he appealed directly to the U.S. State Department for help in November 2005 after Auchi was unable to enter the U.S. -- and also appears to have "asked certain Illinois governmental officials" to intercede on Auchi's behalf. They didn't say who.

The Rezko case revolves around allegations of wrongdoing in Gov. Blagojevich's administration, but it also now looms as a specter over the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama because of his relationship with Rezko, a key fund-raiser involved in an odd real estate transaction with the senator. There has been no suggestion of wrongdoing by Obama in the government's case, but Monday's added attention was politically unhelpful.

Rezko was arrested early Monday morning in his Wilmette mansion, a far cry from whatever cell he was assigned to spend Monday night -- a long, fitful night -- to think about whether his explanation is going to be good enough.

No word yet from the Obama campaign on this one.

More Details for the Obama Files

Human Events reports:

In sum, Mr. Obama shook hands with a shadowy billionaire who is suspect of making it possible for Mr. Rezko to perform duties that won him the title of "fixer," by the Chicago media. Mr. Auchi's cash in Mr. Rezko's hands may have fixed Mr. Obama's estate in 2005. Mr. Auchi's cash in Mr Rezko's hands may have built the suspect's defense case or sustained it in 2007, a case to refute the government's sweeping charges, brought by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of the North District of Illinois, of graft in high places in Illinois politics. And Mr. Auchi's cash in Mr. Rezko's hands could have led, in the U.S. court's opinion as of January 28, 2008, to Mr. Rezko fixing his problem by flight from prosecution to Middle Eastern countries without extradition treaties with the United States.

At this point, if there was an easy explanation for Mr. Obama's handshake and what questions it raises about the candidate's past associations and arrangements, the Obama campaign would already have issued it widely. Mr. Auchi is as high a profile Iraqi-born entrepreneur as may exist, a man who has enjoyed the hand-shakes of U.S. presidents over many years, though not recently, and not right now with the Rezko trial beginning March 3. The next step is to await the not easy explanation, a tale that will prove most fertile in the coming presidential election.

Some disturbing questions.

Obama's Mansion 'mistake' piles the pressure on

The London Times reports:

A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.

The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.

A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin "Tony" Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.


Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city's South Side while Mr Rezko's wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.

Mr Obama says he never used Mrs Rezko's still-empty lot, which could only be accessed through his property. But he admits he paid his gardener to mow the lawn.

Mrs Rezko, whose husband was widely known to be under investigation at the time, went on to sell a 10-foot strip of her property to Mr Obama seven months later so he could enjoy a bigger garden.

Mr Obama now admits his involvement in this land deal was a “boneheaded mistake”.

Mrs Rezko’s purchase and sale of the land to Mr Obama raises many unanswered questions.

It is unclear how Mrs Rezko could have afforded the downpayment of $125,000 and a $500,000 mortgage for the original $625,000 purchase of the garden plot at 5050 South Greenwood Ave.

In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had "no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations."

Mrs Rezko, whose husband goes on trial on unrelated corruption charges in Chicago on March 3, refused to answer questions about the case when she spoke by telephone to The Times.

You'll want to read this whole article.

Semir Sirazi vs. Nadhmi Auchi: A Chicago Lawsuit Underway

Illinois Pay to Play reports:

The repercussions of Tony Rezko’s business dealings with Nadhmi Auchi are now playing out in a lawsuit, filed on January 30, 2012 in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, pitting Plaintiffs Semir D. Sirazi, Greenstone Capital L.L.C. and Mardini, Inc., vs. Defendants General Mediterranean Holding, SA, Orifarm, SA, and Nadhmi Auchi.

A Rezko update.

REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 3 of 3)

Illinois Pay to Play reports:

Nadhmi Auchi, despite his purchased respectability in England, was the financial eminence behind the Chicago-Arab combine, and the man who, with Rezko, helped invent Barack Obama as a political star.

Obama Toasted Auchi at Rezko's Mansion?

Instapundit reports:

"Dem presidential contender Barack Obama's handlers may be telling the press Obama has NO 'recollection' of a 2004 party at influence peddler Tony Rezko's Wilmette house, but a top Sneed source claims Obama not only gave Rezko's guest of honor, Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, a big welcome . . . but he made a few toasts!"

As Chicago reporter Steve Rhodes says:

If Obama says he loves you, check it out.

Jerome Corsi's Bombshell Video: Rezko Associate on Tape Talks about Obama Meeting

Illinois Pay to Play reports:

Illinois PayToPlay has learned that, in addition to the Postman video recently released by Jerome Corsi on World Net Daily, Corsi also holds a 2011 recorded interview with former Rezko associate Daniel T. Frawley.

The recording was made late last year in Chicago in a meeting that involved Corsi, Frawley and three other persons who gathered to discuss the possibility of writing a book.

The recording reportedly includes a description of how, in 2004, during Nadhmi Auchi’s visit to Chicago, Auchi, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, and Barack Obama met in the basement “cigar room” inside Rezko’s 30-room mansion in Wilmette, Illinois where they discussed, among other things, the purchase of a 62-acres plot in the South Loop.

Stay tuned, Dan Frawley is supposed to be sentenced next month.

AP Exclusive: Indicted Blagojevich fundraiser got loan from Iraqi

The AP reports:

Governor Rod Blagojevich's chief fundraiser has arranged to get a loan from the same Iraqi billionaire whose $3.5 million payment got another member of the governor's inner circle thrown in jail.

Christopher Kelly headed Blagojevich's campaign fund in both of his races for governor and is now under federal indictment.

State records reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kelly pledged all of his shares in a Nevada land partnership as collateral for a loan from a company headed by Nadhmi Auchi (OW'-chee).

The records don't reflect the size of the loan, and Kelly's defense attorney refused to comment.

Tony Rezko was jailed last month after prosecutors said the cash he got from Auchi showed he could flee. Rezko is facing a federal fraud trial, while Kelly has pleaded not-guilty to tax charges.

Illinois' sleazy politics now get mixed with foreign sources.Imagine that.

Obama Researcher Issues Warning to Iraqi Billionaire Tied to Obama and Rezko

Bill Baar reports on heroic journalist Evelyn Pringle who's been researching Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi and his ties to Tony Rezko and Barack Obama.Here's the letter Evelyn Pringle issued:

Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:11:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Evelyn Pringle
Subject: I want you to stop threatening to sue over my articles
To: Alasdair.Pepper @ carter-ruck.com

Dear Mr Pepper:

Although you have never informed me of your client's objections to my articles, it has been brought to my attention that you are attempting to intimidate sites that publish my work by threatening to sue them for defamation.

I ask that you cease this tactic immediately. Your actions are not only violating my right to free speech but they are also adversely affecting my business relationships and livelihood.

I will gladly defend any action filed against me in the US by your client. However, in order to sue me he would have to appear here before a jury and you and I know he is not allowed in this country. Therefore, your actions represent harassment and unlawful intimidation of a professional journalist.

If I get any more reports that you are trying to sabotage my relationships with publications, I will contact the US attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald and the US Department of Justice to seek legal advice on how to put a stop to your illegal conduct.

I will be forwarding a copy of this email to all of the sites that publish my work.

If Mr Auchi was allowed in this country, I would be the one filing a law suit against him.

Truly,

Evelyn Pringle

No word yet from the Obama campaign on this one.

Flashback: Rezko Connected Nadhmi Auchi and Saddam Hussein

The Komisar Scoop

Nadhmi Auchi further outed by John Shaw thanks to Doug Ross

Illinois Pay to Play

WikiLeaks on the Auchi-Rezko-Blago Connection

Illinois Pay to Play

Obama,Rezko,and Nadhmi Auchi

New Statesman