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As the dust settles in the spurious lawsuit against Banco Venezolano de Credito brought by proxies of the Venezuelan regime (Derwick Associates), it is worth exposing some of the parties that participated in this malicious charade.
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| Frank Holder |
FTI Consulting deserves special mention. It is a public listed company, that deals in a number of things, among which PR management. This "PR management" company instructed one of its employees, Maria Jose Tobar, to call me, to find out where I worked, so, presumably, I could be served. When I exposed FTI's idiotic attempt, Maria Jose Tobar deleted her LinkedIn profile. But FTI Consulting has been offering similar "PR management" and consultancy services to some of the worse thugs to come out Chavez's Venezuela: Rafael Sarria, Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco, Moris Beracha, Alejandro Andrade, David Osio and the two imbeciles running Derwick Associates, Alejandro Betancourt Lopez and Pedro Trebbau Lopez. The commonality between mentioned names appears to be FTI's Frank Holder.
Holder "began his career with the U.S. Air Force as a political-military analyst for the U.S. embassy in Argentina and as a special agent for the Office of Special Investigations at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia." He cut his teeth in Argentina, where he set up some sort of risk assessment business called Buenos Aires Sistemas Inteligentes with none other than Luis Moreno Ocampo, who accused Holder of stealing information from his office. Holder then created Holder Associates and sold it to Kroll, becoming Kroll's man in Argentina. In 2000, Holder was found guilty of false claims and fraud. Holder was also accused of extorsion by former Governor of Entre Rios province Jorge Busti. In 2001, Holder produced an "intelligence report" about Argentinean Congressmen Gustavo Gutiérrez and Carlos Balter, which was found by judge Raul Sanchez as something baseless, commissioned and paid for by banker Raul Moneta with the unique objective of vilifying the two congressmen. Holder also founded Holder International, another intelligence firm which FTI Consulting acquired for $9 million in 2007.
Holder's name also popped in Brazil in relation to a scandal related to Daniel Dantas about a report of secret accounts that Lula da Silva, Jose Dirceu and other leaders of Partido dos Trabalhadores allegedly had offshore (Dantas was trying to use the report to blackmail Lula et al). Holder authored the report, and first claimed that he had come about the information in the course of Kroll's investigation into Italy's Parmalat's bankruptcy. Brazil's Veja magazine found through authorities in Milan that Holder's version was false. Confronted by Veja, Holder then admitted that hackers working for utterly corrupt former Argentina's Interior Minister Jose Luis Manzano "got the information", which Manzano handed over to him as "a personal favour". As a result of his relation with disgraced Brazilian banker Dantas, for which he got $838,000, Holder was accused of slander (he just fabricated "evidence" as in Argentina).
Apart from being a hired pen and a fabulist, FTI Consulting's Latin American director, Frank Holder, is meant to be an "expert" in "risk management... money laundering... forensic and litigation practice" and get this "fraud and public corruption investigations..." Holder is being sued in Florida ($6 million given to him gone missing) by Matias Garfunkel, another Latino 'businessman' involved in yet another massive corruption racket, in Argentina. In an attempt to acquire a controlling percentage of Telecom Argentina's shares, Garfunkel tried to use as guarantee two letters [see here, and here] from two Venezuelan banks owned by [guess who?] Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco, another client of Holder and FTI Consulting. Did Fernandez Barrueco knowingly participate in this, or is it another example of Holder's penchant for recklessness?
But it gets even better, Holder was also hired by Hugo Carvajal, an OFAC designated kingpin targeted by the U.S. Treasury for supporting the FARC, Colombia's narco-terrorist cartel. As if that was not enough, former CIA agent Holder, also served as proxy for Rafael Sarria in at least two Florida-registered companies [SAI Advisors Inc. link, and Noor Plantation Investments link] used to launder money through real estate acquisitions. Hence Holder, and FTI Consulting as a result, have been involved, at the very least, in money laundering, racketeering, and aiding and abetting wanted criminals. Holder started off as an employee of the U.S. government: is he a double agent or is he just cashing in on the needs of criminals in Latin America? While FTI Consulting and Holder cheekily pontificate about FCPA compliance, when will federal authorities start questioning their activities in Latin America?
