• Sordid cast of criminal characters helped GOP’s Mitt Romney get to where he is today
By Ralph Forbes
In 1984, when Willard “Mitt” Romney launched Bain Capital—split off from Bain & Company—more than a third of the $37 million “start-up” money came from wealthy foreigners—hidden behind corporations registered in Panama, notorious for tax advantages and unusual banking secrecy. International high finance was always behind the profiteering from off-shoring and exporting American jobs—but even more sinister are the allegations of narco-banksterism, narco-terrorism, illegal black-ops, organized crime, looting of pensions—and the conspiracies that culminated in the great crash of 2008.
Romney’s first investor was London financier, Sir Jack Lyons, who made a $2.5 million investment through a Panama shell company set up by a slick Swiss money manager, further shielding his identity. Lyons was later convicted in an unrelated stock market fraud scandal.
Another early investor was Robert Maxwell—Mossad agent, thief of Promis spying software, international organized crime boss, arms dealer and British publishing baron—who invested $2 million. He mysteriously drowned at sea in 1991 after he tried to shake down his Mossad bosses to cover the hundreds of millions of dollars he stole from his employees’ pension funds.
Harry Strachan, a Bain Capital partner knew Central American businessmen. Strachan told The Boston Globe in August 1994, Bill Bain and Romney were “terrified of bringing in Central Americans . . . They were afraid of drug money.” Not so afraid to stop Romney from flying to Miami to meet the Central Americans in 1984. Romney raised $9 million from these rich Latin Americans, including the powerful Salvadoran families accused of torturing and killing tens of thousands of civilians.
Other early investors were of the ilk of Jack Hanley, former head of Monsanto Company, who put in $1 million. Monsanto is heavily involved in genetically modified seeds and poisons as well as cornering the market on global water supplies.
Partners in Romney’s dirty business also included convicted Jewish swindler Michael R. Milken. Bain put up $10 million and took out $175 million leaving Bealls Brothers and Palais Royal bankrupt under $444 million in debt. Milken’s case was heard by Jewish federal district judge Milton Pollack, whose wife, Moselle, was the chairwoman of Palais Royal. One of Romney’s first takeover deals was financed by dirty money—and one of the corporate chiefs about to receive a big payout from Bain was married to the judge hearing the case.
Romney holds his hands out for government Wall Street welfare and bailouts every chance he gets: $2.7 billion for pork from United States taxpayers; $10 million from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; untold billions in tax loopholes and exporting jobs to cheap slave labor camps ad nauseam.
Ralph Forbes is a freelance writer based in Arkansas. He is also a member of AFP’s Southern Bureau. Contact him at [email protected]
