January 8, 2008     We at ECrisis have long warned, "It's the corruption, stupid" and we have also noted that anyone who tells you that Ecuador and Venezuela do not need functional anticorruption rule of law reforms is a perverse liar who is aiding and abetting these criminal regimes which exist solely as off the books extortion rackets no matter how many true believers, also called idiots, they have duped to serve as their neo socialist foot soldiers.
 
Bloomberg's news reports that the utterly debauched PetroEcuador has been defrauding Ecuadoreans for the last year and of course for the last 6 years, (read their comments here) which are partially intended to manipulate the public into forgetting to know that Correa's team have stolen most of Ecuador's GDP- one half of it- which is run through the unaudited PetroEcuador which is an off the books operation now like PdVSA. 
 
Meanwhile, the Chavez agents for money laundering to guarantee political bribes, called the Suitcase Five, started a law suit against the U.S. government to return some cash from their preferred Florida bank claiming the bank defrauded them and the U.S. government needed to return their dirty money. The so called defendants applied a political tactic to claim the bank defrauded them which was simply a media tactic. The bank had faced bank fraud charges by the U.S. government just two days after the suitcase was mistakenly exposed in Argentina on its way to the Kirchners. The Florida bank received Chavez's illicit cash in a massive money laundering crime. We know this because its branches in Singapore received bundles of Chavez's cash to hide it. This criminally behaving bank worked through the front company called the Klim Fund BV out of Curacao, the dirty money capitol of the world.
We know that this bank for Chavez et al is dirty because it settled with the U.S. government for a $65 million fine and a promise to cooperate to act legally while it had been found to be acting illegally for years in Miami. The Venezuelans have dropped their law suit against the USA viz their money laundering bank in Miami through their Klim Fund, etc.
 
The Klim Fund is involved notably in a "client"/subsidiary of REVCO, the Marc Rich entity also noticeably involved in a separate U.S. bankruptcy claim underway in Florida. Marc Rich, never one to avoid a murky Russian money deal, is of course is active with murky offshore oil traders and used to be said to be deeply connected to TRAFIGURA. Wilmer Ruperti today seems to be quite happily on the move across South America, in and out of Curacao.
 
The Florida courts it appears are now forced to do what Latin American nations should have been doing and have avoided doing: cleaning up their own criminal dirty money movers. This places a financial burden on the U.S. tax payers to prosecute these thugs and perps and dirty money launderers at a historic level. We can only hope that the courts are obtaining reimbursement of costs for all these cases in Florida, making Florida look like the epicenter of Latin dirty money movers. It is notable that this bank -and others like it- link to other weak banking centers such as Singapore while retaining their hidden "centers" in Curacao which is of course a false front center.
 
Hugo Chavez's government presents a fake face of Chavez's kangaroo cabinet of incompetents for "the people", while the real work remains congealed with his dirty money mafias. This is Rafael Correa's partner: Chavez and his mafia money men. Rafael Correa is solidly in the Chavez bloc of nations and serves as one more bag men for the real brains in this racket- the dirty money movers. Two nations now are run by dirty cartels in all meaningful senses and anyone connected with Correa and Chavez are themselves either deeply manipulated/bought out or actively corrupt.
 
While abusing governmental money to install state media machines such as TELESUR of Al JAZEERA and Iranian news feeds, Correa and Chavez also promote the sole reporting by Castro's horrifically obvious propaganda mill called PRENSA LATINA which recently reported-propagandized that is from Montecristi that, "Correa said internal and external security is top priority, and warned of possible new confrontations during the functioning of the Constituent Assembly and process of change in the country. The failing old power will put up resistance, and will not easily give in to transformations for the benefit of all Ecuadorians, he alerted, and called for the population to remain united."
 
Parroting the good old Cuban GRANMA, exhibiting such laziness as this obvious recycling of older Castro `media' stories, the Correa-Chavez-Cuban bloc turns its dishonest team on justifying its removal of Ecuadorean finances and private sector by calling anyone not a communist as "the failing old power" whose lives must of course "transform" - aka change- to benefit all of Ecuador. Serving as serfs of the self enriching politburo from Cuba-Caracas and Quito is not a good idea. And still no one from Ecuador says a word. Worse yet...the Chavez controlled media thinks that this substitutes for real truthtelling:

Supermodel Naomi Campbell interviewed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

We prefer instead to look at the facts. Recently, Goldman Sachs released this assessment of Ecuador's already at hand death bell:

"Business Associations Unhappy with Direction of Economic Policy
Business and producer associations criticized the economic policy orientation of the Correa administration, highlighting its penchant for interference in business decisions and free markets and tendency for over-regulation. Furthermore, strong criticism was levied against the recently approved tax reform, the large increase in the minimum wage (18% yoy), and regulation of some prices. The drop in business confidence does not bode well for investment and real growth in the quarters ahead."
 
Business associations "unhappy" with the end of their chance to do business...? We note that until the last two weeks, the associations- to a group- all lied. They lied repeatedly both in Ecuador and in the USA to cover up the fact that by acting in complicity with the fraudulent claims that Correa would boost their businesses- through criminal extortion- that they would line their pockets better, we note that complicity and manipulation exposed all business associations in Ecuador as liars, fools and manipulated idiots who know have only themselves to blame. Unhappy? They look about as ridiculous as Naomi Cambell trying to look honest.

Every Ecuadorean who cares about himself, his family, his community and any future potential should be disgusted with the criminal regime running Correa's operations.
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis