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| Island of Saipan , photo by P. Miller, (Pdmiller) donated to Public Domain |
Image believed to be in Public Domain
FOR ANY OF YOU WHO THINK THE "SWAMP" OR THE "DEEP STATE" ISN'T REAL CHECK OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING FAR FROM THE BELTWAY AT THE MOST DISTANT AMERICAN TERRITORY WHERE FORMER FEDERAL OFFICIALS, FORMER FEDERAL JUDGES , FORMER GOVERNORS OF BOTH PARTIES RINOS AND DEMOCRATS ALIKE HAVE LINED UP TO SUPPORT A CHINESE "SOFT POWER INVASION".
The 48,000 American citizens who live on the tropical island of Saipan are located quite some distance from other Americans. Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd. (IPIH) of China saw in that an opportunity. While the island is American soil, and served by the US Post office, and the dollar is the legal tender there ; being located twice the distance from the West Coast of the United States as the distance between Denver and Honolulu makes it in fact, extremely remote US soil. Among the types of Americans not real common on the island are OSHA inspectors, and INS investigators. That is where Imperial Pacific Holdings of China saw an opportunity to open a back door into the American economy. You see the growing rich of China's crony capitalist commie hybrid system are in desperate need of a place to convert their Chinese profits into currencies thought to be safer from government confiscation than China. Quite a few of these folks remember the "Cultural Revolution" and know that a one party authoritarian state can turn on a dime and resume confiscatory taxation programs enforced at the point of gun. So a lot of the cronies of the system seek to quickly convert their yen into dollars, pounds, or franks. They needed a place and activity reasonably close but strongly separated from the Communist Chinese mainland. The American territory of Saipan typically a 3 to 4 hour flight offshore and physically about the size of San Francisco seemed appealing, particularly due to certain short falls in America's protection of the Island and Islanders.
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| Bird Island Saipan, Photo by David Burdick. for NOAA Licensed under the Creative Commons license. |
After WWII Saipan became a permanent US territory, but the scenic tropical isle seemed to have no economic reason for being. To encourage development, the Federal government exempted Saipan from certain minimum wage and immigration laws. A few major US based major retailers came to the island to set up clothing factories paying $2.15 an hour. Imperial Pacific Holdings of China found that a Casino would be the perfect cover business for transferring Chinese wealth into international currencies. Of course casinos are large buildings and on an island with hardly any hotels an adjacent resort hotel would be needed. Given the lack of OSHA attention, corners could be cut, but even the low minimum wage of Saipan didn't satisfy the IPH managers. They brought in even cheaper Chinese mainland workers on tourist visas and illegally put them to work on the casino complex. There was one thing they didn't count on , the high rates of injury and even death on their uninspected and unregulated construction site. The local hospital did however notice and they noticed that the injured and killed workers were not native.
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| The Island's only hospital , photo by Stephen Ewen licensed under the Creative Commons |
The islanders had been very reluctant to allow gaming on the island but faced desperate economic conditions. They were expecting both construction and casino floor jobs. They were not expecting an invasion of a bogus work force posing as "tourists", especially after all of the tax advantages granted IPH. It is starting to look like a classic Chinese Bandit run. The island gets a new Casino that pays virtually no taxes, runs on an illegal foreign work force, and is being built by an illegal foreign labor force rapidly becoming a burden on local medical facilities due to unsafe working conditions. So all things considered the casino mega resort complex is not doing a whole lot for the island. But how is Imperial Pacific Holding doing? Amazingly great, super lucrative.
Saipan is the capital city of the Northern Mariana Islands
Image CIA WORLD FACT BOOK
IPH at the moment is probably moving more Chinese money through Saipan than any other place in the world. Before the mega resort opened last July an IPH store front facility handled more than $2 billion a month in supposed "wagers". That is almost six times typical gamboling casino revenues in places like Macau which has a more lively trade than Las Vegas. Nothing in the islands economy compares to the cash machine of the IPH temporary casino. Indeed perhaps only the entire gaming economy of Las Vegas compares. Yet the islanders outside of a very small elite group of power brokers receive any economic benefit. The mega resort's advisers and board of directors include such mainland prominent people as former directors of the CIA and the FBI and former governors of New York, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi. There are reports of millions finding their way into coffers close to the territorial governor. So far not much ,if anything. to ordinary local folks including any relief on the tax front.
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| Saipan as seen from the International Space Station. Photo Credit NASA |
Update: 2/20/2018
The construction contractor on this job has been MCC International Saipan. But other than having an office on Saipan, MCC has little to do with any natives of the Island. It is part of the mainland Chinese group of companies affiliated with Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd. According to stock exchange filings MCC is the Hong Kong and Shanghail exchange listed arm of China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MGC) , a state run construction enterprise. MGC in turn is a unit of the state run metals trading giant known as China Minmetals Corp. It was the construction part of the business that first drew US regulatory attention. As described previously the construction company brought in Chinese nationals on tourist visas and used them to work on the actual construction. The construction site wasn't run per OSHA standards or any US standards and delivered enough injured "tourists" to the local hospital as to arise suspicion and then a formal investigation.
The entire program appears to have been organized by a former Trump Casino employee Mark Brown. He last served in a senior position in a Far Eastern Casino after leaving Trump's employ, where he was recruited by Chinese interests to help put together the Casino program and recruit an elite group of corporate directors / advisors including former US governors and senior retired federal law enforcement officers. Imperial Pacific, the Casino operator is run by Chinese entrepreneur Cui Lijie. Lijie's directors and consultants for this project allegedly include Americans James Woolsey (former CIA director and "neoconservative democrat"), Eugene Sullivan (Former senior Federal Appeals Court judge, and an apparent Republican) , Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour ( Republican governor of Mississippi 2004-2012) Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (Democrat, served as governor 2003-2011 thought to be an adviser vice a director, stepped down in April of 2017 stated the company was too far away geographically to effectively monitor) , and former FBI director Louis Freeh ( FBI Director 1993 to 2001, a Republican appointee of Bill Clinton). This prominent group of American directors and / or advisers come from both political parties, from the judiciary, executive branches of government, and law enforcement. All have very high personal net worth, far beyond what could be amassed on typical head of agency or federal judge salaries. If accumulated after Federal service it appears more likely than not it would have come from fees as directors and consultants. Looking at the situation on Saipan, one has to wonder how these people go about vetting the projects they agree to serve; or are they simply selling a facade of legitimacy to the highest bidders?
Either the directors /consultants were clueless or colluded in the evasion of US law and not just in the construction of the casino but also in apparent money laundering. Attention was drawn to the possibility of money laundering when a "temporary casino" opened in a former laundromat in a duty free mall. Known as "Best Sunshine" the temporary casino's VIP tables handled just under $3 billion in March of 2017 which was up from $1.67 billion in February 2017. This was an unheard of amount for a new start up even in Las Vegas. Where did these VIP bets come from? How could all that money be earned on only twenty tables? The mega resort was unfinished and there were few hotel rooms on the island at the time. So far there have been only six arrests and those are related to the labor and immigration law violations associated with the resort / casino construction. Apparently, the money laundering charges are still under investigation and construction on the mega resort /casino continues as does casino operations in temporary facilities continue. Lijie et al remain in charge, if any of the high powered American directors consultants besides former Governor Rendell have resigned we have not found any accounts of it. Indeed what little MSM coverage of these developments that we can find seem to be determined to link Donald Trump to the fiasco because a former employee of Trump Casinos was involved, ignoring that so was a Bill Clinton appointee, or the bipartisan make up of the entire group. Apparently the distance of Siapan from the continental US and the little known details of American soverignity there have lessened the interest of MSM news editors, especially since they can't seem to make a case for blaming the mess on Trump. We feel the still evolving situation on far away Saipan warrants more scrutiny by the American public. The situation is a clear demonstration of how the "Swamp" and the related "Deep State" work and its somewhat bipartisan nature. Could it be that America wasn't wrong in electing a man who was already independently wealthy and with no prior office holding experience to it's highest office? Might Saipan shed some light on why both RINO Republicans and nearly all Democrats are so vehemently opposed to the presidency of Donald Trump? We think the "Swamp" is real and the home of an all too real "Deep State". In this age of the Internet citizens are able to watch developments on Saipan independently of what the MSM puts out , if anything.
The construction contractor on this job has been MCC International Saipan. But other than having an office on Saipan, MCC has little to do with any natives of the Island. It is part of the mainland Chinese group of companies affiliated with Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd. According to stock exchange filings MCC is the Hong Kong and Shanghail exchange listed arm of China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MGC) , a state run construction enterprise. MGC in turn is a unit of the state run metals trading giant known as China Minmetals Corp. It was the construction part of the business that first drew US regulatory attention. As described previously the construction company brought in Chinese nationals on tourist visas and used them to work on the actual construction. The construction site wasn't run per OSHA standards or any US standards and delivered enough injured "tourists" to the local hospital as to arise suspicion and then a formal investigation.
The entire program appears to have been organized by a former Trump Casino employee Mark Brown. He last served in a senior position in a Far Eastern Casino after leaving Trump's employ, where he was recruited by Chinese interests to help put together the Casino program and recruit an elite group of corporate directors / advisors including former US governors and senior retired federal law enforcement officers. Imperial Pacific, the Casino operator is run by Chinese entrepreneur Cui Lijie. Lijie's directors and consultants for this project allegedly include Americans James Woolsey (former CIA director and "neoconservative democrat"), Eugene Sullivan (Former senior Federal Appeals Court judge, and an apparent Republican) , Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour ( Republican governor of Mississippi 2004-2012) Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (Democrat, served as governor 2003-2011 thought to be an adviser vice a director, stepped down in April of 2017 stated the company was too far away geographically to effectively monitor) , and former FBI director Louis Freeh ( FBI Director 1993 to 2001, a Republican appointee of Bill Clinton). This prominent group of American directors and / or advisers come from both political parties, from the judiciary, executive branches of government, and law enforcement. All have very high personal net worth, far beyond what could be amassed on typical head of agency or federal judge salaries. If accumulated after Federal service it appears more likely than not it would have come from fees as directors and consultants. Looking at the situation on Saipan, one has to wonder how these people go about vetting the projects they agree to serve; or are they simply selling a facade of legitimacy to the highest bidders?
Either the directors /consultants were clueless or colluded in the evasion of US law and not just in the construction of the casino but also in apparent money laundering. Attention was drawn to the possibility of money laundering when a "temporary casino" opened in a former laundromat in a duty free mall. Known as "Best Sunshine" the temporary casino's VIP tables handled just under $3 billion in March of 2017 which was up from $1.67 billion in February 2017. This was an unheard of amount for a new start up even in Las Vegas. Where did these VIP bets come from? How could all that money be earned on only twenty tables? The mega resort was unfinished and there were few hotel rooms on the island at the time. So far there have been only six arrests and those are related to the labor and immigration law violations associated with the resort / casino construction. Apparently, the money laundering charges are still under investigation and construction on the mega resort /casino continues as does casino operations in temporary facilities continue. Lijie et al remain in charge, if any of the high powered American directors consultants besides former Governor Rendell have resigned we have not found any accounts of it. Indeed what little MSM coverage of these developments that we can find seem to be determined to link Donald Trump to the fiasco because a former employee of Trump Casinos was involved, ignoring that so was a Bill Clinton appointee, or the bipartisan make up of the entire group. Apparently the distance of Siapan from the continental US and the little known details of American soverignity there have lessened the interest of MSM news editors, especially since they can't seem to make a case for blaming the mess on Trump. We feel the still evolving situation on far away Saipan warrants more scrutiny by the American public. The situation is a clear demonstration of how the "Swamp" and the related "Deep State" work and its somewhat bipartisan nature. Could it be that America wasn't wrong in electing a man who was already independently wealthy and with no prior office holding experience to it's highest office? Might Saipan shed some light on why both RINO Republicans and nearly all Democrats are so vehemently opposed to the presidency of Donald Trump? We think the "Swamp" is real and the home of an all too real "Deep State". In this age of the Internet citizens are able to watch developments on Saipan independently of what the MSM puts out , if anything.
The third from last sentence shows DEEP STATE involvement.
ReplyDeleteWe should note Larry posted before our 2/20/2018 update in which we noted exactly that. We agree with his observation but waited until we could post actual names of participants in the Saipan events. We believe the "Swamp" is real and is a product of the "Deep State" but we don't claim anyone is an actual member of, or that an actual formal organization of a "Swamp" or "Deep State" exists. We believe these names refer to a loose confederation of interests by office holders and former officer holders and senior civil servants who are engaged in self interest activities contrary to the public interest and that they communicate across informal lines. We also feel quite certain that the "Swampers" and "Deep State Agents" hate Donald Trump and cooperate across informal lines to undermine his presidency. We feel the Swamp and Deep State are primarily inhabited by Democrats but many RINO Republicans also participate. The entire net work is held together by personal interest and political belief systems that are fundamentally opposed to the American public interest.
ReplyDelete