David Guyatt on WWII Gold

[David Guyatt]

Supporting documents published with Project Hammer Reloaded can be found HERE. I think they should be read if one wishes to get a full sense of the Reloaded story.

Included are a number of documents on the letterhead of Midland Bank Aval Ltd - a wholly owned and highly discrete division of Midland Bank Group International Trade Services, known affectionately by insiders as MIB-GITS - which was a berth for such wonderful figures as Stephan Kock and Sir John Cuckney. These two were the the dog and pony show at MIB-GITS, where Cuckney was the General Manager/Director/Chairman and Kock was a director.

It was a very spooky bank as I have said. For example, during the mid 1980's (1985 I believe?) the Moscow Representative of MIG-GITS was thrown off a high rise building to his death in the streets of Moscow below, a fate that the Financial Times - in part 1 of a planned three-part sensational story about the bank (only part 1 made it to print...) blamed the KGB for responsibility for this very unpleasant death.

Stephan Kock was, in his pre-banker incarnation a former South African SAS soldier and then ran an assassination squad for HM Foreign Office (FCO) and then with MI6. This is set out quite clearly in the book written by the former Chairman of Astra, Gerald James. Astra was the largest private British arms firm of that time. Sir John Cuckney was a former (if there is ever such a thing as former in spookdom?) fixer for MI5. MIB-GITS also housed at least 6 members of British SIS/MI6 on permanent secondment, due to their heavy involvement in weapons financing, particularly Iraq and then Iran during the war between those two Middle Eastern nations. See HERE (I highly recommend one and all to read Gerald's article - it's a stonker)

I don't know all this simply because I read Gerard James book, excellent though it was and is. It is because I was the Treasurer and a director of Midland Bank Aval Ltd. I knew these people - not well, and not all of them, but enough of them. Gerard James and his company Astra were clients of ours. I had also met with Gerard James at his club in London twice to discuss these matters, and remained in contact with him during the research phase of the Project Hammer story. And here is a curious fact. Sir (later Baron) John Cuckney died on 30 October 2008. Stephan Kock died three days earlier on 27 October 2008.

Some years before I even knew about Project Hammer I had been asked to provide background on some of MidAval's arms deal for a British charity. A meeting was arranged at the City of London office of the highly connected law firm where the lawyer I was to meet was, I am sure coincidentally the son of a former Midland Bank director by the surname of Pepper (a former stockbroker btw). During the course of the meeting a man entered without being introduced and sat down opposite me. It was Stephan Kock. The message about a failure of memory seemed evident. To me anyway.



My professional involvement with MidAval was, in fact, the reason Dan Hughes contacted me. Somehow he found out about me being there. He phoned me out of the blue and said he had copies of letters from MidAval Ltd. I told him I didn't believe him and he duly faxed these documents to me. I almost fell off my chair. I had worked daily with Ian Guild the CEO & Chairman of MidAval and Janine Barber, an Executive Director for 13 years - way back before we were taken over by MIB-GITS. I knew the bank letterhead intimately, I recognised the filing codes, I knew Ian's and Janine's signatures and knew these facsimiles were genuinely his, hers and also Andy Freeman's (another Executive Director) handiwork.

Some time after I had left the bank - and in the midst of my Project Hammer Reloaded research I asked to meet Ian Guild for lunch. Afterwards we returned to his office ( he was by that time with Standard & Chartered) and I began placing copies of these MidAval letters in front of him. His first reaction was to say they were fakes. I placed another copy and then another. Even he didn't have the gall to continue to deny their genuineness and admitted he knew about them: "we would've made a lot of money, David" was how he explained it to me.

I then told him that I had been phoned by a senior attorney at the Washington headquarters of the White Shoe law firm, White & Case (very US Treasury) who had read the Project Hammer File and had also been in contact with Dan Hughes lawyer in Washington. He proceeded to brief me about a client he was representing who had been arrested and was in custody for his involvement in a High Yield Trading Programme. He wanted me to speak to Ian Guild and ask him if he would be prepared to speak to this senior attorney as he developed a defence - which was one of the reasons I had asked to meet Ian for lunch. I was unsurprised by Ian's response; in fact it was what I expected. He no more wanted to speak to the attorney than stroke the head of a rattlesnake.



For those who have looked at the Nantucket Holdings papers in the Reloaded document file will see it is addressed to Brian Fitzpatrick, who was the intermediary and brought the Project Hammer deal to Ian Guild in the first instance. And yes, I knew Brian too. In fact he was a member of one of my golf courses. As a matter of fact he seoncoded my membership there. That's the City for you

I would also suggest people read the document image showing a list of secret Ferdinand Marcos bank account. Included is... an account held for White & Case Trust at South East Bank on behalf of Roberto Benedicto, a close crony of Ferdinand Marcos.



When I said above that my old CEO, Ian Guild, was at Satndard & Chartered when I met him for lunch, I neglected to add that he had left MidAval under a cloud and set up for Forfaiting arm of Induez called Indosuez Aval. That venture barely lasted two years before - as I understand it - that company was closed by French authorities for indiscretions Ian declined to tell me about when I asked him. But he did confirm what I already knew, that Standard & Chartered was a sinecure for the Bank of England. It seems he was rescued by the Old Lady and given three days a week as a way of earning his full pension entitlement. Indosuez Bank was where Rolf van Rooyen had chosen to hold a meeting to transact 50 metric tonnes of Dore gold bullion that undoubtedly were ex the Philippines. The Reloaded Cambodia documents show a picture of some Dore bars



Yep, it really is a very, very small world.