NEWS: Maugein's Rich Connections: All Roads Lead to Nigeria

Patrick Maugein has been described as "a crony and financial supporter of Jacque Chirac". He is currently the President and Chairman of SOCO International. SOCO International's company profile states:

"SOCO International plc is an international oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in London and listed on the London Stock Exchange. Although the Company has designated core areas in the Far East / Southeast Asia and Middle East / North Africa regions..."


Maugein's Rich Connection and All Roads Lead to Nigeria

Maugein is listed on Saddam's voucher list as receiving a substantial number of vouchers for Iraqi oil. "Maugein, individually and through companies connected to him, received contracts for some 36 million barrels."(4) Jacque Chirac's office was approached on the subject of Maugein's voucher receipts and "Chirac's office said it was unaware of Maugein's deals, which Maugein told ABCNEWS are perfectly legal." It is important to note that Maugein has not denied dealings with Saddam. Maugein's name appears on the list connected with a company called Trafigura. Trafigura profiles itself as "one of the largest independent commodity trading companies in the world". It was established in 1993 - right in the heart of the oil for food program, and is headquartered in Switzerland. Maugein has denied ever having a position with Trafigura but admits personal connections with the founders of the company.

(Patrick Maugein pictured on left)

It has also been alleged that he was recipient to some or all of the 47.2 million barrels worth of vouchers received by a company named Ibex on Saddam's list. Again, Maugein has denied having an official position with Ibex Energy, but as in the case of Trafigura admits a personal connection with the principals of the company. If the connections to Trafigura and Ibex prove out for Maugein, he could have received as much as 72.2 million barrels of oil in the Oil for Food program. But Maugein's role in the oil-for-food program may turn out to be more important because of his connections to others of greater importance in this scandal and not so much what from his own personal gains.

One of Maugein's more famous moments came when he assisted the U.S. fugitive, Marc Rich in obtaining his Swiss citizenship. Maugein worked as an oil trader in Switzerland with Marc Rich who would go on to found Glencore. Marc Rich's last minute pardon by Clinton, which absolved him from over $48 million dollars in tax evasion and charges of racketeering and trading with Iran during the U.S. hostage crisis, not only raised contentions at the time it occurred, but has continued to baffle watchers since. Primarily because of the eye-raising timeliness of the pardon coming after Marc Rich's ex-wife donated over $400,000 to his presidential library fund, and over $1 million to the Democratic party. Included in the phone calls reported to have been placed to Clinton in support of pardoning Marc Rich were the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Spain's King Juan Carlos.

Marc Rich

One of the largest purchasers of the Iraqi oil was Glencore, headquartered in Zug, Switzerland. The owner of Glencore, Marc Rich, is alleged to have paid over $3.2 million in kickbacks to the Iraqi government as part of these deals. It is alleged that the kickbacks were transferred to the Iraqi government via bank accounts in Jordan and Lebanon where "Oil Ministry employees" withdrew around $2 billion dollars and hand-delivered to Baghdad.


In March 2001, which would have been shortly after Rich's pardon, authorities in the U.K. were reported to have confiscated $1.9 million at Gatwick airport from a courier acting on Rich's behalf. Though the intended destination of the monies confiscated has not been established, the courier was flying out of Europe. This was not the first time Marc Rich had left a large sum of money in Gatwick. In 1986, shortly after fleeing the U.S. to escape prosecution, Rich had abandoned three checks totalling $1.6 million in a phone booth after an anti-terrorism exercise had apparently spooked him.

And guess where Marc Rich has been playing with the oil industry? Africa...more specifically Nigeria. In an article published by USAfrica online Marc Rich is described as the "kingpin" in the scandalous exploitations of the Nigerian oil market. The article states:

"Third, our community and readers should know about the millions of unpaid royalties and misleading declarations he made in the Nigerian oil and gas business through his numerous deals with soldier-businessmen-politicans who ran Nigeria into an economic stupor."

"According to official announcements of oil sales and reporting by the London-based oil newsletter Energy Compass, Nigeria's main trading partners in the Abacha era have been the London-based firms Arcadia and Addax, and the Swiss-based company Glencore, which was under the control of Marc Rich, an American commodities dealer."

It is worth noting the connection that has now been made between Maugein, Rich, ADDAX and the Oil for Food Program. That connection would be the African oil industry in general, and the raping of the Nigerian oil industry specifically. And the circle completes itself when one takes into account that Trafigura, the Dutch-based oil-trading company through which Maugein has been alleged to have received a large sum of Iraqi oil vouchers, has been implicated in a South African oil bribery scandal.

In a recent New York Post article it was reported that investigators now believe Marc Rich, along with a New York oil trader Ben Pollner, were actually the middle men for many of Saddam's oil-for-food deals. These two men, it is alleged, acted as the brokers for these deals and found buyers for lots of Iraqi oil. The article goes on to report that recently released Iraqi Oil Ministry documents again implicate Maugein as receiving more than 72 million barrels of oil vouchers.

In a recent Washington Times article it was revealed that a federal grandy jury investigation is delving into the role played by Marc Rich in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal. Hopefully the investigations taking place into the O.F.P. scandal will reveal all of the hideous secrets that at times briefly reveal themselves when reviewing the players. It is conjectured that possibly the greatest scandal of this dirty business is that while the Iraqi people were being denied basic human necessities due to Saddam's thievery of their country's oil revenues, the foreign oil-traders such as ADDAX, Glencore, Trafigura and Ibex, along with the individuals attached to those companies, Gandur, Maugein and Rich to name a few, were taking the large profits made from stealing the Iraqi people's oil, and using them to fund the rape of the Nigerian people of their wealth via the exploitation of their oil industry.

References

1. SOCO Chairman & CEO Statement
2. SOCO Company Profile
3. Trafigura
4. Saddam's Gifts
5. Ibex
6. Documents Prove U.N. Oil Corruption
7. Report revives Clinton pardon flap
8. U.N. Official Implicated in Iraq Scam
9. UK twist in Marc Rich saga
10. Marc Rich's �1m cash seized at Gatwick
11. Investigating Marc Rich and his deals with Nigeria's Oil
12. ADDAX
13. Goldstone Wades Into Iraq Oil Slick
14. CITY, FED PROBES EYE PARDONGATE BILLIONAIRE AS A 'MAJOR PLAYER' IN SADDAM'S SCAM
15. Grand jury probes Rich-Saddam link

NOTE: Special thanks to John bull 1 for his assistance in this research.


[edit on 12-18-2004 by Zion Mainframe]