Jack Abramoff's partner cops a plea

"Oh boy. That's not a good development for Jack Abramoff," writes Josh Marshall, pointing to this story in the Sun-Sentinel: Jack Abramoff's former business partner Adam Kidan is expected to testify against him in the SunCruz case.

Here's how the SunCruz deal allegedly went down: Abramoff and Kidan wanted to buy the fleet of gambling vessels, but neither had enough money. So, they tried to borrow $147 million from two venture capital firms. The firms wouldn't give them the loan unless the partners kicked in $23 million of their own money.

Abramoff and Kidan didn't have $23 million lying around, and they didn't have good enough credit to get a legitimate loan. So, they found some other lenders who were willing to give them "short-term loans" in exchange for a cut of SunCruz. These loans made the partners look good enough on paper to satisfy the venture capitalists.

Abramoff and Kidan told the venture capitalists that they'd paid SunCruz owner Gus Boulis the $23 million, but they hadn't. Instead, they'd cut a secret deal with Boulis. The partners agreed to pay him most of the money later and to allow him to retain some control over SunCruz through a shell company.

Boulis maintained that he never saw any money. Relations between Kidan and Boulis rapidly soured. The two exchanged lawsuits and threats for several months before Boulis's murder.

Eventually, Kidan got in touch some of his old friends in the mafia. Boulis was gunned down and three of Kidan's associates were charged with the murder. One later testified that Kidan had ordered the hit.

Kidan has never been charged in connection with Boulis's death. So, you can see why he might be especially motivated to cooperate with the feds against Abramoff.

Comments

[Squashed Lemon]

Thse story doesn't even pass for cheap crime novel plot. Jeebus, and abramoff almost take over the government?

It really doens't take much to punk the entire beltway is it?

I would imagine, some future, much brighter gang will learn from this idiots and really take over the government for sure.

[Danika]

I read a comment you wrote asking this guy from a great blog On the Texas justice system and wether the amount of meth seized from meth bust are from Mexico and I thought I'd shed some light. I used do the shit pretty hard. Then in Feburary they changed the law and started limiting the amt of psudoephdrine and now nobody has go a lab cooking nothin! So there has been a lot more "ICE"- well thats what they call it but most of it isn't-going around but if you didn't know better you wouldn't know it. The local newspaper is still full of propaganda about how theres still a large number of meth labs in the area and how horrible the people are who have them. Please. Most people I knew who cooked the stuff a year ago did so to support their own habit b/c they were SICK WITH ADDICTION. Not crazed lunatics who left their babies to play in deadly chemicals and would shoot you if you looked at them funny. The GD press has "the people" thinking all kinds of crazy things about people. So I set up a blog the other day to bitch about it Free 2b Just Me. Thanks Danika

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Thanks, Danika.

I asked that question in the comments of a very interesting thread at Grits for Breakfast about the drug wars on the US/Mexico frontier. The post cited at NYT article that claimed that something like 70% of meth in the USA came through Mexico. I asked whether that stat was credible.

For those of you who aren't GFB fans yet, GFB is an excellent blog about the Texas correctional system.

[Squashed Lemon]

Posted by: Lindsay Beyerstein | December 08, 2005 at 08:12 PM

making meth isn't exactly rocket science. It just doesn't make sense to import and transport it from mexico when any schmo that can lit up a bunser burner can synthesize meth from various pseudo ephedrine. Making meth is highschool chemistry/ '1930's technology. It really doesn't take skill beyond know how to read and use micro balance.

cocaine/heroin, on the otherhand is a natural product. Somebody has to grow it somewhere. (total synthesis is just too expensive)

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

SL, that's the logic that lead me to ask the question. What would be the incentive to import a drug that can be made so cheaply anywhere in the US?

Danika's answer makes sense. There has been a huge crackdown on the precursors to methamphetamine in the US. Mark Kleiman has written a fair bit about the effort on his blog. So, maybe if the precursors are more freely available in Mexico it makes sense to traffic the drug across the border.

Also, cooking meth is the kind of dirty, dangerous work that users might prefer to outsource if the price were right.

[Mnemosyne]

I know that here in California (Los Angeles), you have to buy your Sudafed directly from the pharmacist -- they don't keep it on the shelf anymore. So it may actually have become more cost-effective to smuggle it over the border rather than send your guys to every pharmacy in a 50-mile radius to buy the single box of Sudafed that the pharmacist will give each of them. Contrary to law enforcement myths, I don't think meth makers have these huge armies of helpers -- they're mostly mom-and-pop operations.

[Roxanne]

Forget about Jack Abramoff. Who's the chick with the giant, green deformed penis?

[gordo]

Lindsay--

Your first instinct, availability of precursors, was correct. As Danika points out, the cooks did it to support their addiction. They would have preferred to outsource it, but they didn't have the cash. The low profit margin on meth makes it a bad choice if you're in the business strictly for the money, unless you can put together a gigantic lab. A lab like that wouldn't last long on this side of the border.

While production has been moved to Mexico, there are benefits to keeping Sudafed off of pharmacy shelves. Here in Oregon, production has dropped to near zero, which is saving the state and landlords a lot of money. The cost to rehab a house that was used as a lab averages around $25,000. As for availability, I have a friend who still uses occasionally, and she doesn't seem to have much problem finding it.

[gordo]

As for Kidan, it's not entirely clear that he instigated Boulis' murder. We'll have to wait for the trial to find out, but it's entirely possible that Kidan didn't "eventually" get in touch with his friends in the Mafia--perhaps they were the source of the phantom $23 million and made the decision to murder Boulis on their own. If Kidan was the instigator of the murder, then I have to wonder why prosecutors would let him off with 10 years (less if he continues to cooperate).

[John Stith]

Unfortunately, because of past experience, I have a rather low tolerance of people who use illicit substances. That being said, I would say the Mexican importers have a more efficient operation and have basically a factory environment. I guess the most interesting thing is that so much damage can be done to the production merely by limiting the availability of pseudoephedrine.

As far as Abramoff and the girl with the green penis... I'm not sure how they can explain that relationship.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

The girl is the official pretty lady of Sun Cruz and/or Gus Boulis in drag.

[Squashed Lemon]

~~~Danika's answer makes sense. There has been a huge crackdown on the precursors to methamphetamine in the US. Mark Kleiman has written a fair bit about the effort on his blog. So, maybe if the precursors are more freely available in Mexico it makes sense to traffic the drug across the border. Posted by: Lindsay Beyerstein | December 08, 2005 at 08:34 PM ~~~

If that is so, there should be a noticeable pattern change in use. for eg. crime pattern, annecdote, and reports in local news statistic. It seems all those are observeable stats/crime pattern. (I haven't carefully researched what is the easiets/cheapest way to do synthesis vs. importing from mexico)

~~~Also, cooking meth is the kind of dirty, dangerous work that users might prefer to outsource if the price were right. ~~~

not really. all of its precursor and solvents are easily transportable and no more dangerous than walmart type chemistry (the level of butane tank, high power drain cleaner, etc) They don't need different pressure/temperature storage for eg. Or they don't explode when handled delicately, or kill at low concentration.

It's the type of chemical typically found in highschool chemistry lab (less the ephedrine of course)

we can analyse each ingrediant and steps if you want. Those information are readily available on the net.

Like I say, meth synthesis is very well understood. It's not a complicated chemistry.

[Squashed Lemon]

Side note:

I wonder if somebody has attempted to produce ephedrine using GM bacterium. hah... I bet, those mexican cartel has enough money to tinker with it too.

[Squashed Lemon]

Usefull material (It has timeline, so one can match it with crime stat)

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/DDIL/ephedrine.html

Adverse Effects Before 1994

Several reports of adverse effects in adults of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine appeared in the medical literature in and outside of the United States prior to 1982. These included hypertension, hypotension, drug interactions, cardiovascular disturbances, and psychosis. (12-17) The first report of fatal intracerebral hemorrhage due to ephedrine abuse appeared in a case report in the Annals of Neurology in 1983 which described the case of a 20 year old male with intracerebral hemorrhage and vasculitis. (18)

By 1984, the misuse and abuse of ephedrine-containing products was widely acknowledged. In a 1984 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Paul Pentel wrote "A particularly alarming development of the past few years is the mail-order advertising of OTC stimulants." (19) A year later, in 1985, another case report appeared of non fatal intracerebral hemorrhage following ingestion of a combination drug with ephedrine, phenylpropanolamine, and caffeine. (20)

Notwithstanding these reports, ephedrine preparations were included as generally recognized safe and effective for use as bronchodilators in the final monograph for OTC bronchodilator drug products on October 2, 1986. (21) Between 1986 and 1993, several additional case reports appeared in the literature, including another case of ephedrine-induced cerebral hemorrhage in 1990, (22) and three case reports of ephedrine consumption associated with stroke which appeared in the journal Neurology in 1993. (23)

The 1993 case reports were the result of an investigation initiated in 1991 after a 37 year old male presented with cerebral infarction at the Albuquerque Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The patient had ingested 10 "white-cross" ephedrine tablets daily for weight loss, a dose equivalent to approximately 150 mg/day. A review of records of the New Mexico office of the Medical Investigator 1981 to 1991 revealed a single case of fatal stroke in a 42 year old male who had hypertensive cerebral vasculopathy and a history of taking 10 - 20 white-cross tablets daily (150 - 300 mg/day) for 23 years. On autopsy, evidence of cerebral atherosclerosis, arteriolosclerosis and arteriolonephrosclerosis was found, with blood concentration of 2.7 µg/ml ephedrine.

[Squashed Lemon]

Small cat. of meth synth. up to '98 literature. I am sure somebody think up better way after that too. (I really think some wacko will one day attempt to genetically modified a bacterium to produce meth precursor. It's the only logical step.)

http://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/amphetamine.reduction.html

[Roxanne]

I bet no on has ever seen that woman and Gus in the same room at the same time.