Nathan Jacobson, businessman with Conservative ties, succeeds in ...
... guilty plea for money laundering in connection with an online pharmacy. ... military and went on to make millions in Iraq, Russia and Israel
Arms deal or money-laundering?
If it is money-laundering, who is doing the money laundering is not yet .... I do not consider it wise for Nigeria to engage an Israeli in an arms ...
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/20/canadian-businessman-nathan-jacobsons-money-laundering-case-mysteriously-dropped-by-u-s-but-many-questions-remain/
Canadian businessman Nathan Jacobson’s money laundering case dropped by U.S., but many questions remain
There remain certain questions, foremost among them: Why would an innocent man confess to money laundering?..............
Brian Hutchinson | September 20, 2014
Peter J. Thompson/National PostCanadian Nathan Jacobson at his Toronto office after returning home from the U.S., where, on Monday, his 2008 guilty plea to a money-laundering charge was withdrawn and he was released. Jacobson has retracted allegations against his lawyer.
Nathan Jacobson insists he’s “just a simple kid from Winnipeg.” But nothing about him is simple. A citizen of both Canada and Israel, he’s been to many dark places — the former Soviet Union, Libya, Iraq — in pursuit of business opportunities, and, he says, matters of national security. He says he’s worked for years with senior intelligence officials from various agencies around the world, on “counter-terror and covert activities.”
He claims to have close relations with leaders from the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency.
He says he is friends with two of Canada’s most powerful cabinet ministers, Jason Kenney and John Baird, whom Mr. Jacobson affectionately refers to as “Rusty.” Mr. Jacobson says he has hosted the two Conservatives on trips to Israel, where he has taught them to fire automatic weapons — Uzis, Kalashnikovs, Glocks — on military and private shooting ranges. Mr. Jacobson has a large collection of firearms.
Peter J. Thompson/NPThis photo of Nathan Jacobson hangs in his Toronto office.
(A spokesman for Mr. Baird says that while the minister has met with Mr. Jacobson in Jerusalem, he has never fired a gun in Israel. Mr. Kenney’s office did not respond to the gun-shooting question.)
Mr. Jacobson’s ties to the federal Conservatives were once so strong, he said in an interview Thursday, that a pair of cabinet ministers — whom he would not name — suggested he could be Canadian ambassador to Israel, if he wanted. He says he was encouraged to run for Parliament, as a Conservative candidate.
But that was before his legal problems were aired in public.
In October 2010, Mr. Jacobson flew to Nassau, Bahamas, for a secret meeting with U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials. He was in trouble, and it threatened his livelihood, his reputation and his standing in political circles, in Canada and abroad.
Very quietly, two years earlier, he had pleaded guilty in United States District Court to one count of money laundering related to the illegal sale of pharmaceuticals via the Internet. Mr. Jacobson’s involvement was limited to the processing of payments.
His guilty plea had remained sealed and Mr. Jacobson had not been sentenced. His secret trip to Nassau and the meeting with DOJ officials was an effort to negotiate a light sentence and discuss a possible charge reduction, perhaps to a simple misdemeanour.
According to court documents, Mr. Jacobson claimed to have damaging information about Israeli bank executives with ties to organized crime. He would try to use it as leverage at the Nassau meeting. He wanted to avoid prison.
Sitting beside him on the October 2010 flight from Toronto was his Canadian lawyer, Steven Skurka.
The Nassau mission failed. Mr. Jacobson did not avoid incarceration. A series of extraordinary events, coupled with his strange behaviour and an ill-timed business trip to Myanmar that made him a fugitive, landed him in even deeper trouble. It cost him his freedom and millions of dollars in legal fees and administrative forfeiture. In the process, he and Mr. Skurka became enemies.
Peter J. Thompson/National PostA photo of Nathan Jacobson with Stephen Harper and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, which hangs in Jacobson's office. Jacobson says that a pair of Conservative cabinet ministers suggested he could be Canada's ambassador to Israel, if he wanted.
But this week, more than six years after confessing in U.S. court to money laundering, Mr. Jacobson returned to Canada, completely exonerated. A U.S. District Court judge in San Diego on Monday granted his motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which lawyers say is exceedingly rare and remarkable. What’s more, the U.S. government agreed to drop the entire matter. Mr. Jacobson is accused of nothing.
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There remain certain questions, foremost among them: Why would an innocent man confess to money laundering?..............
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