Alisher Usmanov is alive and well = The Caspian oil - The CIA - and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

Wonderful suggestion that Alisher Usmanov buys up the Buffalo Bills by the Central Asian Affairs Fellow at Georgetown University and a Senior Program Officer in the Center for Civil Society and Governance at the Academy for Educational Development... also a fascinating interview with Steve Levine, author of the recent "The Oil and the Glory" ...oil and politics in the Caspian region. interesting information on the interesting Mr James Giffen.(now 64)

Giffen was arrested on 30 March, 2003, in Kennedy airport of New York when he was attempting to board a plane to Kazakhstan. He was carrying a Kazakhstani diplomatic passport, even though dual citizenship is prohibited by Kazakhstani laws.

Brian Williams of ExxonMobil was held responsible in 1996 for the agreement that stipulated his company’s purchase of 25% share in Tengiz oil field. The cost of the contract was more than $1 billion. Williams himself was getting “kick-backs”, which he admitted, and got 46 months of imprisonment in September 2003. He will be released this summer. The oil company itself was not charged.

Giffen's role in how US$80 Mn found it's way from US oilcos to President Nazarbayev and his pals is the subject not only of his prosecution by the US State but also he became the main character of the book by a former CIA agent Robert Bauer “See No Evil” – in which a lightly disguised Giffen is nicknamed “Mr. Kazakhstan”, and all foreign investors pass through his office. Last year George Clooney produced his film “Syriana” based on the book – Giffen’s character is played by Tim Blake Nelson.

Giffen, the owner of a small bank, Mercator with swanky offices on prestigious Lexington Avenue, is accused of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Giffen’s case is the biggest since the establishment of the act in 1977. He faces up to 88 years in prison if he is found guilty on all charges.(Indictment here)

Giffen (whose case is meandering through the legal process) has stopped denying the facts of bribery and says that all this time he was working for the CIA and the State Department and demands declassifying numerous documents from archives.

Those further intersted in Mr Usmanov and the Archangel Diamond Company may like to follow this fascinating line of enquiry...Speculators on the share value of Toronto-listed Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) -- ticker AAD -- thought they knew enough to start buying shares of the company after it reached a year-low of 35 cents (Canadian) on October 31. As the Bloomberg chart shows, on or about November 1, someone started buying, and the share price rocketed upward by 43%: more >>>

.....it is a rule of thumb in the pursuit of Russian malefactors that, if they lose on jurisdiction, and face deposition and trial on the merits, they always pay to settle out of court. On November 1, did someone start buying ADC shares in the belief that Rothschilds has negotiated such a deal with Usmanov and Alekperov?

PS : De Beers board director Sir Chips Keswick is also on the Board of a struggling London football club called Arsenal.