Free The Armenia Caper by Hunter Blacke Page B
Authors: Hunter Blacke
provided building materials to build apartments and complexes for the locals. Interesting however is that many were badly slapped together and built with poor construction material. The citizens were outraged. Corruption even enveloped tragedy.
A great number of the populace elected to remain in their container homes instead. They enjoyed the independence, and could control their own destiny without subscribing to the rules and regulations of those that built the apartment complexes. In so many cases they could not afford the cost of that accommodation or the upkeep. A dichotomy indeed.
Our concentration is Yerevan. The old guard never were far away. The ugly secret police remained. Dressed in their black leathers and usually with a .45 stuck in the crook of their back obvious to all. The ugly local mafia remained and no doubt both parties worked together in their control of both the city and the country.
The center of their social activity was rumored to be the Tulip Hotel situated on Yerevan’s main drag Abovian Street. A beautiful high end French run property that locals could never afford to really frequent unless families were receiving Diaspora money from overseas on a regular basis.
It did well with the darker elements of the city as well as the local government mandarins. The hotel also gave inspiration as to how the city could recover and commercially move forward.
Further along Abovian, one would come to the huge Soviet replicated Republic Square representing government offices and where the grandiose Marriott Hotel could be found. Oh yes International guests frequented the two top hotels. There were other properties of lesser stature in the city but The Tulip and Marriott held court.
Who supported the best? One was the Diaspora visiting their families, loudly showing off their personal wealth from abroad, real or imagined, embarrassing the locals, and the other were numerous low key international suspect elements. Political and criminal.
Some major Caucasus conferences were beginning to appear in Yerevan. Excellent progress.
Yerevan was, even during the soviet times, a major center for the arms trade, and human trafficking. Dope is right up there as well. Then we had the diamonds.
Chapter 4
New Challenges
Taylor wanted me to go through the documents and familiarize myself with a few local characters doing business in Yerevan. The two I needed to concentrate on were Artem a lawyer by profession, and, an exotic seemingly low key proficient woman named Osanna.
Artem was known to work closely with the Russian embassy and Moscow in general. He traveled frequently back and forth. Artem also worked closely with the US Government and the Canadian Government Volunteer Agencies. He knew his way around everyone that mattered in Yerevan. I believed he had something on everybody.
Osanna worked for one of the favored Russians, an ex-sports figure of some renown, who was a recipient of two factories from the Russians for a few US dollars each. Her role was translator and personal assistant. Pretty much anything to do with the revitalized factories she controlled.
They were highly successful in producing automotive cleaning products, tire wheels, and interior plastics for door panels. With this the group owned an international tourism organization respectfully controlling numerous visitors into and out of Armenia. They knew who came and who went.
My assignment was to ferret out what possible connection these two had to the disappearance of some perfectly cut one carat diamonds and to whom they were destined.
Some diamonds? I re-read the document and it was a satchel of diamonds! Millions of dollars. They were meant as a gift from the Israeli’s to Yerevan city reconstruction. Somehow they evaporated between the cutting house and the designated recipient in government.
Why me? Having done a fair amount of clandestine Intelligence work around the world
A great number of the populace elected to remain in their container homes instead. They enjoyed the independence, and could control their own destiny without subscribing to the rules and regulations of those that built the apartment complexes. In so many cases they could not afford the cost of that accommodation or the upkeep. A dichotomy indeed.
Our concentration is Yerevan. The old guard never were far away. The ugly secret police remained. Dressed in their black leathers and usually with a .45 stuck in the crook of their back obvious to all. The ugly local mafia remained and no doubt both parties worked together in their control of both the city and the country.
The center of their social activity was rumored to be the Tulip Hotel situated on Yerevan’s main drag Abovian Street. A beautiful high end French run property that locals could never afford to really frequent unless families were receiving Diaspora money from overseas on a regular basis.
It did well with the darker elements of the city as well as the local government mandarins. The hotel also gave inspiration as to how the city could recover and commercially move forward.
Further along Abovian, one would come to the huge Soviet replicated Republic Square representing government offices and where the grandiose Marriott Hotel could be found. Oh yes International guests frequented the two top hotels. There were other properties of lesser stature in the city but The Tulip and Marriott held court.
Who supported the best? One was the Diaspora visiting their families, loudly showing off their personal wealth from abroad, real or imagined, embarrassing the locals, and the other were numerous low key international suspect elements. Political and criminal.
Some major Caucasus conferences were beginning to appear in Yerevan. Excellent progress.
Yerevan was, even during the soviet times, a major center for the arms trade, and human trafficking. Dope is right up there as well. Then we had the diamonds.
Chapter 4
New Challenges
Taylor wanted me to go through the documents and familiarize myself with a few local characters doing business in Yerevan. The two I needed to concentrate on were Artem a lawyer by profession, and, an exotic seemingly low key proficient woman named Osanna.
Artem was known to work closely with the Russian embassy and Moscow in general. He traveled frequently back and forth. Artem also worked closely with the US Government and the Canadian Government Volunteer Agencies. He knew his way around everyone that mattered in Yerevan. I believed he had something on everybody.
Osanna worked for one of the favored Russians, an ex-sports figure of some renown, who was a recipient of two factories from the Russians for a few US dollars each. Her role was translator and personal assistant. Pretty much anything to do with the revitalized factories she controlled.
They were highly successful in producing automotive cleaning products, tire wheels, and interior plastics for door panels. With this the group owned an international tourism organization respectfully controlling numerous visitors into and out of Armenia. They knew who came and who went.
My assignment was to ferret out what possible connection these two had to the disappearance of some perfectly cut one carat diamonds and to whom they were destined.
Some diamonds? I re-read the document and it was a satchel of diamonds! Millions of dollars. They were meant as a gift from the Israeli’s to Yerevan city reconstruction. Somehow they evaporated between the cutting house and the designated recipient in government.
Why me? Having done a fair amount of clandestine Intelligence work around the world
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