In October 2020 my story ”GOLD’ FINGER – The Theft of NZ Water & the vulnerability of strategic infrastructure on the possibility of Cyber hacks and I explain in it why I believe Waikato was the best place to look for Russian Cyber hackers.

Where my story differs, from what is now being reported, regarding the cyber attack against Waikato health board and private schools including St Peter’s in Cambridge (containing potentially sensitive data on pupils and patients) is that the only Russian spies I find are those who were let into the country by National.

Specifically when John Key (the man running ANZ (named alongside Westpac 60,000 times in the Panama Papers) was PM. Key who has now turned cyber czar (and is in an ideal position to prosper from the so-called Russian cyber hacks) back in 2009 denied New Zealand was a money laundering hub, though at the time we were at risk of being placed on Europe back list for known laundering hubs, said he would have report written and and “look into it”. Though in reality Key did little as it became increasingly clear to the rest of the world that NZ had a money laundering problem because of its notoriously loose nominee registration laws which provided excellent camouflage for tax evasion and money laundering.

The second difference in my story focuses on the fact that bankers for the Russian hackers Fancy Bear Alexander Vinik had hundreds of New Zealand based nominee firms registered in NZ. Including those listed on the Paradise Papers database of suspected money launders and these same firms could be linked to Auckland addresses as far back as 2003 (including those who sparked an alert in 2010). To date not a single journalist has shown interest in the Vinik’s New Zealand company files or the host of dodgy anti Putin Russian spies popping up as business partners to former New Zealand MPs, and with senior level government secured jobs, even though NZ is clearly at the centre of a major hacking operation.

It is also worth noting that the nature of these nominee firms matches exactly what we saw in 2009 when billions were found washed through NZ by Russian Mexican Cartel into US banks, the SP Trading Wachovia transaction which now sit at the heart of the biggest spy scandal, since the Cambridge Five, the Cameron Ortis scandal named after the Canadian intelligence analyst placed in charge of investigating the (Citi Bank owned) Wachovia NZ transactions.

The Ortis affair has seen the USA call NZ “the weakest link” in the US led security alliance Five Eyes. It involves the leaking of information to drug cartels, and its financial transaction includes Key’s old partners Merrill Lynch plus the ANZ for which Key was a director plus the NY branches of Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan. Deutsches, Citibank, JP Morgan, New York have all featured prominently in the New York banking profile of Trump, Clinton & Epstein.

Notably Epstein is credited with designing the Clinton Global Initiative. A controversial charity scheme later outlawed. And it was a scheme which National and Labour poured millions into and any one donating to it here in New Zealand would have benefited directly from Key’s changes to charity tax laws in 2008 (as limits were lifted off how much you could donate and the rebate rose from 2.5 % to 33%).

The means by which the Epstein’s designed Clinton initiative (in terms of its chosen money route into the USA New York Banks), replicate the means by which the cartel routed money from South America to tax havens in the Pacific and then in Europe (favouring Ireland) and finally the USA.

They even intersect with transactions of Uranium One, tied to the Clinton controversies, being shown to have being made at the European Bank Vanuatu by former US special forces officer Tom Bayer the partner of kiwi Geoffrey Thomas of GT Group who in 2009 could be identified as the central player in SP Trading Wachovia (Citibank) scandal. The event would become public after it was triggered when a Russian Antonov Registered to a New Zealand firm was found loaded with arms from North Korea destine for the Middle East.

The Wachovia scandal with it stories of NZ based money laundering out of Vanuatu and Russian planes loaded with arms is nothing short of exact replication of what State Secrets I & II has documented since 1999 but failed to convince national news media this was taking place. At less until the story was printed by overseas media in 2009. Even then national press showed no interest in reviewing how the NZ registration of the Russian Antonov loaded with arms was not a one off or would review the mass of photos which I collected which showed NZ had being dealing with arms dealers fitting this exact profile, who used the Russian Antonov, since 1991.

US Senate investigation into Vanuatu role in money laundering note;

Bayer is member of the Bankers Association of Vanuatu which compromises of ANZ Bank 
(Vanuatu) Ltd. (ANZ), Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac), Banque d’Hawaii 
(Vanuatu) Limited, The National Bank of Vanuatu European Bank Limited. Bayer notes the Bank of New York, exempted ANZ and the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu, "with whom they have direct correspondent banking relations". European Bank is also a trade partner to Citibank with four deposits into European by Citibank between 18 February 1999 and April 1 999 

Vanuatu Maritime Services Limited which holds the contract with the Vanuatu government to. register international vessels. There are over 500 vessels world wide which fly the Vanuatu flag as flags of convenience.

Notably a previous Russian Money laundering probe, which investigative reporter Anthony Hubbard, of the Sunday Star-Times, looked into turned out to be a US intelligence Operation Weasel run by Oliver North out of Nararu. This reportedly was set out (originally) as a means of authorities tracing a suspected leak within the intelligence services and then as Hubbard would be told by his own sources (whose motives were never really determined and disputed by the state) helped North Koreans defect. In hindsight the bank, partnered with Oliver North in this alleged ‘mole hunting’ operation, however proved guilty of assisting the USA’s enemies via its role in arming rogue nations and terrorist groups.

This result is consistent with my own findings as documented in two books, the 1999 bestseller State Secrets and the 2006 self published sequel. These focused on my investigation of the alleged rumours which came out of the Wine Box inquiry into tax evasion of NZ trading Russian guns for butter for oil and along the way would demonstrate how the security forces of the state three to protect us from terror and crime could be linked to the very parties laundering arms and drug profits for cartels terrorists and rogue nations;

My books focused on two things;

1. The links of National MP’s, such as Ross Meurant (author of the Syrian Connection), to Russia tax haven bankers Prok Bank Vanuatu. Prok had being set up in NZ in the early 1990’s by its CEO former Far Eastern NZ Dairy Board executive Ian Robertson (whose firm Vostok Exports deals in Middle eastern Oil, Russian Munitions and NZ Dairy products) and who were aligned with the Russia KGB.

Prok in fact had two former KGB officers of its board of directors Larisa and Victor Shumilov who still work with Meurant in Yemen and other parts of the Middle east and Europe (according to Meurant himself).

How the Iran Contra Crew Put Key in Charge of NZ.

Specifically the fractions who opposed Vladmi Putin’s rise following the 1998 White House rebellion (in Which Putin rose to prominence for backing Borris Yeltsin) and were chiefly aligned with the oligarchs who could be found partnered with former Iran Contra players.

Such as Queenstown resident Ronald Reagan’s former Nationals Security Adviser Ricard V Allen who I would identify as a shareholder in Yukos Oil Russia and who was a long term ally of National.

Allen in fact assisted in the strategy which saw John Key rise to power backed by the likes of former treasury official turned Russian banker Stephen Jennings (and cited in Nicky Hager’s Books hollow Men – which documents Key rise to power) who inturn could be found in 2010 hosted the ‘Clinton Foundation Renaissance Banks ‘Russia and the CIS Going Global’ annual conference in 2010. Jon Schwarz, of the Intercept highlights North’s own record of working with drug cartels.

While Robert Mills journalist of the New York best seller The Under Ground Empire, who was in the eighties embedded with the pre Regan anti narcotic Task Force CENTAC, documents the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena’s by Mexican drug cartels allied to Oliver North while North’s own own diary, used as evidence during the Iran Contra hearings,  reporting the fiction that Camarnea was a drug tafficker and his murder Rafael Caro Quintero a hero.

In reality Quintero was acting under orders from Oliver North, as Quintero set up and ran the arms-for-the-Contras branch of the operation, based at airstrips in El Salvador and Costa Rica, under the protection of US military advisers who were legally based in these nations. Federal authorities are now currently assess new witnesses claims that a DEA official and CIA operative part of North illegal Iran Contra laundering drug trafficking, were behind the death of agent Enrique Camarena’s 1985 murder in Mexico.  

2. My two books focused (and documented with photographic evidence, internationally recognised arms sales watchdog groups and company records) on the extensive presence of Russian Antonov in NZ, similar to the one which sparked the Wachovia affair, which could be linked to western intelligence and could be shown to be arming terrorist and rogue nations often in return for mining or other concessions in which natural resources were swapped for arms.

This included the very aircraft used to transport America Cup yachts from New Zealand since New Zealand became involved in the race as a result of the Wine Box Inquiry chief stars merchant banker Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite.

Today New Zealand’s chief sponsor Team Emirates CEO is the crown prince of the Emirates who alongside Saudi Arabia have been found sponsoring terrorism and genocide. As meanwhile New Zealand can also be found exporting arms to the two nations and the Emirates the core sponsor for NZ cup challenges is a client of Rocket Lab, the firm heavily involved with arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and whose seeding funding can be traced back to Fay Richwhite.

The Wine Box Inquiry whose documents included details for lease hire aviation deals, transaction to banks used by North and his Saudi allies.

In many ways the mystery to what was being laundered through the Wine Box Papers mirrors the funding of New Zealand first major money laundering operation the Gang of 20 which operated in the late 1970’s.

This in the time when Adnan Kasshoggi was establishing Vanuatu as location in which to launder money made from arms sale to the Saudi back Yemen forces according to Anthony Sampson  book Arms Bazar which focus on the dirty deeds of arms dealer Adnan Kashoggi, Regan Natinal Security Adviser Richard V Allen and Lockheed Martin.

According to former Justice Department investigator Keith Petersen, who informed me, while I was writing State Secrets in 1999, he was not clear what the purpose of the money was but it originated from Saudi Arabia.

At the time of the Gang of Twenty, led by John Victor Evans a cohort of National Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s , New Zealand was exporting less than four million dollars in exports to all of the Middle East. By the 1980’s New Zealand was exporting more than 400 million to Iran alone in dairy products.

Such was the volume that the NZ Dairy Board even ran a full page advert congratulating the Ayatollah Khomeni Islamic overthrow of the Shah. An event which later led to the Oliver North Iran Contra scandal sparked by North’s role in helping Iran secure US weapons as it also supplied the right wing mercenaries who were fighting in Nicaragua and the Iranian supported Taliban (who gave birth to the likes of Osama Bin laden with arms and money laundered through Lugano Switzerland). Events which would coincide with TVNZ’s Eye Witness exposing how National MPs, including cabinet Ministers, were part of Project Democracy. Project Democracy was a political action group led by Richard V Allen (who ties to National date back 50 years) to raise funds from it allies and those wanting get out of jail cards to help Reagan fight his secret war with the USSR.

The vehicle used in the 1970s for dairy exports was the Saudi New Zealand Milk Products Ltd.

The Saudi New Zealand Milk Products Ltd also helped serve as the vehicle, which according to OIA documents, was secured by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2006, where more than 80% of the dairy goods imported into Iraq under the failed UN Food For Oil program came from New Zealand.

Such goods were shipped using third parties which also included Vina milk the Vietnam state owned dairy giant. They would be assisted in their task by Russian employee of Ian Robertson Vostock Immigration Ltd who would operate out the New Zealand consulate in Hanoi. Wikileak documents show the New Zealand Government of Labour got involved in the first first Gulf war and the subsequent Food For Oil Program out of fear of not being granted access to a post war Iraq.

According to the Volker report into the failed UN Food For Oil Program, whose account was overseen by New Zealander David Mace (formerly of Ernst & Young Hong Kong and ), twenty three firms, acting as agents for third parties, imported dairy good’s to Iraq. Twenty two of these firms can be identified as subsidiaries of HSA Yemen. HSA is a firm with direct links to Altawa Lugano Switzerland.

MILKING IT

Altaqwa is the Islamic halal banks run by former Neo Nazi Ahmed Huber which US authorities claim financed the 911 attack on the twin towers led by Saudi born terrorist on September 11th 2001.

Other NZ actors of interest involved in Food For Oil asides from Fonterra included;

Reese Engineering who parent firm Kim Seed International (Aust) specialises in seed exports and making secure document safes helped arm Saddam during the Iran Iraq war when the US backed both sides and Iraq received more than a trillion in Aide, paid using the same banks used in the Food For Oil affair. An event known as Iraq Gate which critics blamed the US Minister for Agriculture Clayton Yeutter who later served as Fonterra’s lobbyist in Washington.

Tetra Pak who helped Fonterra repackage their dairy goods and in doing so may have breached the UN embargo laws (while raising the ghost of Powder Gate Fonterra deliberate mispackaging of dairy goods being exported whose motivation no one could ever assess. Tetra Pak’s body guard would later protect the subsequent US investigators of the Food For Oil Program from Ernst & Young the same firm for which the Food For Oil accountant mace worked which cleared Mace of any wrongdoing (surprise surprise), as it blamed the Russians, while in contrast the KMPG investigators, who were reaching an entirely different conclusion, got their investigation closed down after their  investigator was killed in a car bomb.

New Zealand Waste Technology whose director David Appleby was found to be the NZ agent for 1980’s Cook Island’s money launderer Ron Renwald who according Winston Peter’s himself, during the Maori Loans scandal, was handling CIA black market arms transactions and political bribes. At least that’s what Peters was claiming back in the 1980’s when trying to score points against his future coalition partner Labour.

None of this was new or unique in the 1990’s rumours of a gun for butter deal surfaced in the Wine Box Inquiry where Peter seemed to go after tax evaders Fay Richwhite whose can also be revealed as a subsidiary partner with Prok Bank in Wellnet Holdings a mineral dealer dominated by Chinese US based Bao Tao Steel whose kiwi directors included David Mace the UN Food For Oil special envoy.  

Mace also owns a chalet in Queenstown (Macetown is named after his ancetors) at the luxury Millbrook resort which is managed by Richard V Allen’s New Zealand business partner Mike Stone of Gibston Valley Winery. Stone also owns the firm CIA-G who handled the catering for the joint intelligence conference of spy chief in 2002 which followed 911 and is but one of a series conference linked to the US intelligence community and Queenstown’s gate community of former White House VIPS, oil executives and Five Eyes cyber spooks who seem more focused on profit than patriotism. Millbrook originally opened with senior staff from Nugget Point the luxury lodge which the Bush family used to stayed at when they are in Queenstown.

In 2000 Millbrook featured in the official APEC itinerary which saw Bill Clinton meet his Chinese counterpart and play golf at the Queenstown resort. Apec also spotted Money Launder and the ambassador to New Zealand and Australia James Riady who was photographed shaking hands with Bill Clinton. At the time of the handshake Riady, a confirmed Chinese military intelligence asset and tied to the BCCI banking scandal (BCCI was used by the US & Saudi Arabia to arm terrorist group), was wanted in the US for more than 123 illegal campaign contributions. 

In 1998 Millbrook also featured as the place in which former Russian officials, following the White Rebellion which saw Putin come to power, met New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials to discuss debt repayment.

Not long afterwards New Zealand officials claim the well known rumours of NZ being offered guns for butter began as confirmed by former Prime Minister and New Zealand ambassador to the USA Jim Bolger who said NZ had declined the offer.

An explanation which however does not fit with the known timeline for the rumour first surfaced due to the Paul White in 1992 and the so called Citibank disk. In the late 1990’s confirmation that Saudi arms dealer and Iran Contra player Kashoggi had used Citibank for arms deals surface with the collapse of Citibank subsidiary Nomura based in Vanuatu. Peter’s would describes the disk in detail during a parliamentary grilling which is odd as he claimed he never met White. Begging the question if he never met White how could have known what the disks looked like. Peters would also prove central to killing the Food For Oil story here in New Zealand when he lied about their having being a probe into the matter by the SFO and New Zealand Police which would simply be accepted by the national media. However NZ Police media spokesman confirmed to this author no such probe (which follows a complaint by watchdog group International Transparency into how New Zealand’s government was not investigating the affair).

White’s mysterious deaths predates both the Wine Box Inquiry and the Soviet Millbrook conference but coincides with the UN Food For Oil program sparked by the first gulf war and the fleet of Russian Antonov which began operating out of New Zealand and involved Simon Spitz who Russian authorities accuse of running weapons out of Lugarno Switzerland.

It is disturbing to see now so many people involved in the Iran Contra Affair and who have contributed to NZ role as money laundering hub are now accusing Russia of starting a cyber war based on intelligence no stronger than the ‘intelligence’ which triggered the war in Iraq. A war based on intelligence from many of the same people (or their known allies) based on evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction which did not exist.

There is little doubt Russian criminals are involved in cyber hacks.

Yet to date the level of proof which shows those hackers work specifically for Putin’s Moscow has yet to be provided. While in contrast in New Zealand the raw company documentation which identifies those hackers’ New Zealand activity as dating back to 2003 reveals warnings ignored and a system of abuse which our government has not only done little to fix for over fifty years (despite repeated abuse).As its own allies have benefitted from those same loop hold exploited by hacker’s money launders on numerous occasions.

That it comes as the various forces tasked with countering terrorism, narcotics trafficking and black market arms deals, can be found in bed with the very parties promoting such crimes for self profit in relation ships that date back again more than fifty years only add to the reason why we should not be so quick to assume the Russian hackers are Putin cyber foot soldiers.

It is not the intent of this author to suggest or even unwind the claims and counterclaims of these complex affairs, which are based firmly in the smoke and mirror world of espionage, concerning repeated allegations that criminal activity affiliated with the activity of those involved in the murky field of espionage is linked to a mole within the Five Eyes alliance. It is simply to point out why in October 2020 I singled out Waikato as ground zero for coming cyber woes. And this is why I concluded that view point and who and what I was looking at when I wrote Gold Finger back in 2020. A story which to date has been vindicated by global events and the central role New Zealand is now playing in them.