Shower Posse: What About Wall Street Accomplices to the Jamaican Drug Trade?
8th September 2010

Also see: “How the CIA Created Jamaica’s ‘Shower Posse’ (and Sent a Death Squad to Shoot Bob Marley & his Family)”

Columnist says FBI ignored information about involvement in drug business by Wall Street players
By Edward Manfredonia | Black Star News | August 16, 2010

When we talk about the Jamaican drug gangs we can’t act as if U.S. players are not involved in facilitating their drug trade. In the past, I personally forwarded information for the FBI, with no success, to investigate.

Brief background: In past columns, such as “Ex-Wall Street Trader’s Shadow Raises Questions In Canada,” which was published in The Black Star News on November 27, 2007, I detailed the money laundering activities of Robert VanCaneghan, a former member of the Board of the American Stock Exchange.

In “Why Ravitch Should Resign Before Paterson,” which was published on March 3, 2010 I detailed the sexual assaults on African-American women on Wall Street by Richard Monderine, an Amex supervisor, and similar attacks perpetrated by VanCaneghan. In other articles I have discussed involvement in drug smuggling and money laundering by Louis Miceli, a member of the Amex Board.

Arthur Levitt

Throughout each of these articles loomed the constant presence of [Carlyle Group Advisor] Arthur Levitt, former Chairman of the Amex and at that time Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Because investigations were not pursued, or were actually blocked during his reign, drug dealers, money launderers, and rapists at the American Stock Exchange were protected. Levitt wanted no scandal to touch the American Stock Exchange and willingly covered up every crime imaginable at the Amex.

Since the chair of the SEC was set the tone, likewise, the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not pursue an Amex member who laundered money for violent Jamaican Drug Lords. At the time Levitt did not pursue major brokerage firms, such as [Goldman Sachs subsidiary] Spear Leeds and Kellogg, which was involved in laundering money from drug dealers. Spear Leeds also routinely assisted individuals in committing tax fraud by hiding their income. I obtained the information about these illegal activities from Joseph Roffler, a former managing director of Spear Leeds and Kellogg.

The Caribbean nation of Jamaica has been in the news as a result of violent upheavals involving drug gangs battling the Jamaican Police and Army. Over 70 Jamaicans have been killed. The ostensible cause of this battle was the impending extradition of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, whom the United States charged with smuggling cocaine and marijuana into New York and other cities along the Eastern Seaboard. The drug gang which he led is known as the Shower Posse–reputedly rivals were showered with bullets. When I was still on Wall Street there was a member of the American Stock Exchange who admitted to and boasted about laundering drug money for Jamaican drug gangs; possibly The Shower Posse. One of these gangs owned motorcycle rental shops and owned a financial services firm that invested in stocks. The Shower Posse has been linked to the murders of 1,400 African-Americans in the United States.

As I have stated in previous columns, I was once wired by the FBI in 1993 to assist in an investigation of the involvement of the Italian Mafia stock fraud in a company known as PNF, which was introduced at the American Stock Exchange by Miceli and VanCaneghan. These were two members of the Board of the Amex who were laundering drug money from the Cayman Islands via their Amex specialist firm Miceli-VanCaneghan. Miceli was also smuggling cocaine from the Bahamas aboard his private boat, The Jaded Lady. This money laundering was done via a subsidiary of Spear Leeds and Kellogg.

One day, June 3, 1994 precisely, Gene Weissman, an Amex member, and I were walking along West Broadway in Manhattan when we encountered Ken Silverman, an Amex member, whom we knew had encountered financial problems as a trader. Silverman cleared his trades through Spear Leeds and Kellogg. Silverman informed us that he was laundering money for Jamaican drug dealers who were smuggling marijuana into the United States. He had also met with Al Avasso, a front man for the Italian Mafia and had sought to invest in some of Avasso’s pump and dump stock frauds. Silverman said that his Jamaican drug dealing friends had wanted him to invest the proceeds of their illicit activities into the United States. Silverman even boasted about his house in Negril, in Jamaica, which was situated on the water. He said he also dealt in motorcycles and motorcycle parts for his business partners in Jamaica. He said he also owned a motorcycle rental business in Negril.

On June 6, 1994 I wrote to an FBI special agent whom I had already worked with Joseph Yastremski, and provided the information I had obtained from Silverman. Several months later I was stunned when Silverman informed me that he had been given a copy of the letter I had sent to Yastremski by Joel Lovett, Vice Chairman of the American Stock Exchange. The question of how Lovett obtained a copy of what was supposed to be a confidential letter to the FBI is the topic of a future column.

On August 9, 1995 I wrote a letter, certified mail Z 184 431 950, to another FBI Special Agent, Michael Degnan which in part read: “On Monday, August 6, I met a former AMEX member who currently resides in Jamaica. This individual informed me that it is his belief that Silverman is involved in laundering money.”

As far as I could tell there was no action or investigation. Other sources provided information to me about Silverman. So on 7 April 1997 I wrote to the Legal Division of the FBI via certified letter, Z 424 567 292 informing them that I had previously supplied information to special agents, with no results. On 28 April 1997 I once again wrote to the FBI Legal Division via certified mail, P 399 558 454 with additional information.

In a letter to Representative John Dingell, then Chairman of the House Commerce Committee, dated October 17, 1997, certified mail Z 370 911 908, I wrote about my futile attempts to get the FBI to investigate the involvement of Wall Street players in the drug business and money laundering. “Such is the stupidity of the FBI,” I wrote, “permitting fronts for laundered money access to the United States because the Department of Justice wishes to protect the reputations of the American Stock Exchange..” I also wrote that the Justice Department wanted to protect Levitt’s reputation.

On October 26, 1997 I also wrote a letter, certified mail Z 037 468 718 to Senator William Roth about the lack of an investigation by the FBI into the crimes on Wall Street.

I never received a response to any letters. To my knowledge the FBI never investigated Silverman.

Fourteen hundred African-Americans murdered. Jamaicans murdered. We talk about Dudus and 70 Jamaicans died as authorities fought to apprehend him and send him here to trial.

Yet our own investigative authorities ignore those right here in the United States who help facilitate the crimes of the Jamaican drug lords. Does anyone really believe that there would not have been an investigation and that American accomplices –and the Jamaican gang members– would have been busted had the 1,400 dead been White victims?

Manfredonia was a former Wall Street trader who was later blacklisted when he became a whistleblower.

http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/6751/2010-08-16.html

Lyle Courtsal says:

How to bounce back stronger when life KNOCKS you DOWN

What shows your strength and depicts you as a success is your ability to bounce back from setbacks; life is filled with them. Aldous Huxley once said; “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”
I came across some simple coping techniques that will help you get back on your feet and face whatever life throws at you. These tips should help you develop a thick shell that will be able to withstand anything thrown at you – the shell? Think of the tortoise. Here are seven ways to bounce back from anything.
Tip 1: Focus on the positives
No matter how bad a situation may seem, it is always possible to find at least one positive thing about the situation if you really try. Maybe you have gained inner strength and resilience from dealing with a difficult situation, grown closer to a friend through sharing your heartbreak or learned something important about yourself. Try your best to focus on what you have learned and gained from your experience rather than on what you have lost.
Tip 2: Take away the emotion
It is obviously difficult to view disappointments and setbacks in life without feeling some sort of emotion. However, being emotionally involved in a situation can mean that we often build things up into something far worse than they actually are. Rather than getting carried away with your own interpretation of how disastrous things are, try to look at the situation a little more objectively. Ask a friend for their point of view or write down exactly what has happened, simply stating the facts. You may find that the situation is not as bleak as it seems when emotions are taken out of the equation, and remember those emotions will fade with time.
Tip 3: Be your own best friend
We often see ourselves in the worst light, particularly when life isn’t going how we want it to. However, it is important not to be hard on yourself and blame yourself just because something in your life hasn’t worked out. Instead, think about what you would you say to a friend in your situation and show yourself the same love and respect. Remember that a plan or relationship failing doesn’t make you a failure, and even the world’s most beautiful and successful people have faced failure and rejection at some point in their lives.
Tip 4: Get a support system
You may think that dealing with your problems all by yourself is the “grown up” thing to do. However, all of us need support at times, and asking those you love for help is not a sign of weakness. It can help to talk things through and to have someone on your side to make you feel good when life feels too hard, so don’t try to cope with your problems alone. If you don’t have any friends you can, or want to, confide in, it may be worth considering counselling to help you get things off your chest and get you through this difficult time.
Tip 5: Look to the future
It is easy to get caught up in the “what ifs” and “why mes” when things go wrong in life. However, dwelling on your disappointment will not help the situation. As Alexander Graham Bell stated, “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” The situation may not feel great and it may not seem fair, but what has happened has happened, whether you like it or not. Rather than dwelling on what could have been, start planning now where you can go from here.
Tip 6: Form a plan B
Unfortunately in life our plan A doesn’t always work out. Don’t be too spiritual and say you’ve got only one plan and since you’ve told God about it and He has given you a go-ahead, you’d stick to the plan no matter what. Sometimes we have to wait a little longer than we would like for what we want, and sometimes those things just aren’t meant to be at all. However, remember there are many routes to happiness and just because one thing hasn’t worked out that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to take its place. Rather than focusing fixatedly on one life plan, safeguard yourself against disappointment by formulating several backup plans in case plan A fails. By being flexible, prepared to adapt your plans and continually striving towards more than one goal, you will be better equipped to deal with setbacks and to get back on your feet in record time.
Tip 7: Seek happiness
We often think that happiness should be something that comes to us naturally, without any effort on our part. However, very often happiness is a choice, not something that just falls upon us of its own accord. Make a choice to be happy by becoming a positive thinker, surrounding yourself with supportive friends, doing the things that you enjoy and looking after yourself. Even if you don’t feel like smiling or being happy right now, by acting how you want to feel, the feelings will often naturally follow.
Always remember that when you are hardest hit is when you shouldn’t give up.
[realbuzz]

A War For Your Soul-Birmingham version from Erisai Films on Vimeo.

How the CIA Created Jamaica’s ‘Shower Posse’ (and Sent a Death Squad to Shoot Bob Marley & his Family)
4th June 2010

By Chris Burke | AllVoices | Jun 04, 2010

The Jamaican ‘Shower Posse’ has made international headlines recently for inciting rebellion and murder in the streets of Kingston, Jamaica. This international gang situated in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston, Jamaica, is so-named for the gang’s ‘showering’ of bullets on its enemies. Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the gang’s leader, was attempting to escape extradition for several serious felony charges in the United State, for which the Jamaican people refused to abide.

New reports are surfacing around the world reveal that the United States of America is responsible for creating and cultivating this violent gang, the Shower Posse.

The American government’s roll is said to be CIA training, arming and supporting the Shower Posse.

It is interesting to note that “Dudus” was a second generation Shower Posse leader. His father, Lester, was co-founder of the gang before “Dudus” took the reigns following his father’s murder in a jail cell in Kingston.

If Gary Webb’s book, “The Dark Alliance,” is to be believed, US forces had Lester Coke murdered in jail to prevent him from revealing CIA secrets.

Why did the United States CIA empower, weaponise and support the Shower Posse in the 1970s? According to The Dark Alliance, “Norman Descoteaux, the CIA station chief in Jamaica began a destabilization program of the Manley government in late 70s.” Edward Seaga was the then leader of the Jamaican Labour Party in the 1970s. Seaga’s opposition was Michael Manley who had become a problem for the United States when he began to openly criticize American foreign policies and was meeting with U.S. enemy, Fidel Castro, in the 1970s.

During this time, the Cold War Era, the United States resisted an alliance between Jamaica and Cuba. As such, the United States weaponised Seaga’s body guards to take out the Manley “communists”. This act began the decades long streak of violence and drug trafficking of the now notoroius Shower Posse.

This grooming by the United States made the Shower Posse more powerful than the politicians that they served at the behest of the United States. The Shower Posse has been creating a climate of fear and intimidation in Jamaica ever since.

http://newsone.com/world/casey-gane-mccalla/how-the-cia-created-the-jamaican-shower-posse/

How The CIA Created The Jamaican Shower Posse

By Casey Gane-McCalla | NewsOne | June 3, 2010

With the recent violence in Jamaica and the controversy over alleged drug lord, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, many people are talking about the infamous Jamaican Shower Posse and the neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, where they have their base. What is being ignored largely by the media is the role that the American government and the CIA had in training, arming and giving power to the Shower Posse.

It is interesting that the USA is indicting Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the current leader of the Shower Posse for drug and gun trafficking, given that the CIA was accused of smuggling guns into Jamaica and facilitating the cocaine trade from Jamaica to America in the 70s and 80s. In many ways Dudus was only carrying on a tradition of political corruption, drug running, guns and violence that was started with the help of the CIA.

Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father was was Lester Coke, also known as Jim Brown, one of the founders of the Shower Posse and a fellow champion and protector of the impoverished Tivoli Gardens neighborhood in Kingston. Coke was a political enforcer and bodyguard to Edward Seaga, the leader of the Jamaican Labour Party.

Seaga’s opponent Michael Manley had begun to adopt “socialist” stances and began openly criticizing American foreign policies and meeting with U.S. enemy, Fidel Castro, in the 1970s. Given the cold war the US was having with Russia, the CIA did not want Jamaica to be friendly with communists.

According to Gary Webb’s book,”The Dark Alliance,” Norman Descoteaux, the CIA station chief in Jamaica began a destabilization program of the Manley government in late 70s. Part of that plan was assassinations, money for the Jamaican Labour Party, labor unrest, bribery and shipping weapons to Manley’s opponents, like Lester “Jim Brown” Coke.

Author, Daurius Figueira writes in his book, “Cocaine And Heroin Trafficking In The Caribbean,” “In fact, it meant that illicit drug runners linked to the JLP were integrated into a CIA linked illicit drugs guns and criminal trafficking pipeline.”

Former CIA agent, Philip Agee, said “the CIA was using the JLP as its instrument in the campaign against the Michael Manley government, I’d say most of the violence was coming from the JLP, and behind them was the CIA in terms of getting weapons in and getting money in.”

One of Lester Coke’s associates, Cecil Connor, would claim that he was trained by the CIA to fight political wars for the JLP through killing and spying. Connor would stuff ballot boxes and intimidate voters to help the JLP win elections. Connor would go on from being a political thug to being part of the international Jamaican based cocaine ring known as the Shower Posse. He wound up testifying against Lester Coke and his cohort Vivian Blake, only to return to his native St. Kitts to become a drug kingpin who almost held the country hostage.

Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father, Lester Coke has also been accused of working with the CIA. Timothy White speculates, in his biography of Bob Marley, “Catch A Fire,” that Jim Brown was part of a team of armed gunman that attempted to assassinate Bob Marley led by JLP enforcer Carl “Byah” Mitchell. Authors Laurie Gunst and Vivien Goldman also make the same assertions in their books, “Born Fi Dead” and “The Book Of Exodus.” Marley’s manager Don Taylor claims that one of Marley’s attackers was captured and admitted that the CIA had agreed to pay him in cocaine and guns to kill Marley.
Lester Coke would later be burned to death in a Jamaican jail cell, while awaiting extradition to the United States. Many people have claimed that he was killed so he wouldn’t reveal his secrets dealing with the CIA, JLP and criminal activity.

In its efforts to destabilize the Jamaican government in the 1970s, the CIA created a group of drug dealing, gun running, political criminals. Through the cocaine trade, these criminals would eventually become more powerful than the politicians they were connected to. The CIA destabilization program did not only destabilize Jamaica in the 70s, but it destabilized Jamaica for the next 40 years.

Given the secrecy of both CIA and Jamaican society, it is unclear exactly what was the CIA’s role in creating the Shower Posse. Did they give them guns? Were they given cocaine? Were they trained how to smuggle drugs? Did the CIA use the Shower Posse to try and kill Bob Marley? These are all questions that the CIA should answer.

If what is alleged about the CIA is true, then they are partially responsible for the cycle of gun trafficking, gun smuggling and violence that plagues Jamaica today. If the US can extradite the son of one of the CIA’s political enforcers for trafficking guns and cocaine, shouldn’t the CIA be investigated for training Jamaicans on how to conduct political warfare, arming them, giving them cocaine and helping them traffic it? Given the revelation that the CIA allowed Nicaraguan drug dealers to sell cocaine in the US to fund their revolution against their communist government, it is not that far fetched to believe that they would arm Jamaicans to with guns and give them cocaine to fight communists in Jamaica.

http://newsone.com/world/casey-gane-mccalla/how-the-cia-created-the-jamaican-shower-posse/