|
|
Ðóññêèé English
John Hatchet: John Paul Hatchet was born in the port town of Liverpool in December, 1938. By the age of twenty three he became a living legend in the discreet, shadowy world of parallel trading, and persona non-grata in most Western countries, including his native England. In 1993, John moved to Kiev in order to organize a Ukrainian import-export distribution company that became known as Podium Ltd. One year later, he was in charge of a cigarette smuggling empire.
His meteoric rise to success was due to a long-term relationship with JRJ Tobacco. For decades, top executives of JRJ Tobacco employed John in countries notorious for harsh business environments, like Colombia, where the only credible wholesale buyers had emerald and cocaine-derived cash. Later, with John's assistance, JRJ Tobacco dominated its competition all over Asia, from Hong Kong to Bangkok, by offering to the drug lords cigarettes as a legitimate money laundering vehicle for their heroin and prostitution proceeds.
Over the years, this aggressive, yet highly effective market entry strategy proved to be a mutually profitable relationship for all parties involved. By using innocent cigarettes, the world's leading organized gangs could launder profits from white slavery, narcotic sales, weapons trafficking, prostitution and extortion. In exchange, JRJ Tobacco gained world market domination with a lovely side benefit of tax avoidance.
Following the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union, JRJ Tobacco executives correctly predicted that East European organized crime chiefs will soon face similar money laundering needs. To negotiate lucrative deals with a yet another group of slippery outlaws, the company executives once again turned to the most experienced contrabandist in the cigarette business, Mr. John Hatchet, and for good cause.
Just before coming to Kiev, John successfully moved JRJ's cigarettes through the Balkans by making illicit payments to several top-level corrupt government officials, including the President of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic and the former head of the Montenegro's Foreign Investment Agency, Miluin Lalik. That is why John was granted the exclusive rights to move his cigarettes through a quiet, tiny port in Montenegro without paying any customs duty, value added tax, excise tax or other levies.
With one of the world's leading tobacco companies standing firmly behind Podium's business development efforts, JRJ's contraband cigarettes soon became the currency of choice for Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Moldovan money launderers. Even the organized crime families in New York, which already had considerable interests in other East European nations, took notice of Podium's unique monopoly position in Ukraine.
|
|
