» Regenstreich linked to illegal bio-chemical weapon dealing -

Regenstreich linked to illegal bio-chemical weapon dealing - - 16 March 2000

The mystery man behind Mpumalanga’s US$210 million
promissory note deal, international fugitive Moshe Regenstreich, has
been linked to illegal trade in chemical weapons, including deadly
mustard and sarin nerve gas.

Regenstreich, also known by his Israeli family name of Regev, was
blacklisted by the US Congress and State Department in 1995 after his
import/export company, Mainway Ltd (Germany), was linked to the sale of
equipment, material, know-how and technology to Iran for the manufacture
of bio-chemical weapons.

Mustard gas was used extensively in the war between Iran and Iraq,
while sarin gas killed 12 and injured 6000 Tokyo residents in a 1995
terror attack.

The White House branded the sales as a violation of international
regulations against the proliferation of chemical weapons and a direct
threat to regional political stability.

A presidential public notice to Congress on May 18, 1995, said
economic sanctions would therefore be implemented against Austrian
citizens Luciano Moscatelli and Manfred Febler and German citizen
Gerhard Merz.

Companies linked to the three, Mainway International (Hong Kong),
Asianways Ltd and World-Co, were also sanctioned.

The US State Department’s Bureau for Political-Military Affairs
announced the following day in an additional notice that two more
companies, Mainway Ltd and GE-Plan (Austria), would also be sanctioned
because of similar violations.

Germany’s registrar of companies confirms that Mainway Ltd, based in
the town of Bad Homberg, was co-owned by Moshe Regev, his European
attorney Friedrich Georg Mostart and Frans Mikulitis.

Regenstreich told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz from New York late
last year that he also co-owned Mainway International along with Felber
and Moscotelli.

The US State Department believes that Regenstreich and his associates
traded with Iran for up to two years before the scam was exposed, when
Febler was caught in March 1994 trying to illegally purchase gas
detectors for the Iranian chemical weapons programme.

The devises are prescribed on the US list of technologies not to be
transferred to countries such as Iran.

A US Federal court sentenced Febler to 51 months jail for smuggling
and laundering drug money, but he only served 27 months before being
released in 1996 and returned to Austria.

Evidence at Febler’s trial indicated that Regenstreich’s companies
purchased large quantities of the precursor chemicals from China needed
to manufacture both mustard and sarin gas.

Regenstreich, a former munitions captain in an Israeli armoured
brigade, currently travels on at least two Israeli passports under his
Regev/Regenstreich identities and is believed to be living in New York.

He was able to flee there from South Africa in August 1998 at the
height of the promissory note scandal despite an Interpol warrant for
his arrest and a bounty on his head by Swiss police in the Canton of
Berne.

AENS reported last week that Regenstreich has been on the run from
Swiss police since March 1998, after allegedly fleecing local
businessmen of an estimated US$10 million in a series of ‘funny money’,
phony diamond and bankruptcy scams.

He nevertheless managed to enter South Africa, where he bought one of
Marino Chiavelli’s former 30-room palaces in Hyde Park for US$2,1
million while simultaneously setting up a US$115-million gold deal with
Sintex International and masterminding the Mpumalanga Parks Board
promissory note deal.

The MPB deal saw Regenstreich get 19 of the province’s flagship game
parks as “unequivocal” collateral for massive offshore loans. The secret
deal has since been branded illegal by the Reserve Bank, finance
Minister Trevor Manuel and Judge Willem Heath.

Regenstreich also bought up a series of dodgy foreign exchange
brokers through his newly established Fenetic Investments and
participated in a US$15,6 million stolen share certificate scam with
rogue National Intelligence Agency (NIA) operatives.

His affluent lifestyle imploded in late 1998 when Fenetic was
eventually closed down by the Reserve Bank for engaging in international
currency speculation without a forex licence and he was arrested along
with NIA agents Ian Langworthy and Pieter Louw for the share certificate
scam.

The Reserve Bank declined to prosecute for forex violations and
police eventually allowed Regenstreich to leave the country at the
height of the MPB scandal.

The Director of Public Prosecutions also dropped all charges against
Regenstreich in January this year after admitting the State was unable
to prove he or Fenetic’s Zambian financial director, Gregory Mbokomo
were aware the certificates were stolen.

Langworthy continues to insist both in his NIA reports and court
documents however that Regenstreich was the key to the criminal
underworld and used Fenetic to illegally channel crime syndicate money
out of the country.

Regenstreich’s links to the intelligence world are not limited to
South Africa. He told Israeli journalists from his New York hideout that
his involvement in the Iranian deals had been linked to information
gathering for the Israeli secret service, Mossad.

He refused to name his handlers or name the officials who authorised
his actions, and Israel’s Defence Ministry, State Department and Foreign
Affairs Ministry all deny knowing either Regenstreich or his companies.

But Regenstreich’s troubles don’t end with Interpol, the Swiss police
and the US State Department.

A group of as yet unnamed South African businessmen are suing him for
millions in the US in a desperate attempt to recover money they invested
with Fenetic and his other companies, Daxing International, Wordlink and
Prialon (Pty) Ltd.

High-powered Washington DC attorney Joe D’Erasmo confirmed this week
he had already met with Regenstreich in New York to deliver demands and
set out terms for a possible out-of-court settlement.

D’Erasmo was unable to give further details without permission from
his clients and for fear of endangering negotiations. , with additional
reporting from Switzerland by Otto Hostletter / BernerZeitung & from
Israel by Yossi Melman / Ha’aretz

Uganda Rural Community Support USA

Regenstreich linked to illegal bio-chemical weapon dealing - - 16 March 2000