My first encounter with Azima was sometime back in 1987. My co-authors (Mary Fricker and Paul Muolo) and I were researching for our book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans. We were trying to figure out why America's savings and loans were suddenly dropping like flies. When we looked at a small failed bank, Indian Springs State Bank in Kansas City, Mo., we found Azima on it's board of directors. We also found hundreds of thousands of dollars of the bank's money had been loaned to Azima's freight airline, Global International – loans which by then were in default.
What began as a routine probe into just another case of financial shenanigans sparked by thrift deregulation, took a hard right turn into a world swirling with allegations of gun and drug running, illegal Iranian arms shipments and CIA involvement. Azima and his airline were at the center of it all. Nevertheless, we would later learn, Azima seemed to enjoy a kind of prosecutorial forbearance back then that companies like Halliburton and Blackwater Security enjoy today.
As we sorted through the ashes of Indian Springs State Bank we asked the Kansas City federal prosecutor assigned the case, Lloyd Monroe, if he was investigating Azima's activities at the looted bank. He told us he had tried to open an FBI investigation into Azima and Global International, but immediately received a call form FBI headquarters in Washington.
“They told me to forget about it. Azima had a get-out-of-jail-free-card.”
Azima dismisses what continues to be a steady flow of allegations that his airlines (he has more than one, some held under his umbrella corporation, Aviation Leasing Group, ALG.) are or have ever been used for US intelligence operations -- like Reagan's illegal "Iran/Contra" arms shipments. It's his story and to this day, he's sticking to it.
But then there's things like this that keep the curious, curious. When then-CIA director William Webster testified before Congress about the failure of Indian Springs State Bank and Global Internationals involvement, he declined to answer questions about Azima's involvement or the loans to his airline in public session. Inste
ad he testified about in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee (October 25, 1990.)
And then there's the fact that Azima's world seems to be one filled with the kind of strange coincidences that just don't happened to ordinary folk. For example, an SEC search of companies listing Azima as a shareholder and/or officer, shows that Farhad Azima and Huffman Aviation's Wallace J Hilliard, are heavily invested together in the same company, SPATIALIGHT INC.. Hilliard and Azima are major stockholders.. Huffman aviation, you may recall, was the flying school where Mohammad Atta studied.
If your read the chapter linked above, you already know that Azima was not the only colorful character who attached himself to Indian Springs State Bank's vault. There mob money movers out of New York and one of the bank's "business development," executives was a debarred attorney for the Kansas City-based Nick Civella mob family. The whole thing had a Goodfellas aire about it. Just before federal regulators closed in on the bank it's president, William Everett Lemaster, was incinerated in a single car auto accident family members claim was highly suspicious. (Lemaster and another bank executive with ties to Kansas City Civella crime family, also shared positions on Azima's Global Airways Board of advisers.)
In 1983 the Federal Aviation Administration suspended operations of his Global International Airways for safety reasons. Embarrassingly one of its planes carrying TV crews accompanying Reagan to Brazil had made a crash landing. Azima later put Global into bankruptcy. Another of his companies, Buffalo Airways of Waco, Texas, settled a tax lien with the Internal Revenue Service in 2000 and reportedly was fighting with the Justice Department over a $1.4 million bill for cargo service provided to the Pentagon during the Gulf War.
A world in turmoil is a profitable world for the kinds of shadowy, no-questions-asked, airfreight operations like Azima's. (It's no coincidence, after all, that Blackwater has formed it's own, Presidential Airways:
Gunrunning allegations have swirled around Azima and his various airlines since the mid-1980s. Besides swashbuckling tales from former Global pilots of being paid with bags of cash and boxes marked as “cabbages” actually containing mortars, Azima's planes, now under the umbrella of his Aircraft Leasing Group, (ALG) have also showed up in interesting places, leased to interesting people, doing some mighty interesting things. Whatever Azima's airlines are, they are anything but ordinary. Example here...
A public interest website in Belgium, "Clean Ostend," wants shadowy airlines, including Azima's, to stop using the former US Air Force Base:
During the years when Republicans held the White House Azima's campaign contributions flowed largely to Republican candidates and causes. That changed once Bill Clinton became President.
Despite the bankruptcy of Global International Airways, Azima always seemed to have money to spread around. By 1995 Azima was back. He was head of Airline Leasing Group (ALG) with air freight operations and cargo jets scattered around the world. He also seemed to have enough excess cash on hand to grease the palms of whoever in charge at the time. And now it the Democrats and Bill and Hillary Clinton.
What began as a routine probe into just another case of financial shenanigans sparked by thrift deregulation, took a hard right turn into a world swirling with allegations of gun and drug running, illegal Iranian arms shipments and CIA involvement. Azima and his airline were at the center of it all. Nevertheless, we would later learn, Azima seemed to enjoy a kind of prosecutorial forbearance back then that companies like Halliburton and Blackwater Security enjoy today.
As we sorted through the ashes of Indian Springs State Bank we asked the Kansas City federal prosecutor assigned the case, Lloyd Monroe, if he was investigating Azima's activities at the looted bank. He told us he had tried to open an FBI investigation into Azima and Global International, but immediately received a call form FBI headquarters in Washington.
“They told me to forget about it. Azima had a get-out-of-jail-free-card.”
(Rather than drag you through that entire tale here, I suggest -- even encourage -- you to read that chapter from out book reproduced on this page. It will enhance your understanding of what follows -- I guarantee it. --- Don't worry. I'll be here when you return ;-)
Azima dismisses what continues to be a steady flow of allegations that his airlines (he has more than one, some held under his umbrella corporation, Aviation Leasing Group, ALG.) are or have ever been used for US intelligence operations -- like Reagan's illegal "Iran/Contra" arms shipments. It's his story and to this day, he's sticking to it.
But then there's things like this that keep the curious, curious. When then-CIA director William Webster testified before Congress about the failure of Indian Springs State Bank and Global Internationals involvement, he declined to answer questions about Azima's involvement or the loans to his airline in public session. Inste
ad he testified about in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee (October 25, 1990.)And then there's the fact that Azima's world seems to be one filled with the kind of strange coincidences that just don't happened to ordinary folk. For example, an SEC search of companies listing Azima as a shareholder and/or officer, shows that Farhad Azima and Huffman Aviation's Wallace J Hilliard, are heavily invested together in the same company, SPATIALIGHT INC.. Hilliard and Azima are
major stockholders.. Huffman aviation, you may recall, was the flying school where Mohammad Atta studied. If your read the chapter linked above, you already know that Azima was not the only colorful character who attached himself to Indian Springs State Bank's vault. There mob money movers out of New York and one of the bank's "business development," executives was a debarred attorney for the Kansas City-based Nick Civella mob family. The whole thing had a Goodfellas aire about it. Just before federal regulators closed in on the bank it's president, William Everett Lemaster, was incinerated in a single car auto accident family members claim was highly suspicious. (Lemaster and another bank executive with ties to Kansas City Civella crime family, also shared positions on Azima's Global Airways Board of advisers.)
In 1983 the Federal Aviation Administration suspended operations of his Global International Airways for safety reasons. Embarrassingly one of its planes carrying TV crews accompanying Reagan to Brazil had made a crash landing. Azima later put Global into bankruptcy. Another of his companies, Buffalo Airways of Waco, Texas, settled a tax lien with the Internal Revenue Service in 2000 and reportedly was fighting with the Justice
Department over a $1.4 million bill for cargo service provided to the Pentagon during the Gulf War.A world in turmoil is a profitable world for the kinds of shadowy, no-questions-asked, airfreight operations like Azima's. (It's no coincidence, after all, that Blackwater has formed it's own, Presidential Airways:
Wall Street Journal, Sept. 30, 2007-- Even as security contractor Blackwater USA faces scrutiny over its actions in Iraq, the U.S. government is deepening ties to its parent company by awarding an aviation affiliate a contract valued at as much as $92 million to operate a fleet of airplanes on missions throughout Central Asia. ... The four-year contract with Presidential Airways Inc. calls for the company to supply specialized airplanes, crews and equipment for flight operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Presidential Airways is owned by Blackwater's corporate parent, Prince Group LLC.
Gunrunning allegations have swirled around Azima and his various airlines since the mid-1980s. Besides swashbuckling tales from former Global pilots of being paid with bags of cash and boxes marked as “cabbages” actually containing mortars, Azima's planes, now under the umbrella of his Aircraft Leasing Group, (ALG) have also showed up in interesting places, leased to interesting people, doing some mighty
interesting things. Whatever Azima's airlines are, they are anything but ordinary. Example here...A public interest website in Belgium, "Clean Ostend," wants shadowy airlines, including Azima's, to stop using the former US Air Force Base:
"At Ostend Airport, Johnson's Air itself shares since the end of 2003 office, station manager and PO box with HeavyLift, which is part of Christopher Foyle’s airline company Air Foyle, as recounted earlier, known from its two-year business partnership with arms dealer Victor Bout. HeavyLift seems to be the air broker, who organises from Ostend the Johnsons Air flights. However, both companies recently left the Ostend airport after a few adverse publications. ...Johnsons Air was formed in 1995 by Farhad Azima, a native of Iran, resident in the U.S. since the 1950s...At the time of HeavyLift’s shutdown, Azima was its chairman. Reputed as a mayor gunrunner, he is also suspected to have had close ties to the CIA and has been linked to the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal ... Also Race Cargo Airlines (another Azima operation) has for years an office at Ostend Airport and even a full-owned warehouse. (Lots more here --
During the years when Republicans held the White House Azima's campaign contributions flowed largely to Republican candidates and causes. That changed once Bill Clinton became President.
Despite the bankruptcy of Global International Airways, Azima always seemed to have money to spread around. By 1995 Azima was back. He was head of Airline Leasing Group (ALG) with air freight operations and cargo jets scattered around the world. He also seemed to have enough excess cash on hand to grease the palms of whoever in charge at the time. And now it the Democrats and Bill and Hillary Clinton.
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