Justin Arenstein
The mystery man behind Mpumalanga’s R1,3- billion 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 United States Congress and State Department in 1995 after his import/export company, Mainway Limited (Germany), was linked to the sale of equipment, material, know-how and technology to Iran for the manufacture of chemical weapons.
Mustard gas was used extensively in the war between Iran and Iraq, while sarin gas killed 12 and injured 6E000 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 Limited 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 Limited and GE-Plan (Austria), would also be sanctioned because of similar violations.
Germany’s registrar of companies confirms that Mainway Limited, 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 Febler and Moscatelli.
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.
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 returning to Austria.
Evidence at Febler’s trial indicated that Regenstreich’s companies purchased large quantities of 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 $10-million in “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 R13-million while simultaneously setting up a $115-million gold deal with Sintex International and masterminding the Mpumalanga Parks Board promissory note deal.
The parks board 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, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel and Judge Willem Heath.
Regenstreich also bought several dubious foreign exchange brokers through his newly established Fenetic Investments and participated in a R93,8-million stolen share certificate scam with rogue National Intelligence Agency (NIA) operatives.
His affluent lifestyle imploded in late 1998 when Fenetic was 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 parks board 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 (Propriety) Limited.
High-power 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. – Additional reporting in Switzerland by Otto Hostletter/ Berner Zeitung and in Israel by Yossi Melman/ Ha’aretz