THE SPYMASTER OF MONTE CARLO: 6) ENTER THE FBI & THE CIA
A Throwback Thursday Memoir of Intrigue & Lunacy
December 15th, 2002, Monaco
Inside Hotel Columbus, my deputy and I briefed Prince Albert on the Ming Sting.
But of paramount concern to the Prince this chilly autumn day was Alexey Fedorichev. A decision had to be made within days over whether or not to allow this Russian to invest in Monaco’s football team.
We had determined, through various levels of sourcing, that Fedorichev was of dubious character; that his Monaco-based company, Fedcominvest, allegedly engaged in money laundering, especially with regard to its dealings with a company called Astrahangasprom.
In addition, both the Italians and the French intelligence services believed that Fedorichev linked to the Red Mafia.
We also understood Fedorichev had cultivated a personal relationship with Stephane Valeri, who held Monaco’s highest elective office as President of the Conseil Nationale (General Assembly), and that Fedorichev had allegedly used Valeri in illegal business transactions.
On December 19th, the Palace announced Fedorichev’s disqualification from investing in ASM football.
I have to admit a certain pride for contributing to this stance, which the world’s media misinterpreted as having come from Prince Rainier.
We knew that Prince Albert, personally, made this decision based on our findings.
We were rolling.
Our intelligence service, created from scratch on a shoestring, now provided the prince with significant intelligence upon which he was making well-informed, prudent decisions.
A month later, Albert found me by phone in St-Remy, Provence.
“I’m near the asylum, looking for Van Gogh’s ear,” I told him.
“You’ve already got mine,” he replied.
When I drove into Monaco from Arles on Sunday morning the 19th of January (2003), I looked disheveled in a gritty rental car, so an officious female police officer manning the border waved at me to pull over.
“Identity, car papers,” she demanded. Then following she expected to be a grilling: “Why do you come to Monaco?”
“I have a rendezvous with Prince Albert,” I said.
“Le Prince Hereditaire?” She looked at scruffy me like I was nuts.
“Oui.”
She whispered into her two-way radio, waited about a minute, listened, handed back my passport and rental agreement. “I’m sorry. I was just doing my job.”
I shrugged. “No worries.”
The prince arrived an hour late at his buddy Mike Powers’ office in Palais de la Scala, a Monte Carlo office building.
Albert hooted in appreciation of a photo I had taken of MING at Lucky’s, and we agreed that I should request a meeting for him with FBI Director Robert Mueller.
So, the following month, when I conveyed my Ming findings to the the FBI’s two top counterintelligence officials in Washington, D.C., I also set the groundwork for Prince Albert to meet FBI Director Robert Mueller III.
When I returned to Monaco to confirm this arrangement, the prince informed me that Samy Maroun, the shady Lebanese businessman resident in Monaco complicit in oil embargo-busting, had again attempted to introduce him to his associate Patric Maugein and, again, he had declined, having decided such a meeting (based on our recommendation) “will not happen.”
This was excellent news as both CIA and MI6 were, by this time, all over Maugein and the role he played as bagman between Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein.
On April 25th, the prince flew into Washington-Reagan Airport on his father’s new Falcon 2000 jet, an 8.5-hour flight that required a refueling stop in Gander.
We rendezvoused at The Willard Hotel in advance of his scheduled meeting with Director Mueller, for which I provided talking points:
1) The prince will one day reign as Sovereign of Monaco;
2) The prince is concerned about organized crime and money laundering in Monaco, especially as it pertains to Russians;
3) The prince would welcome FBI cooperation.
Mueller, known (unaffectionately) among Washington insiders as “Bobby Three Sticks” for his proclivity to use III after his name, was apparently stressed out from inheriting an organization fraught with problems, still reeling from a Chinese spy scandal involving an FBI agent, and the recent departure of senior officials.
The plan had been for me to attend this meeting with the prince, but at the last moment Tim Bereznay, who collected us from The Willard, turned to me outside the director’s office and said, “Just the prince, unless he asks that you join him.”
The FBI had obviously planned it this way, for when the prince requested my presence (as he recounted to me later) in reference to a question posed by Director Mueller about Russian espionage—the meeting abruptly ended.
Just the kind of cut Clair George had warned me to watch for.
Back at his suite in The Willard, Albert apologized about my not getting into the meeting.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s not about me—it’s about making this work for you.”
“Yes sir, Doctor Eringer,” replied the Prince. “Whatever you say.”
An hour later, I introduced Albert to two staff members of the House Intelligence Committee.
Jay J and Patrick M worked for the committee’s chairman, Porter Goss, widely regarded as the man who everyone expected would (and did) succeed George Tenet as Director of Central Intelligence.
At 7:30 that evening, the prince and I taxied to Taverna Del Alabardero, a Spanish restaurant on Eye Street for a dinner hosted by MI6 station chief Ian M to introduce us to senior officials from CIA, including Tyler Drumheller, the corpulent European Division chief.
Much to the dismay of CIA, Albert improperly invited his friends Mike Powers and Maurice Wyatt to join us in a private dining room.
Later, when the Agency ran checks on these unexpected guests, they were aghast to discover that Wyatt had spent a year in prison for his role as bagman to Maryland’s corrupt ex-governor, Marvin Mandel.
At ten o'clock, the prince and his two chums toddled off to visit a striptease club in Baltimore owned by his ex-con friend.
I remained behind to cement our relationship with CIA.