Swissco Management Group

Swissco Management Group, Inc. was a Florida corporation with an address in Miami Lakes, filed in 1984, and one of eight defendants named in the twenty-one count indictment returned in Miami on May 26, 1993, with Carlos Cardoen and Industrias Cardoen, over zirconium exported to Chile. The Department of Commerce recorded its conviction in the Southern District of Florida on August 7, 1995. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence described it in 1991 as a subsidiary of Cardoen Industries and as the firm for which James D. Theberge consulted while he sat on the CIA Senior Review Panel.¹²³⁴

Florida registration and name history

The Florida Division of Corporations record for document number H19133 shows a profit corporation filed August 31, 1984 (effective August 29, 1984) as Swissco Investing, Inc. An amendment dated October 3, 1984 changed the name to Swissco Management Group, Inc. A second amendment dated October 5, 1990 changed it to Westfield Holdings, Inc. The corporation was administratively dissolved for failure to file an annual report on October 11, 1991. Annual reports for 1988, 1989 and 1990 are on the record.⁵

The principal and mailing address on the record is 15485 Eagle Nest Lane, #210, Miami Lakes, from July 1, 1985. The registered agent is Abbey Kaplan, Esq., at 1428 Brickell Avenue, Suite 800, Miami, from August 18, 1986. The officer detail lists Augusto Giangrandi as president (PDT) and Jorge Ondarza as VS, each at the Eagle Nest Lane address.⁵

Related Swissco entities in the Florida registry

Swissco Leasing, Inc. (document M24568) was filed December 12, 1985 at the same Eagle Nest Lane address, with Giangrandi as president (PDT) and Anthony Mijares Jr. as vice president (VP), the same registered agent, and a voluntary dissolution filed October 5, 1990, the date of the Westfield Holdings name change.⁶ Swissco Corporate Centre, Ltd. (document A28561), a limited partnership filed June 22, 1989 at 7975 N.W. 154 Street, #400, Miami Lakes, lists Swissco Corporate Centre, Inc. as general partner and Kaplan, of the law firm Kluger, Peretz, Kaplan & Berlin, P.A., as registered agent; it was revoked for failure to file an annual report on April 2, 1993.⁷ The officer searches also return Swissco Corporate Centre, Inc. (L02937) for Mijares, Swissco Yachting, Inc. (M35237) for Giangrandi, Swissco Charter Company, Inc. (M85686) for Ondarza, and a corporation named Soliberts Properties for both Giangrandi (Soliberts Properties, N.V., P10779) and Ondarza (Soliberts Properties, Inc., M83864).⁸

Customs seizure and civil suit, 1991 to 1992

Justin Hibbard wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine in 2003 that agents investigating a helicopter shipped from Texas to Industrias Cardoen found it belonged to "Cardoen's Miami company, Swissco," that export records showed Swissco and a company in Albany, Oregon, called Teledyne had shipped more than 130 tons of zirconium to Industrias Cardoen in five years, and that the export license applications said the material was for "mining operations." He wrote that customs agents seized Swissco's helicopter at the Dallas airport on March 27, 1991, and that on April 6, 1992 the Commerce Department and the U.S. Customs Service announced in Miami a civil suit against Swissco in federal district court, through which the government sought to seize 30 million dollars in real estate that Swissco had bought with the proceeds of Iraqi payments.⁹

Hibbard also wrote that in August 1986 Cardoen helped organize a fund-raiser for U.S. Senator Bob Graham at the Miami home of the Swissco executive Anthony Mijares, which raised about 50,000 dollars for Graham's 1986 campaign.⁹

Federal convictions and export denial

The Commerce order denying export privileges, dated September 11, 1995 and published September 21, 1995, states that on August 7, 1995 Swissco "was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida of violating the Export Administration Act of 1979, as amended," among other crimes, and that "Swissco was convicted on one count of exporting zirconium from the United States to Chile in violation of the terms of a U.S. Department of Commerce export license." The order denied the company permission to apply for or use any export license for ten years, until August 7, 2005, and revoked every outstanding validated license in which it had an interest. It gives the company's address as 15485 Eagle Nest Lane, #210, Miami Lakes, Florida 33014.¹

On June 12, 1996 the State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls published a statutory debarment notice under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Entry 3 lists "Swissco Management Group. Inc., 15485 Eagle Nest Lane, #210, Miami Lakes, FL 33014," for 18 U.S.C. 371 (conspiracy to violate 22 U.S.C. 2778), August 7, 1995, in "United States v. Teledyne Industries, et al.," criminal docket 93-241-CR-Highsmith, and debars the listed persons for three years following conviction.²

A Commerce order of the same date denied export privileges to Edward A. Johnson, after his conviction on one count of causing the export of ordnance grade zirconium from the United States to Chile without the required license or written approval from the State Department.¹⁰ The solicitor general's brief in his appeal states that he was sentenced to 41 months' imprisonment and a 25,000 dollar fine.¹¹ Hibbard wrote that Johnson was sentenced on August 7, 1995, that he "was the only person convicted in the case," and that Teledyne pleaded guilty in January 1995 and paid 13 million dollars in fines.⁹ Teledyne Wah Chang Albany pleaded guilty on January 26, 1995 to conspiring to violate and violating the Arms Export Control Act in the same case.¹²

The 1993 indictment and the court record

The grand jury returned a twenty-one count indictment on May 26, 1993. Count I charged conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. section 371 against Cardoen, Industrias Cardoen Limitada (INCAR), Swissco, Johnson and Teledyne. The defendants who had not appeared before the court were Carlos Cardoen, Franco Saffa, Jorge Burr, INCAR and Swissco. The court's order describes the charges as arising from the exportation of zirconium and fuze components to Chile, which were allegedly destined for the manufacture of cluster bombs later sold to Iraq. The order was first issued on December 28, 1994 and reissued in unclassified form on August 29, 1995.¹³

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed Johnson's conviction in 1998. Its opinion describes the zirconium as sold to Cardoen, an international arms merchant, and as used in cluster bombs that Cardoen was selling to Iraq.¹⁴

James D. Theberge and the Senior Review Panel

The Senate report on the nomination of Robert Gates states that Theberge was employed as a consultant to "SWISSCO Management Group, a subsidiary of Cardoen Industries of Chile," during much of his service on the CIA Senior Review Panel from January 1986 to January 1988. The report records that Theberge disclosed the consulting work and the Cardoen parentage in the personal history statement he submitted in December 1985.⁴

Cardoen's Miami operations as reported by CIPER

The Chilean investigative outlet CIPER reported in September 2022 that part of Carlos Cardoen's operations were concentrated in Miami, where in August 1984, with his collaborators, he registered a company named Swissco Management Group Inc. CIPER wrote that the company came under United States judicial scrutiny in the early 1990s in connection with a zirconium scheme, that it was convicted of two crimes, and that it was fined 1.3 million dollars.¹⁵ The Commerce order records one count of exporting zirconium and states no fine.¹

Augusto Giangrandi

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration entered an order on September 15, 1994, published September 22, 1994, against Augusto Giacomo Giangrandi Valenzuela, also known as Augusto Giangrandi, of Santiago, Chile. The order recites allegations that between February 14, 1983 and June 11, 1988 he conspired with Cardoen, and others, to export zirconium from the United States to Chile contrary to the terms of export licenses. Under a consent agreement, the order denied him export privileges for ten years, the last five suspended.¹⁶ The Florida registry lists an Augusto Giangrandi as president of Swissco Management Group, Inc. and Swissco Leasing, Inc.; records found do not establish whether he is the respondent of the 1994 order, whose address is in Santiago.⁵⁶