The Washington Times, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this May, has run many excellent stories, including a blockbuster on Ted Turner and his left-wing allies. But the story you won't find in the Times is the strange case of its founder, self-proclaimed Messiah Sun Myung Moon, and his left-wing and communist allies, many of them non-governmental organizations (NGOs) associated with the U.N.

Moon is picking up where Ted Turner left off. Like Turner, Moon has been sinking much of his money into pro-U.N. causes. Moon has also been conducting business and other dealings with Communist states, including North Korea -- a nation singled out by President Bush in his State of the Union address as a threat to America's survival.

Intelligence documents publicized by veteran reporter Robert Parry show alleged financial payments from the Moon organization to North Korean and South Korean leaders, including Kim Jong-il and Kim Dae Jung, since the 1980s. Parry says they show that some of the money to the communist north was diverted to weapons programs. Yet Washington Times national security correspondent Bill Gertz has ignored this scandal.

This may sound shocking to those of us accustomed to hearing the Times described as a conservative newspaper that is quick to highlight national security threats. The Times has not suddenly become an exclusive mouthpiece for the radical left. But it is becoming a vehicle for its founder, pro-U.N. groups, and Moon's nightmare "vision" of a religious body working through the United Nations as it dominates the world.

After President Bush called North Korea a member of the "Axis of Evil," the Washington Times ran a story by Nicholas Kralev quoting a liberal foreign policy analyst as saying Bush's comments about the Communist regime were "wrong and dangerous." The article claimed that North Korea was getting a bad rap, that the regime "largely has observed" a 1994 agreement with the United States to halt development of its nuclear weapons program. That was false.

The Times, supposedly a conservative paper, had published these critical comments in a "news" story. Newspaper editors deny it, but the story may reflect the views of its founder, Moon, who has put almost $1 billion into the paper's operations and who has close ties to North Korea, China and Vietnam.
The automotive arm of South Korea's Unification Church, Pyeongwha Motors Corp., has just finished building a $55 million car assembly plant in North Korea, whose government has pledged to buy 1,000 cars each year. Moon also tried to open a car plant in China, known as Panda Motors, but it went under.

Moon has received a "Universal Peace Award" at the U.N., has called for a U.N.-based religious body, and has declared, "As long as America sticks with its nationalistic pride it will never be able to embrace the world." Moon even conducted one of his mass weddings at the United Nations itself on January 27, 2001. The event was covered by Larry Witham, religion correspondent of the Times and identified member of the Unification Church, in a story the next day. This is when Moon called the U.N. a "temple of peace."
The Washington Times, which describes itself as "America's Newspaper," is thought to have a conservative editorial policy on key foreign policy issues. That is not necessarily the case. The paper endorsed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for another term as U.N. chief, despite his anti-American agenda. Its editorial page editor Helle Dale supports U.N. criminal tribunals targeting foreign leaders, U.N. reporter Betsy Pisik wrote a puff piece about the world body for a U.N. publication, and State Department reporter Ben Barber was caught briefing the U.N. Association about how to obtain more funding for the U.N. on Capitol Hill.
What Moon is doing to and with this paper is a scandal. The paper continues to assert its independence from Moon, but the excuses being offered for the pro-Moon and pro-U.N. propaganda in the paper don't hold water. Moon's followers are still in key positions at the Times.

True conservatives should rise up in revolt against Moon's attempts to manipulate the paper. (30)

Josette Sheeran is the eleventh Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). She was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jacques Diouf in November 2006[1], and began her tenure April 2007. Prior to this post, she served as the United States Under Secretary for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs in the State Department since August 2005.

A-O Report

http://theuniversalseduction.com/articles/could-ban-ki-moon-be-the-beast-of-revelation-17

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a perhaps prophetically significant resolution by unanimous acclamation on Friday, the 13th of October, 2006. Resolution 1718 provided for the appointment of the South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to succeed Kofi Annan as the next UN secretary general.

When Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, the assembly president, asked members of the 192-nation world body to adopt the resolution by acclamation, hundreds of diplomats and UN staff in the chamber burst into loud applause. She then banged the gavel saying "it is so decided."

Ban Ki-Moon becomes the eighth Secretary General in the UN's 60 year history. Ki-Moon's selection was heavily promoted by the self-proclaimed "messiah" - Korean minister, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who reportedly and quietly spent discreetly, millions of dollars in lobbying efforts over the past 5 years to ensure his choice for the position was selected. He was one of 7 candidates running for the position.

One element in Moon’s favor is the UN tradition of rotating the Secretary-General 5-year term position among the various continents. By tradition, it was Asia’s turn to have someone from Asia hold the position of Secretary-General of the U.N. For that reason, Reverend Moon had lobbied against Kofi Annan’s re-election four years ago amid significant criticism of Annan citing the need for an Asian to be elected to the position. This time around, Reverend Moon’s efforts would pay off.

Moon’s efforts began to pay off several months ago in straw polls showing strong support for his candidate, Ban Ki-Moon. The early support for Ban Ki-moon was due in part to Reverend Moon’s discreet lobbying efforts as well as foreign aid distributed to key member nations by South Korea.

It was thought by many prophecy watchers, including this commentator that perhaps former President Bill Clinton might be selected as the next Secretary-General. What was not realized until now, is that no citizen from any nation with a permanent seat on the Security Council can be selected.
By convention, the Secretary-General cannot be a national of any of the permanent members of the Security Council. This completely rules out the selection of someone like Bill Clinton.

The major clearing hurdle for Reverend Moon’s hand-picked candidate would be at the UN Security Council. The General Assembly considers only nominations approved by the Security Council.

Interestingly enough, the UN Security Council is composed of 15 member-nations, 10 of which are temporary memberships. Those temporary seats are filled by an election conducted in the General Assembly every two years. A temporary membership seat on the Security Council is then held for a period of only two years. There are 5 member-nations who hold the permanent positions. The five permanent members are: The United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

What we find more intriguing, from a prophetic standpoint, is that the temporary membership level stands at 10. Why do we find that intriguing?

Consider the prophecy regarding the selection (or election) of the Beast of Revelation 17:12-14. The passage indicates the number 10 is involved. We’ll take a detailed look at the prophetic textual analysis later in this article. For now, we simply want to focus on understanding the UN selection process.

The Security Council “nominates” a candidate for the position. The nomination process is handled primarily by the 10 ‘temporary’ members. They steer the process of selecting potential candidates with the 5 permanent members holding veto power. The process itself though is steered by the temporary members, with deference to the wishes of the 5 permanent members.

Ban Ki-moon: Is he or isn't he a Moonie?

By Wayne Madsen - Online Journal Contributing Writer - Oct 17, 2006

(WMR) -- WMR was the first to report on UN Secretary General-designate Ban Ki-moon's possible connections to the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, an enigmatic South Korean power broker and billionaire whose funding originally came from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA).

Based on Ban's Friday press conference, his answers about his views of religion appear quite "Moonie-like." For example, Ban would not even answer a pointed question from the Financial Times whether or not he believed in God. Ban, who states in his biography that he is a member of a "non-denominational Korean Christian" sect, had an answer one might expect from a Moonie.

Question: "Do you believe in God? And to what degree does God or that religious belief inform your decisions?"

Answer: "Now, as Secretary-General, it will not be appropriate at this time to talk about my own belief in any particular religion or God. So maybe we will have some other time to talk about personal matters. Thank you."

Ban was asked another question about his views of religion and politics. Again, his answer was vague.

Question: "Many people who believe that the Enlightenment in Europe brought about reason against superstition are worried about the rise again of religion, especially extremist religion and its involvement in politics. I wonder if you could give us your views about politics and religion in the age we live in."

Answer: "Now, we have all differences of religions and ideologies. It is, I think, very much desirable, therefore, to engage in dialogue. We need to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for culture and history and ideology of the other, different cultures and the other side. That is why the United Nations has been holding many conferences and specialmeetings among the different cultures and interfaith dialogue. And, as the Secretary-General, I'll try always to encourage that kind of dialogue among different cultures."

The fact that the UN Secretary General feels it is the place of the UN to hold conferences of interfaith dialogue at the same time he refuses to say whether he believes in God is a worrisome sign. Interfaith dialogue has usually been the purview of the Organization of Islamic Conference, the Holy See, the World Council of Churches, and other international religious organizations.

Unification Church adherents believe Sun Myung Moon is their "god," and Sun Myung Moon has been working over the yearsto infiltrate the UN and he has already been successful in receiving UN non-governmental organization (NGO) recognition and consultative status for his front organizations: the Women's Federation for World Peace (Economic and Social Council - ECOSOC - recognition), the Family Federation for World Peace, and World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO). In 2001, Moon held a mass wedding in a UN conference room and he is on record as stating that "our movement and the UN are completely connected."

Sun Myung Moon has close connections to the right wing of the Republican Party, Jerry Falwell, and the Bush family. He has also infiltrated a number of UN missions, including those of Indonesia, Gambia, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Comoros, Iran, Mozambique, Tajikistan, the Arab League, and the Organization of Islamic Conference. Although Sun Myung Moon has established many footholds inside the UN, the election of Ban Ki-moon as Secretary General may be his greatest prize.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is author of the forthcoming book, “Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates.” He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report.

Sun Myung Moon, Self proclaimed messiah and New U.N. leader?

Sat, October 7, 2006 - Tribes

Sun Myung Moon, the korean billionaire and Messiah who reformed Hitler and Stalin

The Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon (1920) is the founder of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, in Seoul, South Korea. Members call Rev. Moon "Father" (short for "True Father"). At the age of 40 and recently divorced, Moon married the teenage daughter (17 years old) of Mrs. Soon-ae Hong, who at the time did the cooking for the church. Many members were surprised and dismayed, as some believed that they had received revelations that they would be the 'bride of the Messiah'.

Moon arrived in the United States for the first time in 1965 and was considered by many to be manipulating young adults with heartwashing and brainwashing methods. The Unification Church became known for its mass weddings, or, as they called it, 'a blessing of couples'.

Moon reportedly spent a billion dollars from business-related sources to establish and support the influential conservative newspaper The Washington Times, which he called in 2002, 'the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world'

On 2004, Moon announced that he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of even such murderous dictators as Hitler and Stalin, who he claimed had received 'the Blessing' through him. Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him from the spirit world, calling him 'none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent'.

Moon Moving In On United Nations?

The Unification Church, the global enterprise of South Korean Rev. Sun Myung Moon (born Yong Myung Moon), may be attempting to take control of the United Nations through the all-but-certain election of South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon as UN Secretary General. Foreign Minister Moon is slated to be formally elected Secretary General on October 9 by the UN Security Council. Moon has already won four straw polls by the UN Security Council and is now considered a shoo-in to replace Kofi Annan.

Some informed UN sources are concerned that Moon lists his religious affiliation as "non-denominational Christian," a code word often used by the "Moonies" for the Unification Church. In addition, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UN ambassador John Bolton are attempting to have former Washington Times editor Josette Sheeran Shiner become the next Executive Director of the World Food Program. Sheeran Shiner is a member of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The term of the World Food Program Executive Director is five years. Shiner is currently the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs.

Although Ban Ki-moon and Sun Myung Moon are not related, some UN members may sense that there is something amiss about the Bush administration's strong support for the South Korean Foreign Minister given the close links between some Bush officials and the "Moonies." There were a few "discourage" and "no opinion" ballots cast by Security Council members on Ban Ki-moon. Although the balloting is secret, it is believed that France and the United Kingdom are not thrilled with the Moon nomination and that Japan, a non-permanent member that holds the Security Council presidency for October, is also reportedly opposed to Moon. Ban Ki-moon has lived in the United States for a number of years, having gone to graduate school at Harvard and serving two tours at South Korea's Washington embassy, a diplomatic mission that maintains close contacts with the Sun Myung Moon organization in Washington, DC. The Unification Church, in addition to owning the Washington Times, also owns United Press International.

Sun Mying Moon, who was excommunicated by the Korean Presbyterian church for preaching heresy, claims he is the Messiah and intends to take control of the world. The South Korean government, which has close ties with Sun Myung Moon's organization, has used its considerable public relations machinery to convince the Security Council members to elect Ban Ki-moon as the next Secretary General.

Only a veto by one of the four other permanent members -- France, United Kingdom, Russia, or China -- can derail the possibility of a Unification Church ally from becoming the next UN Secretary General

Rev. Moon's Uruguayan Money-Laundry

By Samuel Blixen - August 19, 1998

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who has invested heavily in media and politics in both North and South America, has built what appears to be a major money-laundering center in the secretive banking haven of Uruguay.

Moon, the founder of The Washington Times and a major conservative funder in the United States, allegedly has used religious followers to transport money clandestinely to Uruguay and deposit amounts adding up to the tens of millions of dollars, and possibly much more.

Uruguay's bank secrecy laws and Moon's political clout have spared his operations from significant legal action. But the money laundry has drawn periodic attention from government and other investigators in recent years.

In 1996, for instance, the Uruguayan bank employees union blew the whistle on one scheme in which some 4,200 female Japanese followers of Moon allegedly walk into the Moon-controlled Banco de Credito in Montevideo and deposited as much as $25,000 each.

The money from the women went into the account of an anonymous association called Cami II, which was controlled by Moon's Unification Church. In one day, Cami II received $19 million and, by the time the parade of women ended, the total had swelled to about $80 million.

It was not clear, however, where the money originated and whether it came from illicit sources. Nor was it known how many other times Moon's organization has used this tactic -- sometimes known as "smurfing" -- to transfer untraceable cash into Uruguay. Authorities did not push the money-laundering investigation, apparently out of deference to Moon's political influence and fear of disrupting Uruguay's banking industry.

Still, a powerful Roman Catholic group and some investigative journalists have kept up pressure on the financial irregularities at Moon's bank. Sometimes, the scrutiny has led Moon's organization to complain about religious persecution. Other times, the critics have found their work a risky business.

In January 1997, only two months after the money-laundering flap, Pablo Alfano, a reporter for El Observador who had been investigating Moon's operations, was kidnapped by two unidentified men. The men claimed not to belong to Moon's Unification Church, but threatened Alfano at gunpoint unless he revealed his sources on Moon's operations.

One gunman shoved a revolver into Alfano's mouth and warned "this is no joke." After holding Alfano for 30 minutes, the gunmen returned the reporter to his house, with a warning that they knew his movements and those of his family. Despite the threats, the reporter said he refused to disclose his sources. But the message was clear: he should drop his investigation. [See FBIS, Jan. 30, 1997.]

Other critics have cited Moon's heavy-handed tactics elsewhere in Uruguay. "The first thing we ought to do is clarify to the people [of Uruguay] that Moon's sect is a type of modern pirate that came to the country to perform obscure money operations, such as money-laundering," said Jorge Zabalza, a leader of the Movimiento de Participacion Popular, part of Montevideo's ruling left-of-center political coalition. "This sect is a kind of religious mob that is trying to get public support to pursue its business."

But Moon has his defenders in Uruguay, as he does in the United States. Many Uruguayans welcome his investments, the jobs they produce, and his charitable social programs. Moon has called Uruguay his South American "oasis" and has invested an estimated $200 million in the country, with more promised in the future.

The Cocaine Coup

Tucked between Brazil and Argentina, tiny Uruguay has modeled itself as a South American Switzerland, granting tight secrecy to its banking institutions. With its banks and free trade zones, Uruguay hopes to become the financial capital of Mercosur, South America's free trade agreement. Even critics, such as Zabalza, note that Moon's investments have produced needed employment.

Moon first put down roots in Uruguay during the 12-year reign of right-wing military dictators who seized power in 1973. During the 1970s, the anti-communist South Korean religious figure also cultivated close relations with military dictators in Argentina, Paraguay and Chile. Moon reportedly ingratiated himself to the juntas by assisting the military regimes arrange arms purchases and by funnelling money to allied right-wing organizations.

Even in those early years, government investigators recognized that one key to Moon's success was the surreptitious use of his followers to smuggle money across borders. A 1978 U.S. congressional investigative report found that Moon's followers had transported large sums of cash into the United States in violation of U.S. currency statutes.

Then, in 1980, Moon expanded his South American influence into the landlocked nation of Bolivia. There, ultra-conservative army officers -- backed by drug lords, Argentine intelligence agents and former Nazi commander Klaus Barbie -- staged a bloody putsch which turned Bolivia into the continent's first modern narco-state. The putsch became known as the Cocaine Coup.

Soon after the Bolivian generals took power, Moon dispatched some of his top lieutenants, including his right-hand man Bo Hi Pak, to coordinate with the new rulers in La Paz. Moon's church was so proud of its new contacts that it published a photo of Pak meeting with Gen. Garcia Meza, a coup leader.

After the visit to the mountainous capital, Pak declared, "I have erected a throne for Father Moon in the world's highest city." Moon's political arm, CAUSA, began joint political-military operations with the Bolivian junta.

A month after the coup, Garcia Meza participated in the Fourth Congress of the Confederacion Anticomunista Latinoamericano [CAL], an arm of the World Anti-Communist League, which Moon and other Asian anti-communists founded in the 1960s. Attending that Fourth Congress was WACL president Woo Jae Sung, a leading Moon disciple. [See Martin Andersen's Secret Dossier, a book about the Argentine dirty war.]

During its violent two-year run, Bolivia's Cocaine Coup government protected cocaine production inside Bolivia and allowed cocaine shipments to processing centers in Colombia. The emerging Medellin cartel thus gained a secure source of cocaine while introducing modern corporate organization to the industry and transporting vast quantities of cocaine to the United States.

But the Bolivian junta suffered from widespread corruption and incompetence -- as well as international condemnation -- leading to its collapse in 1982. After their ouster, some coup leaders were charged with narcotics trafficking in the United States, while Klaus Barbie was extradited to France to stand trial on war-crime charges for his work in Adolf Hitler's Gestapo.

Later Bolivian investigations would assert that a Moon representative had invested $4 million in preparations for the Cocaine Coup. [For details on Moon and Bolivia, see The Consortium, Oct. 13, 1997; Cocaine Politics by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall; and The Big White Lie by former Drug Enforcement Agency official Michael Levine.]

A Big Investment

In the early 1980s, Moon's organization was flush with cash elsewhere, too. In 1982, Moon launched The Washington Times, a right-wing daily which has cost Moon an estimated $100 million a year in losses. But the newspaper gave Moon's backers access to the highest levels of the Reagan-Bush administrations and the ability to influence public debate. President Reagan hailed the new publication -- one of only two Washington-based dailies -- as his "favorite" newspaper.

In 1983, back in Uruguay, Moon expanded his South American holdings by purchasing Banco de Credito, one of Montevideo's leading banks. The price tag was $52 million. Uruguay's military authorities awarded Moon a quick $8 million profit by buying back $60 million in uncollectible loans from the bank.

When democracy was restored in Uruguay in 1985, Moon's operations survived by keeping close ties to still-influential military officers and to conservative civilian politicians. They helped Moon fend off opposition from civilian president Julio Maria Sanguinetti and other critics.

Later, Opus Dei, a right-wing international Catholic organization, joined in criticizing Moon's cult-like church. The Unification Church considers Jesus a failed messiah and Moon the new Chosen One who is destined to rule a one-world theocracy that will eliminate all individuality.

But Moon's deep roots in Uruguayan politics and business proved strong enough to withstand his critics. His bank brushed aside nettlesome questions about money-laundering and other financial irregularities. Moon's allies -- and Uruguay's secrecy laws -- prevented even the powerful Opus Dei from forcing the bank's financial records into public view.

Through the 1980s, Moon continued to expand his Uruguayan holdings. He bought the elegant-but-faded Hotel Victoria, the Ultimas Noticias newspaper, a travel agency and vast tracts of real estate. His big investments in the hotel and newspaper, however, never generated significant profits. The newspaper never achieved strong circulation or advertising revenues. Despite an upgrading to five-star status, the Hotel Victoria never flourished either.

Bank Allegations

Finally, in 1993, Uruguayan Central Bank president Ramon Diaz pushed the long-whispered allegations against Moon's bank into the parliamentary record. Diaz accused Banco de Credito of violating financial rules, operating at a constant loss, practicing dubious credit policies with insolvent customers and holding inadequate cash reserves.

Diaz demanded that the bank add $30 million in capital within 48 hours or face government intervention. Within hours, panicked customers pulled $10 million in deposits out of the bank. Diaz's goal of forcing Moon to sell the bank seemed within reach. One senator claimed that Diaz hoped an Argentine investment group would step in and take over the bank.

Moon proved, however, that his seemingly bottomless well of cash could fill the bank's vaults in a crisis. Before the 48-hour deadline, Moon transferred $30 million into the ailing bank and retained control. Since then, Moon's influence has continued to grow in Uruguay, although Banco de Credito continues to suffer chronic financial troubles.

Despite delivery of mysterious cash from Moon's followers -- such as the alleged $80 million deposits in November 1996 -- the bank again has slipped into a deficit estimated at $120 million. The deficit -- or "red numbers" in the Spanish jargon -- has been blamed largely on credits given to the Rio de la Plata hotel company ($65 million) and to Creditos S.A., a financial institution that was the bank's first client.

Moon's investment arm, Rondilcor S.A., also has invested money in privatization projects that have been slow to turn a profit. According to a U.S. State Department cable obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, "the Unification Church has few adherents in Uruguay [but] the church's hotel ventures are just part of a significant business presence that the church hopes will prove profitable over the long term."

The cable, dated Sept. 17, 1994, added that "Rondilcor officials admit ... that the church is at least several years away from earning back its investments even under the most favorable circumstances."

But Moon's money continued to flow into new projects anyway. Embittered by his church's decline in the United States -- where membership reportedly has sunk to 3,000 members -- Moon shifted his personal base of operations to a luxurious estate in Uruguay. In the last three years, Moon also bought the ex-Frigorifico Nacional, a cool-storage house; the Astilleros Tsakos dockyard; and other privatized port services. Moon has promised to build containers as well as fishing and chemical ships -- and to construct a paper plant.

Nelson Cesin, a reporter for the newsweekly Brecha, has noted that the new acquisitions would allow Moon to move money freely around the world.

Planes & Subs

Moon himself has announced an ambitious plan for a worldwide transportation and propaganda system. To his followers, he has boasted about plans for building a network of small airstrips throughout South America and other parts of the world, supposedly for tourism. In one speech on Jan. 2, 1996, he even announced a scheme for deploying submarines to evade coastal patrols.

"There are so many restrictions due to national boundaries worldwide," Moon lamented during the speech, which the Unification Church posted on its Internet site. "If you have a submarine, you don't have to be bound in that way."

(As bizarre as Moon's submarine project might sound, a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Japan, dated Feb. 18, 1994, cited press reports that a Moon-connected Japanese company, Toen Shoji, had bought 40 Russian submarines. The subs were supposedly bound for North Korea where they were to be dismantled and melted down as scrap.)

Moon, however, understands that his primary protection comes from the political alliances that his money has bought. In the 1996 speech, Moon added that he "has been practicing the philosophy of fishing here [in Uruguay]. He [Moon] gave the bait to Uruguay and then the bigger fish of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay kept their mouths open, waiting for a bigger bait silently. The bigger the fish, the bigger the mouth. Therefore, Father [Moon] is able to hook them more easily."

In recent years, Moon also has continued his clandestine cash transfers into the United States. According to court records from a divorce case involving one of Moon's sons, Hyo Jin, $1 million in cash was carried into the United States in early 1994 by Moon's followers and delivered to Hyo Jin who ran a Moon-controlled recording studio in New York City.

In an interview, one of Hyo Jin Moon's top aides, Maria Madelene Pretorious, stated that the cash was circulated through Moon's business empire in the United States as a way to launder it, before it was dispatched to church projects.

In a separate interview, another senior figure in Moon's U.S. operations claimed that after Asia slid into an economic downturn in the 1990s, the bulk of Moon's money began to arrive from South America. [For more details on Moon's recent activities and history, see iF Magazine, Sept.-Oct. 1997.]

Clearly, Moon's big-dollar spending on conservative politicians in the United States and South America has helped shield the South Korean theocrat from serious scrutiny. In recent years, Moon's American beneficiaries have included former President George Bush and Religious Right leader, Jerry Falwell.

But paradoxically, Moon's banking deficits in Uruguay have given him additional leverage. Uruguayan authorities fear that a major financial bankruptcy could damage the country's reputation. So, in exchange for "laissez-faire" treatment for his bank, Moon pumps in the necessary cash to keep Banco de Credito afloat.

Still, the ultimate source of Moon's influence remains his subterranean flow of money, a virtual underground river of cash spewing from a hidden spring whose origin remains the biggest mystery of Moon's organization. It is that spring which keeps Moon's Uruguayan "oasis" green and his critics in both North and South America at bay.

Mysterious Republican Money

By Robert Parry - September 7, 2004

If House Speaker Dennis Hastert were really concerned about drug profits being laundered into the U.S. political process, he would not be sliming billionaire financier George Soros with that suspicion. Hastert would be looking at a principal conservative funder: South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon.

While Hastert was unable to cite a shred of evidence that the liberal Soros is funneling illicit money, there is a substantial body of evidence that Moon has long commanded a criminal enterprise with close ties to Asian and South American drug lords. The evidence includes first-hand accounts of money laundering disclosed by Moon confidantes and even family members. Besides those more recent accounts, Moon was convicted of tax fraud based on evidence developed in the late 1970s about his money-laundering activities.

Since serving his tax-evasion sentence in the early 1980s, however, Moon appears to have bought himself protection by spreading hundreds of millions of dollars around conservative causes and through generous speaking fee payments to Republican leaders, including former President George H.W. Bush.

Moon himself has boasted that he spent $1 billion on the right-wing Washington Times in its first decade alone. The newspaper, which started in 1982, continues to lose Moon an estimated $50 million a year but remains a valuable propaganda organ for the Republican Party.

How Moon has managed to cover the vast losses of his media empire and pay for lavish conservative conferences has been one of the most enduring mysteries of Washington, but curiously one of the least investigated – at least since the Reagan-Bush era.

Limited investigations of Moon’s organization have revealed large sums of money flowing into the United States mostly from untraceable accounts in Japan, where Moon had close ties to yakuza gangster Ryoichi Sasakawa. Former Moon associates also have revealed major money flows from shadowy sources in South America, where Moon built relationships with right-wing elements associated with the cocaine trade, including the so-called Cocaine Coup government of Bolivia in the early 1980s.

But Hastert, an Illinois Republican, made news at the Republican National Convention by suggesting that liberal funder Soros may be fronting for foreign “drug groups.” In a Fox News appearance, Hastert said, “You know, I don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t know where – if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from.…”

Soros demanded an apology for the smear. “Your recent comments implying that I am receiving funds from drug cartels are not only untrue, but also deeply offensive,” Soros said in a letter. “You do a discredit to yourself and to the dignity of your office by engaging in these dishonest smear tactics. You should be ashamed.”

A Bush-Style Warning

Hastert and other Republicans seem to have targeted Soros because he has helped finance liberal activist groups that have engaged in voter registration drives and run TV ads criticizing George W. Bush. Hastert and other Bush loyalists could be laying down a marker that people who finance anti-Bush politics can expect to have their reputations destroyed and possibly become subjects of federal investigations.

Yet for Moon, despite his criminal record and eyewitness accounts of his money-laundering activities, opposite rules apply. Republicans – who now control the Executive Branch, the Congress and the federal judiciary – protect Moon and his money from any serious examination. (I detail Moon’s history of money laundering and organized-crime associations in my forthcoming book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.)

Moon’s criminal associations go back to the early days of his Unification Church when South Korean intelligence saw the church as a means to conduct covert operations. Kim Jong-Pil, who founded South Korea's KCIA in 1961, became closely associated with Moon’s church during a transitional phase as the institution evolved from an obscure Korean sect into a powerful international organization.

In the early 1960s, Kim Jong-Pil also was in charge of talks to improve bilateral relations with Japan, Korea’s historic enemy. Those talks put Kim Jong-Pil in touch with two other important figures in the Far East, Japanese rightists Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa, both of whom were jailed after World War II as war criminals but were later released. The pair grew rich from their association with the yakuza, an organized crime syndicate that profited off drug smuggling, gambling and prostitution in Japan and Korea. Behind the scenes, Kodama and Sasakawa became power-brokers in Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Immediately after Kim Jong-Pil opened the door to Kodama and Sasakawa in late 1962, 50 leaders of an ultra-nationalist Japanese Buddhist sect converted en masse to the Unification Church. According to David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro in their authoritative book, Yakuza, “Sasakawa became an adviser to Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Japanese branch of the Unification Church” and collaborated with Moon in building far-right anti-communist organizations in Asia.

Worldwide Connections

Authors Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson wrote in their 1986 book, Inside the League, that Sun Myung Moon was one of five indispensable Asian leaders who made the World Anti-Communist League possible. The five were Taiwan’s dictator Chiang Kai-shek, South Korea’s dictator Park Chung Hee, yakuza gangsters Sasakawa and Kodama, and Moon, “an evangelist who planned to take over the world through the doctrine of ‘Heavenly Deception,’” the Andersons wrote.

WACL became a well-financed worldwide organization after a secret meeting between Sasakawa and Moon, along with two Kodama representatives, on a lake in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. The purpose of the meeting was to create an anti-communist organization that “would further Moon’s global crusade and lend the Japanese yakuza leaders a respectable new façade,” the Andersons wrote.

Mixing organized crime and political extremism, of course, has a long tradition throughout the world. Violent political movements often have blended with criminal operations as a way to arrange covert funding, move operatives or acquire weapons. Drug smuggling has proven to be a particularly effective way to fill the coffers of extremist movements, especially those that find ways to insinuate themselves within more legitimate operations of sympathetic governments or intelligence services.

Nazi Rat Lines

After World War II, some Nazi leaders faced war-crimes tribunals, but others managed to make their escapes along “rat lines” to Spain or South America or they finagled intelligence relationships with the victorious powers, especially the United States. Argentina became a natural haven given the pre-war alliance that existed between the European fascists and prominent Argentine military leaders, such as Juan Peron. The fleeing Nazis also found a home with like-minded right-wing politicians and military officers across Latin America who already used repression to keep down the indigenous populations and the legions of the poor.

In the post-World War II years, some Nazi war criminals chose reclusive lives, but others, such as former SS officer Klaus Barbie, sold their intelligence skills to less-sophisticated security services in countries like Bolivia or Paraguay. Other Nazis on the lam trafficked in narcotics. Often the lines crossed between intelligence operations and criminal conspiracies. Auguste Ricord, a French war criminal who had collaborated with the Gestapo, set up shop in Paraguay and opened up the French Connection heroin channels to American Mafia drug kingpin Santo Trafficante Jr., who controlled much of the heroin traffic into the United States. Columns by Jack Anderson identified Ricord’s accomplices as some of Paraguay’s highest-ranking military officers.

Another French Connection mobster, Christian David, relied on protection of Argentine authorities. While trafficking in heroin, David also “took on assignments for Argentina’s terrorist organization, the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance,” Henrik Kruger wrote in The Great Heroin Coup. During President Nixon’s “war on drugs,” U.S. authorities smashed the famous French Connection and won extraditions of Ricord and David in 1972 to face justice in the United States.

By the time the French Connection was severed, however, powerful Mafia drug lords had forged strong ties to South America’s military leaders. An infrastructure for the multi-billion-dollar drug trade, servicing the insatiable U.S. market, was in place. Trafficante-connected groups also recruited displaced anti-Castro Cubans, who had ended up in Miami, needed work, and possessed some useful intelligence skills gained from the CIA's training for the Bay of Pigs and other clandestine operations. Heroin from the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia soon filled the void left by the broken French Connection and its mostly Middle Eastern heroin supply routes.

Moon's Arrival

During this time of transition, Sun Myung Moon brought his evangelical message to South America. His first visit to Argentina had occurred in 1965 when he blessed a square behind the presidential Pink House in Buenos Aires. But he returned a decade later to make more lasting friendships. Moon first sank down roots in Uruguay during the 12-year reign of right-wing military dictators who seized power in 1973. He also cultivated close relations with military dictators in Argentina, Paraguay and Chile, reportedly ingratiating himself with the juntas by helping the military regimes arrange arms purchases and by channeling money to allied right-wing organizations.

“Relationships nurtured with right-wing Latin Americans in the [World Anti-Communist] League led to acceptance of the [Unification] Church’s political and propaganda operations throughout Latin America,” the Andersons wrote in Inside the League. “As an international money laundry, … the Church tapped into the capital flight havens of Latin America. Escaping the scrutiny of American and European investigators, the Church could now funnel money into banks in Honduras, Uruguay and Brazil, where official oversight was lax or nonexistent.”

Moon’s organization also funneled money to the United States with the goal of helping friendly U.S. politicians and hurting others who were considered unfriendly. In the late 1970s, a congressional investigation into South Korea’s influence-buying operations in Washington – the so-called Koreagate scandal – implicated Moon and traced the church’s chief sources of money to bank accounts in Japan, but could follow the cash no further.

Cocaine Coup

In 1980, Moon made more friends in South America when Bolivia’s Cocaine Coup plotters seized power in a terrifying alliance of fledgling cocaine cartels, international neo-Nazis and right-wing Bolivian military officers. Before the coup, WACL associates, such as Alfred Candia, allegedly had coordinated the arrival of some of the paramilitary operatives who assisted in the violent coup.

Afterwards, one of the first well-wishers arriving in La Paz to congratulate the new government was Moon’s top lieutenant, Bo Hi Pak. The Moon organization published a photo of Pak meeting with the new strongman, General Garcia Meza. After the visit to the mountainous capital, Pak declared, “I have erected a throne for Father Moon in the world’s highest city.”

According to later Bolivian government and newspaper reports, a Moon representative invested about $4 million in preparations for the coup. Bolivia’s WACL representatives also played key roles, and CAUSA, one of Moon’s anti-communist organizations, listed as members nearly all the leading Bolivian coup-makers.

Soon, Colonel Luis Arce-Gomez, a coup organizer and the cousin of cocaine kingpin Roberto Suarez, went into partnership with big narco-traffickers, including Trafficante’s Cuban-American smugglers. Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and his young neo-fascist followers found new work protecting Bolivia's major cocaine barons and transporting drugs to the border. “The paramilitary units – conceived by Barbie as a new type of SS – sold themselves to the cocaine barons,” German journalist Kai Hermann wrote. “The attraction of fast money in the cocaine trade was stronger than the idea of a national socialist revolution in Latin America.”

A month after the coup, General Garcia Meza participated in the Fourth Congress of the Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation, an arm of the World Anti-Communist League. Also attending that Fourth Congress was WACL president Woo Jae Sung, a leading Moon disciple.

On May 31, 1981, Moon representatives sponsored a CAUSA reception at the Sheraton Hotel’s Hall of Freedom in La Paz. Moon’s lieutenant Bo Hi Pak and Bolivian strongman Garcia Meza led a prayer for President Reagan's recovery from an assassination attempt. In his speech, Bo Hi Pak declared, “God had chosen the Bolivian people in the heart of South America as the ones to conquer communism.” According to a later Bolivian intelligence report, the Moon organization sought to recruit an “armed church” of Bolivians, with about 7,000 Bolivians receiving some paramilitary training.

But by late 1981, the cocaine taint of Bolivia’s military junta was so deep and the corruption so staggering that U.S.-Bolivian relations were stretched to the breaking point. “The Moon sect disappeared overnight from Bolivia as clandestinely as they had arrived,” Hermann reported.

The Cocaine Coup leaders soon found themselves on the run, too. Interior Minister Arce-Gomez was eventually extradited to Miami and was sentenced to 30 years in prison for drug trafficking. Drug lord Roberto Suarez got a 15-year prison term. General Garcia Meza became a fugitive from a 30-year sentence imposed on him in Bolivia for abuse of power, corruption and murder. Barbie was returned to France to face a life sentence for war crimes. He died in 1992.

Untouchable

But Moon’s organization suffered few negative repercussions from its association with the Cocaine Coup. By the early 1980s, flushed with seemingly unlimited funds, Moon had moved on to promoting himself with the new Republican administration in Washington. An invited guest to the Reagan-Bush Inauguration, Moon made his organization useful to President Reagan, Vice President Bush and other leading Republicans.

“Some Moonie-watchers even believe that some of the business enterprises are actually covers for drug trafficking,” wrote Scott and Jon Lee Anderson. “Others feel that, despite the disclosures of Koreagate, the Church has simply continued to do the Korean government’s international bidding and is receiving official funds to do so.”

While Moon’s representatives have refused to detail how they’ve sustained their far-flung activities – including many businesses that insiders say lose money – Moon’s spokesmen have denied recurring allegations about profiteering off illegal trafficking in weapons and drugs. In a typical response to a gun-running question by the Argentine newspaper, Clarin, Moon’s representative Ricardo DeSena responded, “I deny categorically these accusations and also the barbarities that are said about drugs and brainwashing. Our movement responds to the harmony of the races, nations and religions and proclaims that the family is the school of love.”

Without doubt, however, Moon’s organization has had a long record of association with organized crime figures, including ones implicated in the drug trade. Besides collaborating with Sasakawa and other leaders of the Japanese yakuza and the Cocaine Coup government of Bolivia, Moon’s organization developed close ties with the Honduran military and with Nicaraguan contra units tied to drug smuggling. Moon’s organization also used its political clout in Washington to intimidate or discredit government officials and journalists who tried to investigate those criminal activities.

In the mid-1980s, for instance, when journalists and congressional investigators began probing the evidence of contra-connected drug trafficking, they came under attacks from Moon’s Washington Times. An Associated Press story that I co-wrote with Brian Barger about a Miami-based federal probe into gun- and drug-running by the contras was denigrated in a front-page Washington Times article with the headline: “Story on [contra] drug smuggling denounced as political ploy.”

Kerry's Probe

When Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts conducted a Senate probe and uncovered additional evidence of contra drug trafficking, The Washington Times denounced him, too. The newspaper first published articles depicting Kerry’s probe as a wasteful political witch hunt. “Kerry’s anti-contra efforts extensive, expensive, in vain,” announced the headline of one Times article.

But when Kerry exposed more contra wrongdoing, The Washington Times shifted tactics. In 1987 in front-page articles, it began accusing Kerry’s staff of obstructing justice because their investigation was supposedly interfering with Reagan-Bush administration efforts to get at the truth. “Kerry staffers damaged FBI probe,” said one Times article that opened with the assertion: “Congressional investigators for Sen. John Kerry severely damaged a federal drug investigation last summer by interfering with a witness while pursuing allegations of drug smuggling by the Nicaraguan resistance, federal law enforcement officials said.”

Despite the attacks from The Washington Times and pressure from the Reagan-Bush administration to back off, Kerry’s contra-drug investigation eventually concluded that a number of contra units – both in Costa Rica and Honduras – were implicated in the cocaine trade.

“It is clear that individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking, the supply network of the contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers,” Kerry’s investigation stated in a report issued April 13, 1989. “In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring or immediately thereafter.”

Kerry’s probe also found that Honduras had become an important way station for cocaine shipments heading north during the contra war. “Elements of the Honduran military were involved ... in the protection of drug traffickers from 1980 on,” the report said. “These activities were reported to appropriate U.S. government officials throughout the period. Instead of moving decisively to close down the drug trafficking by stepping up the DEA presence in the country and using the foreign assistance the United States was extending to the Hondurans as a lever, the United States closed the DEA office in Tegucigalpa and appears to have ignored the issue.”

Drug Evidence

The available evidence now shows that there was much more to the contra drug issue than either the Reagan-Bush administration or Moon’s organization wanted the American people to know in the 1980s. The evidence – assembled over the years by inspectors general at the CIA, the Justice Department and other federal agencies – indicates that Bolivia’s Cocaine Coup government was only the first in a line of drug enterprises that tried to squeeze under the protective umbrella of Ronald Reagan’s favorite covert operation, the contra war.

Other cocaine smugglers soon followed, cozying up to the contras and sharing some of the profits as a way to minimize investigative interest by the Reagan-Bush law enforcement agencies. The contra-connected smugglers included the Medellin cartel, the Panamanian government of Manuel Noriega, the Honduran military, the Honduran-Mexican smuggling ring of Ramon Matta Ballesteros, and the Miami-based anti-Castro Cubans with their connections to Mafia operations throughout the United States.

As Moon continued to expand his influence in American politics, some Republicans began to raise red flags. In 1983, the GOP’s moderate Ripon Society charged that the New Right had entered “an alliance of expediency” with Moon’s church. Ripon’s chairman, Representative Jim Leach of Iowa, released a study which alleged that the College Republican National Committee “solicited and received” money from Moon’s Unification Church in 1981. The study also accused Reed Irvine’s Accuracy in Media of benefiting from low-cost or volunteer workers supplied by Moon.

Leach said the Unification Church has “infiltrated the New Right and the party it wants to control, the Republican Party, and infiltrated the media as well.” Leach’s news conference was disrupted when then-college GOP leader Grover Norquist accused Leach of lying. (Norquist is now a prominent conservative leader in Washington with close ties to the highest levels of George W. Bush’s administration.) The Washington Times dismissed Leach’s charges as “flummeries” and mocked the Ripon Society as a “discredited and insignificant left-wing offshoot of the Republican Party.”

Despite periodic fretting over Moon’s influence, conservatives continued to accept his deep-pocket assistance. When White House aide Oliver North was scratching for support for the Nicaraguan contras, for instance, The Washington Times established a contra fund-raising operation. By the mid-1980s, Moon’s Unification Church had carved out a niche as an acceptable part of the American Right. In one speech to his followers, Moon boasted that “without knowing it, even President Reagan is being guided by Father [Moon].”

George H.W. Bush's Praise

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Washington Times was the daily billboard where conservatives placed their messages to each other and to the outside world.

In 1991, when conservative commentator Wesley Pruden was named the new editor of The Washington Times, President George H.W. Bush invited Pruden to a private White House lunch. The purpose, Bush explained, was “just to tell you how valuable the Times has become in Washington, where we read it every day.”

While the Moon organization was promoting the interests of the Reagan-Bush team, the administration was shielding Moon's operations from federal probes into its finances and possible intelligence role, U.S. government documents show. According to Justice Department documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, administration officials were rebuffing hundreds of requests – many from common U.S. citizens – for examination of Moon’s foreign ties and money sources.

Typical of the responses was a May 18, 1989, letter from Assistant Attorney General Carol T. Crawford rejecting the possibility that Moon’s organization be required to divulge its foreign-funded propaganda under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). “With respect to FARA, the Department is faced with First Amendment considerations involving the free exercise of religion,” Crawford said. “As you know, the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom is not limited to the traditional, well-established religions.”

A 1992 PBS documentary about Moon’s political empire and its free-spending habits started another flurry of citizen demands for an investigation, according to Justice Department files. One letter from a private citizen to the Justice Department stated, “I write in consternation and disgust at the apparent support, or at least the sheltering, of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, a foreign agent ... who has subverted the American political system for the past 20 years. ... Did Reagan and/or Bush receive financial support from Moon or his agents during any of their election campaigns in violation of federal law?”

However, all these U.S. citizen complaints were rebuffed.

South American Money

In the mid-1990s, more evidence surfaced about Moon’s alleged South American money laundry.

In 1996, the Uruguayan bank employees union blew the whistle on one scheme in which some 4,200 female Japanese followers of Moon allegedly walked into the Moon-controlled Banco de Credito in Montevideo and deposited as much as $25,000 each. By the time the parade of women ended, the total had swelled to about $80 million. Authorities did not push the money-laundering investigation, apparently out of deference to Moon’s political influence and fear of disrupting Uruguay’s secretive banking industry.

Some Uruguayan politicians did protest, however. “The first thing we ought to do is clarify to the people [of Uruguay] that Moon’s sect is a type of modern pirate that came to the country to perform obscure money operations, such as money laundering,” said Jorge Zabalza, a leader of the Movimiento de Participacion Popular, part of Montevideo’s ruling left-of-center political coalition. “This sect is a kind of religious mob that is trying to get public support to pursue its business.”

Back in the United States, some of Moon’s confidantes supplied more evidence of money laundering. When Moon’s daughter-in-law Nansook Moon fled from abuse at the hands of one of Moon’s sons, Hyo Jin, she described her personal participation in money-laundering schemes. In a sworn affidavit – and a later book – Nansook said the price for her life of luxury was being part of what she regarded as a criminal enterprise.

To finance his personal and business activities, Hyo Jin received hundreds of thousands of dollars in unaccounted cash, Nansook said. “On one occasion, I saw Hyo Jin bring home a box about 24 inches wide, 12 inches tall and six inches deep,” she wrote in her affidavit. “He stated that he had received it from his father. He opened it. ...

“It was filled with $100 bills stacked in bunches of $10,000 each for a total of $1 million in cash! He took this money and gave $600,000 to the Manhattan Center, a church recording studio that he ostensibly runs. He kept the remaining $400,000 for himself. ... Within six months he had spent it all on himself, buying cocaine and alcohol, entertaining his friends every night, and giving expensive gifts to other women.” Another time, a Filipino church member gave Hyo Jin $270,000 in cash, according to Nansook.

Nansook’s lawyers secured corroborating testimony from a former Manhattan Center official and Unification Church member, Madelene Pretorious. At a court hearing, Pretorious testified that in December of 1993 or January of 1994, Hyo Jin Moon returned from a trip to Korea “with $600,000 in cash which he had received from his father. ... Myself along with three or four other members that worked at Manhattan Center saw the cash in bags, shopping bags.”

Front Companies

As the Nansook’s divorce case played out, I met with Pretorious at a suburban Boston restaurant. A law school graduate from South Africa, the 34-year-old full-faced brunette said she was recruited by the Unification Church through a student front group, the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), in San Francisco in 1986-1987. In 1992, Pretorious went to work at the Manhattan Center and grew concerned about the way cash, brought to the United States by Asian members, would circulate through the Moon business empire as a way to launder it.

The money would then go to support the Moon family’s lavish life style or be diverted to other church projects. At the center of the financial operation, Pretorious said, was One-Up Corporation, a Delaware-registered holding company that owned Manhattan Center and other Moon enterprises including New World Communications, the parent company of The Washington Times.

“Once that cash is at the Manhattan Center, it has to be accounted for,” Pretorious said. “The way that’s done is to launder the cash. Manhattan Center gives cash to a business called Happy World which owns restaurants. ... Happy World needs to pay illegal aliens. ... Happy World pays some back to the Manhattan Center for ‘services rendered.’ The rest goes to One-Up and then comes back to Manhattan Center as an investment.”

Hyo Jin Moon did not respond to interview requests sent through his divorce lawyer and the church. Church officials also were unwilling to discuss Hyo Jin’s case. But Hyo Jin was forced to produce documents and discuss his financial predicament in a related bankruptcy proceeding.

In a bankruptcy deposition on November 15, 1996, Hyo Jin sounded alternately confused and petulant. “All I like was guns and music,” he volunteered at one point. “I’m a boring person.” But Hyo Jin confirmed that he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash at the Manhattan Center that was not reported as taxable income.

“[In] 1993, I received some cash, yes,” he said. “At that time around 300, 500 Japanese members were touring America and they stopped by to see the progress that was happening at Manhattan Center, because it was well known within the inner ... church community that I was doing a project, a cultural project. And they came and I presented a slide show, and they were inspired by that prospect and actual achievement at that time, so they gave donations. ... It was given to me. It was a donation to me.”

“Did you report that gift to the taxing authorities?” a lawyer asked.

“It was [a] gift,” Hyo Jin responded. “I asked [Rob Schwartz, the center’s treasurer] whether I should. He said I didn’t have to. You have to ask him.” When pressed for clarification about this tax advice, his lawyer counseled Hyo Jin not to answer. “I’m taking that advice,” Hyo Jin announced. “My lawyer’s advice not to answer it.”

John Stacey, a former CARP leader in the Pacific Northwest, was another Unification Church member who described Moon’s organization as dependent on money arriving from overseas. Stacey told me that the fund-raising operations inside the United States barely covered the costs of local offices, with little or nothing going to the big-ticket items, such as The Washington Times. Stacey added that the church-connected U.S. businesses are mostly money losers.

“These failing businesses create the image of making money ... to cover his back,” Stacey said of Reverend Moon. “I think the majority of the money is coming from an outside source.”

Another member who quit a senior position in the church confirmed that virtually none of Moon’s American operations makes money. Instead, this source, who declined to be identified by name, said hundreds of thousands of dollars are carried into the United States by visiting church members. The cash is then laundered through domestic businesses.

Another close church associate, who also requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, said cash arriving from Japan was used in one major construction project to pay “illegal” laborers from Asia and South America. “They [the church leaders] were always waiting for our money to come in from Japan,” this source said. “When the economy in Japan crashed, a lot of our money came from South America, mainly Brazil.”

First-Hand Account

In Nansook Moon’s 1998 memoirs, In the Shadow of the Moons, Moon’s ex-daughter-in-law – writing under her maiden name Nansook Hong – alleged that Moon’s organization had engaged in a long-running conspiracy to smuggle cash into the United States and to deceive U.S. Customs agents.

“The Unification Church was a cash operation,” Nansook Hong wrote. “I watched Japanese church leaders arrive at regular intervals at East Garden [the Moon compound north of New York City] with paper bags full of money, which the Reverend Moon would either pocket or distribute to the heads of various church-owned business enterprises at his breakfast table.

“The Japanese had no trouble bringing the cash into the United States; they would tell Customs agents that they were in America to gamble at Atlantic City. In addition, many businesses run by the church were cash operations, including several Japanese restaurants in New York City. I saw deliveries of cash from church headquarters that went directly into the wall safe in Mrs. Moon’s closet.”

Mrs. Moon pressed her daughter-in-law into one cash-smuggling incident after a trip to Japan in 1992, Nansook Hong wrote. Mrs. Moon had received “stacks of money” and divvied it up among her entourage for the return trip through Seattle, Nansook Hong wrote. “I was given $20,000 in two packs of crisp new bills,” she recalled. “I hid them beneath the tray in my makeup case. ... I knew that smuggling was illegal, but I believed the followers of Sun Myung Moon answered to higher laws.”

U.S. currency laws require that cash amounts above $10,000 be declared at Customs when the money enters or leaves the country. It is also illegal to conspire with couriers to bring in lesser amounts when the total exceeds the $10,000 figure, a process called “smurfing.”

In the Shadow of the Moons raised anew the question of whether Moon’s money laundering – from mysterious sources in both Asia and South America – has made him a conduit for illicit foreign money influencing the U.S. government and American politics. Moon’s spokesmen have denied that he launders drug money or moves money from other criminal enterprises. They attribute his wealth to donations and business profits, but have refused to open Moon’s records for public inspection.

Given Moon’s influence over the Republican Party – and The Washington Times' impact on U.S. national politics – House Speaker Hastert might want to investigate where Moon’s money originates, assuming that Hastert is truly concerned about illicit foreign money entering the U.S. political process. It may be more likely, however, that Hastert simply wants to smear a liberal adversary.

This story was adapted from Robert Parry's book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq. A 27-year veteran of Washington journalism, Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra scandal stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek.

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - Front Groups of the Moonies

So where is this Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?

Ever since Hillary Clinton revealed that there was a vast right wing conspiracy the Press has been asking, "Where is it?" They think this is some kind of a joke. It's not a joke. Here's the list of just Moonie controlled organizations. These people are taking over the news media, Christian Organizations, and the Republican Party. Former President George Bush has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote Moon's cause and speak at Moonie events. Here's the Web Site I got this list from.

As part of his plan to take over the world, Moon has initated numerous organizations. Although they are often established by members and although church members towards the public often vehemently deny ANY affiliation with the UC, inside the church these organizations are proudly viewed as "Father's projects" ...intended to further the establishment of "God's Kingdom of Heaven on Earth" ...under Mr. Moon's rule as the Messiah and "True Parent of Mankind." To us as members this was another sign that "he must be the Messiah" ...since he is so incredibly successful in "furthering God's providence." Well, if that were a measure for truth - UC members should leave their movement to follow the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses who are much more successful and use the same argument. Just as you can be sincere but wrong you can be successful but wrong. (Didn't Hitler, Al Capone, Stalin, and others demonstrate that already???)

Nous n'avons aucun contrôle sur les attaques de la secte de Moon.
Mode d'emploi pour s'en débarrasser

Quand le Président Nixon reçoit le délinquent sexuel à la Maison Blanche
	Quand le Président Raegan fait de la publicité pour une publication du délinquent sexuel

La poignée de main du délinquent sexuel à Gorbatchev, pour 100.000 $

Quand l'épouse du Président Bush l'épouse du délinquent sexuel se rencontrent...

La famille Mooniste modèle

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