David B. Chalmers, Jr.

David Bay Chalmers, Jr., a wealthy Houston-based independent oil trader, owner of Bayoil Tech, was charged April 14, 2005, by Federal authorities in "the scandal surrounding the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program. Chalmers and his company, Bayoil were charged "with making millions of dollars in illegal kickback payments to Iraq while trading oil under the program."

Arrest
"David B. Chalmers, the businessman, and Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian citizen and permanent U.S. resident, were arrested Thursday morning at their homes in Houston. U.S. Attorney David N. Kelley said he will seek the extradition from England of a third defendant, John Irving.

In an indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court, the defendants were accused of participating in a scheme to pay millions of dollars in secret kickbacks so that oil companies owned by Chalmers could continue to sell Iraqi oil under the oil-for-food program."

"The indictment also suggested that money skimmed from the oil program might have ended up in the hands of two U.N. officials. Their names were not released." 


 * Link to the Indictments.

Chalmers and Iraq's Oil
Researched and captured by Crooks and Liars website:

"Dealing with Saddam's Regime" (cache file), Friends of Saddam - Italy website, April 8, 2004, "Augusto Giangrandi and Italtech":

Through the lens of one specific case, the Il Sole/FT investigation provides an unprecedented insight into how oil allocations were granted and traded, commissions were paid and a privileged few were able to earn millions from an initiative intended to ease the impact of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis. ...

Mr Giangrandi was one actor in an international charade that helped Mr Hussein's regime divert hundreds of millions of dollars from the United Nations oil-for-food programme to its own ends. ...

[A Chilean-Italian arms dealer, Mr. Giangrandi founded Italtech in the late 1980s, to build engines for mini-submarines. Through Carlos Cardoen, an arms dealer, Giangrandi was introduced to Iraq. He met General Ameer Mohammed Rasheed, in charge of Air Force procurement, and later Oil Minister.]

In 1995 Gen Rasheed became Iraq's oil minister. Sensing an opportunity, Mr Giangrandi decided to refocus Italtech, the company he had formed in 1991 to develop engines for Cosmos submarines. On 15 July 1999, he registered it as a "national oil purchaser" under the oil-for-food programme. Italtech lacked both the know-how and the capital to lift significant amounts of oil. But Mr Giangrandi knew just the man to turn to: David Bay Chalmers, Jr., a wealthy Houston-based independent oil trader, owner of Bayoil Tech. ...

"Chalmers would get the oil lifting," says a retired US customs agent who worked on the Miami case. He would then sell it and reimburse Mr Cardoen, while keeping a percentage for himself, the agent says.

The business plan was simple: Italtech acquired allocations of Iraqi oil, then sold the oil to Bayoil for a small commission. Bayoil would collect the oil and sell it on.

[The article continues, citing documents and financial transactions that confirm the relationship between Iraq, Italtech, and Bayoil. In March, 2001, gun-toting Baathist agents arrived at Giangrandi's Baghdad villa, and demanded that he cough his 'commission.' Immediately! Giangrandi complied, and survived.]

SourceWatch Resources

 * UNscam

Articles

 * Margie Burns, "Bush Donors: Saddam's Best Customers," BuzzFlash Reader Commentary, October 14, 2002.
 * Larry Chin, "The deep politics of regime removal in Iraq: Overt conquest, covert operations," Online Journal, November 21, 2002.
 * "Iraq enlists first trading houses," Reuters, July 10, 2003.
 * Claudio Gatti and Mark Turner, "Dealing with Saddam's Regime," Financial Times, April 7, 2004.
 * T. Christian Miller, "Americans among beneficiaries in oil scandal," Seattle Times, October 9, 2004.
 * Jess Braven, John D. Mckinnon, and Russel Gold, "IRAQ: Oil-for-Food probe hits U.S. Oil Companies. Exxon, Chevron and El Paso Are Named in CIA Report On Hussein-Era Program," Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2004.
 * T. Christian Miller, "U.S. Buyers of Hussein's Oil Acted to Assist Iraq (Los Angeles Times)," Seattle Times, October 18, 2004.
 * Michael Maiello, "The Saddam Shuffle," iraq.net, October 29, 2004.
 * "A paper trail to US oil company. US Oil Company in on it?," Friends of Saddam, December 1, 2004.
 * "Zhirinovsky named in oil-for-food scandal," Native New Yorker, December 1, 2004: "Another document lists a payment of $546,000 to [Russian oil company] Tyumen by Bayoil, headed by tycoon David Chalmers, whose office declined to comment."
 * "New Zhirinovsky Claim on Iraq Oil," Moscow Times, December 2, 2004: "Millions of barrels of Iraqi oil allocated to Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein were ultimately purchased by U.S. oil company Bayoil, the Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian business newspaper, reported Wednesday as part of a joint investigation."
 * "Hyde Issues Subpoenas, Wants Wider Investigation Into United Nations," Fox News, February 10, 2005.
 * Larry Neumeister, "Four charged in U.N. oil-for-food scandal," AP, April 14, 2005.
 * Colum Lynch and Michelle Garcia, "American Indicted In Iraq Oil Probe", Washington Post, April 15, 2005. Information about David B. Chalmers, Jr., a Texas oil executive involved in the oil-for-food fraud.
 * Julia Preston and Judith Miller, "Oil-for-Food Scandal Broadens With New Charges," New York Times, April 15, 2005.
 * "The Justice Department is on the ball. Justice does it the right way," Friends of Saddam, April 15, 2005.
 * Simon Romero, "Low-Profile Texas Oilman Draws Spotlight for Iraqi Deals," New York Times, April 15, 2005.
 * Bruce Nichols, "Oil-for-food defendants led quiet lives. Houston men kept low profile by trading, not drilling for, oil," Dallas Morning News, April 15, 2005.