Sunday, October 9, 2016

SEYCHELLES PAST; THE DARK HISTORY

MASONIC MAFIA LINKED TO EDGWARE MURDER

The machine gunning of exiled Seychelles opposition leader Gerard Hoarau on the steps of his Edgware home last November was widely treated as yet another example of 'International Terrorism' at work. However, new evidence brought to light by French sources lifts the lid on a bizarre conspiracy involving the international heroin trade, the Mafia, a secret Masonic Order, and the would-be assassins of the Pope. Hoarau was the President of the Seychelles National Movement (SNM) and led the guerrilla 'Mouy6ment Pour La Resistance' (MPR), a right wing emigre coalition formed to overthrow the current government of the Indian Ocean micro state and its President France Albert Rene.

Since last February the SNM newspaper, the Seychelles Freedom Herald, published in London and smuggled in quantity to the Seychelles, has been waging a campaign against the influence of the Mafia in the archipelago—which has, been growing with President Rene's blessing. From its own investigations, supported by items in the Italian, American and British press, the SNM has concentrated its at- tack more and more on the man it considers to be the Mafia's key figure in the Seychelles, Mario Ricci.

Mario Ricci
 Aged 55 and a resident of the Seychelles for the past dozen years, Mr Ricci runs a large number of enterprises in the country, including hotels, housing developments and a tea company. Since June 1984 he has been officially accredited as Ambassador of the Order of the Knights Hospitalers of Malta to the Seychelles government. This American order is recognised by hardly any other country and has nothing to do with the charitable Rome-based Order of the Knights of Malta, but through it Mr Ricci enjoys diplomatic status and privileges, including immunity. He is also very close to President Rene, and sees him often.

In its last issue, dated September, the Seychelles Freedom Herald published letters from the Ministry of National Development in the Seychelles capital, Victoria, and from Barclays Bank showing that Mr Ricci had transferred nearly two million Seychelles rupees (about $271,000) to the ruling party, the Seychelles People's Progressive Front, in return for the indemnity of one of his Seychelles companies, Oceangate, received at its nationalisation in 1984. Oceangate, registered in Panama, received a cheque worth $500,000, when the normal practice in the Seychelles is for such indemnities to be paid in Treasury Bonds which cannot be cashed for many years.

The article ended with an announcement that "in a future issue the Herald in conjunction with an internationally famous publication, will expose on of the biggest financial scandals involving Rene and Ricci." Was this threat perhaps at the root of the decision to eliminate Gerard Hoarau? Hoarau knew Mario Ricci well. He spoke fluent Italian and became one of Mr Ricci's best friends when the latter arrived in the Seychelles. Their relationship developed over the years, and when Gerard Hoarau joined the opposition to the Rene regime, Mario Ricci partly funded the MPR, while re- maining on excellent terms with the President.

Albert Rene
At this point some of the wider ramifications became apparent. The MPR is attached to the shadowy French-based organisation, Confire'nce Inter- nationale des Resistances en Pays Occupis (CIRPO) run by extreme right wing publisher Pierre de Villemarest to ferment 'armed struggle' against Communist regimes across the world. It has a strong input from E. European emigre groups—including the current pretender to the throne of Albania—and is in touch with the S. African-backed NRM in Mozambique and the Nicaraguan Contras.

There has been speculation of some CIRPO involvement in the failed Seychelles coup attempt of four years ago.

During the preparations for the plot hatched in Room 412 of the Carlton Hotel in London in 1982, Mario Ricci gave Gerard Hoarau a credit card to enable him to pay expenses. But the room was bugged and in November 1982, the Seychelles radio broadcast recordings of the plotters' conversations. Gerard Hoarau was convinced that Mario Ricci organised the planting of the bugs and then passed on the recordings to President Rene. Even so, the two men continued to see each other regularly, their last meeting taking place in Switzerland a year ago.

However, by now convinced that Ricci was playing a double game, Hoarau must have then fallen out with his colleagues in the MPR and been threatening to expose the Mafiosi's drugs and currency operation in the Seychelles.

Gerard Hoarau had already exposed other scandals, amongst them that of the surprising protection extended by the Seychelles in 1984 to Francesco Pazienza, a Mafia big shot who was sought by the FBI, Interpol and the Italian police in connection with his supposed involvement in the P2 Masonic Lodge scandal and the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in Italy and drug dealing in the United States. Pazienza was finally arrested in New York travelling under a false name on a Seychelles passport which he said had been given him by President Rene.

Pazienza was also alleged to be one of the controllers of the crazed Pontificide Mehemet Ali Agca—as part of a wider plot to 'destabilise' Italy in preparation for a fascist takeover, it will be watching his trial with interest.

Nick Reilly
Source: Indian Ocean Newsletter

NTERNATIONALT1MES VOL. 86 No 2. PAGE FOUR