Park convicted in Iraq scam

Bloomberg News/Houston Chronicle:

A New York jury convicted South Korean businessman Tongsun Park on Thursday of acting as an unregistered agent for the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

A federal jury in New York found that Park, 71, lobbied for the withdrawal of United Nations sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and to establish an Oil-for-Food program that sought to divert Iraqi oil revenue to purchases of food and medicine. Park was paid at least $2.5 million by the regime, the government claimed at the trial.

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Houston oilmen Oscar Wyatt, David Chalmers and Ludmil Dionissiev are scheduled to go on trial in November, accused of funneling millions of dollars in illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein's regime.

The U.S. Justice Department charged Park and at least six other people with illegally doing business with Iraq while U.N. sanctions were in place. Park, who has been in jail since his January arrest, was the first to go to trial and faces up to five years in prison. He denied the allegations.

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This appears to be just the beginning of prosecutions for the most massive fraud in the history of the world that was facilitated by the UN. It is hard to believe that only those named in this story are charged with crimes in this massive criminal consipiracy.