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Loose tongues foil 'Laos plot' By Richard S Ehrlich
to assist the Hmong insurgency once the takeover of Laos had begun," the agent
said.
The conspirators "were intent on securing Vientiane and Long Chien, which Jack
told me was a former CIA base", the agent reportedly said. Long Chien was a
base for hundreds of aircraft during the war, including the CIA-owned Air
America's planes.
"Jack told me his Hmong contacts had raised a lot of money
through Air America but had not taken any money from the CIA," the ATF agent
said, without elaborating.
"Harrison Ulrich Jack came to ATF's attention in the fall of 2006 when he
reached out to a defense contractor whom he knew and inquired about purchasing
500 AK-47s," the affidavit said, referring to Kalashnikov assault rifles. "The
defense contractor was very concerned, and went to the Phoenix ATF office."
An ATF agent in San Francisco, code-named "Steve", was assigned to Jack's case.
"On February 7, 2007, acting in an undercover capacity as an arms dealer, I met
with Jack, General Vang Pao" and about a dozen of Vang Pao's "Neo Hom"
supporters, he said.
While they all munched lunch in the "Amarin Thai Restaurant in Sacramento", the
wired agent recorded their conversations.
"After the meal, I offered to display the weapons I had available for sale. I
walked Jack, Vang Pao, and the other Neo Hom members to a recreational vehicle
that I had arranged to be parked close to the Thai restaurant.
"Audio and video recording devices were used while the targets were in the RV.
Jack, Vang Pao, and approximately 12 Neo Hom members looked at and/or handled"
machine-guns, grenade launchers, an anti-tank rocket, a Claymore mine, and C-4
plastic explosives "that they believed were for sale".
On May 9, confident that guns and ammo would soon be illegally delivered in
Thailand, "Jack asked me if I had a preferred currency, and I told him I
preferred US dollars as opposed to Thai baht.
"Jack and I discussed a finder's fee for Jack's role in brokering this, and
possible future deals for weapons. I suggested a flat $7,500 fee for the
initial transaction and a 3% fee for the next, presumably larger order," the
agent said.
He said he later upped Jack's commission for a weapons deal worth $9.8 million,
offering Jack 5%.
One of Jack's main comrades was would-be "president of Laos" Lo Cha Thao, who
allegedly met with Jack and the ATF agent during much of the planning stage,
while claiming to have 5,000 fighters inside Laos, waiting for the weapons.
Lo Cha Thao allegedly claimed he wanted to destroy several official buildings
in Vientiane - "like September 11" - so people in Laos could see that the
communist regime had lost its power to command and control.
"I showed the group several satellite images downloaded from Google of the area
around the Vientiane Vattay [Wattay] International Airport and the Laos Royal
Palace in Vientiane, Laos," the agent said.
Lo Cha Thao "asked me if the Stingers were capable of shooting down a MiG
[warplane]. I told Lo that the Stinger was made to shoot down jet aircraft."
The ATF said Jack, Vang Pao, and four others wanted to buy two Stinger missiles
after a Stinger was displayed to others in the group in the Hilton.
"Conspiracy to receive and possess missile systems designed to destroy
aircraft" is one of several charges against Jack, Vang Pao and the others.
The CIA generously handed out Stingers to its Afghan "holy warrior" mujahideen
during the 1980s to help the US-financed Islamist guerrillas win a 10-year-long
war against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. After that war,
numerous Stingers appeared on the black market. Washington belatedly offered
rewards for their return amid fears that the shoulder-fired, heat-seeking
rockets would be aimed at US commercial aircraft by anti-American rebels.
Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist from San Francisco. He
has reported news from Asia since 1978 and is co-author of the non-fiction book
of investigative journalism, Hello My Big Big Honey! Love Letters to
Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews. He received Columbia
University's Graduate School of Journalism's Foreign Correspondents Award.
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