Washington Babylon — June 8, 2009, 1:09 pm
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California billionaire Igor Olenicoff had already invested $200 million with UBS AG in 2001 when his Swiss bankers ushered him to an underground vault in Geneva.
Olenicoff, a real estate developer with a taste for yachts and Russian art, saw floor upon floor of safe-deposit boxes. His private banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, and a colleague showed Olenicoff his own space for valuables.
“They said, ‘Whatever you want — corporate stock, cash, gold, silver — put it in here,’” says Olenicoff, 66, at the Newport Beach, California, headquarters of Olen Properties Corp., the company he founded in 1973. “It was that aura of legitimacy and secrecy. They say, ‘We’re the world’s largest wealth manager,’ so how do you question?”
Recall, of course, that former Senator Phil Gramm is a senior executive with UBS.
More from Ken Silverstein:
Commentary — July 25, 2012, 2:20 pm
Washington Babylon — September 29, 2010, 11:37 am
Ratio of military recruiters to college counselors at East Los Angeles’s Roosevelt High School:
The majority of young Swedish women are attracted to both men and women.
“My body was quite happy,” said ISS mission commander Chris Hadfield. “I learned to talk with a weightless tongue.”
“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science, and I’ve come to see how it’s done.”
