*This was previously on the defunct ZZONE so I thought some newer visitors might enjoy it. zg
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The Uston Hit
We have it on good information from contacts at the French international police agency, Interpol, that Kenneth Usui (a/k/a "Kenny Uston") died of Cerebral Hemorrhage - caused by injection (ie, a sophisticated contract-hit).
At the time that Kenny left for Paris his Nevada Supreme Court challenge to the Gaming Commission's continuation of barring counters was denied - "The Court finds little difference between a slot-cheat who uses a crow-bar to pry open a slot machine and a card-counter who uses his mind to pry open a deck of cards at casino Blackjack," - wrote the Hon. Thomas Steffans in his now incredulous ruling.
At the time of his departure to France, Kenny had been contacted by a sympathetic party (who shall for now remain anonymous) with underworld ties and involvement directly in dealings with the secret Nevada Resort Association (NRA)/ Organized Crime axis. This sympathizer revealed that the NRA had bought Judge Steffan's decision and provided hard evidence of same.
Kenny vowed to a handful of close friends and associates that upon his return to the US he would go public with the information, expose the corruption, and overturn the good Judge's decision - one of these 'close friends leaked Uston's intentions back to the enemy.
The real power behind the NRA is "old-school / old-world" and summarily dealt with the impending situation - "strictly business," it was as "necessary" as the British Secret Service assassination of Princess Di. An autopsy might have revealed the foul-play, but in an unusual breach of procedure the French authorities ordered Uston's body cremated without autopsy before leaving France.
It is speculated by a few in-the-know that, at the time of the Uston hit, the criminal/gaming industry visionaries were anticipating the next phase of Nevada resort expansion - with the help of Wall Street-racketeer, Michael Milken.
Milken's true genius, as it were, was the repatriation of huge pools of offshore dirty (read drug) money converted to high-yield bond financing. Such offshore capital pools had long since been established by the late Meyer Lansky's global criminal enterprise and it was the Milken "junk bonds" that brought this dough back into domestic capital enterprize.
The bond-laundered billions needed to finance the 90s Nevada expansion were to be repaid with even more offshore "hot money" systematically fed directly into the mega-resorts' counting rooms to then be laundered as "casino profits."
"Mirage," "Bally's," "MGM," "Hilton," the bigger and more credible the name, the more dirty money to be laundered - No longer do secret owners "skim" profits out of the counting rooms - now they "infuse" hundreds of millions, even billions, of otherwise unreported narco-dollars directly into the counting rooms - the old paradigm gives way to the new!
As dynamic the concept was, in 1986 the prospects for pulling off such a global criminal coupe was very delicately balanced, to say the least - a reversal of Judge Steffan's decision could have upset the whole apple-cart, leaving Vegas to suffer the lackluster financial fates of Reno and Atlantic City - Donald Trump and his bailout (read, Chinese/Opium-Triad) partners being not an exception.
Kenneth Uston RIP - he was the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
xxx
------------------
The Uston Hit
We have it on good information from contacts at the French international police agency, Interpol, that Kenneth Usui (a/k/a "Kenny Uston") died of Cerebral Hemorrhage - caused by injection (ie, a sophisticated contract-hit).
At the time that Kenny left for Paris his Nevada Supreme Court challenge to the Gaming Commission's continuation of barring counters was denied - "The Court finds little difference between a slot-cheat who uses a crow-bar to pry open a slot machine and a card-counter who uses his mind to pry open a deck of cards at casino Blackjack," - wrote the Hon. Thomas Steffans in his now incredulous ruling.
At the time of his departure to France, Kenny had been contacted by a sympathetic party (who shall for now remain anonymous) with underworld ties and involvement directly in dealings with the secret Nevada Resort Association (NRA)/ Organized Crime axis. This sympathizer revealed that the NRA had bought Judge Steffan's decision and provided hard evidence of same.
Kenny vowed to a handful of close friends and associates that upon his return to the US he would go public with the information, expose the corruption, and overturn the good Judge's decision - one of these 'close friends leaked Uston's intentions back to the enemy.
The real power behind the NRA is "old-school / old-world" and summarily dealt with the impending situation - "strictly business," it was as "necessary" as the British Secret Service assassination of Princess Di. An autopsy might have revealed the foul-play, but in an unusual breach of procedure the French authorities ordered Uston's body cremated without autopsy before leaving France.
It is speculated by a few in-the-know that, at the time of the Uston hit, the criminal/gaming industry visionaries were anticipating the next phase of Nevada resort expansion - with the help of Wall Street-racketeer, Michael Milken.
Milken's true genius, as it were, was the repatriation of huge pools of offshore dirty (read drug) money converted to high-yield bond financing. Such offshore capital pools had long since been established by the late Meyer Lansky's global criminal enterprise and it was the Milken "junk bonds" that brought this dough back into domestic capital enterprize.
The bond-laundered billions needed to finance the 90s Nevada expansion were to be repaid with even more offshore "hot money" systematically fed directly into the mega-resorts' counting rooms to then be laundered as "casino profits."
"Mirage," "Bally's," "MGM," "Hilton," the bigger and more credible the name, the more dirty money to be laundered - No longer do secret owners "skim" profits out of the counting rooms - now they "infuse" hundreds of millions, even billions, of otherwise unreported narco-dollars directly into the counting rooms - the old paradigm gives way to the new!
As dynamic the concept was, in 1986 the prospects for pulling off such a global criminal coupe was very delicately balanced, to say the least - a reversal of Judge Steffan's decision could have upset the whole apple-cart, leaving Vegas to suffer the lackluster financial fates of Reno and Atlantic City - Donald Trump and his bailout (read, Chinese/Opium-Triad) partners being not an exception.
Kenneth Uston RIP - he was the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
xxx