The World's Biggest Arms Trafficker Goes Down Hard
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It's April 18th, 1989, in the Schweizerhof Hotel, the most opulent lodging in the Swiss capital city of Bern. 53-year-old Adnan Khashoggi, arms dealer, media darling, dealmaker extraordinaire and quote-unquote whoremonger, has been invading authorities for years, jet-setting round the globe and surrounding himself with some of the world's most beautiful and powerful people.

Serving a subpoena on the Saudi billionaire, one reporter quips, was like trying to swat a flyer with a rubber band. You never knew where he was going to fly next. Khashoggi's involvement in the shambolic Iran-Contra affair sent Justice Department officials into overdrive.

But it's the Marcoses, the corrupt first couple of the Philippines, who've landed Khashoggi with charges of racketeering, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and mail fraud, with a potential prison sentence measured in decades rather than years. Washington says Khashoggi helped the Marcoses embezzle their nation's coffers, and it wants him on American shores.

Once the US rolls out its biggest legal dragnet, there is barely a big fish or a fat cat or a big wig or a kingpin that can resist its pull.

And when US Embassy staff alert Burns cops that Khashoggi is in town for a medical procedure, at around 10am on this grey and cold April morning, the Schweizer Polizei swoop, nabbing the arms dealer in his favourite hotel and leading him off, uncuffed, to a nearby jail. There, Khashoggi will stay for three months, pacing restlessly in a 6x8 foot cell.

Most of his fellow prisoners are inside on drugs charges. They don't get food deliveries from the schreizerhof like Khashoggi, this strange portly man with his soft voice and cheeks like a kid's plush toy.

Nevertheless, having to muck out a prison toilet is still quite the shock for a man used to living a life of unrivaled luxury. A modern-day Midas, traveling by private jet or superyacht, dining at Michelin-starred restaurants, and sleeping, rarely alone, in apartments and villas in almost every continent.

Neither did Khashoggi's cellmates have the cash for his brigade of international lawyers, each of them fighting tooth and nail to avoid their clients extradition to the States. In the end, they secure a half-win. The Swiss ruled that Khashoggi will face prosecution only for obstruction of justice and mail fraud, avoiding the heavier racketeering and conspiracy raps.

The Saudi agrees to go. And on July 19 that year, handcuffed but decked out in an olive safari suit with gold buttons and epaulettes like a Camp Colonel Gaddafi, Adnan Khashoggi steps off a first-class Swiss airplane in New York City, ready, after all these years of deals and dark money, to face the music. And like every chapter of the self-styled playboy's life, the next one will be nothing if not utterly gripping.

Welcome to the Underworld Podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to the Underworld Podcast, a weekly deep dive into naughty people and naughty stuff they love doing from Hong Kong to Haverford West.

BELOXI TO BIDAGOJ

Yeah, yeah. I think as this show is going out, I'm going to be in the Philippines. Like right now, as you listen to this, it's the future or the past or whatever the hell it is. I'm following the drug war after 10 years for Harper's Magazine. And we're going to have plenty for that on the show as well, including a couple of bonuses, one on night patrol with the cops in Manila, another from Deval, which is the southern stronghold of the drug.

family on the death squads of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte the ones he ran before taking the top job so it's going to be pretty fun and hairy stuff to get all that plus interviews with leading writers experts plus ad free shows script notes and reading lists there

There you go. There's a good ad. Join our Patreon. Patreon.com slash The Underworld Podcast. Tons of stuff there. Helps us keep going. Danny, yeah, I thought it was called as balls where you were, but I don't think it is, right? I think as we're recording this, you've actually moved out to sunny Mexico. Yeah, dude, I'm on the Oaxacan coast, Puerto Escondido. We have some listeners who were like, actually, hey, I heard you're going here. Let's hang out. We have a hotel. So that's awesome. I'm going to hang with those guys.

So it's terrible, right? This is really bad there. Yeah, I mean, look...

You know, do we have homes? No. Do we have retirement funds? No. But like both of us are right now in locations where there are tropical birds that might ruin the sound, you know, and that's, that's, uh, I think that's, that speaks to itself, but yeah, also bonus episodes, um, Spotify, iTunes as well. You guys can sign up right there on the app. Okay. That is nice. We're both in very nice places and we have good lives, I guess. Um,

just like Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer billionaire, see what I did there, who had tons of homes, an air fleet and the world's largest yacht, which we don't have any of. We left off in part one of his story a couple of weeks back with things going swimmingly. He's making money hand over fist with America's three biggest weapons manufacturers. That's Lockheed, Norfolk, Raytheon. And by 1987, I think where we left off, he's

He's just made the cover of Time magazine with his Inspector Poirot looks and indefatigable charm. But I said at the end of that show that things were about to go south. And if you hadn't had a stroke between the intro and now, you'll see that I've given the game away a bit. Khashoggi's about to feel the weight of Uncle Sam's boot on his neck. Although he's rich enough to get his charges watered down before he's shipped across the Atlantic from Switzerland.

But let's first head back a few years to 1979. It's a big year. The Ayatollah is taking Iran, which is going to play into the next part of Khashoggi's story. And Khashoggi himself is getting divorced from his first wife, Soraya, born Sandra, of course, Sandra Daly in the UK, mother to four of his kids, whom he married when she was just 20 years old. You know, if they can't make it work, like what hope is there for the rest of us?

Yeah, I mean, I've been giving my Mrs. Patek Philippe watch for the last 58 weeks of our relationship and it's going strong. So Soraya starts talking about taking $2 billion from her husband's fortunes, but that assumes that he hasn't been telling porkies about his earnings all these years and

And Khashoggi winds up settling on $874 million for Soraya, which still makes it the fourth biggest divorce settlement of all time, unless we're going back to Henry VIII. A little disillusion in the monasteries joke for you there, guys. You are welcome. But this all pole vaults Khashoggi into the media consciousness, and all kinds of crazy info comes out in the divorce courts.

Yeah, I mean, this is like Daily Mail, New York Post, cocaine. They would have had, back in the day, probably seven reporters assigned to this story. Yeah, and all of them doing shorthand as well. How horrible is that? Like, for example, the Khashoggi paid off American executives, presided Saudi princes with call girls, and he gave a $60,000 bracelet to a daughter of then President Richard M. Nixon, who's going to come up again in this show.

Even bigger news comes when Soraya admits to having had a torrid love affair with a prominent British politician she calls Mr. X. This turns out to be, yes, you guessed it, Winston Churchill? No, no, not that one. He died in 1965. It's his horndog grandson, Winston Churchill, then also a Tory MP, and who's now also dead. Coincidence? No.

I mean, there's so much information in that paragraph. I may have to listen to it twice, but also do we, do we, is he a confirmed horn dog or is that, are you just speculating right now? Oh,

I'm speculating. This is speculative horndogness. Yeah, I can't speak to the rest of his life. But yeah, he's dead. You can't slander the dead, can you? I don't know. But this is also, you know, red top titillation kind of stuff. What comes next, though, begins to really erode Khashoggi's cuddly arms dealer persona, leading to his later arrest in Bern.

First, there is a scandal involving Bronx-based defense contractor Wedtech, you get in all this, which wins a dodgy $32 million contract to build engines for the army, which Khashoggi plays a key role in, which is of course corrupt. The company goes bust and a bunch of his executives end up in court.

I mean, come on, dog. How are we getting involved with a defense contractor based in the Bronx? Like, are you kidding me? These guys probably make War Dog look like Tim Cook, like the guys from War Dog look like Apple or Microsoft. It's probably like I guarantee you it was one Albanian guy with two Dominican mechanics in an auto body shop off Jerome Avenue. And they somehow finagled a $32 million contract.

Danny, Danny craps on the Bronx. We've got that in the show today. I'm pro hustle. I'm pro. I'm good for them. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they should have. They really should have seen this coming. Why is it called wed tech? That's what I want to know. Anyway, there is also something called the French. So I'm sorry, guys. The cap de ale. Cap dial. I don't know. Affair.

which uncovers one of Khashoggi's major supply chains of young women. That's quite a sentence as well. Hooking up with a Côte d'Azur woman named Mireille Griffon, a.k.a. Madame Mimi, who's doing basically yo sushi but with prostitutes for Khashoggi and his high-powered business partners. I guess you could call him Khashaggy because, yeah, he's shagging a lot. Nice. Nicely done.

Thank you. Here's a Vanity Fair piece from 1989 called Khashoggi's Fall, and it's very good. Quote, Madam Mimi's operation boasted a roster of 300 girls between the ages of 18 and 25. A perfectionist in her trade, Madam Mimi groomed and dressed her girls so that they would be presentable escorts for the important men they were servicing.

The girls who were sent to Khashoggi in groups of twos and threes called him Papa Gato or Sugar Daddy. I didn't know that Papa Gato was the French for Sugar Daddy, which is way better because he was extremely generous with them.

In addition to their fee, 40% of which meant to Madame Mimi, the girls received furs and jewels and tips that sometimes equaled or surpassed the fee. And this article goes on, quote,

His role as a provider of women for business purposes was not unlike the role his uncle Yusuf Yassin had performed for King Ibn Saud. Remember him from the first episode?

After the French police on the Riviera were alerted, a watch was put on the operations and the madam's telephone lines were tapped. In time, an arrest was made and the case went to trial in Nice in February 1984 amid nasty publicity. Madam Mimi, who is believed to have personally grossed $1.2 million in 10 months, got a year and a half in jail.

Kawagi, who was her procurer, got a year in prison and Kishogi sailed away on the Nabila, his superyacht. Starting off a biographical paragraph with the phrase, one of the greatest whoremongers in the world, it's just, it's incredible. I mean, that is like, that's Pulitzer stuff right there. Yeah, I would suspect that.

However, who I spoke to, well, yesterday, actually, as we're recording this, who is Khashoggi's stepdaughter, Petrina Khashoggi, a writer and actor based in New York. I don't think she would agree with this. And I mean, I wasn't expecting her to say anything bad about her family. Like we had a chat and she had reached out to me through a guy who listens to the show. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, I thought it would just be interesting to include a bit of what she told me here.

It was always very entertaining and fascinating and exciting, like never a dull moment. Colourful characters from all walks of life. And everybody was just so drawn to him because he was at the centre of it all, an incredible host. He was like a magnetic bright light that everybody was so drawn to.

So, yeah, make of that what you will. And thanks to Petrina for speaking to me. I really do appreciate. But with the Cap d'Isle affair yet again, Khashoggi has gone into a deal where everyone's ended up in prison or broke and he's just sailed off on his big old boat.

He's starting to sound a bit like a shyster, right? And then there's the Iran-Contra affair, the plans for which kick off in earnest around this time, and it really shifts perceptions of him in the States from this sort of exotic trader-diplomat to something altogether more sinister. In

In case you don't know what Iran Contra is, I'm going to try and explain it as briefly as possible. Okay, here goes. The Islamic Revolution means that the US has an arms embargo on Iran, and it tries stopping its allies selling parts of the country, as it openly declares its intention to export the revolution throughout the Arab world, not to mention flattening Israel. And Saudi Arabia, people always forget that one, but like,

That was a big thing. They wanted to overtake the Saudis as the Islamic power in the Middle East. And then you have the siege of Mecca like six months later, which is...

you know the saudis are looking at the iranians as having encouraged it and it kind of freaks them out and then you know you have this 40-year power struggle uh which leads to the saudis starting to export wahhabism if you have a chance to read the siege of mecca by uh uh yaroslav the reporter who does a lot of great work in the wall street journal about ukraine yeah um so that book's phenomenal and then black wave is about that saudi iranian power struggle which uh is crazy and how much the sort of you know

Iranians kick-started this battle with Saudi Arabia that's taken over 40 years and led to all sorts of chaos. So it's a wild, wild time. Wild year. 1979 was a wild year. Yeah. And it's just going to carry on getting wilder, even now. I mean, yeah, it's not going to die down anytime soon. Anyway. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Who do you guys turn to when you need support or help changing your mindset or your life? I know...

Both Sean and I have dealt with pretty topsy-turvy careers that have been rollercoaster rides, you know, with the added anxiety of covering wars and violence and the PTSD that results from that. And I personally, you know, when things have gotten too much, found it helpful to speak to a therapist. It really helped calm me down, deal with pressure, and move past things when I was stuck.

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Daredevil is born again on Disney+. My name is Matthew Murdoch. I'm a lawyer. Exactly what kind of a lawyer are you? Hey, really good one. Everyone agrees it's the best Marvel television series. Gritty, intense, and elevated. It's Daredevil at his best. If you step out of line, I will be there. Ha ha ha!

Marvel Television's Daredevil, Born Again. Don't miss the two-episode premiere tonight, only on Disney+. Only at this time, right? So despite this embargo on Iran, Iran and Iraq are at war. And Iran reaches out and makes a secret plea to buy American arms against Saddam Hussein.

Some members of US intelligence and military make the case that they should, in fact, sell arms to Iran because a. it will stop the Soviets from stepping in and becoming an Iranian ally and b. it will curry favour with Hezbollah, Iran's proxy, and Lebanon, of course, which at the time is holding a group of seven US hostages.

At the same time, President Ronald Reagan, who is no fan of communism, in case you didn't know, he wants to arm right-wing rebels over the world in Honduras. These are called the Contras, against their own leftist government.

But Congress doesn't want to do this, so Reagan permits the NSC, the National Security Council, to continue funding the Contras with cash reaped from selling over 1,500 missiles to the Iranians. Now, on November 3rd, 1986, a Lebanese magazine reveals this, calling it a, quote, arms for hostages deal. Reagan goes on TV.

denies it, then a week later says, oh, whoopsie, you meant those Iranian missiles? Yeah, that was us. There's a massive blowback. A few of the instigators, including famously Oliver North, are fired. But in the end, a commission appointed by Reagan declares that Reagan didn't actually know about any of the really juicy Contra stuff. So the Reagan-appointed commission lets Reagan off.

Anyway, there's a guy, Ted Shackley, who plays a very, very big role in a lot of our stuff about the Golden Triangle we've done. He played a key role in all of this as well. And if you've seen the show American Conspiracy about this kind of octopus thing that Danny Casalaro was reporting when he was allegedly killed or committed suicide. Yeah, he was deeply involved in Iran-Contra. Ted Shackley is all over the place. Anyway.

There must be a million podcasts on all this, and there's a lot more to it than that, of course. But basically, Iran-Contra had begun back in 1983 when National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane had met, yeah, Adnan Khashoggi. Khashoggi then gets working on his mega-roller decks, and by 1985, he's having dinner in Hamburg, Germany, with an expat Iranian arms dealer named Manasheh Ghorbanifar. Now, Manny Ghorbanifar, I'm going to call him, could

easily be his own episode as could several other people in today's show but prior to the islamic revolution he is a member of the shah's secret intelligence service the savak which if you look it up has hands down the coolest insignia of any unit i've ever seen

Yeah, it's like a flying man, lion, eagle hybrid. It's pretty sick. Yeah, it's dope. He also heads an Israeli-Iranian shipping firm. And throughout his life, there are strong beliefs he's an Israeli agent. I mean, I think at one point he does something in Libya and he's like, well, yeah, Libya is against the interests of Israel.

which is, you know, a bit of a tell. Anyway, Khashoggi meets Manny in Hamburg. I don't know if they go to the Reaper Barn. And between them, they facilitate the Iran part of Iran-Contra. There's a massive scandal, of course. And folks start wondering who the hell Adnan Khashoggi is, if he isn't just that cuddly little sort of wheeler-dealer they've been told about in the media.

There's actually an episode of Nightline where Barbara Waters, who, if you don't know, is a very famous reporter in the US, she goes to Monte Carlo to meet Gourbanifar. Khashoggi has set up the meeting and he's just hanging out at the casino slinging chips. He even tells Waters he's brought Israel Shimon Peres on board, remember the last episode, because, quote, I thought the Americans will not know how to investigate this guy, Gourbanifar, properly because their channels have been cut. So,

So, yeah, he's a he's a pretty big time talker. Anyway, this whole thing, Iran-Contra exposed, complete mess, and it shatters public confidence in Reagan. Again, Khashoggi just walks away, but not for long.

It's 1986 now, and the friends he's keeping are doing pretty bad stuff indeed. Take, for example, the Duvaliers, the exiled Haitian dictators living at large in southern France. I think they're driving around in Testerosses and all kinds of shit. They are staying at a home found by them by Khashoggi, belonging to his son. Here is Ron Kessler in his biography of Khashoggi called The World's Richest Man that I used a lot for part one of this. Quote, What Khashoggi needed most...

was people and his money brought him that he figured only two in ten of his friends would still be there if he had no money but he accepted it all accepted even the people who stole from him or took kickbacks because most of all he feared being isolated like king midas counting his gold in an empty room

Well, that listeners is what we call dramatic foreshadowing. But what you might not have guessed is that it's the Philippines, a distant archipelagic state in the Pacific Ocean, that will light the spark of Khashoggi's downfall. And it goes a bit like this. In February 1986, a popular revolution brings to an end 20 years of rule by klepto-despot Ferdinand Marcos, who is thought to have robbed his nation's coffers of up to $10 billion.

Plenty of this goes to his glamorous wife, Imelda, a former beauty queen and owner of the world's most notorious shoe collection. I think there are around 3,000 pairs in total. Do we know that the shoes thing is real or is that lore? No, man. There's a museum of the shoes in Manila, like just down the road from where I'm not right now. But when you're listening to this, I am. I bet you'll check that out, you little feet weirdo. Yeah.

Yes, I love that. Anyway, moving quickly on. On a single 90-day overseas trip, Imelda Marcos is thought to have spent $9.5 million back then, which includes $12,000 on bed sheets, $50,000 on silver serving plates and half a million on Cartier gems.

The Marcoses are friends of the Reagans, however, and despite how obvious their crimes are, the US allows the couple to flee the revolution and live in exile in Hawaii, scooping up millions of dollars in cash, jewels, gold, and art as they scamper onto a jet. This is another episode in his own right, of course. This guy and his episodes, man. Churning it out.

churning it out. But Khashoggi is there all the way with his pals, the Marcuses. He fronts around $160 million in illegal real estate deals. And when US authorities embark on a kind of half-assed, really, attempt to return some of the Marcuses' loot back to the Philippines, they discover that four large holdings in New York City, on Fifth Ave, Herald Square, Wall Street, and Madison Ave, have passed to Khashoggi.

These properties appear to have been bought in 1985, but investigators believe they've been fraudulently backdated. In addition to them, Khashoggi is hiding more than 30 paintings the Marcoses have stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, including works by Rubens, El Greco, Picasso and Degas, first on his super yacht, the Nabila, and then in his penthouse in Cannes, France. Here's Vanity Fair again. Quote,

The penthouse was raided by the French police in a search for the pictures in April 1987, but it is believed that Khashoggi had been tipped off. He turned over nine of the paintings to the police, claiming to have sold the others to a Panamanian company, but investigators believe that he sold the pictures back to himself. The rest of the loot is thought to be in Athens.

Well, this is just embarrassment upon embarrassment for the US government, from the shambles of Iran-Contra to Reagan's coziness with the Marcoses, their criminal kleptocracy, and the glowing evidence they've plunked a bunch of stolen goods on their flight to Honolulu. And Adnan Khashoggi is right at the heart of all of it. He even claims he's owed between 10 and 15 million bucks for the, quote, bridging money he'd supplied for the Iran missile deal, which, yeah, that's a massive flex. Halas, says Washington.

and it goes after Khashoggi hard. Authorities charge him twice, once for the four New York properties, and second for the art he's screwing it away in France, or Athens, or wherever the hell it is at this point. He's arrested by Swiss cops at the Schweizerhof Hotel, and having tamped the charges down to obstruction of justice and mail fraud, he has flown out to the States. Khashoggi's two brothers, the one he owns...

with they stump up $10 million for bail and Adnan just carries on living the high life waiting for his mega trial to run its course. He goes everywhere with two Korean bodyguards, Kiel and Lee, who are both Taekwondo champions and the former protectors of the Korean president. I mean, these guys would demonstrate their skills at Khashoggi's parties by kicking cigarettes from guests' mouths, which is pretty annoying if you ask me, but I guess if you're on a bottle of Moe and half a gram, it's probably okay. I

I mean, these guys actually sound awesome. Like there, there's an episode right there. I'm Googling. I'm like looking them up after this and I want to look at their photos and take it all in. It's, it's just impossible not to listen to this and hear peel and key, peel and key. And just like, yeah, this is,

this is just like a full comedy episode but anyway all this stuff it just begins to look like window dressing because while he's on bail kashoggi's businesses take a nosedive not only is he political kryptonite by this point i mean neither the americans nor even the saudis really want much to do with him but he's also spent the fat end of two decades plowing his cash into ridiculous projects we mentioned them last week there

There was a Sudanese agriculture plan, a land deal in Gabon, a Turkish trader, a Chinese city, a giant expo center next to the pyramids of Giza, and way more. And of course, tons of them had failed. Got to spend money to make money, baby. Yeah. How's your crypto wallet looking these days? I think all the money's gone. Okay. I spent the money. I didn't make the money though, unfortunately. The second part is always a little harder for me. I mean-

I'm sure there are some guys in Puerto who can help you empty a little bit more. In 1987, Triad files for bankruptcy, having failed to pay contractors on a massive complex in Salt Lake City, Utah. There is unpaid rent, his luxury condos, his planes are seized. Maintenance on the swimming pool in Manhattan, that stops. Khashoggi even fails to pay for his daughter's helicopter lessons. What a

bastard all the time this guy keeps on throwing insane parties keeps dishing out for cool girls like he's on uber eats but even saudi arabia's national commerce bank sues him for 22 million bucks at this point plus interest for a slew of unpaid bills

By the way, on this point, I was also able to speak alongside Petrina with Vivian Ventura, who was a 60s socialite and activist. I mean, look her up, guys. She's had quite the incredible life. And for years, she was one of Adnan Khashoggi's closest friends. I mean, literally, her and Petrina just walked off the go course when we chatted. And here is what she said about Khashoggi's death.

If he saw anybody sad or upset, he said, well, we're going to fix this right now. This has to go away. And all the heads of state, all the presidents, I met a lot of very important people when I traveled with Adnan and his entourage. And I mean, one of the things we did that I went with him was we were invited for breakfast to the White House for

after the second investiture of President Nixon. But it's unbelievable how presidents adored him and treated him like he was the most important person on earth. When things started to go wrong,

The problem I've learned in my life is that when people get so big and so powerful and so wealthy, is that sometimes mistakes are made with the people that they surround themselves with. And sometimes you get people that are giving the wrong advice. And I believe, I really believe, and I'm not going to mention names, but I believe that there was a point in AK's life that...

he started surrounding himself with the wrong people. That's when I think mistakes were made. And I'm not saying they were Adnan's mistakes, but I'm saying that you then get advisors and the advisors become more ambitious than the actual principle. So again,

It's not surprising Vivian and Petrina were back for their family and friends, and it wasn't that kind of interview, really. I wasn't going to push them too hard. But others believe it was a little less undermining and a bit more the actions of a con man. And to be fair, when you read back what others from Khashoggi's inner circle have said about him, that assessment might not be a million miles off.

Here is Khashoggi's architect, Alan Calvo, quote, AK has a way of convincing you of almost anything. He can persuade you with his charm to change your mind after you've made it up. He builds people up. He introduces people in such a flattering way as to make them blush. He finds very quickly the point to touch them the most. Afterwards, people say, you saw how nice he was to me? People feel flattered, almost in love with him. I mean, there's tracks, right? Like this is what Grayson's

Great politicians, great business leaders, they've all got this kind of factor, right? You're the only person in the room thing. But anyway, in 1988, things get worse. Khashoggi is forced to sell the Nabila, its 281-foot superyacht, to the Sultan of Brunei.

After a quick fix up, the Sultan then sells the yacht to real estate mogul Donald Trump. Khashoggi doesn't want Trump to keep the boat's name, which of course Trump has no intention of doing anyway. So Trump renames Nabila the Trump princess after his own daughter Ivanka, but not before he's knocked a million off the deal to change it, which is to be fair to Trump, pretty incredible deal making. Damn, that actually is like the art of the deal. You know, he's going to do it anyway. He just gets a million bucks out of it. Like that's, you know, got to give him credit for that one. That's pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do got to hand it to Donald Trump. Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines have come together, bringing you more destinations and even more rewards. Now your miles add up no matter which airline you fly. Head to Hawaii with Hawaiian or explore Mexico, the Bahamas, the East Coast and beyond with Alaska. Your loyalty just got a major upgrade. More flights from the West Coast, more perks and more ways to earn. Book now at alaskaair.com.

I'm ready for my life to change. ABC Sunday, American Idol returns. Give it your all, good luck, come out with a golden ticket. Let's hear it. This is a man's world. I've never seen anything like it. And a new chapter begins. We're going to Hollywood. Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan, and Ryan Seacrest on American Idol. Season premieres Sunday, 8, 7 central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep Podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.

That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Foster. Dominic Dunn, who wrote the Vanity Fair piece I've quoted from quite a bit today, he actually meets Trump at this time, who tells him that, quote, I read every word about Adnan Khashoggi. I mean, Danny, can you do a Trump voice? I feel like everyone could do a Trump voice, but I can't. I can't. I wish I could. I mean, you can eat off that, you know? I mean, give it a go. Give it a shot right now. Oh, my God. This is going to be horrific. Trump goes on in his quotes.

This has the potential. Khashoggi was a great broker. I can't do it. You do it. Khashoggi was a great broker and a lousy businessman. He understood the art of bringing people together and putting the deal. That's actually not bad. Yeah, that was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. You started off Marlon Brando and then it got good for like a minute, like a second. Man,

I'll take Ray Romano. Anything is going to be better than what I thought it was in my head. Anyway, I'm going to do the rest in my own voice. Sorry, guys. He understood the art of bringing people together and putting together a deal better than almost anyone. All the bullshitting part of talk and entertainment. But he never knew how to invest his money. If he had put his commissions into a bank in Switzerland, he'd be a rich man today. But he invested it and he made lousy choices.

And Trump actually goes on Letterman to talk about the yacht, calls it, quote, probably the greatest yacht ever built. It's been kind of a great investment. Where do you think that boat is right now? Like, do you think it's like shipwrecked somewhere? I do not know. Should we ask Jack? Let's look it up. Yeah, go on, go on. Oh, it's now owned by that guy, Al-Waleed bin Talal, that Saudi magnate.

Of course it is. Wasn't he like the one of those guys who was like imprisoned in the five star hotel in Riyadh or something during that MBS thing? You know, casually detained, I think is the phrase that they were they were going for. But it was either it was either going to be it was either going to be someone who was 100 percent locked in that hotel or in a Russian oligarch. Like there's that's the only two people that that can own a boat that big.

Yeah, pretty much. I'm pretty sure I interviewed that guy once when I was living in Dubai. Anyway, in 1989, a lawyer named Steve Martindale brings out a book about his experiences with Khashoggi called By Hook or By Crook. And it exposes some of the flim-flam he claims he's seen while accompanying the Saudi as a legal representative.

At this point, Khashoggi lists his net worth as just under $54 million, which is a tiny fraction of what it had allegedly been just a few years prior. What's remarkable, writes Martindale, is that he managed to fool so many people for so long. The notion that AK, as he likes to be called, is a billionaire may never die.

I mean, 54 million after some setbacks, like that's, you know, he's like he was Anna Delvey. Like he was probably somewhere in the low nine figures. Right. Like he was doing if you're like, I've only got 54 million left. Like maybe you're not, you know, the mosque, but like you're you're doing all right. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, maybe Khashoggi should have done Dancing with the Stars. He could have pulled himself back from the brink. Anyway, Martindale goes on, quote, My travels with Adnan taught me something about illusion and reality in the world of the super-rich. It also gave me a chance to witness one of the more remarkable traveling circuses of the 1980s, in which Adnan and friends roamed the globe looking for new infusions of cash that would allow him to stay afloat. I mean, this does sound like most...

hyper rich people I've ever met in their lives as well this is where a quick trip to the reading list for today's episode might come in handy guys because Martindale goes on this crazy ranty story about an Indian Swami and the Sultan of Brunei and it's just I couldn't include it here it's just way too dense but he tears Khashoggi to pieces

allegedly. Quote, he prospered because of his ability to entangle wealthy people and institutions from the Saudi royal family to the Reagan administration in the illusion of his wealth and power. He

He traded quite literally on his reputation as a billionaire wheeler dealer. I mean, yeah, like that's how the billionaires are doing it now as well, right? It's just you become a brand. Anyway, take, for example, Iran Contra, where Martindale claims Khashoggi's bridge finance included a check that hadn't cleared when Iran received its funds, according to Israeli sources. There's a lot going on there. Or that he had drained $130 million from Triad when he claimed it was investing $90 million.

And even as Khashoggi attempts to revive his image via a series of philanthropic ventures, Martindale claims he only dishes out tiny amounts of pledges and he's dumped from the boardrooms of academic institutions because he doesn't even bother showing up. It's at this time, seemingly, that Khashoggi begins interacting with Jeffrey Epstein. I never thought we would say the words Jeffrey Epstein on this podcast, but we are about to go into this.

He works on shady business deals in the Middle East and Africa with Epstein. And Epstein will later say he'd worked at this time to help, quote, governments to recover money stolen by African dictators and that he's occasionally subcontracted by those same dictators to, quote, help them hide their stolen money.

which would, of course, tally with Khashoggi's Marcos deals. And Saudi Arabia is listed as Epstein's residence in one of the fake passports seized from his home in 2019, which has led to all kinds of crackpot theories about pedo islands and women being murdered for Khashoggi and Epstein and the Clintons and whatnot.

Okay, I'm taking a deep breath. You know where you can go with that shit, guys. Anyway, Ferdinand Marcos dies in 1989. But in July 1990, a New York judge acquits Imelda Marcos on fraud and racketeering charges and does the same for Khashoggi. Marcos thanks, quote, God Almighty for the vindication, adding, I'm in great awe and respect for the jury system that symbolizes the soul of the American people.

Khashoggi, probably just shattered from all the years of shagging and partying and wins and losses, puts it a little bit more prosaically. Quote, I'm proud of the jury system. I'm going to Mecca. And to Mecca, Khashoggi goes. Not to make hajj, of course, but to drift from the limelight to the place of his birth to enjoy old age. Not that he tamps down his lifestyle, according to Petrina. I didn't notice...

any dramatic changes because he was pretty consistent with his mood throughout. You know, he was quite laissez-faire, like he didn't, he wasn't affected by whatever was going on. He just was always in a good mood. He was very philosophical and

It was like, you know, money comes, money goes. It wasn't like any great drama if things were going badly. And he lived like a king to the very end. So, you know, it wasn't like, oh, wow, Uncle Adnan's fallen on hard times. It certainly wasn't noticeable.

In 1991, Khashoggi marries his third wife, an Iranian woman named, I'm really sorry, Iranians, listen to this, Shabari Azam Zangani.

In total, he has eight kids during his life. But beyond Khashoggi's business demise, there is a real changing of the guard in the arms dealer world. The Berlin Wall has fallen, the Soviet Union is toast, and a host of Cold War era guys, including, of course, Khashoggi, they go to the wall, while young upstarts like Victor Boot make billions in the ashes of global communism.

Take at this point, for example, Sarkis Soganalian, the Syrian, Lebanese, Armenian I mentioned in the first part of our Khashoggi doubleheader, known as the Merchant of Death. With his own bushy cartoon villa moustache, half a dozen chins, and a big old round tummy. A big fat man, a big fat arms dealer. This guy is also the Merchant of Death, too? You can't just call all of them the Merchant of Death, you know? Yeah.

Maybe you've got to number them. But I mean, you can't really think of a better term than that, can you? I mean, merchant of death, bringer of bombs. I don't know. Yeah. Bringer of bombs probably isn't going to cut it there. Anyway, while Khashoggi is playing off the championship tees, this guy is hacking off the yellows, selling to Middle Eastern despots, taking chunks out of each other in countless border wars.

Again, this guy's life can probably and it probably should be another episode altogether. But to give you a brief rundown, in 1981, he pleads guilty to selling .50 caliber machine guns to Mauritania. But he gets off because he's in cahoots with the State Department. In 1982, he sells weapons to Argentina in the Falklands War.

Again, the Americans know he's doing it and they keep him on the books. That's against our boys, our lads, by the way. In 1993, he's sentenced to six years for selling 103 helicopters to Saddam Hussein. But he whittles it down to two when he tells US officials of a place in Lebanon that's making counterfeit $100 bills. Then he's charged with wire fraud. But he's released after 10 months to help with an investigation of a prostitute

A Peruvian spy in Jordan? I mean, yeah, this guy is like the Teflon Pete of his time. Really similar to Khashoggi. Speaks seven languages, moves to Miami, but never takes US citizenship in part because the White House can always keep its distance. Of course he moves to Miami. Like that's exactly where he would go.

Exactly. And I'm sure he had a house in Dubai. Here's an incredible quote he gives to PBS in 2001. This is really great. Quote, being an Armenian, you are raised fighting to survive. Since we survived the Turkish massacres, a genocide like that of the Jews and others, we were the first generation with such a background. So you can say it was in my blood and in my dreams. As a young man, you like nothing more than weapons. Women were secondary. As at that age, we didn't know anything about that.

And here's a brief musing on the morality of his business. Quote, each transaction has its own benefit. Sometimes you want to do something even if it's not legal and you must consider where are the costs and where are the benefits? Is this transaction worth it?

That's pretty good. You see this similar kind of myth-making in Khashoggi too, who despite his semi-retirement is the focus of a 2009 New York Times article called An Arms Dealer Returns, now selling an image. But the image seems to be basically screw the haters. And here's where we get to a bunch of that idiot savant live-life-laugh-style bullshit I warned you about in part one. Quote,

Opportunity, when it knocks, you have to be able to open the door. And it knocked. What can I tell you? Deep.

And to the downfall of his billion-dollar empire, Khashoggi says, quote, what happened is very easy. We were on the top business-wise. We were doing very well. And suddenly they got involved in this Marcos story. Overwhelmed by investing? If you're anything like us, the hardest part is getting started. That's why we created the Investing for Beginners podcast. Our goal is to help simplify money so it can work for you. We invite guests to demystify investing. At least try to be setting aside like the minimums

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So, yeah, I mean, he's not selling a new image here. And when Khashoggi is asked about all the contractors he's never paid, all the mad parties and bankruptcy and false filings, this is his answer. Quote, if you want to furnish a house, you need money. If you want to buy a car, you need money. If you want to have lunch, you need money. You know what Napoleon said? Money is not everything. It is the means to everything.

Where did I go wrong? Khashoggi asks. Nowhere. And he adds, quote, I behaved unethically for ethical reasons. Yeah, me too. I do that. I do that too. You know?

Yeah, I mean, you've got a month in Mexico. In 2011, Sarkis Soganalian dies, and on June 6, 2017, Adnan Khashoggi dies too while he's being treated for Parkinson's disease in London. He's 81 years old. And since then, his memory has faded really quickly. Like I said in the previous show, Khashoggi and Soganalian, they just feel like characters from a bygone era. Gatsby's, Master Manipulators, Playboy's, Relics.

In fact, Khashoggi has become such a meme, he even inspired his own real-life conman, a Colombian-born orphan adopted by an American couple called Anthony Enrique Zinac.

his Instagram would have been incredible. Yeah, hands down. Unbelievable. Actually, Vanity Fair gets another big shout on this episode because they did a great piece on Jinyak in 2018. But basically, he gets his start as a millionaire scam artist at age 17, masquerading as, quote, Prince Adnan Khashoggi, which he later changes to Omar Khashoggi to build a limo company out of almost nine grand. And if you like con man capers, and who doesn't,

It's written by Mark Seal. It is great. It's called He Actually Believes He's Coloured, The Amazing 30-Year Odyssey of a Counterfeit Saudi Prince. On the reading list, which can be yours alongside a ton of bonus material for a few bucks a month. Thank you very much. But yeah, that is your two-parter on Adnan Khashoggi. I mean, I really enjoyed that. I want to know about him forever. So,

Yeah, cheers for listening. Anything I need to remember before I pack my bags for Melina? You know, just make poor decisions, which I'm sure you will. So we have content, you know, just think when there's a decision to make and it's between making a good one and a bad one, think what would provide

better content. Great. I will... Not for your article. I don't mean like for your article. Like forget it. I'm talking about for like right, like us like going back and forth. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Forget your actual work. Cool. All right then. I'll head down to Makati's Red Light District and I'll see you next week. All right, everyone. Until next week. Thanks for listening. Patreon.com slash NoWorldPodcast. Later. ... ... ...

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