"The richest man in the world" cons a British Lord

I had originally published an abbreviated version of this piece as an addendum to the preceding post. But now that some fascinating new info has come to light, this strange narrative deserves a post of its own.

Some of you may recall Wilfredo Saurin, the international con artist who was the subject of several previous Cannonfire exposes. (See here and here.) We also took a look at his hilariously colorful conster pals, including cult leader Queen Legaspi -- a.k.a., the Messiah -- and Dr. Hans Kempe, the man who cured cancer.

No, really. He did. Just ask him.

Saurin's still at it. Not long ago, using one of his many aliases -- Yohannes Riyadi -- he managed to convince Britain's Lord James of Blackheath that he (Saurin/Riyadi) is the richest man in the world, with over $15 trillion dollars to his name. Saurin/Riyadi, as head of something called Foundation X, wanted to help the U.K. weather its current financial storm with a massive loan.

He even produced a document confirming his wealth, "signed" by Alan Greenspan and Tim Geithner.

Almost needless to say, many internet sensation-seekers have accepted this claim at face value. After all, if a British Lord believes it, then it must be real. Right?

The conspiracy theorists insist that Lord Blackheath is telling the truth, and that all doubt is slander. Why do they say this? Because -- to put the matter very succinctly -- Saurin has spun a paranoia-filled yarn about the Federal Reserve. Conspiracy buffs of a certain stripe will believe anything you tell them, as long as you tell them something dark and ominous about the Federal Reserve.

What the buffs don't know, of course, is that Saurin became "the richest man in the world" by printing up his own financial instruments on an inkjet printer, as detailed in our previous installments of The Wonderful World of Wilfredo. Actually, Legaspi may have done the actual printing. Bottom line: the bonds are fakes.

Then again, how real is "real"? All paper money is, in a sense, a mutually agreed-upon hallucination. I wonder what would happen if Britain paid off its debts with pseudocash printed on an inkjet printer...?

Background briefing. This site, previously unknown to me -- also see here -- has compiled further data on Saurin (a.k.a. the "Philippines Phantom") and his possible links to terrorists. I should warn you that the report is not particularly easy to follow; it seems to have been written by someone whose native language is not English. Caveat lector and all that.

The gist is this: Saurin used to work with another "bank paper" fraudster named Alexander Mann, who operated out of Orange County, California. For a while, they had a third partner calling himself Tony Nguyen, who posed as the chairman of an alleged "free" government of Vietnam. In other words, these guys claim to be a non-communist government in exile. (Orange County has a large Vietnamese community.)

The report says that this organization is actually...

...an Asian terrorist splinter group garnering support from aligned nations with U.S. covert funding coup based assassinations and other destabilization efforts to overthrow the Republic Of Viet Nam, and headquartered right across the border in Cambodia...

Is this true? Well, Wikipedia has taken notice of this very same group...

Provisional Government of Free Vietnam...is a paramilitary political organization headquartered in Garden Grove, California, and Missouri City, Texas.

In 1999, Vietnamese police arrested 38 members and seized 37 kilograms of explosives in connection with a plot to bomb statues of Ho Chi Minh to disrupt national Vietnam festivals. The individuals were suspected members of the Government of Free Vietnam.

Looks like this "government in exile" has gotten involved with various forms of mischief over the years: Attempted bombings, attempted arson, that sort of thing.

The above-referenced report says that, in support of this terror group, Wilfredo Saurin formed several corporate fronts in Asia, Washington DC and Australia. This arrangement is starting to smell like the Nugan/Hand affair, isn't it?

The Australian side of the operation was called the Office of International Treasury Control, which was headed by a Saurin associate calling himself Dr. Keith Francis Scott. I'd like to know more about this fellow. The name is obviously bogus -- Francis Scott Key may not be a familiar name in Asia, but it's well-known to nearly all Americans (and certainly to an honorary son of Baltimore such as myself).

Scott has been getting up to some very elaborate mischief in Fiji. That story is way too complex to get into here.

Our afore-linked report on Saurin says that the "Philippines Phantom" has developed genuine skills as a martial artist. I can see how he might need them.

More importantly: He was recruited as a spy -- presumably for the Filipinos, although the report is unclear on that point. (During the Vietnam war and after, the CIA worked very closely with Filipino intelligence.)

The report says that Saurin

led a tight knit group of international criminal minded Asian terrorists directed to utilize a legacy U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Viet Nam war time era counterfeiting operation that manufactured a cross-border (Viet Nam/Cambodia) air lift infiltration air drop of billions in counterfeit money (i.e. currency known as "dongs" - North Viet Nam government dollar)

This makes sense. We know that the Nazis had concocted an elaborate scheme to undermine British currency using counterfeit bank notes. Why wouldn't the Americans use a similar plan against Vietnam?

Apparently, this "legacy" operation is what got Saurin into the business of cooking up fake financial instruments. Although he may have started out as a spy -- and although he no doubt relies on "spooked up" friends to help him stay out of jail -- I suspect that his motive nowadays is financial, not political. He's in it for the cash.

There's a lot of money to be made if you can convince people that you already have a lot of money.