Chapter 17
Jeremy woke in the middle of the night and started to check out the next packet. There were names of the 10, the 60 and most of the C6. Some of the names Jeremy recognized. A few names were in the news as he watched it on the hotel TV. At least 2 of the 10 had died, plus one of the 60. Jeremy ran the names of the 10 on this encrypted satellite lap top connections. 3 had passed away in the last few days.
“Too many to be a coincidence”, he said out loud without thinking.
“What?” asked Melanie, waking, “what has happened?”
“3 of the leader group have died in the last few days. I wonder if we did that by starting the Run.”
“Maybe Jonathan is protecting us”, said Melanie.
“Yeah, maybe, but my bet is there is something else going on here. John could have ruined these people any time he wanted. Why would he do it now?”
“My God”, said Jeremy, “some of the 60 are dead also. Without this list I would never have put these people together. This looks like a direct threat on the MMG, maybe a coup d’état. “
“If a true coup is in process our power could diminish. There is no reason to let us live if the leadership team is no longer in power. Telling the world who they are would have no sting. They could either forget about us or determine we know too much and kill us.”
Jeremy read the packets they had received. Per John Bettle’s notes, he explained that after his skirmish with the leadership team in 1969, an agreement had been made. The black ops group would back down from highly visible assassinations and war mongering. Bettle would become the lead planner for the team. His Run concept was a great success and they wanted him to control all he could.
There were a few test Runs as they reacted to events in the late 60’s/early 70’s, but one of Bettle’s first big events was Nixon. Nixon was going soft on the war, and the MMG still wanted it to continue. Discussions started in 1972 and Bettle had a challenge. How do you remove an acting president, and what do you do about Agnew? The MMG did not want an Agnew presidency, so Bettle needed to remove them both.
“This is incredible,” said Jeremy, as he reviewed the packets. “They took Agnew out and worked to get Nixon in trouble, all for profit and gain. You were like 8, and I was 6, when all this happened”
“All I remember about Agnew was his sayings, like “pusillanimous pussyfooters," "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history". Melanie said with a chuckle; she cracked herself up, she thought to herself.
“Well, apparently he had a past.” Said Jeremy, “at the time, a very thorough investigation into Agnew’s past found that he had accepted bribes while serving as Baltimore County Executive, Governor of Maryland, and Vice President. Not only had he received these, but certain people in the MMG had first-hand knowledge, having paid the bribes. By July of 1972 they had all the evidence they needed on Agnew. When ready they released the incriminating evidence via the press, and he crumbled.” Jeremy continued reading to himself because Melanie had moved into the bathroom.
Nixon, on the other hand, was more difficult. Removing a sitting president had never been accomplished without a gun. The MMG did have contacts inside the White House, as they had for every president since JFK. They learned of Nixon taping his office and his arrogance of wanting to be the best recorded president of all time.
The Bettle Run was put into place to remove Nixon and Agnew by the end of 1974.
The operative already in the White House proposed the break-in at the Democratic Committee offices to gather any advantage they could get for the coming election. A different operative was moved into the Committee for Re-Election of the President. A great deal of money was donated by MMG people to “use as they wished”. The attempt at corruption worked, at the recommendation of the MMG operative, and a slush fund was formed.
“There is stuff in here about Watergate also.” Jeremy shouted to Melanie, who was still in the bathroom. “Watergate started with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering at the Watergate Complex. It says here that the five were sent by someone in the White House and were paid with cash. They still had the cash on them when they were arrested. They were caught breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters on June 17th, 1972, after an anonymous tip by the MMG.” Jeremy continued, “Wow, the FBI easily connected the cash back to the slush fund, as the MMG had someone deposit a cashier’s check earmarked for the Nixon re-election campaign into one of the burglar’s accounts. The burglars also had notebooks with the name of a Nixon aide and W House and W.H written in them. This all sure sounds like a set up to me.”
“Knowledge of the tape recording system was soon passed on to become public. The final piece of the Nixon puzzle was to have an internal MMG operative delete 18 ½ minutes of a tape. What was on the 18 ½ minutes is not known, but it was not done to cover up a conversation, but instead to raise suspicions. Oh my god!” Jeremy said, “They set him up! A legal battle ensued in regards to the tapes as Nixon did not want to make them public.”
Again, Melanie seemed less than interested so Jeremy continued to read without explaining it to her.
Nixon had not been involved in the break in at Watergate, but got caught up in the cover up. The missing 18 ½ minutes of tape could not be explained, he did not know how it happened.
The findings on Agnew were released to the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland in early 1973, and eventually to the FBI. Within 6-months Agnew was allowed to resign and plead no contest to a much reduced charge.
Nixon selected Gerald Ford as his new Vice President.
Once the tapes were released the MMG showed Nixon had been a part of the cover up and on August 8, 1974 Nixon resigned. It was the first peaceful coup d’état in American history. It was too late to stop ”Peace with Honor,” however, but it showed the power of the Bettle Runs.
A second Run happened at about the same time. This one actually came into being as a reaction to world events. The MMG was not fully organized at this point but Bettle saw an opportunity coming.
“Hey boss!” said Santos Arroyo, one of Bettle’s team in May of 1971, “sounds like the US is going to drop the gold standard. I just got off the phone with the White House and Nixon is going to sign an executive order.”
“I haven’t heard of a meeting being arranged with the International Monetary System members,” Bettle said.
“Hasn’t been one,” said Arroyo, “apparently the State Department doesn’t even know Nixon is going to do it. He is also going to impose a 90-day wage freeze and price controls. On top of that he is implementing a 10% import surcharge.”
“Alright every one, let’s get on this NOW! We need to figure out what the markets will do with this in the next 5 days and over the next 5-years.”
Bettle and his team saw change coming as America dropped the gold standard in 1971 and, as a result, the United States started printing money that was no longer attached to gold reserves. Britain would soon do the same, floating the pound sterling, and other countries would soon follow suit.
Bettle’s team saw an opportunity. A media blitz was begun by the MMG media connections to support the removal of the gold standard. A bubble was being created by reporting how strong the markets were and how the future looked excellent, even though the devaluation of the dollar was seen by the team as a precursor to a recession. They even went so far as to publish an article 3 days prior to the market starting its freefall, which called for the market to have a banner 1973. Then 3 days later they had an article printed that started the negative press, and the imminent market collapse.
At that time a small amount of trading and a lot of word of mouth in the right circles could sway the market. As the market fell, people were buying as stocks went down, trying to catch the bottom, hoping to ride the market back up. But the market continued to drop.
In addition, Bettle had heard through internal contacts at OPEC, that OPEC leaders were very unhappy with the United States
in regards to devaluation of the dollar. Relations between the United States and OPEC were already weak due to US policy in regards to Israel.
The devaluation of the dollar increased the tensions between the two powers. At that time oil was valued using US dollars.
“How upset are they?” Bettle asked his OPEC contact Abdul Rashid.
“There is talk that they may stop selling oil to America. They also want to get away from the dollar. They are talking about raising prices.”
“An oil embargo against the US and her allies? How real is this threat?” Bettle asked.
“It won’t take much to seal the deal.” Said Abdul Rashid, “they are ready, they just don’t feel world reaction would favor them making a move at this time.”
In 1972 there were secret discussions among a few Arab countries about attacking Israel. This also came to MMG knowledge and to Bettle. He decided to helped fuel the fire. The goal, of course, was to sell arms. “If they use ‘em, they buy more”, one of the team said. There was a second reason in Bettle’s mind. If the Arabs invade Israel, and the US were to assist Israel, that would give OPEC the reason to go for an oil embargo, driving the markets down.
Bettle instructed his team to do some detailed research and calculations to potentially gain from these world events. “What would happen if OPEC stopped selling oil to the US and Europe? Who would benefit? How much of an increase would be needed to start a rush of oil exploration in the US? What happens to the markets? I need answers and I need them in 4 days. This will happen, let’s be ready.”
Jeremy was engrossed in the information Bettle had provided and continued to pour over the material. In addition to fueling the Arab flame of the coming invasion of Israel, The MMG warned Israel of the invasion a few hours prior.
“What are you reading now?” Melanie asked.
“It’s about the 1973 oil embargo. On October 6th, 1973 a few Arab nations attacked Israel, in locations Israel had taken from them in the 6-day war in 1967. The attack began on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, which is a Jewish holy day.”
Jeremy continued, looking for some type of reaction that she was listening now, “Also known as the Day of Atonement, Yom Kipper is the holiest day of the Jewish year. Confession, repentance and prayer lead the day as atonement is asked from God and people. The entire day can be spent in the synagogue by some. Traditionalists observe a 25-hour period of prayer and fasting, along with no bathing or washing, and no marital relations.”
“Wow, can you imagine?” she said.
Knowing she was listening Jeremy continued out loud. “Even with the short notice provided, Israel was ill equipped to fight as the war began, since many were off observing Yom Kipper. Once back to full steam the Israeli forces were able to regain losses prior to the cease-fire, which was put in place on October 25, 1973.”
“In response to the invasion of Israel, as Bettle had expected, the United States air lifted aid to Israel and helped them secure a victory, as Israel not only regained the ground they had lost, but added additional land on the Golan Heights.
Jeremy turned toward Melanie and continued, “OPEC, in response to US aid, decided to establish an oil embargo against the United States and some of its allies on October 17th, 1973, even before the war ended. They raised the price of crude oil by 70%. They also cut production numerous times over the next year.”
“The amount of crude oil and petroleum related products available to American businesses and the American people was decreased almost immediately. The long term effect, as Bettle was expecting, was the motivation for the US and other nations to start exploration. The MMG had started the process of controlling the domestic oil industry, buying suppliers and leasing oil rights all over the oil producing states. In addition, the pre-knowledge of the need to develop conservation processes and techniques would allow a few MMG people to gain a fast rise to the top of a few companies. OPEC released the embargo in March of 1974. By then the price of a barrel of oil had gone up by more than 100%.”
Jeremy continued to read to himself as it was apparent that Melanie had lost interest. The bear market of 1973 – 1974 lasted from early 1973 to late 1974. The US stock market was hit hard, losing over 40% of value. The Europe market was hit worse. The London Exchange lost 70% of its value. UK property values were dropping as well.
Bettle, along with many others, made a killing in the markets. They expected the drop, made money on it, and then bought property that people had to sell because the markets were so poor. MMG participants in London and surrounding area bought thousands of homes and rental property at bargain basement prices using gains, knowing this would eventually turn around.
The MMG controlled media talked disaster for two years after the crash began. They pushed even harder as the embargo took away oil. Disaster, rationing, shortages, dire, dreadful news. Values of most items went down. Bargains were to be had. Eventually OPEC removed the embargo in March of 1974. MMG controlled news outlets showed the world starting to turn around, and so it did.
As the recovery began, Bettle started thinking about the rising oil prices, the increase in cost of goods, and determined they needed to plan how to profit from runway inflation. Where would there be profit in that?
“Hey, were getting into our time now!” yelled Jeremy. Melanie came out to listen. “The 1980’s and 1990’s were a time of a great technology explosion. Computers, e-mail, the Internet were becoming house hold words. Cell phones we projected to be in every home in America. The MMG was on the leading edge of all of these technologies and most Runs were quick ones designed to take advantage of current markets and business conditions.”
“The 80’s was a time of take overs, corporate raiders, angels, and junk bonds. The MMG was very active at this time. There were numerous Runs to front money and get huge returns.”
“One member, Andre Doyle, remember him?, became a visible leader of the era. Because of his MMG ties he could raise huge amounts of money quickly. At first this created huge wealth for the MMG faithful, however, after a few successes Doyle created a small team that decided to start out on their own. Taking MMG knowledge and networks with them, they started to work the market outside of the leadership team and John Bettle. They were warned multiple times, even pardoned once, but they continued to use MMG personnel to blatantly trade with insider knowledge.”
“Now the MMG specialized in insider trading, but they let a variety of people win, mixing things around, so it was not obvious that just a small group ALWAYS seemed to win.”
At that time Kalibi Keita, one of the MMG leadership, called Bettle. “How do we stop this man without getting exposed?” He asked.
“We control most of the market leaders. The firm that will investigate Andre is run by an MMG faithful. I think a few well laid hints about the insider trading will spark interest and it will not take long for the news to come out about the renegades.”
“How do we do it?” Keita asked Bettle.
“I know a hungry media man that needs to owe us a favor someday; I will drop this his way. When the time comes we will have him pay us back.”
“Always planning, connecting, looking forward; you are an incredible thinker, Mr. Bettle.” Said Keita.
The renegades were convicted of insider trading. The charges were all in relationship to the deals they had run outside the MMG. They used the MMG network to learn about mergers or takeovers a few days prior to the change being made public. They would make huge trades and profit greatly from them. The problem was it was a straight greed play, stupid; all they did was create attention. With a couple phone calls the MMG had put a few of their own in jail. A notice went out to all MMG faithful, follow the rules or be ruined.
Many years after the market manipulation of the 1970’s, the MMG took advantage of the Dot.Com craze in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. There was no Dot.Com plan, until after it started. When everyone is excited about the market, a bubble is appearing. How long does it last? How high will it go? How f
ar will it fall?
Once the Dot.Com phase started there were thousands of MMG people financing Dot.Com companies, acting as Angels, grabbing money from Angels, riding the media blitz, and then cashing out by going public! Making a killing with short term ownership of a fledgling company, all with a company that never sold anything and never made a dime! Wow, if you could only find the right technological widget, get the MMG based media to promote it, and sell the concept for you, and then you sell the company to crazed shareholders – that is one of the MMG ways of printing money.
The NASDAQ Composite Index from 1999 to late 2001 looked like Mount Everest. From a 1,500 Base to 5,000 peak, and back to a 1,500 base, all inside of 2 years.
In the year 1999 there were 457 IPOs, everyone was trying to get a company hyped enough to get investors. 117 of those companies had their stock double in price on the first day of release. Most companies were Internet or computer related. Bettle and his team could not believe the market. It is amazing how you can create something from nothing, create a media blitz, sell it at IPO, and double everyone’s money in one day! The MMG faithful would then slowly sell out, letting everyone else in, as the company was soon shown to be over leveraged, overpriced, and not even close to producing a product.
The MMG also made money on all of the fees charged for market related items.
Bettle and his team were very involved in the market in late 2009. Bettle called his team together. “Day trading, computerized buy/sell, options; people, the market is now processing at the speed of a computer!” Bettle said, looking around the 4th floor conference room at MMG Dubuque. “There is opportunity here, I know it. I want to research how these programs work and test some theories to see if we can manipulate the market by predicting what the computers will do with a large trade. We designed this stuff; now let’s figure out how to use it”
The team got to work finding everything there was available about the trading software used by large firms. Their access into the market firms allowed them to get inside information from market IT and development people. Since the software was developed by an MMG up-and-comer, they were able to hack in the back door of the software to run reports. The reports gave access to a large amount of information, but the team wanted outstanding orders waiting to execute if the price went up or down.
As they compiled the information a common theme was discovered. The sell orders were close enough that one large order may trip a few sells and drop the entire market. As the selloff starts, there would be a weakness of buyers, creating a freefall, making the drop continue. Testing showed the drop to be about 8% down, the buy orders would start to kick in bringing the market back up. This was not blind projection, it was already in place but most people could not see it.
“How do we capitalize on this without exposing our hand?” Bettle asked.
“Well sir,” Gary Mason, the market specialist said, “it appears to me that the big firms hit their sells and get out and stay out, to protect against market volatility.” He continued, “We would just position our sells a few points below the large firms and they would trigger if the large firms sold. We would not be first, we would not be exposed, but we would be on the sell at almost the beginning.”
“In addition,” said Michel Pari, “because we have the back door we can predict what will happen and how big the initial sell would need to be.” Michel was the technology expert that helped create the software. “If we can get the current market to drop on our simulated system, we would be able to predict the drop, and the recovery.”
“So,” Bettle said, “we can predict how market computer trading will react, we can be late to the party to cover our knowledge, and will have buys in place to get back in low.” A smile started to creep over Bettle’s face. “So, if we are to get people involved to maximize MMG profit on this one, where and how do have them trade?”
“Well,” said Michel, “all we need to do is pass out instructions to set sell and buy numbers at the correct dollar amount as we get close. As a matter of fact, in preparation for the actual blip we create; people should start posting sell orders and low priced buys on their investments now. That way it will look like they got lucky, waiting for a blip that actually happened.”
“How about option trading or currency?” Bettle asked.
Gary jumped in on this question, “we believe this movement will be so fast that options won’t have a chance to be re-priced prior to things going back up. Our projection here is that all of this will happen inside of 2 hours. None of this would be possible without computer trading. The buy/sell action will be instantaneous. If we start it at 1 PM it should be all done and back to normal by market close.”
“Very well, what kind of timing are we looking at?” Bettle asked.
“We would like another 5 – 6 months to test and perfect this, we will only get one shot,” said Michel. “Afterwards the market will create safeguards that will not allow this to happen in the future. As a matter of fact, I have already created them. I am just waiting for the opportunity to save the day!”
As the debt crisis in Greece was creating market instability Bettle knew the time was ripe for picking the market. “Run it one more time,” he told his team. “I want to be sure.” It was May 3, 2010. “I want to prove this out, all the MMG personnel that will benefit on this movement should be ready since we instructed them to make trades a while ago; let’s shoot to do this Thursday, 2:45 Eastern.
On May 6, 2010 a phone call was made to a member of the stock market, the only message was “Flash Gordon approaching.” He opened the packet he had as part of the Run and it let him know to trade a large quantity of E-Mini S&P 500 contracts.
The investigation would show a prominent mutual fund firm sold a large number of E-Mini S&P 500 contracts which exhausted all available buyers. This created a drop that computers saw as a leading indicator that something may be wrong. In response the computers started to sell mutual funds as programmed, which tripped others, dropping the market at an exponential pace.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 9% during the day, most of that in a 5 minute period. The rebound took about 20 minutes. By days end the market was almost back to full value. Selling short, riding down, buying back in, it turned out to be the best 25 minute payday in MMG history.
The MMG media blamed Wall Street, called for reform, and sold tons of newspapers. The investigators did an in depth review of all that happened and concluded that the computer trading systems were holding tight sell orders prior to the crash, because of the debt crisis in Greece. When the E-Mini S&P 500 contracts sold it triggered the computers to sell, doing most of the damage.
How could anybody get in trouble? The computers did it. And while markets do crash, and people were looking for it with the Greece crisis, profiting from an immediate rebound was seen as pure luck. An immediate rebound of a market crash had never happened before.
As Bettle liked to say when explaining it, “No punishment was levied and no one needed to give back any money.”
“Wow,” said Jeremy, with Melanie by his side. “I can’t believe how much of this happened in our life time. I can’t believe I researched some of this and could find nothing! Sure, some of the people that made big money during these events didn’t seem to understand how they made the money, but there was nothing I could find to implement anyone. Unbelieveable.”
“It’s late, said Melanie, “I am going back to bed.”
“Alright, see you in the AM,” Jeremy responded without lifting his head.
“Mr. Eagleton, sir,” said one of the MMG interns. “I have a potential. No cameras, no car information, but I have a fairly good match on the description. The man checked in last night at about 10 PM with no reservation, which puts it in our bubble timing. East of St. Paul just outside of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.”
“Thank you”, said the intern’s supervisor, “we will hit all the leads in the Twin Cities first and then send someone out.”
At 9 AM the
next morning Jeremy woke up and realized they needed to leave. Who knows what resources they have, he thought, they could be on to us already.
“Melanie,” he said calmly, “it’s time to go. We need to be out of here in an hour.”
“Why are we leaving, I thought we would hide out here for a few days.”
“I was wrong,” said Jeremy,” they could track us here. If they track us by travel time and check in times, they will check to see if this check-in was us, the timing fits. If we leave, the chance of them finding us goes down exponentially with each mile.