There is nothing about the day to day operations of Landsbanki. The fact of the matter is however he wants to tell it, that he and “his people” managed to run it to the ground with catastrophic results for the Icelandic nation, and via the Icesave accounts, for the British and Dutch people as well.

Landsbanki as the other Icelandic banks took a direct stand against the Icelandic Krona for years before the crash, and vacuumed most of the money and other assets out of the bank via complicated offshore company schemes, the seem to mostly have gone through Luxembourg. Those financial performance artworks included most of the major players of the Icelandic most wanted financial criminal list that is responsible for the crash here, as well as the political cloud of protection they had.

Björgólfur Thor fails to mention anything except his political views on how others wronged him.

Strange that he can still carry on doing business in Iceland with the same politicians as before.

The media here in Iceland are up in arms about this website (Icelandic language only) and they are all trying to find the next scoop about who said what and why this or that happened. But they all seem to either skip the notion that this is a propaganda website, or they simply don’t know any better.

The same is happening now about this Björgólfur Thor self promoting website as before, they media ignore what stares them in the face. Björgólfur is trying to manipulate the discussion by trashing everyone else. He attacks politicians, former partners like Róbert Wessman who was the Actavis CEO. They are not battling in the media about who is lying about whom.

After reading through parts of this website, it becomes so very clear that this is a massive defense move on his part and the big Landsbanki report on this site was made for his father Björgólfur Guðmundsson and it sites Björgólfur Thor as the main “source” for much of the information there. It just seems far fetched and so very obvious why this site was put up and that all the information there should be taken with a grain of salt.

Robert Wessman claims that Björgólfur Thor is lying about his sacking from Actavis. Although Wessman is a big player in the economic crash in his own right, he and others claim Björgólfur Thor is lying. According to Iceland Talks sources from within the banking sector both in Iceland and abroad is that this website is not only full of bullshit and misleading accusations and statements, it is full of lies as well.

Sources and Iceland Talks believe that this website is his way of blaming everyone else and claiming himself innocent of all wrong doings.  The best defence is a good offence is phrase that comes to mind, but in this case it’s just a pathetic excuse to distract the media (weak minded they are) and the public from the obvious truth, that he himself is a major criminal when it comes to robbing banks from the inside, and ruining a whole nation for his own gain.

He is simply trying to save his own skin, and his image.

The media part in this is not just sad it is infuriating for one simple reason. The press association claims that they are doing massive reforms withing their ranks, but Iceland Talks has not seen any reforms. They still have no critical mind, and accept obvious propaganda / spin websites as solid information. And yet again, they do not as the right questions.

]]> http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/bjorgolfur-thor-and-the-media/feed/ 4 Nestor http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/magma-energy-and-the-strange-political-reactions/ http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/magma-energy-and-the-strange-political-reactions/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:44:16 +0000 Nestor http://icelandtalks.net/?p=1082 ]]> Magma Energy bought the Icelandic geothermal energy company HS Orka (HS Energy). This was documented a year ago on this website. After that there has been an intense discussion in the blog-sphere and some radio stations. Some of the old media guard has reported this, but not gone into any serious details.

After the initial buy, Magma has now bought over 95% of the company much to the anger of most people, but to the immense joy of the city council of Reykjanesbær, and some of the people around that group of political “think-alikes” that mostly come from the right wing of the Independence party. The whole case has the massive stench of sleaze, corruption and the desperate will to give the company away.

The strange thing is that Orkuveitan, Iceland’s main energy company is lending Magma Energy a bullet loan for 9 billion ISK for 7 years with shares themselves as collateral. In short: Magma Energy gets control of the company, they only have to pay a little amount of money, and then get the rest as an interest free loan from Orkuveitan that they must pay in one go after 7 years.

The reason the politicians are so desperate to sell the company and the rights to the geothermal energy for 95 years, is all the foreign money that will pour into the country. Was is not for the fact that 70% of the whole amount is a local loan from a company that is basically bankrupt. One can only wander why this obvious madness of a deal is being done.

Would Norway sell the drilling rights and profits of its oil to a Canadian company for 95 years? Or would England do so? I don’t think so. The hot water and indeed the fresh water is Iceland’s oil. The madness is to sell the natural energy resources to shady companies for pocket change. How does that benefit the nation or the local community?

The politicians are supposed to work for us, that is why they are “public servants”, but after this travesty, one can only wander what the motivations are.

Legal issues:

EU regulation states that non EU states cannot invest in energy companies inside the EU or EFTA. To avoid this Magma Energy started a shelf company in Sweden called Magma Energy Sweden AB.

Icelandic laws also prohibit non EU corporations to invest in the energy industry. The investing company has to have a EU address, but in this case the company is Canadian.

This was proven when an Icelandic blogger who lives in Gothenburg Sweden decided to pay the company a visit. The claims had been that this was a genuine company with some operation in Sweden, but then Teitur Atlason went to the MES office and found a law firm called Glimstedt Göteborg AB. It turns out that this is a company started for the single purpose of getting around the laws and regulations, both local and international to gain ownership of the Icelandic energy resources.

Political reactions:

After a year of information flow, statements, facts and massive criticism about this imminent deal, it was struck, and Magma gained HS Orka and it’s geothermal rights for 95 years. The day after it was signed, Svandís Svavarsdóttir the minister for the Environment blasted that this was an outrage and became angry in the media that the energy rights got sold. The minister of Industry claimed that this was a childish outburst. This was convenient for Svandís Svavarsdóttir to gain popularity by being angry, but only after the deal was done.

After the Swedish shelf company was officially revealed a few members of parliament for the Left Green party got very angry at the media (TV stations mostly) for not exploring this and their refusal to discuss and report this properly. It is too easy to blame the media for not doing the jobs of parliament members and other politicians. This is in that sense, big news, but something that has been known for a long time.

The Parliamentary Committee of Foreign Investments consists of politicians who are representative of all the parties in parliament. Most of them are not members of parliament but put in this committee by their friends in the parties. Their credibility is questioned, since none of them has any expertise, education or any relevant qualification to be deciding such important legal issues. They got 3 separate legal expert views that all agreed that the deal was legal, but still the committee was split in two, 3-2.

Unnur G. Kristjánsdóttir, clothing designer and a arts teacher, sits for the Social Democratic Alliance. Chairman

Adolf H. Berndsen, student and a local county councilman from the northern rural area of Skagaströnd, sits for the Independence party

Sigurður Hannesson, mathematician and a former marketing expert for Straumur investment bank. Sits for the Progressive party and a prolific member of the InDefence group.

Those people do not have the expertise to decide weather to sell our energy resources for the next 100 years.

All excuses about lack of knowledge that the politicians are coming up with, should have been their duty to find out, as members of parliament.

The very strange part is the inherent will of the Social Democratic Alliance (and other parties as well) to push this through, when ideologically this should be forbidden compared to the leftist ideology of the SDA manifesto and policy. Ólína Þorvarðardóttir and Mörður Árnason, both members of parliament at some point and prolific propaganda distributors for the SDA started defending this in the blog-sphere simultaneously. That along side all the talking down of any legal wrong doings and a massive campaign by the “voices” out there in blog land and short articles in newspapers, smell of a party line being enforced.

Again one can only speculate why the SDA and others have this will to sell and to push this through, directly against the will of the people and directly against the best interests of Iceland and the local communities that HS Orka serves.

One article claims this to be the mess of the parliament and the political parties, but it seems more than just mistakes and mess, it seems deliberate, organized and previously arranged.

The final questions are: Why have all the politicians from the Left Green and those who are against this only been angry at and in the media? Why have they not put any legislative proposals, or used their power as MP’s to actually change this, or even reverse this?

The answers are pretty simple, there is no will, mostly caused by corruption. What forms of corruption is hard to say, but most likely personal or political payments of some sort. That is how business is done in Iceland.

Nice picture of this man. When reading the Black Report he sounded like a teenager with an attitude.

He was called in by the special prosecutor and answered by claiming that he would not need to come to Iceland unless the Icelandic Supreme Court formally gives the green light for the custody of Hreiðar Már and Magnús  also from Kaupthing and Banque Havilland. That is not likely to happen any time soon, and besides, this guy cannot dictated the laws, unless he has an antisocial personality disorder or is just stupid. His refusal to come back to Iceland as requested just got him an international arrest warrant. Nice job. This is in the spirit if true “Kaupthinking”

This website reported last year that Sigurður Einarsson was heading to Luxembourg to work for Banque Havilland, and as it turns out now, the media here now claim that he has indeed been working for Banque Havilland with and for his former Kaupthing buddies.

Two more Kaupthing high flyers, Ingólfur Helgason and Steingrímur Kárason were arrested yesterday when the came to Iceland as well. There is a collaboration with the SFO in London and the SPO and all this could be a result of that.

The whole issue is a massive ongoing fraud case that went on for years. At least 80 billion ISK were stolen (given as a loan to friendly corporations without proper collateral, after the Icelandic Central Bank gave the emergency loans after the fall of Glitnir) and countless loans given to friends and dummy corporations, even after the collapse was imminent. This was as Iceland Talks has said time and time again, a massive theft. Systematic takedown of a whole economic system.

Sigurður Einarsson of Kaupthing. Wanted by Interpol

The reason according to the special prosecutors office are similar to those of Hreiðar Már who was arrested as well today. The Black Report so called, are the grounds for the arrest, even though the special prosecutor has been investigating those men from day one. The whole deal is about Al Thani, market manipulation and trying to find ways, and indeed finding those ways, to remove or diminish responsibility of the CEO’s who wanted to “play ball”.

Magnús has now been fired by Banque Havilland after and a strange silence from the bank. Magnús and Hreiðar Már have been taken and put in solitary confinement at Litla Hraun, Icelands main prison. It is believed that the overnight prison stay shook them up and they gave up the attitude and started talking. Use the search string on this page to search for related material.

Banque Havilland hired Magnús as this website has said before, to keep the Kaupthing system in place. The contacts, the goodwill and the shelf companies hidden in the vaults of Luxembourg laws, and the lines to off shore tax haven bank accounts. When ever those men need money, they filter it through Luxembourg, and use it to buy shares, companies and by doing so launder the money.

Money laundering, tax fraud and other dirty business is the only reason for those tax havens and nations like Luxembourg exploit that to the full, and all with the silent support of the rest of the world. To claim privacy or convenience  is no more than an excuse.

After the raids in Luxembourg in mid February things started to heat up for Banque Havilland and the ex Kaupthing employees. Why did the bank not react then and fire Magnús? The sensible guess is that this is the Icelandic way of running things. In short, do not admit anything, do not take responsibility and if caught with the hand in the cookie jar, simply deny you had your hand there. No matter if you are caught with you hand stuck there for all to see.

The only time Luxembourg has allowed criminal investigative raids on banks there is in connection to the Bernie Maddoff case. Banque Havilland did not react the the fact that those men are suspects in one of the biggest fraud cases in recent decades, on a global scale. The robbing of Iceland.

In this case the money transfers and lack of money transfers, fraud, document manipulation and the blatant market manipulation is official. Money laundering, fraud and similar activities come with the territory when running a money shelter like Luxembourg. But I doubt that seldom in the criminal side of the global financial world have things been so sloppy. Arrogance makes men sloppy.

]]> http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/banque-havilland-saga-continues/feed/ 1 Nestor The best tax haven in the world http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/hrei%c3%b0ar-mar-of-kaupthing-finally-arrested/ http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/hrei%c3%b0ar-mar-of-kaupthing-finally-arrested/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 18:50:49 +0000 Nestor http://icelandtalks.net/?p=1064 ]]> Hreiðar Már Sigurðsson was arrested but the special prosecutor today. He recently came to Iceland when he was called in for questioning and after that he was arrested and put in holding for up to two weeks.

He is charged with fraud, market manipulation and falsifying documents.

Iceland Talks has talked about him and his criminal activity for a whole year now.

Could this be the beginning of more good news?

Hreiðar Már will not be honored with a picture this time, he is were he belongs. Behind bars.

A quote from Wikipedia: “International Workers’ Day (a name used interchangeably with May Day) is a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement and left-wing movements. May Day commonly sees organized street demonstrations and street marches by millions of working people and their labour unions throughout most of the countries of the world….”

In Europe there were mass celebrations that in many countries turned violent. Mostly because of the economic situation in the world. But here in Iceland many sh0wed up for the day, unions proudly marched under their logos and flags to celebrate. Some did not celebrate, they protested by making speeches, such as a well known local writer who was silent until the whole thing crashed, a union leader who claimed the society was corrupt, and a group sat down for a coffee house chat with a guest speaker.

The numb celebrations made some people sick, but most of all sad. The union leaders have failed. Iceland was once a proud socialist state, that valued the right to strike, the work ethics of the common worker. Something changed in the last 15 years or so. The unions are in sync with the company owners, the politicians and others who have interests in keeping the wages down, hours long and the public as slaves to the wage.

In very short this is what is going on:

The Union leadership wants this:

1. To keep a full price indexation on all home mortgages and not remove a single thing from the measurement, so when the alcohol, tires, canned soup or what ever gets more expensive, our mortgages get higher and the payments heavier.

A better explanation is here from Wikipedia: “A consumer price index (CPI) is a measure estimating the average price of consumer goods and services purchased by households. A consumer price index measures a price change for a constant market basket of goods and services from one period to the next within the same area (city, region, or nation).”

2. The unions still want the people who take very large paychecks, many times the average wages of the common worker to keep on running the show, as they have so spectacularly managed to drive to to ground, by stop fighting for the people they are employed by, and by taking a stand against the public to abide the wishes of the one who bribes them.

3. The stability agreement made by the unions and government to keep the public from getting their contracts and law bound wage increases. All to take part in the common national task of saving the nation. The value of the currency has fallen so drastically i less than three years, that I have to pay 110% to fill my gas tank on my car in that time.

4. The unions should have one goal, to fight the price indexation and to make life better for the public. Especially since it is the law to be in a union. They fight against the people systematically, by being against the EU, supporting the price index, want to make the public save the banks, and by ruining the pension funds (one of the best pension fund system in the world), and for being corrupt as hell.

In Greece, the public went berserk when the government announced cutbacks. Here we have had the cutbacks, and the layoffs and the inflation and the corruption and on and on and on.

What is the result of the whole issue here?

They unions are outdated and useless. And the public is numb and is lead by the unions, the media and the politicians into numbness. The mantra of the day is not “transparency” anymore, it is “lets not get exited, we all have to share the burden”, but they fail to add…”but only you will really share the burden”

What is the general public thinking???

5. Last but not least, I officially give the unions the finger.

The Taxman announced that he was soon going to be freezing assets of those who are to blame  for the whole economic crash here in Iceland.

This would be fine if Mr Taxman had already frozen or seized the assets and then made it public or at the same time as the raids on the assets took place, like they do in most civilized nations.

What is puzzling about this is the fact that the announcement gives the guilty ones time to manipulate, steal and slide assets away, directly in front of the nose of Mr Taxman.

And yesterday the office publicly claimed that wanted the assets of Stodir (FL Group) to be frozen and seized, total 650 million ISK.  The Stodir manager for 27 days of the three year period under investigation claims he broke no laws and he denies all accusations. He even claims that he only sat for 27 days and the company VAT issues did not belong to him. His personal assets have been frozen as well. He even claims that the huge house he moved to his wife’s name has now been moved back to his name.

That will convince us of his innocence of course.

The Taxman was and is too late, and those under investigation deny everything.

Deadlock of stupidity and a tactical faux pas, to alert the people in under investigation of pending actions.

They could have said; Take the rest of your money and run while we close our eyes and count to ten.

]]> http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/take-your-money-and-run-while-we-close-our-eyes-and-count-to-ten/feed/ 3 Nestor http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/the-slimiest-financial-bastards-of-2010/ http://icelandtalks.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/the-slimiest-financial-bastards-of-2010/#comments Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:33:18 +0000 Nestor http://icelandtalks.net/?p=1054 ]]> The 2010 Time 100 list.

List influential people of “Least Influential People of 2010” published by Time magazine is interesting. On the top 100 list there are three Icelanders. So, statistically Iceland has the slimiest bastards of 2010 record. How such a small nation can produce so many slimy bastards is incredible. But sadly a fact.

The honor goes to: (the text below is a quote from Time Magazine)

Björgólfur Gudmundsson
Former owner and chairman of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki
Iceland’s second billionaire ever — the first was his son, Thor Björgólfsson (in Iceland, your last name is just your dad’s first name plus either -sson or -dottir) — he went from being worth $1.1 billion to $0. And he’s being investigated. And he destroyed his country’s economy. And Gordon Brown used antiterrorist laws to freeze Landsbanki’s U.K. holdings. And he named his bank Landsbanki. The British hate him more than they hate his country’s volcanoes.

Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson
Icelandic businessman
When you’re a good-looking dude who sells clothing, you have to really screw up to have people protest in the streets against you. And for your ex-mistress to talk about your sex life during an accounting trial. Anyway, no one is lending him money now. Not even in kronur.

Hreidar Már Sigurdsson
Former head of the failed Icelandic band Kaupthing
I kind of went down a Wikipedia hole with the Icelandic financial crisis.

The main question is this: Who really owns the banks?

The answer is not a simple one, but short.

We do not know. The government claims it to be foreign investors who have stakes to claim from the old estates. That is true, but we are not allowed to know who those investors are.

There is an company registered in Irelend that is a large shareholder in one of the banks, but nobody seems to know anything about that company.

A rumor has been going on for a long time, and one of the most influential journalists in Iceland, Egill Helgason aired it again just the other day, that Ólafur Ólafsson of Samskip and one of the biggest culprits of the whole economic crisis is said to be one of the largest owners of Arion bank.

According to reliable source it has been claimed that Arion bank was very weak. Even weaker than the government is letting on. At this time, according to our source,  it is really a matter of touch and go for the survival of the bank. Arion could be on the verge of bankruptcy….again. So serious is the status of the bank that the government is trying to save it and to spin the discussion away from this possible disaster.