… the Bureau’s analysts had assessed that I was involved in a California-Mexico drug syndicate. Then, as luck will have it, in 2007 a distant relative, Antonio Lagdameo was appointed Philippine Ambassador to Mexico, giving fuel to the conclusion that there was also a narco-political conspiracy.The 14th race of 2004 at the fabled Spa-Franchorchamp in Belgium was the venue for one of the greatest achievements in motorsports. There, after placing second in the race, Michael Schumacher entered a rarefied field of drivers who’ve held the Formula One Driver’s Championship Trophy aloft in celebration. It would be his 7th World Championship title and the 5th that he brought home for Scuderia Ferrari F1.
It was a great day for Ferrari and Shumi fans around the world.
A group of FBI agents from the New York Field Office had been reviewing a tape that will certainly require them to travel to California on official business - to investigate. From the tape, they’ve been able to determine a number of useful things. The subject is a resident of California and was placed on the FBI’s list after arranging real estate loans for a former member of the Mexican Mafia who was in foreclosure. The fact that there are two field offices in California (Los Angeles and San Diego) that were in closer proximity and knew more about the Mexican Mafia than any other field office in the country, was of little consequence. New York is one of the oldest field offices in the entire FBI and have considerable expertise in international matters. They are the home to the United Nations.
Every other weekend a ritual would play itself out, celebrating man’s mastery over his fear of speed, the boisterous roar of powerful fine tuned engines, magnificently beautiful machinery and a circuit somewhere around the world that was purposeful for competition. It was something he looked forward to every other Sunday. The tape showed him rising from a comfortable chair to pay respects to the winner’s national anthem. The tape was a compilation of such moments, repeated many times. And there was one he rose to more times than the others - the German national anthem and then the Italian national anthem that followed immediately after. He did so not just on a few occasions, but on every instance he witnessed his favorite team finish first place. There were many - 56 victories in 7 year and on many of them the subject stood for the national anthem and to the victories of Michael Schumacher and Scuderia Ferrari F1.
AT THE FBI - NEW YORK FIELD OFFICE
Agent #1: Ok, so we have a guy rising to the anthem of Germany - hundreds of times. Maybe a neo-Nazi case. Even that’s a stretch. Fine, we have many of those loonies on our database. What else?
Agent#2: That’s the German and the Italian national anthem.
Agent #1: I understand that. But the Germans never changed their anthem after Hitler burned himself to a crisp.
Agent#2: Listen to this tape of his mother ranting about how the Jews treat the Palestinians in Israel. We also have something on his cousin saying some very incendiary things towards the Jews after a Jewish man married his ex-wife.
Agent #1: That’s flimsy stuff coming from an experienced federal agent.
Agent #2: Work with me here. The guy’s middle name is Lagdameo - as in the former Insular Treasurer of the Philippines; as in the former Philippine Ambassador to Washington; as in the Philippine Ambassador to Mexico. See the connection? Mexican Mafia and the Ambassador to Mexico? His father is the spokesperson for the Mayor of Paranaque a major city in the Philippines. Some of our analysts think the Mayor has the potential for higher office. He’s got friends and former schoolmates whose families are in places of power. The fact is, we don’t know what we have here. We have to put boots on the ground and find out for ourselves.
Agent #1: How about the LA and San Diego Field Offices?
Agent#2: They’ve been working on this for years and have put together a task force to look into possible criminal ties. They’ve gotten nowhere. This is more than a criminal investigation now, though. Drugs might be flowing through several countries and money being laundered and passed around for any number of reasons, not the least of which is for political influence and other purposes. We have assets in the Philippines, Mexico and Germany ready to assist us. This is a full-blown international investigation.
Agent#1: Counterintelligence?
Agent#2: Actually, both. But we have access to anyone we need to talk to anywhere in the diplomatic service through the foreign service and other back channels. I’ll package this up and present it at the next meeting. We’ll probably have to make a trip to the OC, in California.
Agent#1: Ca-li-for-na-A. I hear it’s good this time of the year, there. You know anything about sunscreen?
Agent#2: Not really. Why?
Agent#1: I’m curious what SPF I will need for the hot Cali sun, and should it be Banana Boat or Coppertone?
Agent#2: Check you out, dude. Hahahaha ...
Agent#1: Hahahaha … Yeah, but don’t forget whose idea this was, duuuude.
With that meeting, the “The California Jamboree” descended on my family and I. It will bring together a diverse group of law enforcement personnel from New York and other parts of the country as far east as Florida. The FBI has a notoriously macho culture that validates, if not encourages, rogue-ish actions when exacted on criminals, actual or perceived. As a result, the investigation degenerated into exactly the abuses that the framers of the constitution had guarded against, requiring the passage of the “Bill of Rights”, specifying at which point the government’s actions become lawless.
The implications of a wider narco-political conspiracy spanning three continents was a product of fiction - a story made up by the FBI to justify a clean-up operation after I uncovered highly incriminating evidence against them. The saying goes, “the best defense is a strong offense”. The actions that followed were vicious even by their own standards. A plan was hatched that included a “control scheme” using entrapment, economic sabotage and highly sophisticated forms of “black mail” to direct my actions and avoid a civil rights action. This accounts for the unusual manner in which I lost “all” my attorney product and discovery materials, including my Apple Mac G4 computer that stored much of the information. This also accounts for why I have lost everything I own.
On the strength of a transaction that I arranged for a self-confessed former Mexican-Mafioso named “Curly”, the Bureau’s analysts made the assessment that I was involved in a California-Mexico drug syndicate. Then, as luck will have it, in 2007 a distant relative, Antonio Lagdameo was appointed Philippine Ambassador to Mexico, giving fuel to the flawed analysis that said there exists a narco-political conspiracy. Acting on that information, the FBI stepped up their disruptive operations and by December 2007 I was effectively homeless evicted from my own house by the OC Sheriff’s Department.
From beginning to end the whole thing was a shameful farce. They used diplomats and political operators with whom I had relations or friendships with to justify the investigation - connecting a convicted drug-runner that I helped out of foreclosure to a complex conspiracy only the FBI can think of. Then, using recordings from relatives who were critical of Israeli policies towards Arabs and the German national anthem they stoked racial insecurities to elicit a strong reactive response. So effective it was, in fact, that I encountered some of the meanest people I have ever met in my life. And with their guns and badges, they came to work in the “Sunshine State” to exact “cruel and unusual punishment”.
PODIUM AWARDS - GERMAN & ITALIAN NAT ANTHEM F1 MONZA 2006
INFORMATION
Salvador Lagdameo - A distant relative who was Former Insular Treasurer of the Philippines
Ernesto Lagdameo - A distant relative who was the Former Ambassador to the USA
Antonio Lagdameo - A distant relative who is currently the Ambassador to the UK / Northern Ireland. He was also the Former Ambassador to Mexico & of Spain.
Nelson Lacambra - Robert’s father who is the Press Secretary to Mayor Florencio Bernabe Jr., of Paranaque Philippines
Jun-Jun Reyes - A childhood friend whose father is the Former Press Secretary for the President of the Philippines
Ramon Mitra Jr. - A schoolmate whose father served as the Speaker of the House, Philippines
LAST UPDATED: AUGUST 24, 2011 - 1151AM
