A small link, but I hope somebody will dig further.
http://www.warandpiece.com/...
A lot of these stories have a hint that Kontogiannis was perhaps not unfamiliar with organized crime. Not Sopranos style local waste management stuff, but more international. An old Greek Navy man, Kontogiannis knew boats, how to move and launder money, set up front companies, and seemed to have some transport and logistics companies. But here's the thing: when Kontogiannis was confronted with the law in the two cases we know about -- his 1994 guilty plea for visa fraud after he was arrested by the FBI with an official from the US embassy in Athens, and his 2002 guilty plea in the pretty large Queens school district bid rigging scheme, he escaped jail both times. His sentences always seemed pretty light. I am starting to get the sense of someone who may be protected. It occurred to me reading the above article and others as plausible that Kontogiannis might have been useful for a faction of the US government at one time or another.
It's pure speculation, but you could imagine that his skills might come to be useful for some things. One theory -- could Kontogiannis have been used by some US government agency (let's say the CIA -- again, pure speculation), even while being simultaneously investigated by another (the FBI, etc.)? Might someone from that agency have intervened to protect Kontogiannis in his encounters with the law? Could it be that Kontogiannis, the old Greek Navy guy who knows his way around Eastern Europe, Greece, the Balkans, Ukraine and Georgia and their gray markets, who knows how to launder money and create front companies, who knows who to bribe, may have proved useful to the Pentagon or the CIA at certain points, that one of his companies was perhaps used for laundering or moving money or shipping or logistics or financial transfers? (Total speculation: Perhaps even that he might have been a contact of Wilkes' friend at the CIA, who did a long tour doing logistics and administrative tasks for the Agency in those regions?)
----------
Remember why Bush was sleeping at the wheel during Katrina? He didn't even do TV propaganda?
This happened:
http://bayosphere.com/...
Mr. Bush's communications director, Nicolle Devenish, was married this weekend in Greece, and a number of Mr. Bush's political advisers - including Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman - attended the wedding.
Ms. Rice did not return to Washington until Thursday, after she was spotted at a Broadway show and shopping for shoes, an image that Republicans said buttressed the notion of a White House unconcerned with tragedy.
=
=
=
==
Don't forget Abramoff and his Mafia connection. I think everything will converges finally.