FUGITIVES' TRACER VANISHES HIMSELF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302300026-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: February 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

1 I II II
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302300026-9
ok ARTICLE APPEARED
CN PACE -7.
FUGITIVES' TRACER
VANISHES HIMSELF
Man Who Sought to Capture'
Vesco Fails to Appear for
Meeting in Fraud Case
By JEFF GERTH
Spwy to no New Yet Trees
WASHINGTON, Feb. T - Ernest R.
Keiser, a man the Federal Government
has relied on to bring back some of its
most notorious fugitives, is now a ftugi.
tiva himself. His, disappearance has
-left behind a series of puzrlbrg goes
tidns about his secretive life and his
'relationship with the Government.
? It was Mr. Keiser, now 64 years old,
who in 1982 lured back to the United
States the former intelligence agent
Edwin P. Wilson, then a fugitive In
Libya, to which he had illegally sup-
plied arms. Subsequently, according to
Mr. Keiser, his attorney and Federal
officials, he got involved in assisting
the Justice Department in attempting
to trap the financier Robert L. Vesco
and other prominent fugitives.
On Thursday, Mr. Kaiser's attorney,
William Aronwald, told Federal prose?
cutors in Tampa, Fla., that Mr. Keiser
had disappeared. Mr. Keiser, Mr.
Aronwald said, had not shown up at a
scheduled meeting in New York with
probation officials in connection with
his conviction last month in White
Plains, N.Y., for larceny. A Justice De-
partment spokesman, John Russell,
said subsequently that the department
would have no comment on Mr. Keiser
or his case.
Warrants for Kaiser and Wife
Mr. Keiser was scheduled to go an
trial next week in Tampa on Federal
charges of fraud. Judy Hoyer, an
Assistant United States Attorney in
Tampa, said arrest warrants were
issued Thursday for Mr. Keiser and his
wife, Bahira. Mrs. Keiser was sched-
uled to go on trial next week in Tampa
on separate charges that she lied about
the Keiser finances in connection with
a bail hearing for Mr. Keiser.
The questions about Mr. Kaiser touch
on his relationships with various Gov-
ernment agencies and secret Govern.
ment missions, his involvement in
criminal activity, his true identity and
even on place of birth.
NEW YORK TIMES
3 February 1985
.In an interview last year, and in a
partial biography he gave to associ-
ates, Mr. Kaiser portrays himself as a
secret Government "operative," In-
volved In snaring Nazis biding out to
South America, illegally ensesirg com-
.mpnia countries to
high-level free dissident, In.
Middle East and Soutdrug h America in the
and
assisting the Central Intelligence
Agency in the 1960's by secretly supply.
ing guns in the Algerian war of lads
Vesee Reported to Cuba
In the interview, Mr. Keiser ds
scribed in detail his efforts, through a
Mexican associate, to trap Mr. Vasco,
who, according to Federal law enforce.
meat officials, is living in Cuba and is
trying there to help the coturtty obtain
American technology. Mr. Vasco is
wanted in connection with a 24 mil-
lion . fraud case.
But court records, law-enforcement
documents and Justice Department of
ficials say the C.I.A. is prepared to tag
tify that Mr. Keiser never had any rela-
tionship with the agency, that some of
the exploits in the biography never oc-
curred, in part because he was in jail,
and that he has frequently been In-
volved in illegal activities. But they ac-
knowledge that he had been involved in
some way in attempting to apprehend
Mr. Vesco. _
A key issue in the Tampa can, where
Mr. Keiser is charged with
an indicted banker pf 300,000 prom.
ising to help fix his case, is Mr. Keis-
er's role in seeking to apprehend Mr.
Vasco. An affadavft by an agent of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation says
Mr. Keiser told the banker he could
take care of his case.
Mr. Kaiser's file in the Florida State
Attorney's office for Broward County
calls him an "internationally known
swindler, who possibly may be living
under an assumed name, and a fain
passport." In 1973, Mr. Keiser pleaded
no contest to state larceny charges in
Broward County. The files of Interpol,
the Vienna-based word clearinghouse
for police information, say Mr. Keiser
has been arrested numerous times in
several countries and served time In an ~
Austrian prison after World War II.
Problem With Plepe,elw
Law-enforcemept officials have
onion questioned Mr. Keiser's true
identjty, according to the Broward
County files, the Interpol flies and testi-
mony in Federal District Court in
acipa. Mr. Keiser bas said be was
born in New York in 1918, in a hospital
that lost its birth rscbrds. Tracing Mr.
that hia f is xted by the fact
that his cannot he coign
ug by standard temdgws, accord.
De
l . to Florida afiicdara~ and Justice Do-
Last year Chris Boyer, than a Fed-
eral prosecutor, told a Federal mag&
trate in Tampa that Mr. Keiser had
"lied to you, to us - not just about his
arrests, about whore he was born, who
he is, what he does, where's he from."
Mr. Hoyer want on: "From the but
we can determine, he was born in Ger-
many. Ina sense, be's not a paisoa."
Justice Department officials said tbs
hospital where Mr. Keiser said he bad
been born had not lost its records and
had no record of his birth. The officials
also said the State Department, acting
on behalf of the Immigration and Natu.
ralization Service, had traced Mr.
Ke jar's birth to Germany. Mr. Kaiser
denies he was born there.
. But E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., an
Assistant United States Attorney in
Washington, who had worked with Mr.
Keiser in apprehending Mr. Wilson,
told the Tampa magistrate he had
checked out Mr. Kaiser's backppmd,
found him to be reliable, and was sure
face mar to the
Mr. Keiser would fraud charges In Tampa.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302300026-9