Quotes
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Fara Sherazi : I did what you said. I followed the money.
Saul Berenson : The missing five percent.
Fara Sherazi : Right. Turns out it's skimmed off the top once the funds arrive in Caracas at the HLBC subsidiary there.
Saul Berenson : Which happens when?
Fara Sherazi : The third Friday of each month.
Saul Berenson : Tell me how it works.
Fara Sherazi : Well, first it's converted into small bills, stacked on pallets, loaded into a truck, and delivered in the dead of the night to the Estadio Capital, where it's held at the box office until the next day and declared as receipts for the weekly football match. I bet you didn't know that Del Paraíso F.C. draws more fans on those Saturdays than they have seats in their stadium.
Saul Berenson : That's a hell of a way to clean money.
Fara Sherazi : And lots of it. By our estimates, over $45 million during the last ten years.
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Saul Berenson : So somebody's got a sidebar with the bank. Who? Owner of the team?
Fara Sherazi : Probably. Except it's hard to know who that is exactly. The club is structured in such a way so as to shield the identity of its majority shareholder.
Saul Berenson : You got a candidate, though, don't you?
Fara Sherazi : I do. Just not one that makes sense. Nasser Hejazi.
Saul Berenson : Say again?
Fara Sherazi : Nasser Hejazi. Do you know him?
Saul Berenson : I know he played goalkeeper for Iran's 1978 World Cup team. He's a legend there.
Fara Sherazi : Well, it can't be that Nasser Hejazi.
Saul Berenson : Why not?
Fara Sherazi : Because he's dead.
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Saul Berenson : Where were we?
Fara Sherazi : Exactly nowhere.
Saul Berenson : Unless...
Fara Sherazi : What?
Saul Berenson : Say I'm an Iranian official, whose job it is to fund terrorist operations in the Western hemisphere.
Fara Sherazi : Okay.
Saul Berenson : Say I'm watching all these bankers get rich on the deal. Why not me, too?
Fara Sherazi : Well, because you'd be taking a huge risk, for one thing.
Saul Berenson : Which is why I go to such great lengths to launder the proceeds, all the while hiding behind a false identity.
Fara Sherazi : Like a goalkeeper.
Saul Berenson : Right.
Fara Sherazi : Still, if the Revolutionary Guard ever finds out you've been embezzling all that money...
Saul Berenson : Maybe I'm getting to the end of my career. Maybe I'm looking to retire in style. Maybe I've always dreamed of owning a soccer team.
Fara Sherazi : Javadi? Why Javadi?
Saul Berenson : Because it was his operation in the first place. 'Cause it makes sense that he was the one to approach the Venezuelan bank. And because Nasser Hejazi was his boyhood hero.
[Fara grins]
Saul Berenson : Don't smile yet. Right now it's just a theory.
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Fara Sherazi : So it is him. Javadi.
Saul Berenson : That's him, third from the right. Jesus, he's gotten old.
Fara Sherazi : Standing next to him is Edgar Cedeno, the banker we targeted in last month's mission.
Saul Berenson : When was this photograph taken?
Fara Sherazi : 2009. According to passenger manifests, Javadi visited Venezuela exactly twice. Once at the time of this photograph, and once in November 2003.
Saul Berenson : To set up the deal with Cedeno's bank.
Fara Sherazi : Each time traveling under the name Nasser Hejazi.
Saul Berenson : His alter ego. He couldn't resist the joke. Now it's gonna bury him.
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Fara Sherazi : With your blessing, I'd like to open an OFAC investigation into his majority ownership position at the Del Paraíso Football Club.
Saul Berenson : No.
Fara Sherazi : Why not?
Saul Berenson : Now's the time for patience. Don't force the pieces. Store them away.
Fara Sherazi : But we have him. He's embezzled over $45 million from the Revolutionary Guard.
Saul Berenson : They get wind of it, they'll just put him up against a wall, they'll shoot him.
Fara Sherazi : Good.
Saul Berenson : No. It's of negative value. He's second in command at the intelligence directorate, Fara. He ordered the attack on this building. I need him in a room.
Fara Sherazi : You want to interrogate him.
Saul Berenson : I want to rip him down to the studs. I want the name of every agent he's ever run in the United States. And I wanna know just how close the regime is to a nuclear weapon.
