The extradition of 65-year-old retired British businessman Christopher Tappin to the USA last Friday sparked off the plethora of nonsense in the British media that seems to rear its parochial head whenever any Brit who wears a suit to work is accused of a financial crime overseas. It makes me embarrassed to be British.
The story almost always seems to go like this: Honest Brit sent to hell-hole U.S. prison where he/she faces imminent death from prison gangs and, if he/she survives that, will spend the rest of his/her life in prison on baseless charges trumped-up by U. S. prosecutors. News organizations will often shamelessly campaign on behalf of the defendant, ignoring any evidence of guilt, no matter how incriminating.
So it was with the dishonest oiks known as the ‘NatWest Three’ who were extradited from the U. K. to Texas in 2006 and, the next year, pleaded guilty to defrauding their employer of millions of dollars in a crudely fraudulent scheme that involved Enron and a shell company domiciled in the Cayman Islands.
So it is now with Tappin, whose extradition came five years after a warrant for his arrest was issued at federal court in Texas for allegedly conspiring with others to export Hawk surface-to-air missile batteries from the USA to Iran without first obtaining a license or written approval from the U. S. Department of State.
Just as the NatWest Three came across as pompous, arrogant British twits straight from a Monty Python sketch who seemingly could not grasp the concept of being held accountable for their actions, so does Tappin. According to an article in The Mail on Sunday, Tappin told the newspaper just before he boarded his flight to the U. S. that: “I have chosen to travel in my shirt and tie and a blazer which has done sterling service at the golf club because I want to show the Americans a little bit of class even if it does not go down well. They are not dealing with an ordinary man, I am a man of substance and will remain so.”
Various articles on news web-sites portrayed him in a flattering light and were often accompanied by what I can only describe as moronic comments from readers railing against the U. S. and praising Tappin’s “courage” and “dignity”. An article by The Daily Mirror was headlined ‘Extradited Christopher Tappin arrives in U.S. shackled like he’s in Guantanamo Bay’ and was accompanied by a photograph of the back of a man, wearing an orange jump suit and with his hands handcuffed behind his back, standing inside a bleak cell. Even though the caption implied that the prisoner in the photo was Tappin, research by OffshoreAlert showed it was not of Tappin at all but was simply a staged stock photo that was created by Getty Images, from whom the Mirror had purchased it. It was yet another example of a British newspaper deliberately misleading its readers. Don’t take my word for it: Look at the Mirror photo (and its fraudulent presentation) and the Getty Images stock photo. Identical!
Alas, none of the British news articles I read could find any space for the evidence against Tappin and it was clear that reporters had done no credible research into his case or, if they had, had chosen not to report it. While newspapers quoted Tappin bleating about facing up to 35 years in prison, they failed to point out that his two co-defendants have already been dealt with by the courts, one pleading guilty and receiving 24 months in prison and the other being convicted at trial and receiving 20 months in prison.
According to the criminal complaint, Tappin had been unknown to U. S. federal agents until someone else they arrested for participation in the alleged scheme implicated him and, inter alia, turned over “several emails” between the co-operating defendant and an Iranian contact and between the co-operating defendant and Tappin, and provided details of a company called Monarch International Limited that the co-operating defendant and Tappin allegedly set up in the Bahamas. Further evidence is in the form of recorded telephone calls and email exchanges between Tappin and undercover agents.
It’s inconceivable that the U. S. would go to the time and expense to extradite Tappin without having significant evidence against him and my guess is that, as with the NatWest Three, now that his pathetic sob story to the British media and courts has failed to stop him being extradited, he will quickly plead guilty and, in a few years’ time, will be able to put back on his shirt, tie and blazer and return to his delusional ‘I’m a respectable man’ existence in England. As George Costanza would say, “If you believe it, it’s not a lie.”
Comment