The Adventures Of Magne Andeas Meier Are Already Well-documented By Haatuf’s Somaliland Times. Here Is Some In-depth Info On Him.

Here Is Some In-depth Info On Him.Ahmed Haji Nur — Oslo,Norway — 11 September, 2005

The Oil Baron’s Wild Ride

The adventures of Magne Andeas Meier are already well-documented by Haatuf’s Somaliland Times. Here is some in-depth info on him.

According to the Norwegian business journal Dagens Naeringsliv, Mr. Meier is the Oil Industry’s version of the 17th. Century baron von Münchausen. Read about Münchausen here:

http://www.tradecards.com/articles/munchausen



Mr Meier, an ex-salesman in Finance Credit, was in recent years riding on a flying carpet of lies and deception. He is a conman par excellence, says a source in the Norwegian anti-White Collar Crime Police which chose not to be named.His long journey of fraudulence ended this month (August) in a jail house in Oslo.

Arrested on charges of financial fraud, including the creation of bogus business entities, Magne Andreas Meier is sitting in a cell in a maximum security prison in Oslo. He is writing letters to his friends and business partners around the world. “It is very important for us to stick together and succeed in all the important things we are going to undertake”, he writes. “As far as I know”, he continues “nothing so far got leaked to the Press, but you never know.

If the Press gets to know something we should remove my name from the House until I am acquitted”Despite serious charges of fraud hanging over him, Magne Meier is optimistic. From his solitary confinement, he does not yet realise that the game is over and that many of his partners in London, Oslo and elsewhere long ago saw through his fraudulent projects. He therefore continues to write to his partners and instructs them what to do while he sits in custody. “There are many projects out there which need my attention”, he continues: “Among others, the establishment African Oil Association, financing of an Islamic Bank in Norway, the financing of the Oil Tankers and Fishing fleets, arranging the opening party of the African House in Oslo, the establishment of Consulate for Somalia in Oslo, arrange a State visit for Somalia’s President and other important projects”, he writes.On paper, Magne Meier is a powerful man. His name spells power and importance in the African communities in Norway and in some African countries, including Somaliland where the President himself entertained and dined him on several occasions. Among the corrupt African leaders, Meier's standing is tall.

Contacts with Somaliland’s President were not limited to social cordialities, which were many. The agenda include business deals.Magne Meier the diplomat and businessman:Abdirahman Leeban is a young Somali man who lives in Oslo. For some time he has been trying to establish a Consulate for Somalia in Oslo. Given Somalia's situation this was not an easy task. He needed help. All the help he could get. By coincidence Leeban met a businessman, if name was Magne Meier, who tells him about his grandiose projects and noble merits. In a fling, Meier narrates for Leeban the substantial stakes he has in all Sudan’s known petroleum deposits. In his possession was also Petroleum Exploration Licenses which he obtained from Somaliland. That was not all.

He has been Chief Advisor for the Pakistani Authorities and the Polish Embassy in Norway. I have friends and contacts in high places in most African countries. My involvement in Africa is not only business. My heart bleeds for Africa and I offer my services to help. In short”, continued Meier, “I am the man who can help you with the establishment of a Somalia Consulate in Oslo” In the same breath, he proposed the consulate to be housed in his office complex at Tollbugata 19 in Oslo. To boot, Meier promises to foot the bill of the office-rent. Well-meaning Leeban and the fox in the skin of Magne Meier shook hands and the deal was sealed.While Leeban is hard at work with his project of establishing a Consulate for Somalia, Magne Meier comes back calling with more support. He says that he can do even more for Somalia. He offers his services as Somalia’s Advisor in Norway. This was great. Leeban is elated and cannot thank enough his God sent angel. Leeban and Magne Meier travelled to Kenya last May to meet with Somalia’s Prime Minister, Mr Ali Mohamed Geedi who received the pair warmly. Geedi appointed Meier as his Advisor. When Meier came back to Oslo, he quickly prints some fancy Business cards which in bold colourful text proclaim Magne Meier as Somalia’s Consul General in Norway and the Royal Norwegian Foreign Office was informed and briefed on his diplomatic appointmentWhat neither the Prime Minister nor Leeban knew is the fact that Meier is a crook in an angel’s clothing. Magne Meier was kicked out from Vålerenga (a football Club in Oslo), where he was a director, in the late nineties. He was later hired as salesman in Finance Credit (A company which got busted last year after massive fraud is uncovered by the Authorities). Even before Finance Credit collapsed, Mr. Meier started fabricating bogus business projects around the globe. In February 2001, Dagens Næringsliv exposed him when he tried to sell shares in A Sudanese Oil Company – Sudaco, a company which did not exist, let alone possess exploration rights in the Sudan. But the embarrassing Media coverage did not cool Meier’s dishonest ambitions.The investorIn early December 2002, Magne Meier established Inverse International Ltd. in London. Co-owner of Inverse is Indian-born Rakesh Rajan. The company’s Start Capital (Asset) is £100 and is registered at Clarendons Gardens in London which is Rakesh Rajan’s private residence. The business concept of the Inverse International is simple but shrewd: obtain Petroleum Exploration Rights (licenses) in poor African countries and then sell them to the highest bidder.Inverse International quickly climbs the ladder of success. Only two weeks after its inception in London, Somaliland’s Minister of Water and Minerals M A Farah declared that his Government signed an Oil Exploration contract with Inverse International. The company’s director Magne Meier himself was in Hargeisa and negotiated the deal for Inverse.In the international press, M A Farah is described as naive and ignorant man who represents a desperate little African country which nobody recognises. He needs all the help he can get, it is said. He has not been lucky so far. All the Oil Companies which approached him were crooks which carried forged papers in their otherwise empty briefcases. In a number of occasions M A Farah was ridiculed in the local press. This time, M A Farah thought he scored big. Inverse International was the golden bird he was aiming at. The Minister met the press and described Inverse International in lavish terms. “This is a company which has both a financial muscle and the expertise in the Oil Exploration Industry”, he said. “The companies which used to come to Somaliland were all brokers and not real Oil Companies”, he continued. “This one is different. This is the real deal. This company has a long experience in oil explorations in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Europe”, the minister told the press.With the blessing of the President, Somaliland’s Minister of Petroleum signed a contract with Meier’s Inverse International; a contract which gave Inverse International exploration rights in a couple of huge blocks in Somaliland. The President and his lacklustre minister ignored warnings from Somaliland Times which already exposed Magne Meier and his Indian accomplice as crooks who owned not much more than the pair of shoes they were wearing.

An African House in Oslo.

Magne Meier’s obscure projects were many. One of them was an African House in Oslo. The House would gather and house all African Organisations and businesses in Oslo and Magne Meier would be its White Knight. To finance this grand project, he approached many Finance Institutions and private people in Oslo, which all turned him down.

One day in late spring this year, he showed up in the Head Office of Cultura Bank in Oslo. Cultura Bank is a Safe Environment and Human Rights minded bank which gives soft loans to projects which conform to the bank’s philosophy. Magne Meier asks the bank to support his African House project which he claims to be in line with the bank’s ideology. The Bank declines to lend support, but Meier has a plan B for the bank. He has a Cheque to the order of 381,750 Euro or roughly 3 Million Norwegian Kroner which he asks the bank to cash for him.

The Cheque has some comical history. The millions on the Cheque are supposedly paid by Societè d`Exploitation de La Tour Eiffel, a company which is said to manage the Commercial Activities around the Eiffel Tower in Paris. A cover letter which accompanied the Cheque states that the Owners of Eiffel Tower will pay 381, 758 Euro for 4 percent of Inverse International and its Oil concessions in Yemen, Mauritania and Somaliland. Recipient of the payment is Magne Meier’s British-registered TradeWinds Finance Ltd. The transaction is underwritten by a certain Deloitte/Touche of Paris. The letter of guarantee states the market value of Inverse International to be 100 million Norwegian kroner, of which 25% is owned by non other than Meier. The Cultura Bank swallows the bate and cashes the cheque.

A few weeks later, the French bank, Bred, which issued the cheque contacted Cultura Bank of Norway and told them that they do not know anything about this cheque which they said was a forgery. Cultura Bank contacted the Norwegian police which arrested Magne Meier. In their investigations so far, the police uncovered a web of bogus business entities and frauds which Magne conceived in a number of countries.

Ahmed Haji Nur — Oslo,Norway

Xigasho
www.Somaliland.org