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Peter’s is bigger than mine – or yours
When Peter ran out of insults he set a hotshot London lawyer - with a posh double-barrelled name and no doubt a big one – on me. His nine pages of abuse highlighted my ‘failure to comply with accepted standards of professional journalism’ (they liked that quip so much that they repeated it). I was also ‘malicious and offensive’ and more such bile. They were so annoyed about my published references to Peter as a ‘conman’ that they repeated them three times – while ordering me not to publish a word of their gripe. And they would sue in seven days.
This law firm boasts on its website of being ‘Ruthlessly and spectacularly efficient’ - but not this time. I wonder when they cottoned on that Peter ain't risking going in the box, swearing on the book of his choice and discussing some inconsistencies in his story.
A source supplied me with a fascinating confidential report about Peter, compiled by an American private investigator, ‘in support of pending litigation.’ It included a list of Peter’s defunct businesses and revealed that on his return from a few years in the Caribbean, where he had seen off two attempts to jail him for cocaine trafficking, Peter had contemplated the career of an author.
CHILLING FICTION
One book was to be called The Octopus - Chilling fiction based on fact - with a cover illustration of the cephalopod. Another publication would be The Hargitay Report - the cover illustrated with an old-fashioned anarchist's bomb with smouldering fuse. And then there was the Hargitay Institute that promised to ‘carefully select, selectively restrict and restrictively provide information’ for clients.
The ‘Institute’ flowered into Peter's ‘European Consultancy Network’ that sounded impressive but the operatives appear to have been only Peter and his son Stevie. This was the company Blatter hired to divert the press - and let go, that the English FA hired and let go - and now works for Frank Lowy on the Australian tax dollar, providing ‘strategy’ for the 2018 or 2022 bid.
Those dollars will pass through the Cyprus letterbox housing ECN's registration. It was first listed in London but moved offshore after a Swiss businessman won a judgement against Peter for a US$2 million debt.
I downloaded ECN’s rambling site before the Hargitays shoved it off into cyberspace. Peter was in ‘bigger-than-yours’ mode claiming ‘The Technological Revolution has taken the Corporate Communications Industry by surprise.’ But not Peter.
‘If the client had big problems the answer was “powerful strategies” to “stay out of the media” and to prepare such briefs, news items and alternative scoops that would divert, detract (sic) and destabilise imminent media interest.'
This was bait to catch rich guys with embarrassing problems. And for clients who needed more, Peter had another, parallel, business housed in a modest villa in the Zurich suburbs.
Meet the ‘intelligence gathering’ detective agency ABI, which offers clients ‘covert operation assignments,’ a ‘software expert with hacker-credentials’ and ‘military and government-level surveillance’ operations.
FOREIGN BANK ACCOUNTS
The company offers ‘access to former intelligence officers,’ one of them ‘a Cuban army colonel with a martial arts black belt.’ (And you can be sure that if he exists, his will be a big'un).
When I emailed Peter with questions about ABI I was treated to a short sharp dose of his disorder, now rampant. Peter didn't deny his ABI involvement. Instead he fired back ‘If you are man enough (!) we can meet face to face. I'll let you know when and where.’
Also created in the Lavaterstrasse office was another outfit that aimed even lower. He founded the ‘Ad-Hoc Group’ soliciting contributions to a Swiss bank account to fund his personal crusade against wrongdoing. Donations would help him acquire information to publish about ‘the foreign bank accounts’ of his targets.
So, why has Frank Lowy hired Peter? One of ABI's services is ‘installation and operation of state-of-the-art audio/video surveillance & fully computerised observation systems.’ If Peter is caught planting a recording device in Sepp Blatter's office or penetrating the bank accounts of the FIFA officials deciding who gets 2018, then farewell Frank.
Hargitay wouldn't be the first private detective hired by a bidding country to crack FIFA bosses' bank records. But they were serious professionals recruited from government spy agencies.
So please tell us Frank - which of Peter's special skills appeal most to you?