Businessman connected with Rail Estonia wanted in U.S.

  • 2001-03-01
  • BNS
TALLINN - Tony Massei, a businessman closely connected with the winning Rail Estonia bid for the privatization of the Estonian Railway company Eesti Raudtee, is wanted by U.S. special security services because of money laundering and fraud, the daily Eesti Paevaleht reported Feb. 22.

On the afternoon of Feb. 22, the Estonian security police sent Massei's photograph to all Estonian border checkpoints, as well as to Tallinn passenger port and airport with the request to arrest him if he attempts to leave the country. By evening the businessman, whose real name is Antonio M. Angotti, had not yet been apprehended.

Fearing exposure, Massei probably left Estonia on the evening of Feb. 20 or the morning of the 21st.

Finance Minister Siim Kallas, who sits also on the privatization agency's supervisory council, said that the criminal's connections with Eesti Raudtee is highly suspicious.

In 1995, a court in Pasadena, California, convicted Angotti alias Massei to 41 months in prison on charges of money laundering, acquisition of a loan by fraud, the presentation of false documents to U.S. government agencies.

Before being jailed, Massei managed to flee the United States, and until Feb. 21 U.S. special security services lacked any information about his whereabouts.

On Dec. 13 last year, when the privatization agency declared Rail Estonia the winner in the Eesti Raudtee privatization tender, Massei presented himself at a press conference as the Rail Estonia project leader.

Massei worked for months in Tallinn as Rail Estonia CEO John Orrison's right hand man but did not allow his name to be entered in any of the official documents submitted to the privatization agency.

Anti Oidsalu and Vallo Toomet, advisers of Rail Estonia, refused to comment on Massei's criminal past.

"You will not be able to prove that he has acted under another name. I am absolutely sure of it," Oidsalu said.