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A double agent, a businessman or both?
The Strange Case of Edward Mazur
By David Dastych
Monday, July 30, 2007
Edward Andrew Mazur, 61, a rich American businessman born in Poland and holding U.S. and Polish passports, spent nine months under arrest, pending his extradition to Poland. Then, on July 20, he was set free by an unquestionable decision of Judge Arlander Keys of the Chicago District Court.
In Poland, Mazur was accused of complicity in the murder of a former Polish Police Chief, General Marek Papala, shot dead on June 25, 1998 in front of his Warsaw home. The investigation of this crime is nine years old and not concluded yet. While professional killers involved in the murder of the General were in jail or dead, no trace led to the powerful people, who had ordered Papala's "liquidation", nor were their ultimate motives clearly established. The evidence collected over these years and presented to the Chicago Dictrict Court proved not strong enough to cause Mazur's extradition. His role in the murder has not been proven and the evidence is based, at least in its main part, on testimonies of gangsters remaining in Polish jails. But for the Polish prosecutors, Edward Mazur is a linchpin to the masters of this crime and of many other criminal acts.
The case of Edward Mazur is part of a much larger investigation into the activities of mafia-type criminal organizations binding together gangsters, businessmen and politicians in Poland and abroad. Most of these people were former functionaries of the special services in Communist Poland, turned businessmen or politicians after the regime change in 1989. Mazur knew many of them since the 1970s or 1980s and supported close business and social relations with them. His personal fortune, estimated at about $110 million, in its greater part originated from business deals made in Poland, before and after 1989. Polish investigators claimed that a prominent Chicago businessman took part in illicit trade, also in drug-smuggling business, involving post-Communist mafia connections with Russia and other countries.
A Polish Communist agent…
Top secret documents on Edward Mazur, held in Polish (and probably also in Soviet/Russian) archives, reportedly indicate his recruitment by the then Polish political intelligence, operating in the United States. He was allegedly recruited in the early 1970s, soon after being granted U.S. citizenship (in 1969, at the age of 23). Mazur emigrated to America from a village in southern Poland with his mother in the early 1960s (1962?) as a minor, aged 15 or 16. It is not very clear, how they got to the U.S.A. Most of the sources claim they first went to Latin America, and only later moved to Chicago, to join his mother's brother. His mother (and probably also her son) inherited some money and that bequest facilitated Ed Mazur's college education and his later career in America. Was this fact known to the then Polish Communist special services? Certainly yes, because the Ministry of Interior decided to issue the passports, and there should be an Affidavit of Support, issued by their American relatives, as the reason for their travel.
Based on known evidence of the Communist recruiting practices, one should assume that the special services could be interested in a young man, inheriting some money, and moving from Poland to the U.S.A. But Edward was too young to be recruited, prior to his voyage. The Polish intelligence activated their interest in him only when he was in college, and after he had obtained U.S. citizenship. All they needed was a promising young engineer, an American citizen, whom they could control.
(At that time, he had to renounce his Polish citizenship to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Later, after 1989, he might reclaim his Polish citizenship and hold two passports under American and Polish laws).
Recruiting a young Polishman, only after he received U.S. citizenship, was a common practice of the Communist special services. If recruited before, he should have reported his recruitment to the U.S. Immigration, and that could cause trouble. When Mazur joined the Polish Intelligence on American soil, he was already a citizen of this country, a student of an Engineering College in Chicago and – perhaps – a man with a promising professional career in America. Such an agent could be a highly valuable asset to the Communist special services.
The development of Mazur's professional life fully confirms these expectations. He was active in the Polish-American organizations, promoted by the President of the Polish-American Congress, the late Edward J. Moskal. Later on, he worked as manager in several American companies (United Technologies, AG McKee & Co, Cargill Inc., Demarex Inc., Stream Communications Inc.). Starting in the mid-1970s, he was also one of the first American business investors in the then Communist Poland.
His business activity in Poland proved to be highly valuable for the then Polish political counterintelligence (2d Department, Ministry of Internal Affairs), whose trusted secret agent he was supposed to be, until the beginning of the 1990s. Edward Mazur became also a well-established business partner of Polish companies, such as Bakoma and Bioton. The Polish special services allegedly used Mazur's business talents and good offices to spy on foreign business operating in Poland and also to draw in foreign investments. But his long-time high position in the establishment of the Communist Poland could be also very attractive to other intelligence services, in particular to the American CIA and to the Soviet/Russian KGB.
…or a CIA operative?
The CIA never confirmed or denied that Edward Andrew Mazur was their secret agent or operative. That's a usual practice. Mazur himself always strongly denied his involvement in – as he used to say – "any secret services". But his activity and contacts, in Poland and in Eastern Europe in particular, contradicted his negation.
It is not known in public, how the CIA could eventually have recruited Edward Mazur. Was this by blackmail, after his links to the Polish special services had been discovered? Or, by a voluntary declaration of Mazur, offering his services to the CIA, also in the Polish counterintelligence, to prove his loyalty to the United States and also expecting material profits? There is no hard evidence to be quoted here. But, as far as I know the practices of the CIA, the American intelligence agency was never afraid to recruit and control foreign agents, using them for its own purpose. In the late 1970s, and especially in mid-1980s, the CIA was particularly interested in Poland. At that time, a "secret war" started between the spy services of several countries for economic and political benefits stemming from the changes in Poland. This was also the time of a sharp rivalry between foreign mafia organizations, which interests criss-crossed on Poland's territory.
Two opinions of well-informed intelligence people in Poland indirectly confirm Edward Mazur's links to the American intelligence. Mr. Jan Bisztyga, a high-ranking ex-officer of the Polish intelligence and a former advisor to a post-Communist Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, told a private television station, TVN 24 (a Polish CNN) that "Mazur has links to the American services. When I looked at his biography and his successes in Poland", said Bisztyga, "it was clear to me that he wasn't a man operating in Poland out his own good will. I think he was sent here."
When a Polish right-wing weekly, "Gazeta Polska", suggested Mazur was an American agent, a former chief of the Polish counterintelligence in the 1990s and earlier a "Solidarity" activist, Mr. Konstanty Miodowicz, refused to comment on this to the Polish Press Agency, hiding behind an excuse of a "state secret". But he added that if Mazur were in fact an informer of the special services [Polish or foreign], "they should be proud, because he would be a very well placed source."
In March of 2006, "Gazeta Polska" – a weekly well connected to the Polish special services – reported that after the regime change (1989), Mazur continued his cooperation with the new Polish special service, as consultant to the State Protection Office (UOP), from 1992 to 1996. He penetrated business and diplomatic circles in Poland and abroad, looking for connections between politicians and gangsters, he passed to the UOP information on former generals of the SB (the former notorious Secret Service). New, "Solidarity" – based authorities in Poland wanted to control the former Communist functionaries. Edward Mazur befriended them while still in Communist Poland, when he worked for the SB. Now he could meet them in private, drink vodka with them and report to the UOP about their covert business deals. The weekly paper wrote that Mazur was so much engaged with the UOP that he used to phone his case officer from the parties he took part in and reported his conversations. In the mid-1990s, as "Gazeta Polska" reports - Mazur was working for a department of the State Protection Office (UOP), organized by Col. Konstanty Miodowicz and focused on organized crime. This activity lasted until autumn of 1996, when the post-Communist left-wing parties won the general elections in Poland. At that time, UOP officers were ordered to place Mazur's files in the archive.
According to several Polish media publications, Edward Mazur took part in the Soviet-American intelligence rivalry over Poland, in the late 1980s. A former UOP officer disclosed to newsmen that Mazur rented an apartment in a Communist Party and government residential district of Warsaw, popularly known as a "Bay of Red Pigs". An apartment neighboring with his was occupied by Mr. Vladimir Alganov, a KGB diplomat-spy. Alganov, a very sociable fellow, organized drinking parties for Polish politicians and collected intelligence from them. Mazur and Alganov competed for the best economic slices of the Polish "cake": the first for the American intelligence, the latter for the Russian one. A few years later, this rivalry took a form of a bitter competition for the privatization of the best Polish state-owned companies and for control over the Polish banks.
A special fund, named FOZZ (A Fund to Service the Polish Debt) was organized in 1985 by the Communist authorities to buy up Polish state liabilities to foreign countries. But in fact, it was operated as a secret "stash fund" by the Polish communist special services. Only 4 per cent of the FOZZ's money had been used for statutory aims, the rest was stolen by special services to provide foreign-based capital for the Communist functionaries, who anticipated the regime change and wanted to enrich themselves.
In 1985-1989, Mazur allegedly took part in the efforts by the American intelligence to influence the Polish political and economic scene. At that time, the CIA acted hand-in-hand with the Mossad against the influence of the KGB and the West German and French services. Later on, Israel began to build up its own lobby in Poland, sometimes in opposition against the United States. But the main rival was always Russia. In 1988, Mazur allegedly took part in a meeting of the CIA and the KGB operatives, devoted to the future of Poland. Polish intelligence sources, observing that meeting, claim that there Alganov was a "small fry", while Mazur was a "tutti".
Later, in 1992-1996, while he was a consultant to the UOP Counterintelligence, Mazur sat on the board of the Telegraf Company, which took part in the privatization of some 200 state-owned Polish firms and in Polish debt-purchases organized by the FOZZ. Edward Mazur participated in the locating of these assets and he bought some himself. But his main task was to look for American companies interested in the purchase of the FOZZ funds. The capital from the Fund for Servicing of the Polish Debt (FOZZ) was used to build the economic power of post-Communist political parties and former Communist Party and secret services dignitaries, turned businessmen. This was the environment Mazur operated within, at least to the fatal day of June 25, 1998, when his personal friend, a former Chief of the Polish Police, General Marek Papala, was shot to death by a hired mafia killer.
Edward Mazur was among a small group of people who saw Papala hours before his tragic death. Soon after that, he was arrested and quickly released but a few years later he was accused of complicity in the murder. Mazur was supposed to "organize" a killer of Papala and to offer him $ 40 thousand to "silence the general forever". Now, the present Polish right-wing government continues the investigation into the death of General Papala. Polish Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Mr. Zbigniew Ziobro, passed the evidence of Mazur's alleged complicity in this crime to the American Federal Prosecutor's Office. In 2006 the Polish-American businessman was arrested and placed in a Federal Arrest in Chicago, waiting there nine months for a court decision on his extradition to Poland. But an unexpected ruling of Magistrate Judge Arlander Kays stopped the extradition process and let Mazur free.
For how long a time? And was Edward Andrew Mazur really guilty, or did somebody "frame" him?
I shall examine the investigation and its known options in my next article to be published on Canada Free Press, later in this week.
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