Abbas' personal jet plane purchased through an Aruba front company

Robert Fisk of The Independent defended the idea of Mahmoud Abbas buying his own personal jet (equivalent to a 737-700), claimed that Israelis who criticized it are being hypocritical,  and mentioned the parties involved in the transaction:

Buying private jets is a complicated business, and the documents studied by The Independent show that talks started for the purchase of Abbas’s aircraft last autumn – long before Trump’s threats – and that they involved buying the $50m plane from the Chinese Nanshan Jet company through Jetcraft Corporation of Minnesota in the US, and a “good faith” deposit of $500,000 with lawyers Donald H Bunker and Associates in Dubai. Several documents are signed by Wael Sobeih, the aviation portfolio manager of the Palestine Investment Fund, and acknowledged by Rasha Qawasmi, the head of finance. Other papers show that the transaction involved the United Overseas Bank of Singapore and Jet Aviation, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, and, intriguingly, a company called AGAMC of Aruba in the Dutch Caribbean.

Fisk doesn't bother to explain why buying private jets is so complicated, and his intrigue the the involvement of an Aruba company wasn't enough for him to check down that path.

The actual purchase seems to have been through this AGAMC company, as this document shows:

The AGAMC letter is signed by Wael Sobeih, who Fisk identifies as the "aviation portfolio manager of the Palestine Investment Fund."

Clearly, AGAMC is a front for the Palestine Investment Fund.

Its managing director is Mohammed Abdullah Mustafa, and he is also the managing director for another Aruba company, Avmax Group International.

Maybe there is a perfectly reasonable reason for the PLO to set up front companies through the PIF in Aruba, but it doesn't seem quite like the way a real government should act.

(h/t Bill P)

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