Peroff added, "Mr. Viviani advised me that I should have thought about that prior to going to Mr. Armstrong." (P. 97.)

The meeting ended. Peroff said that through the month of September he called Viviani once or twice a week to inquire as to how the investigation was progressing. Peroff said Viviani told him "the investigation was virtually at an end" and that it was his, Viviani's, belief that there was nothing to justify further inquiry. Viviani did say that the final decision would not be made by him but by his superiors, Peroff testified (p. 98).

Peroff said it was then-sometime in late September of 1973-that he decided to contact the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The Subcommittee staff first spoke with Peroff October 4, 1973.

By this time Peroff had moved his family out of the Hilton Inn Hotel near Kennedy Airport and the Peroffs were now living in the Shelbourne Hotel on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan.

Peroff said that when Viviani learned that he had taken his story and tapes to the Senate Investigations Subcommittee he was served with a federal grand jury subpoena. The subpoena was signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Arthur Viviani, Peroff said. Peroff said the subpoena was for Peroff to appear in person and with his tapes (p. 98).

Peroff said he responded to the subpoena by appearing in Viviani's office with the tapes. Peroff said he was not put before a grand jury but instead was questioned for about eight hours by Viviani and one representative of DEA and one representative of the U.S. Customs Service (p. 98).

Peroff said he turned over his tapes to Viviani at this session and was given a re-recording of the tapes in return. Peroff said that since the meeting with Viviani, the DEA man and one Customs man, he had not had any contact with Viviani or with any other person connected with the Office of the U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York (p. 98).

That was the extent of Arthur Viviani's inquiry into the allegation that DEA agents had sabotaged the Bouchard heroin case, Peroff testified.

PEROFF'S LAST TRIP TO MONTREAL

Peroff first spoke with the Subcommittee staff October 4. He appeared in the office of Arthur Viviani under Federal grand jury subpoena November 9. Peroff testified that in late October-after he had begun talking to the Subcommittee-he received a phone call from Sergeant Paul Sauve of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (p. 98). Sauve had worked on the Bouchard heroin inquiry since the Spring of 1973 and knew Frank Peroff very well.

Peroff said Sauve asked him if he would see him the next day. Peroff agreed. Sergeant Sauve was accompanied at the meeting by RCMP Corporal Claude Savoie and a DEA agent Peroff did not identify. Peroff said that one of the three men told him to contact Arthur Viviani as soon as possible (p. 99).

Peroff said while the two Mounties and the DEA agent were still in his hotel suite a call came through from Carl M. Bornstein of the Queens County District Attorney's Office. Bornstein also wanted him

to call Viviani immediately. Peroff testified that the messages were not necessary because Arthur Viviani knew where Peroff was staying, knew the phone number and could “have just as easily contacted me directly." (Pp. 98, 99.)

Peroff said he called Viviani's office but Viviani was not in. Peroff said that at the time of his unsuccessful attempt to reach Viviani the DEA agent advised him, Peroff, that he was soon to receive a Federal grand jury subpoena (p. 99).

As for the Mounties Sergeant Sauve and Corporal Savoie-they proposed another Montreal trip for Peroff in connection with Conrad Bouchard. But the target was not to be illicit drugs. The RCMP wanted Peroff to use his access to Bouchard to help in a counterfeit inquiry (p. 99).

Peroff said he accepted the assignment, went to Montreal, introduced a Secret Service agent to Bouchard-and the result was that authorities seized a cache of bogus money and Bouchard and several accomplices were arrested (p. 99).

To protect his undercover informant role, Peroff said, he was assured that he too would be arrested with Bouchard. Instead, Peroff said, he was taken to the airport and flown back to New York (p. 99).

In New York, Peroff said, he returned to his suite at the Shelbourne Hotel to find DEA agents assigned to protect his family and him on a round-the-clock basis (p. 100).

Several days later, Peroff was directed to return to Montreal. He did not say which agency gave these directions. But the purpose of the visit, as explained to him, he said, was to be interviewed by Canadian prosecutors. Instead, Peroff said, he was asked to appear in court at Bouchard's preliminary hearing (p. 100).

Fearing for his own life and his family's should Bouchard hear him testify against him, Peroff refused to appear in court. Peroff said he was asked to give a sworn statement about the counterfeit transaction. Peroff agreed to that. These discussions and the taking of the sworn statement occurred in the American Consulate in Montreal, Peroff said (p. 100).

Peroff said that while in the U.S. Consulate DEA agents and Mounties interrogated him about the substance and extent of the information he had given to the Investigations Subcommittee (p. 100). While still in Montreal, Peroff said, he was told that an article had appeared in a local newspaper identifying him as an FBI agent and the person "responsible for the arrest of Bouchard." (P. 100.)

Publication of this article put him and his family in danger of being murdered by mobsters, Peroff said. He added that he was later informed that at the preliminary hearing in the Bouchard case photographs were admitted as evidence which showed Peroff and Bouchard beside the Customs-sponsored Lear jet that transported them to Windsor, Ontario in March of 1973. Peroff said that an agent of the RCMP also testified at the Bouchard hearing that Frank Peroff was "an undercover man." (P. 100.)

Peroff said all these actions exposing him as an informant were part of a concerted effort by the DEA to prevent the Investigations Subcommittee from receiving testimony and evidence from him (p. 101).

Peroff said the DEA's purpose was to so frighten him that he would agree to have himself and his family relocated and given a new identity somewhere out of the jurisdiction of the United States Senate and this Subcommittee (p. 101).

Peroff said proof of his premise could be found in the fact that DEA put 24-hour protection on his family at the Shelbourne Hotel even before he had been publicly exposed in Montreal as an undercover agent. DEA knew such exposure awaited Peroff and was anticipating trouble, Peroff said (p. 101).

Peroff said that shortly after Bouchard's arrest he was in his suite at the Shelbourne when he received a phone call from Montreal. Peroff said the caller was a Frenchman who identified himself as being Bouchard's attorney. The Frenchman offered him a large but unspecified amount of money if he would testify in Bouchard's defense, Peroff said. Peroff said the Frenchman indicated that Bouchard felt Peroff had been forced into the informer's role by the RCMP and here was an opportunity to turn "the tables on the Mounties." (P. 112.) Peroff testified that about a week after Bouchard's arrest he received a message from RCMP Sergeant Paul Sauve. Sauve told him that neither the Mounties nor the DEA would provide anymore protection for him (p. 101).

Being without protection put him in "an extremely awkward position," Peroff said, because he now believed that if the Bouchard group did not succeed in intimidating him, the DEA would do it. Peroff said DEA agents feared the consequences of his having gone to the Subcommittee on Investigations (p. 101).

Peroff said further confirmation of his fears was provided when the Mounties offered him a "large sum of money"-$100,000-and “a land grant" if he would move to Australia (pp. 101, 110).

Peroff testified that he turned down the offer because by this time "I was already committed in my own mind to seeing this through." (P. 101.)

AGENTS RECALL COUNTERFEIT CASE

Peroff testified that he introduced an undercover Secret Service agent to Bouchard and that this introduction led to Bouchard's arrest. Actually, there were two undercover Secret Service agents involved. They were Dominic Germano and Peter Cavicchia. Subcommittee Investigators Manuel and Gallinaro interviewed Germano and Cavicchia January 11, 1974.

Germano and Cavicchia were assigned to the Counterfeit Section of the Secret Service in Newark, New Jersey. On November 2, 1973, they went to Montreal at the direction of Secret Service Headquarters in Washington. They made contact with Royal Canadian Mounted Police Agents Ben St. Onge and Paul Sauve.

Germano said that the Mounties briefed them on a counterfeit case. It involved Conrad Bouchard, the suspect, and Frank Peroff, the informant, and Canadian counterfeit currency. Germano could provide no explanation as to why he and Cavicchia, two U.S. Secret Service men, were being utilized in a case that had to do with Canadian currency being moved by Canadian violators on Canadian soil.

Germano said that St. Onge and Sauve suggested to him and his partner that when they met Peroff that they identify themselves as FBI agents and conceal from Peroff the fact that they worked for Secret Service.

Germano said the Mounties were of the opinion that Peroff would never cooperate on this effort if he knew that Germano and Cavicchia were Secret Service agents. Germano said he and Cavicchia agreed to pose as FBI men and then the Mounties introduced them to Peroff. Peroff was suspicious, Germano said, and asked to see their FBI credentials. Germano said he explained to Peroff that since he and Cavicchia were on undercover assignments they did not have their FBI credentials with them. Peroff accepted their explanation, Germano said, adding that Peroff was still nervous and jumpy.

Germano said the RCMP agents had warned that Peroff was a difficult and demanding person to work with. Conversely, Germano said, upon getting to know the man, he found Peroff to be an experienced informant very much aware of what had to be done to bring about Bouchard's arrest. In fact, Germano said, it was apparent to him that the Mounties were allowing Peroff to decide as to how best to proceed. Also noted by Germano was Peroff's concern, deeply felt, for the safety of his family. Peroff was afraid that without some form of police protection his wife and children were in danger.

Germano said that the next day, November 3, Peroff arranged a meeting with Bouchard. Peroff identified Germano to Bouchard as being a bank official and Cavicchia as his bodyguard and "bag man." Bouchard was vague at this meeting but Germano did walk away with the understanding that Bouchard would sell him the bogus money.

November 4 was a Sunday. Bouchard dispatched a taxi cab driver to their hotel, Germano said. The cab driver had about $82,000 in counterfeit Canadian currency. He was arrested by RCMP agents. About six hours later Bouchard was arrested, Germano said.

Peroff wanted the Mounties to arrest him as well. That way Bouchard might not figure out his true role in the case. But the RCMP would not arrest Peroff, Germano said. Instead Peroff was taken to the Montreal airport and put on a flight back to New York, Germano

said.

Germano said Peroff told the Mounties that Bouchard was certain to know now that he was an informer and that this made the need for police protection for him and his family all the more pressing. Germano said the RCMP agents assured Peroff that Drug Enforcement Administration personnel would provide the needed protection.

Germano said that on November 7 and on three other occasions he went to Montreal to testify in the Bouchard counterfeit case. On November 7, Germano said, an RCMP agent testified in open court that Frank Peroff was the informer and that Frank Peroff had been involved in previous undercover work for the Mounties.

Germano said the RCMP agent then revealed a photograph of Peroff and Bouchard in a jet airplane. The picture was received as evidence at the trial, Germano said. Germano added that he had no explanation as to why it was necessary to expose Peroff as the informant.

43-08575- 13

THE EFFORT TO EXTRADITE VESCO FROM THE BAHAMAS

The Subcommittee questioned officials of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York, who had attempted the extradition of Vesco. The Subcommittee was especially interested in the extradition proceedings in the Bahamas.

Cecil Wallace-Whitfield was the attorney who represented the United States Government in its effort to extradite Robert Vesco from the Bahamas. The extradition effort failed December 7, 1973.

U.S. Attorney Paul J. Curran testified that Wallace-Whitfield had been retained for the extradition proceedings by the Department of Justice in coordination with the Department of State (p. 743).

The specific individuals who dealt with Wallace-Whitfield were James Rayhill, Curran's executive assistant, and John Murphy and Murray Stein of Justice, Curran said (p. 743).

Curran said he had "no personal involvement" in selecting WallaceWhitfield. He pointed out, though, that there are not very many attorneys in the Bahamas qualified to handle extradition proceedings (p. 743).

Subcommittee Chief Counsel Howard J. Feldman asked Curran if Cecil Wallace-Whitfield was a lawyer for Norman LeBlanc and the Bahamas Commonwealth Bank, a bank controlled by LeBlanc and Vesco (p. 744). Curran said:

I can't say it is incorrect. My information was that he had
no conflict of interest and was one of the lawyers down there
who had no problems and, therefore, could represent the
United States.

My assumption on that basis was that would be incorrect.
But I never specifically said to him later when I was working
with him, "Do you represent LeBlanc or Vesco or the BCB?"
So I don't know (p. 744).

John R. Wing, the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the Mitchell-Stans case, was quoted in the April 29, 1974 Washington Post after the trial as saying that the not guilty verdicts might have been different if Vesco had been there. Feldman asked Wing if he had information that Cecil Wallace-Whitfield was a lawyer for Vesco and LeBlanc. Wing replied:

I didn't at the time. Sometime I think fairly shortly after the proceeding was over, I learned from somebody at the SEC-I am not sure who-or maybe a reporter called in and then the SEC called in.

We got word Whitfield had represented one of the Vesco related companies in some proceedings. I don't think it was LeBlanc or BCB. That would have been rather obvious. I don't recall what it was. I think it was more remote.

I have heard subsequently more recently that he represented management companies of the Dollar Funds connected with IOS in which, of course, Vesco had some interest (p. 744).