Tony Sanchez and his Tesoro Savings & Loan heist

Back in the 1980's Tony Sanchez was the CEO of Tesoro Savings and Loan. This means that he was involved in the day to day running of Tesoro as well as owning it.

The newspapers have reported on many occasions and Tony has admitted that $25 million of Mexican Mafia money was laundered through Tesoro. Tony was not found guilty of any wrong doing but we have to ask if $25 million in deposits is not enough to catch the attention of a S & L CEO.

Eventually, Tesoro went under and cost the taxpayers $139 million and this has also been the subject of many newspaper articles.

Remember for a moment that I am not just an attorney but I am also an accountant and I therefore have a solid understanding of financial matters. So the example that I am about to give is very close to what actually happened at Tesoro.

The question is, what happened to the $139 million?

To make things easy, I am going to say that 1,390 people put $100 thousand each into Tesoro. This totals to $139 million. All are insured by the FSLIC for their $100 thousand.

Now Tony is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tesoro and his friend Carlos Mafioso comes to him with $25 million dollars of drug money and Tony lets him put it into his bank. Then Carlos wants to borrow $25 million using the $25 million deposit as security for the $25 million loan. So Tony loans $23 million to Carlos for one year with interest due at the end of the year of $2 million. At the end of the year, Carlos tells Tony to take the $25 million he has in CD's and payoff the $23 million loan and $2 million in interest. Tony does it and in so doing launders the $25 million by making it look clean to anyone who asks Carlos where he got the $25 million. Of course of the $23 million that Tony actually gave Carlos, Tony gets back a couple of million dollars in cash under the table for laundering the money. The $2 million in interest was just to make the loan pass the bank examiners' inspection.

Now lets say that Mr. BeBe, who is a shady businessman, and Tony want to make some money illegally. Mr. BeBe and Tony decide that they need two more crooks to work with them to rip off some money from Tesoro. So they call Mr. Sharp. Now Tony, BeBe and Sharp devise this scheme. Mr. BeBe has a piece of property (could be land, could be a hotel, could be a ship) worth $50 million but Tony, BeBe and Sharp hire "Little Bill" Akins, a certified appraiser, to value the property at $189 million.

Now Mr. Sharp goes to Tony with the Akins' appraisal and asks Tony to lend him $189 million so he can buy the property from Mr. BeBe. Well, Tony looks at the appraisal which he knows is bogus but is good enough to fool the bank examiners and says OK and he gives Mr. Sharp the $189 million who then gives it to Mr. BeBe for his property. Mr. BeBe gives Mr. Sharp the deed to the property and Mr. Sharp gives the deed to Tony as security for the $189 million to satisfy the bank examiners. 

Now in an honest legitimate deal, if Mr. Sharp does not pay the note on the $189 million he borrowed, Tony would sell the property and get Tesoro's depositor's money back. But in a crooked deal Tony knows that he can't sell the property for any more that $50 million.

This is a crooked deal and so at the right time Mr. Sharp fails to make a note payment and Tony has to foreclose on the property, which he does. But he only gets $50 million. So Tesoro has now lost $139 million and consequently Tesoro has to close its doors because it is out of business.

Since all those depositors were insured by the FSLIC, the FSLIC gives all the depositors their $139 million back. And the taxpayers have to put the money back into the FSLIC.

Now what has happened here? Well, Tony, with the aid of BeBe and Sharp and Akins, has stolen $139 million and given it to BeBe and the taxpayers have had to pay all the depositors back the $139 million they deposited in Tesoro and which was transferred to BeBe. Tony gets to walk away without paying anything. All he has to say is that he is just a stupid person who made some bad loans. The truth is that he knew the loan was bad when he made it. The truth is that BeBe gave Tony about $25 million and Sharp about $5 million and Akins about $100,000 under the table and kept the rest.

Now back to reality.

This is just exactly what happened. Tony in fact lost $139 million on bad loans on property that he knew were not worth the amount of money he was loaning. But in reality, Tony did not just make one bad loan for $139 million but he made a lot of bad loans. The truth is that Tony stole $139 million from the taxpayers and gave it to his fellow crooks and that makes him a criminal.

The truth is that due to the privacy laws, no one knows to whom Tony made the loans. This is the beautiful part of the deal. Tony's coconspirators have never been identified. Only Tony knows who they are. Tony has successfully stolen $139 million from the taxpayers and given it to his fellow criminals.

Now fifteen years later, Tony owns a $6 billion bank, International Bank of Commerce (IBOC). And the question is how much money has been laundered to accumulate $6 billion in fifteen years. And remember that Dennis Nixon the CEO of IBOC and Tony fought against and were eventually successful in killing Clinton's legislation to require banks to investigate their large depositors.

This is why I am calling on Tricky Rick Perry to call for an investigation of IBOC by the Texas Department of Banking and the Attorney General's office. But Perry is not going to do that because Tony is a Bush "Pioneer" (he gave $350 thousand to get Bush elected).

If Tony were to be elected governor, legislation would be passed to increase banking fees and legislation would be passed to make bank loans impossible to write off in bankruptcy. In addition, Tony's bank would make billions of dollars laundering drug money because as governor he could easily run interference. Ben Barnes, Tony's mentor, was notorious for allegedly being involved in all kinds of banking fraud in the sixties. It is the reason that Barnes political career came to a dead halt in 1972. And remember Barnes bought Marty Akins out of the governor's race.

Many veteran reporters like R G Ratcliffe, Dave McNeely, Clay Robison and Sam Attlesby know what I am saying is true because over their careers they have reported on Ben Barnes and his coconspirators in both political parties as well as all their connections to Mafia men like Carlos Marcello. Yet knowing this, and knowing that Don Sanchez is as crooked as a snake, they are not telling the citizens of Texas this truth; maybe their editors have been told not to print the truth about Don Sanchez.

The stench of Don Sanchez is great. The total nonsense of a Bush "Pioneer" being recruited by John Sharp to run as the Democratic candidate for governor is incredible. And the fact is that 60 of the Democratic Party executive committee are too naive to understand the truth of this matter or in the alternative they have taken 30 pieces of silver to foist Don Sanchez on the rank and file Democrats.

I am telling everyone loud and clear, that if Don Sanchez becomes the Democratic candidate for governor, then the Democratic Party will be die in November 2002. Thirty years ago an elected Republican was an anomaly in Texas. If Don Sanchez is not immediately stopped, then future elections in Texas will be held in the Republican primary.

There is no way that Don Sanchez is going to beat Rick Perry unless Mr. Perry has a fatal accident. This state is not going to elect a Hispanic governor at this time: every native Texan knows this. It is not right, but Texas still is permeated with racism. And if everyone knows this, then Don Sanchez has been brought into the Democratic Party to run interference for Tricky Rick; to make sure Tricky Rick is elected governor. The payoff to Don Sanchez for his criminal acts would be lots of banking regulation to allow him to expand his banking empire while he freely launders Mafia drug money. Not to mention an invitation to drill for oil in all the state parks.

The veteran reporters know who is pulling Ben Barnes strings and they know its the same person who is allied with Big George and who for old times sake will back Ken Bentson for Senator. There is concern about Tricky Rick because he is not real savvy, talks too much, and is just not that bright. Someone once said, "I like my mayors dumb, but not that dumb." It probably applies to governors too.

But the real question for the master puppeteer is who is WorldPeace? The answer is: The next governor of Texas.

John WorldPeace
The next governor of Texas

November 23, 2001