Does RICO apply to your UPC companies' wind developer?

by Barbara Durkin

May 4, 2010

BACKGROUND, First Wind, Cape Wind connections to IVPC and UPC:

Paper trail:

My Notice to Executive Office of Environmental Affairs regarding Orese Vigorito IVPC and UPC ties to Cape Wind by shell corporations:
There is "synergistic corruption" in the wind industry with Orreste Vigorito Managing Partner of IVPC initially funded by Brian Caffyn inaugural Chairman of UPC. Oreste of IVPC is charged with fraud by Italian anti-mob investigators in November 2009.
Important link photo (frames RICO):

The driver behind IVPC is US wind developer UPC through its UPC International Partnership CV…”

http://www.projectfinancemagazine.com/default.asp?page=7&PubID=4&ISS=10883&SID=432546

These CAPE WIND UPC, EMI, First Wind, IVPC shells are building wind projects that fail to produce energy yet developers still collect public subsidies. An international investigation into green credits scams has escalated with 30 arrests continuing since November of 2009 (as evidenced by first three articles appearing here).
Environmental Leader November 17, 2009
excerpt: 'Mafia Tied to wind farm fraud in Italy':
The “Gone with the Wind” sting operation, started in 2007, netted 11 others who were charged but were not arrested. Italian police told Financial Times that the fraud charges are related to obtaining millions of dollars in public subsidies to construct wind farms that never worked. Police confiscated seven wind farms with 185 turbines in Sicily linked to IVPC, according to the article.
The anti-fraud team also is investigating IVPC’s sales of wind farms to foreign companies, and already has sent requests for documentation to five companies located in the Netherlands and Spain, as well as IVPC’s Italian affiliates in Ireland and the UK, according to the article.
Fraud appears to be an emerging problem in the nascent clean energy sector. Most recently, two clean energy auditors — SGS UK and DNV — were accused of not properly auditing projects in carbon trading markets.
Meanwhile, the UK is dealing with carbon trading credit scams that could cost millions of dollars. In Australia, to prevent bogus carbon offset schemes, federal police agents can now enter company premises and request paperwork to monitor their emissions.

  • Brian Caffyn is the inaugural chairman of UPC, and the original investor in Cape Wind and Italian Vento Power Corporation, IVPC. First Wind (a UPC company) CEO and President Paul Gaynor is Mass Governor Deval Patrick's appointed Advisor on renewable energy and efficiency.

  • "As president and CEO of UPC Wind Management, located in Newton, Mass., Gaynor was tapped to bring the success of the parent company, UPC Group, to North America."

  • Boston Business Journal (4/18/05)

    "As James Gordon creeps closer to fulfilling his vision of a windmill power farm off Cape Cod, his erstwhile partner, Brian Caffyn, still faces headwinds in his efforts to plant turbines on Hardscrabble Mountain in Vermont and other peaks and plains across the country.

Caffyn, a Babson College graduate, is unaccustomed to wind projects getting mired in the doldrums.He founded UPC Group in Europe several years ago, and in 2000 a subsidiary completed what then was one of the world's largest wind plants, a 170 megawatt plant near Naples, Italy, that cost $260 million.It then put together a $325 million syndicate for more windmills in Italy."

  • http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2005/04/18/story8.html

    "Mr. Caffyn personally oversaw the establishment and construction of the largest wind energy company in Italy, Italian Vento Power Corporation."

  • http://www.upcsolar.com/about-management.asp

    “Gone with the wind”, mounted by the finance ministry’s anti-fraud police, started in 2007 and began by blocking public subsidies worth €9.4m ($14m, £8.4m) granted by the ministry for economic development. Last year police confiscated seven wind farms with 185 turbines in Sicily linked to IVPC."

  • On May 26, 2009, I informed the U.S. Office of Inspector General that Italian Vento Power Corporation IVPC was under investigation in Italy. The Managing Partner of IVPC Oreste Vigorito was arrested in November of 2009 for fraud. I updated U.S. OIG Agent in Charge who sent a thank you email advising me he forwarded my complaint to the Department of Justice.

"Who are these guys, Cape Wind, EMI, UPC, First Wind, IVPC?" (compilation of news reports):

http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2010/02/23/3941508-who-are-these-guys-cape-wind-emi-upc-first-wind-ivpc

94 US citizens file with DOJ Anti-Trust Complaint that identifies Cape Wind
Complaint Filed on April 25, 2007 with the Department of
Justice under the Sherman Antitrust Act by Concerned
Citizens from the States of New York, Vermont, Maryland,
and California
Nature of Complaint
This is an Antitrust Complaint alleging that an International Cartel is engaged in Market
Allocation, Price Fixing and Bid Rigging in Windfarm Developments in New York and
Vermont, as well as other states across the nation. This Complaint was submitted by 94
concerned citizens via email to the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division on
April 25, 2007.

  • Art Brigades

    Dirtbags.

    Run em off the land. Hang em from their useless turbine towers.

    May 4, 2010