My conection with the Mob

I've been camper here at what I call The Steps, that was the name given by Mark who invited me to come and spend the winter here with him and his wife Donna. I have also herd it calledTurkey Flats, The terraces and The Arizona Project.

Mark and Donna have moved on many times since then, but that is just a part of the life of a van dweller.  I have stayed put here and things have worked out pretty good if you ask me.

I have met many interesting people here and made what I hope turns out to be life long friends...

Years ago I owned and operated heavy equipment, I owned and old D-8 Dozer that had been used to build The Grand Coulee Dam..

My old D-8 had a much bigger blade than this one...it was a beast. And the operator had no idea what he was doing.

I bought the old dozzer  and the thing was delivered by a semi low boy in two pieces....I was so lucky the driver took pity on me and spent hours putting the blade back on and when he realized I had no idea how to start the thing yet alone drive it he gave me some pretty good lessons.

I built about 8 miles of road down a canyon to Lake Roosevelt from the county road and then back up the hill side to the building site I had in mind for my lakes view cabin/ homestead.....big dreams!!!

My time with the heavy equipment gives me some idea just how much time and money would have been needed to do a little erosion control here where it was not needed!

Back to the mob connection...

When I got to the steps and saw a 2 mile by 2 mile area that had been worked this hard by heavy equipment and looked around to see some of the worst work ever with no real reason for the way things were pushed around, my curious mind really got busy trying to figure out what this was all about.

Erosion control was one thing I was told, but 2 things come to mind, why, no reason for that here and besides the ground was worked in a way that would not ( in my opinion ) control erosion???

I was told it was going to be a resort...??? some of the terraces are to small and not located to give views of the lake....who would buy that?

Many of the flat areas have poor access and grades????

My thoughts were that someone pretty smart had been taking advantage of the Federal Government Grants. When I lived in Creston Washington they had a Lady Debbie Cook, who was good at writing applications for Federal Grants and had come up with some pretty serious amounts of money for the small town of about 200 people. If someone had done the same and had a little "help" from some one working for the feds millions could have been picked up working this small section of land out on  the edge of the county and back then in the middle of nowhere......brilliant don't you think!!!

I started to hear stories of murder, land fraud and the mob......hope I don't get fit with concrete shoes....I'm pretty close to the lake here.... lol!!

I was told to look into something called The Arizona Project.

http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/conspiracy/reststory/azproject.html

Seems Arizona has a long history of land scams and nobody doing much about the illegal acts. Perfect for the mob to launder money, just a little bribery in the right places and you have yourself a money making machine.....1,000s of people lost millions buying land that often was not even owned by the sellers. They bought into developments that did not have any chance of ever being developed ect.

Now some of the schemes did work out and people did get land of some value, Lake Havasu would be one development that did work out....and even lead many more victims into the scams.

My research into all this leads me to believe the mob was even involved in The London Bridge reconstruction project where around $7,000,000 was spent just on the bridge and then the land was sold often by flying buyers by private planes out to the area to show them what was being built.....luckily we do have a very nice place to live or visit, unlike so many of the scams that never developed......a perfect example of the old ponzi scheme....

I found some old stories about Don Bolles, a news paper reporter from the days when reporters did their jobs ( my jab at the lame stream reports of today ), he was getting lots of information against some pretty powerful people including mobsters, politicians and Federal Government employees.

Some very interesting names.....Berry Goldwater, Senator John McCane's Father-in-law and a bunch of known Mobsters from the time......

Seems someone got the government to fund the erosion scam dumping millions into pushing dirt around while at the same time inverters being brought in to fund this wonderful lake front resort with palm trees and all the trappings of a world class resort, lots were being sold and many lost their shirts while a few milked millions. Then as things began to come unglued people were murdered some left the country to hide and in the end I have a pretty nice place to spend my winter.

Don Bolles was murdered as were as many a 11 others, politicians went on politicking, mobsters went on mobstering, federal employees became rich and campers have been coming and going for years.

Life goes on, but I believe many will get their just rewards.