Chevron's PR Ploy Backfires; Details Dirty Dealings in Ecuador http://amazonwatch.org/news/2011/0817-chevrons-pr-ploy-backfires-details-dirty-dealings-in-ecuador

Approaching the two-year anniversary of one of Chevron's dirtiest tricks in its 18-year effort to escape responsibility for its oil disaster in Ecuador, shocking emails and a major misstep by a Chevron spokesman threaten to blow the whole affair wide open. Explosive emails from Wayne Hansen, an American con-man who partnered with a Chevron contractor in an attempt to entrap a judge presiding in the trial over the company's contamination in Ecuador, reveal that Hansen believes he has been "duped" by the oil giant, "left out" of a "deal" offered to his Ecuadorian partner-in-crime, and now fears for his life.

In the weeks after he and an Ecuadorian Chevron contractor named Diego Borja executed their scheme, Hansen writes to his contact at Chevron: "I have been waiting for your call, you said you would call me. ... It seems that the oil co has cut a deal with Diego and I have not heard a word from anyone but Diego. What am I to think?"In the summer of 2009, Hansen, a convicted drug trafficker with a history of legal troubles and involvement in crooked schemes, teamed up with Diego Borja, an Ecuadorian with long and deep ties to Chevron and its subsidiary in Ecuador.

Their plan? Use false pretenses to get a meeting with Judge Juan Nuñez, then presiding over the case against Chevron in Ecuador, and concoct a phony "bribery scandal" that would derail the monumental trial, and earn the two gratitude – and a handsome payout – from the deep-pocketed oil giant.