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"I called the embassy in Holland, and they told me that Rudi was a fugitive." Meet Robb Tiller, an outspoken observer of Florida's colorful aviation scene for decades.
"When 9/11 happened and I saw those guys pictures on TV, I immediately called my lawyer. My lawyer got on the phone with the FBI. They tape recorded exactly the information that I gave them. Not a person in the world came to see me. Nobody did anything about it. And we were trying to let them know to dig in and find out who Rudi Dekkers really was, who Wally Hilliard really was. And it was almost like a coverup like I've never seen. You would think that the State Department, the CIA, every solid law enforcement agency would be all over Rudi Dekkers and Wally Hilliard. And here they are out there just flaunting it. They could care less. The guy who gets a speeding ticket has more scrutiny done to him than what these guys have." They say ex-wives and disgruntled business partners make the best sources. Rob Tiller most definitely belongs to the latter category. He was quite open when he was talking about secret financier Wally Hilliard because of a business deal gone bad.
"I met Wally Hilliard because I was looking for an investor to back Havana Air which was going to be a brand new start-up company with a 135 Certificate, with legal flights into Havana, Cuba." And the 135, is that State Department, or Treasury Department allows them ...? "It's State Department, U.S. Treasury, Foreign Assets controlled, Cuba, Cuban Embassy, U.S. Embassy. Everybody's involved. It's one of the toughest licenses to get." So Tiller was, as they say, well connected. So was Wally Hilliard. "Somebody told me that he was a multi-millionaire that had sold his insurance company to American Express in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and he had moved to South Florida, and he was spending money like a wild man."
See Christian Broadcasting Network Wally Hilliard had at one time had still unexplained dealings with televangelist Jerry Falwell. Even though he struck a holier-than-thou pose, Hilliard didn't strike Tiller as a sterling example of Republican family values.
"First of all, he pushed this religion thing. Wally Hilliard, I don't think, was a devout Mormon up north. I'd like to find out when he became a Mormon. Well, he pushed his religion on everybody he got near, and he was acting like he was a preacher, okay. In fact, he was supposedly a deacon in the Mormon Church. Well he certainly didn't act like a deacon when he was out of that church, okay? And the whole thing, something was funny from the get-go."
The true story of what was going on while Mohamed Atta and his terrorist buddies made Florida their personal playground is only beginning to be told. For example, how many Islamic fundamentalists walk around with alcohol on their breath? "I met the Arabs at the Venice airport when they were taking flight lessons." Which Arabs? "Yeah, the two that flew into the building." Atta and Marwan? "Yeah, I met them both." How did that happen? "Well, somebody knew that I had lived in Saudi Arabia and spoke a little bit of Arabic and ..." You're a former State Department official, right?
"I was a U.S. Marine Guard in Daharan, Saudi Arabia, and then Kathmandu, Nepal. And the minute I spoke Arabic, it kind of spooked them. So I backed off a little bit and was just speaking English. And they were very inquisitive how I knew Arabic words. And I told them, I used to live there. And that kind of really spooked them. And it didn't register with me at first as to why. And when I heard them cussing, Arabs, Moslems, true Moslems, they don't cuss. The worse thing they ever say is in Arabic 'Mafi Muk,' which means 'no brains.' It's like an insult. And these guys were cussing very heavily. And I could smell liquor on their breath. And I'm a pilot, and you don't drink and take flying lessons. I mean, you just don't do it. Your brain's not capable of handling it, and certainly you're not competent."
Rudi Dekkers wasn't the only magic Dutch boy at the Venice airport with questionable financing, Arne Kruithof, the other magic Dutch boy did too.
"Glenn Goodman, supposedly his family owned the Budweiser distributorship, and Glenn looks like a burnt-out old hippie. I mean, you wouldn't think he had a dime. He looks like he's straight out of Woodstock, you know, with a baggy old pair of shorts and ponytail."
The financier whose Dutch-run flight school was also training terrorists sounds like a character in the Big Lebowski, but again, we must be wrong. He was a player at the Venice airport.
"He ended up with the gas concession, the fuel concession, at the airport here in Venice. He built that huge building and he was backing Arne. Arne Kruitoff. And I couldn't put that together for anything. Flight schools don't make money. None of them. Not even the biggest. You know, it's just not that kind of deal unless you got Arabs or people like the 9/11 bunch that come in and lay out $9,000 in cash and all this kind of stuff."
Yeslam Bin Laden was sending pilots to Wally Hilliard and Rudi Dekkers. How does Wally Hilliard know Yeslam Bin Laden? I mean, how does Yeslam Bin Laden know Wally Hilliard?" "It'd have to be through Rudi Dekkers."
Like nearly every aviation executive in South Florida we spoke to, Tiller scoffs at the FBI's official explanation. "Something was very funny there. I don't know what it was. But the whole thing was bizarre. Two people from the same country in a little teeny town of Venice, number one, and two, why Venice? I know as a pilot, no controlled airspace, you know, and things like this, but how in a million years Wally ever backed Rudi Dekkers is beyond me, and beyond everybody else too." Tiller reserves a special scorn for magic Dutch Boy Rudi Dekkers.
"When I saw him at the Senate Investigation talking on television and stuff, I'm like, 'God, if people really knew what kind of person this was, they certainly wouldn't put any valuation to anything he says. All they had to do was ask anyone in Naples Florida, or Venice, or anywhere he goes." Yeah, I mean nobody in Venice believes a word he says.
TRANSCRIPT TO BE CONTINUED Click here for Welcome to Terrorland Appendix Daniel Hopsicker was a producer at Wall Street Week for PBS, he's the
former executive producer of the NBC show Global Business, and he's been
an investigative reporter for NBC News. He is the author of Barry and "the
Boys" -- The CIA, the Mob, and America's Secret History. <http://www.barryandtheboys.com/>
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