A Whitefish man has been implicated in an alleged scam based in New York, involving a multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline proposal in Buryatia, a former republic of the Soviet Union.

John Juncal, 60, was arrested earlier this year in Whitefish on a federal warrant and has been moved to a New York court jurisdiction.

Juncal is charged with mail fraud, along with co-defendants James Campbell Jr., Emerson Corsey and Rodney Sampson.

The arrests were made with the help of an informant in the matter.

According to information filed in U.S. District Court, they started the scheme in November 2005, allegedly pitching a plan to secure $3 billion in financing from a hedge fund in exchange for pledging $5 billion U.S. Treasury securities, which they did not possess.

According to the court documents, Sampson and Corsey falsely claimed to represent an unqualified bank called Magnolia International Bank and Trust in Atlanta and described a plan to build a 2,500-mile-long "Trans Siberian Oil Pipeline" through Buryatia.

The men tried to sell a story about how the bank was created by a Native American tribe called the Nu Altamaha Yamasee Nation. Neither Georgia nor the U.S. government recognizes the tribe. The bank was not found to be registered as a security firm, a bank, or even a corporation in Georgia.

Further, co-defendants allegedly told a potential investor that in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government provided Buryatia with $10 billion in Treasury securities as part of a supposed economic development program for underdeveloped countries. Buryatia decided to use the securities as collateral to leverage financing for development projects such as the pipeline. Its government supposedly appointed Juncal an agent of "counsel extraordinaire" and assigned $5 billion in securities to leverage more financing for the project to a company Juncal controlled.

The securities were said to be maintained by Juncal in Vienna, Austria.

Long before he was arrested, Juncal had come to the attention of Detective Sgt. Roger Bergstrom of the Whitefish Police Department.

Bergstrom had opened a case on Juncal in May 2001, after Juncal arrived in town with his wife, Jeanmarie.

Real-estate agents said Juncal had approached them about multi-million-dollar properties. He reportedly said he was a trustee on a global humanitarian-aid organization. The organization wanted a place for the non-profit executives to vacation. The property would eventually be sold and the money would go to the needy.

Bergstrom said Juncal told the agents that the humanitarian trust owned property in Switzerland it was selling to finance Whitefish properties.

He never came up with the money, but Bergstrom said he was tracking wire transactions into local bank accounts Juncal kept. The detective was also tracking Juncal's history, including dealings in Florida, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

Juncal had been indicted in New York for an alleged scam there, but didn't go to prison, Bergstrom said.

Juncal and his wife moved to Missoula and then to Whitefish.

Working with the FBI, Bergstrom arrested Juncal at the Whitefish Motel in March.

Juncal's case is working its way through the federal system now.

Bergstrom said Whitefish officers have seen a number of international scams being run from town recently.

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com.