... to make leisure submarines for the wealthy ... WTF?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/09/AR2009080902421.html

As Dubai's Glitter Fades, Foreigners See Dark Side

More Jailings, Prosecutions Follow Downturn

By Andrew Higgins
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 10, 2009

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Herve Jaubert, a French spy who left espionage to make leisure submarines for the wealthy, was riding high.

Bankrolled by Dubai World, a government-owned conglomerate, he built a submarine workshop on the Persian Gulf, lived rent-free in a villa with a pool and tooled around town in a red Lamborghini. He had two Hummers. He vacationed with local plutocrats.

Jaubert said he heard whispers about Dubai's darker side -- the abuse of desperate laborers from impoverished Asian lands, the jailing of the occasional Westerner who crossed a sheik -- but "I brushed it all off. I saw glamour. I saw marble columns, mirrors and money."

Today, the former intelligence operative, who fled Dubai last summer in a rubber dinghy, is a wanted man. In June, a Dubai court convicted him in absentia on charges of embezzling $3.8 million and handed down a five-year sentence, plus a big fine. Jaubert, speaking recently at his new home near West Palm Beach, Fla., said he stole nothing and vowed never to set foot in Dubai again. He said he fled because of gruesome threats by interrogators to stick needles up his nose and what he described as constantly shifting, and all bogus, accusations relating to bullets, murder and the finances of Dubai World's now-defunct luxury submarine subsidiary.

[Barack_America]

1. What, you don't have one?

You really must get one, darling.

[Solly Mack]

2. To go with the diamond encrusted bra

http://www.victoriassecret.com/fantasy1021/fantasy_bra/

[baldguy]

3. The easier to get to your underwater lair.

You DO have an underwater lair, don't you?

[wtmusic]

4. They're great for firing leisure torpedoes

http://www.sub-find.com/s2_300.htm

[juno jones]

5. K&R!

I wonder what James Bond has to say about the luxury submarine biz. Wanna bet one (with amazing weaponry, of course) will now show up in one of the movies in the series. :)

And hell, I'd LOVE to hear a few names tossed around in gossip as possibly being the owners of billion-dollar luxury submarines.

[Kievan Rus]

6. Dubai has more $ than Beverly Hills does

[GrantDem]

7. All I want are some sharks

some frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads...

[Johonny]

8. this guy free sitting around West Palm Beach, Fla

But I have to believe he didn't steal $3.8 million.