Failed bid to save Gizmondo uncovered

The Gizmondo saga already has ties to the Swedish mafia, but now it can be distantly tied to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad.

Reportedly, Brit paper The Mail on Sunday suggested this week that the Gizmondo parent, Tiger Telematics, was nearly bailed out by Kevin Maxwell, son of the late British media mogul (and alleged Mossad agent) Robert Maxwell. The Mail on Sunday article does not appear to be on the paper's own Web site, but Web reports say Kevin Maxwell met with Gizmondo executives last year, and was to raise funding to save the company in exchange for a stake in Tiger Telematics.

However, while he was proposing to raise funding to save the troubled handheld manufacturer, Kevin Maxwell was facing his own financial difficulties. After his father's death (and a pension-raiding scandal at the media conglomerate he headed), Kevin Maxwell was 400 million pounds in debt in 1992. According to the BBC News, he narrowly avoided being declared bankrupt for a second time in February, and is now "thought to owe" about 3 million pounds.

Gizmondo Europe entered bankruptcy proceedings in January. Last month, Tiger Telematics announced in an SEC filing that it had "entered into an agreement similar to a stipulated foreclosure under USA law" and had ceased sales of the console in the US through its mall kiosks.