Centre for Research on Globalisation
Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation
www.globalresearch.ca
Investment Espionage And The White House Bush Administration
Links To Pre-9/11 Insider Trading
by Tom Flocco
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/ , 16 July , 2002.
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca , 26 July
2002
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Global Outlook , Issue No 2 9-11: Foreknowledge or Deception? Stop the
Nuclear Threat. Now available (for details click here) .
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There is growing evidence that the FBI and other government intelligence
entities are more closely linked to the documented accumulation of pre-9/11
insider trading profits than was originally thought. But thus far the Joint
Congressional Intelligence Committee has not publicly referred to prior
knowledge of the attacks as it relates to stock transaction profits, while
also failing after nine months to publicize the critical Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) control list report tracing what in effect were
stock trading profits of death.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spokesman Tom Crispell denied that the CIA
was monitoring real-time, pre-September 11 stock trading activity within
U.S. borders using such software as the Prosecutors Management Information
System (PROMIS) or the Echelon satellite monitoring system. However, when
asked whether the CIA had been scrutinizing world financial markets for
national security purposes, Crispell replied, I have no way of knowing what
operations are [being affected by our assets] outside the country. Given
3,000 deaths, victim family lawyers may want to know.
CIA AND 9/11 INVESTMENT ESPIONAGE?
A January 23, 2002 Houston Chronicle report revealed that Enron
Corporations top security team, including four former CIA officers and an
ex-FBI agent left the company to form a private firm, Secure Solutions
International (SSI), while continuing with Enron via a consulting contract.
John W. Presley, the FBI agent now heading SSI could not be reached for
comment. But the team probed a variety of allegations of fraud and other
kinds of rule-breaking by Enron workers, according to the Chronicle.
Team member and former CIA agent David M. Cromleys business biography at
Enron listed him as Enrons director of business analysis, the Chronicle
reported, adding that Cromley gave Enron executives detailed and unique
information allowing them to make investments, sales of assets, joint
ventures and [financial] products.
But no public information has been forthcoming as to whether such detailed
and unique information or sensitive CIA software was used in conjunction with
Enrons controversial off-shore investment products, or whether their missing
assets may have been employed in what former German Minister of Technology,
Andreas von Bulow, estimated at $15 billion in insider trading profits.
(Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 1-13-2002) Von Bulow then buttressed his astounding
charges: 26 intelligence services in the U.S. with a budget of $30
billion....For 60 decisive minutes, the military and intelligence let fighter
jets stay on the ground....48 hours later, however, the FBI presented a list
of suicide hijackers. But within ten days, it emerged that seven of them were
still alive.
An examination of SSIs website reveals that its corporate members have
managed cutting-edge counterterrorism and counterproliferation operations for
the CIA, implemented advanced technical information and security programs for
the CIA, and conducted a wide range of investigations for the FBI, while also
overseeing all security arrangements for several large gas pipeline
companies.
It is yet to be determined if Congress will publicly question CIA Director
George Tenent as to whether CIA and FBI employees were "loaned" to Enron's
corporate espionage program, involved in personal pre-9/11 insider trading, or
merely relaying sensitive insider political information to others involved in
prior knowledge of the attacks. However, victim family lawyers will likely be
forced to subpoena government documents and officials to effectively prosecute
any negligence claims against government entities.
The fraud-racked Enron Corporation has had at least 20 CIA agents on the
payroll in the last eight years. But while the Houston Chronicle reported the
operatives as former CIA, a February 26, 2002 National Enquirer story quoted
a top Washington insider familiar with several secret investigations into
Enron, as reporting that they were given leaves of absence without pay and
put on the Enron payroll.
The source added that Enrons CIA members used info gleaned from a
satellite project called Echelon, which intercepted emails, phone calls and
faxes with detailed business information, adding that pure and simple,
[taxpayer-funded] U.S. intelligence agents were involved in corporate
espionage. Another Enquirer source with ties to the CIA revealed that "the
cozy deal between Enron and the CIA allowed the 'on-loan' undercover
operatives to return to the Agency's payroll before Enron's collapse."
Known CIA links traverse a curious variety of unexamined threads in the U.S.
financial community. Online Journals Larry Chin (2-1-2002), reminded that
[mega-money conglomerate] Citigroup has repeatedly been charged with money
laundering. This, as its Board of Directors includes John Deutch, former CIA
Director, Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary and intimate friend of
Enrons Ken Lay, but also former CIA Executive Director Nora Slatkin.
Even Congress has a close CIA link. Senate Joint Intelligence Co-Chairman
Bob Graham and his House Intelligence Co-Chairman and former CIA operative
Porter Goss were meeting with the Chief of the Pakistani Intelligence Service
on the morning of the Sept.11 attacks, according to published reports. Oh, to
be a fly on the wall in that room.
SENATE AND HOUSE LINKS TO TERRORISTS
Worrisome reports link two intelligence leaders in the Senate and House
directly to the leader of Pakistan's intelligence arm, The Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), and indirectly to the leader of the 9/11 Hijackers.
A Times of India (10-12-2001) story by Manoj Joshi revealed that Pakistani
ISA Director-General Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after the U.S.
attacks -- confirmed by top sources in India, because of evidence produced by
India showing his links to Mohammed Atta, the terrorist hijacking leader.
The Times said that "U.S. authorities sought his [Ahmad's] removal after
confirming the fact that $100,000 was wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from
Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh on the instructions of ISI Lt. General Ahmad."
Senior [U.S.] government sources "have confirmed that India contributed
significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role
played by the dismissed ISI chief."
The Times added that "while they did not provide details, they said that
Indian inputs, including Sheikh's mobile phone number, helped the FBI in
tracing and establishing the link."
Serious questions remain, however, as Senate Joint Intelligence Co-Chairman
Bob Graham (D-FL) and his House Intelligence Co-Chairman and former CIA
operative Porter Goss (R-FL) were meeting with ISI Chief, Lt. General Mahmud
Ahmad, on the very morning of the September 11 attacks, according to published
reports. (New York Times, 2-17-2002 & MSNBC-TV, 10-7-2001).
Since Graham and Goss are Co-Chairmen of the Joint-Intelligence Committee
investigating the 9/11 attacks, difficulties could arise when the
Congressional Open Intelligence Hearings commence in mid-September, and
whether other Members will have the courage to seek testimony from the
Chairmen of their own Committee, regarding their questionable links to the
U.S. terrorism.
Thus far, Graham and Goss will have been able to postpone open hearings for
over one year, as they are currently scheduled to start near the end of
September. Moreover, devastated and grieving 9/11 victim families have been
unable to hold Congress accountable to seek justice, while hearings have
continued behind closed doors in a sound-proof room at the Capitol.
Other members of the Joint Intelligence Committee could be placed in the
uncomfortable position of having to call Graham and Goss to testify as to why
they were meeting -- on the morning of the attacks -- with the Pakistani ISI
Chief, who was having money wired into the United States to support the
efforts of the leader of the terrorist hijackers while the attacks were in
progress!
Other Committee Members would likely be interested in what was said at the
meeting with Lt. Gen. Ahmad, and more about his relationship with Graham and
Goss, given Ahmad's links to Mohammed Atta.
These and other growing connections indicating prior knowledge of the
attacks also make a case for how the profits of death were accumulated by
insider trading via the United States Stock Market. This, while the SEC will
not release its "Control List" of suspicious stock trades involving companies
and airlines directly related to the attacks.
FBI AGENTS INDICTED IN 9/11-LINKED STOCK SCHEME
On the heels of alleged CIA involvement in public stock trading and use of
sensitive prior knowledge of last falls attacks, 13 days ago on May 22, FBI
agents Jeffrey A. Royer and Lynn Wingate were charged with racketeering
conspiracy, securities fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. Royer
was also charged with extortion, according to an examination of an unsealed
federal indictment: United States vs. Elgindy, Royer, Wingate, Cleveland, and
Peters, filed in New York District Court by Alan Vinegard, United States
Attorney -- all of which clouds either open or secret congressional probes of
pre-attack insider trading profits.
Vinegards news release said the allegations reveal a shocking partnership
between an experienced stock manipulator and law enforcement agents,
undertaken for their illicit personal financial gain. Moreover, Royer and
Wingate allegedly used the FBIs Automated Case Support database to actually
monitor the investigation, passing confidential information about the
investigations of companies to participants in a stock manipulation scheme,
according to the Washington Post. (5-23-2002)
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Breen said stock advisor Amr Ibrahim
Elgindy, charged in the indictment, called his Salomon Smith Barney broker,
trying to sell $300,000 in stock from his childrens trust funds on the
afternoon of Sept.10. During the conversation, Elgindy predicted that the Dow
Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon
crash to below 3,000, according to the New York Times, (5-25-2002), thus
begging the question whether Congress will publicly disclose other indications
of alleged CIA or FBI complicity in prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
NSA DESTROYING 9/11 DATA ON AMERICANS AND U.S. COMPANIES
Two individuals with close intelligence ties told the Boston Globe
(10-27-2001) that since September 11, the super secret National Security
Agency (NSA), acting on the advice of their lawyers, have been destroying data
collected on American citizens and corporations, angering other intelligence
agencies seeking leads in the anti-terrorist probe. Two calls by American Free
Press to Joint-Congressional Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Senator
Richard Shelby, to confirm details revealed by the sources were unreturned.
Since the October Globe report, no other media outlet has examined the
heated discussions with the CIA and intelligence committee staff members, as
NSA lawyers turned down requests to preserve the intelligence because
regulations prohibit data collecting on Americans, inviting lawsuits,
according to the two former senior U.S. officials. However, Vincent
Cannistraro, former CIA Director of Counter-terrorism, told Scoop Media that
the law allows [intelligence officials] exceptions in certain circumstances.
Both the CIA and FBI had declined comment.
Cannistraro added that If American citizens are believed to be involved in
some way in a foreign intelligence operation that could lead to terrorism
against this country, I believe the NSA is required to save or maintain the
information. When asked about the NSA and the 9/11 attacks, the former CIA
official told Scoop. In this case, I believe they should have saved the
surveillance data. Congress has been tight-lipped, and government
investigators are extremely frustrated that many possible leads stemming from
the Sept.11 attack were not being followed because of the NSA position.
RELEASING THE SEC "CONTROL" LIST
According to the San Francisco Chronicle (10-19-01), the SEC privately asked
North American securities firms to participate in an information-sharing
system to trace large numbers of trades in securities of companies [directly]
affected by the attacks. Curiously, however, the SEC asked companies to
designate senior personnel who appreciate the sensitive nature of the case
[pre-attack insider trading], and can be relied upon to exercise appropriate
discretion, as point people linking government investigators and the
[securities] industry. Then the SEC asked for the names, titles, phone
numbers and e-mail of the designated senior personnel, according to reporter
Scott Winokur.
On October 2, 2001, Canadian securities officials confirmed that the SEC had
asked firms to review records for 38 companies, suggesting that some buyers
and sellers might have had advance knowledge of the attacks, according to
Winokur. A Scoop examination of the Center for Public Integritys financial
records of the top 100 Bush Administration officials reveals ownership of
millions of dollars in these 38 stocks which would not be different from any
other wealthy American.
However, Congress has thus far refused to make public what the Chronicle
reported as an SEC control list containing confidential information about
transactions, individuals, relationships, and entities identified by the FBI
and other law enforcement agencies in the probe. The existence of the SEC list
would still be a secret if not for an accidental leak via the Canadian
securities officials.
There is as yet no reporting regarding whether the entities were SPEs
linked to Enron. The SEC added, Because the control list contains
confidential information, we ask that you disseminate it within your
institution only on a need-to-know basis. But Congress or the Courts may
ultimately decide whether the families of Sept.11 also need to know the
identities of individuals with prior knowledge -- allegedly involved in the
profits of death.
The Wall Street Journal (10-2-2002) reported that the Secret Service was
also probing an unusually high volume of five-year U.S. Treasury note
purchases made prior to the attacks -- one purchase included a single $5
billion trade. The Journal called Treasury notes among the best investments in
the event of a world crisis, with their value having risen substantially since
September 11. Moreover, the Associated Press reported that a German Central
Bank study strongly pointed to terrorism insider trading not only in airline
and insurance companies but also in gold and oil futures. Will Congress chalk
it up to coincidence?
DEUTSCHEBANK & MAYER, BROWN & PLATT
The evidence linking Deutschebank to the terrorists and insider trading is
clearly quite extraordinary: 1) The lead hijacker pilot and two accomplices
had bank accounts at its Hamburg branch, 2) One of its unnamed private
investors never claimed $2.5 million in United Airlines put option contract
profits following the attacks, 3) Its global private banking chief Mayo
Shattuck III, resigned the day following the attacks in the middle of a
three-year $40 million contract, 4) It hired away SEC enforcement and
investigation chief Richard Walker just 20 days after the attacks, 5) Its
recent senior investment banker Kevin Ingram pled guilty to money laundering
involving Stinger missiles and multiple varieties of arms sales to Pakistani
and Egyptian citizens just 14 days prior to Sept.11, and 6) Deutschebank was
heavily involved in the 9/11 insider trading but Congress has not questioned
former Alex (A.B.) Brown division head A. B. Buzzy Krongard -- appointed by
George Bush as Executive Director (number three) of the CIA -- regarding
intelligence and real-time stock trade monitoring. [note: all evidence in
the above paragraph is sourced in the "Profits of Death" series on pre-9/11
criminal insider trading, Parts I, II, III, at www.copvcia.com -- Sept. 11
Section]
European reporters found that most of the suspicious pre-attack trades
passed through Deutschebank and especially via CIA Executive Director A.B.
Krongards former Alex Brown investment division by means of a procedure
called portage, which assures the anonymity of individuals making the
transactions. But Congress has not publicly revealed whether they will call
Krongard and other Alex Brown traders to testify in open hearings, or whether
they will subpoena the pre-attack documents in question.
CFO.com, an online site for corporate executives, revealed on 1-28-2002 that
Deutschebank was a limited partner in either the controversial Enron special
purpose entities (SPEs), LJM or Chewco -- those off balance sheets and
off-shore products heavily involved in Enrons demise, and run by Enron CFO
Andrew Fastow. This begs the question as to whether Congress or the Courts
will determine whether missing funds from Enron were possibly part of a scheme
to develop funds to profit from the air attacks -- given the many interwoven
ties between Enron and Deutschebank.
CFO.com also revealed that a former Enron employee prepared an SEC filing,
having deleted Deutschebanks name from LJM version sent to the SEC. But
curiously, that deletion was made at the behest of William McLucas, former
SEC enforcement director, hired by Enron after the attacks on October 31. The
former employee also claims to have received instructions to destroy the draft
of the SEC filing. But not a public word from Congress.
IS JOHN P. SCHMITZ A KEY PLAYER?
John P. Schmitz, George H.W. Bushs former Deputy Counsel during the Elders
Vice-Presidency and Presidency, will likely be a key player if Americans force
Congress to become serious about its 9/11 probe. Some may remember Schmitz
(OIC) reported that each witness interviewed regarding document production
complied except for Schmitz, who asserted that his documents were privileged
work product.
Schmitz, fluent in German and a Partner in global-law firm Mayer, Brown &
Platt, has clients that include Bayer AG (German maker of the antibiotic Cipro
which fights Anthrax, about which Larry Klayman and Judicial Watch (JW) will
have keen interest. Recently, JW filed suit seeking the Administrations
anthrax documents to ascertain why the White House starting taking heavy doses
of Cipro the day of the attacks -- nearly a month before anthrax was even
discovered on Capitol Hill, and while postal workers continued to sort mail in
contaminated offices -- some dying in the process.
But John Schmitzs Mayer-Brown profile also reveals that he represents
Enron, adding that we were active in Germany [with Enron] until the end....It
[bankruptcy] surprised me as well as anyone else, according to Reuters
(1-4-2002). Moreover, Mayer-Brown also represents Deutschebank on a regular
basis regarding its electronic commerce activities; and curiously, Schmitzs
law firm maintains an office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan along with Enron -- if
only to make sure oil is well in the Caspian Sea basin.
Even many 9/11 victim families will even come to recognize Mayer-Brown; for
conveniently, the firm also happens to represent United Airlines against 9/11
family lawyers Mary Schiavo and Donald Nolan. And given partner John P.
Schmitzs close former relationships with the Bush family, Mayer-Browns many
water coolers may become intriguing conduits when Miss Schiavo and Mr. Nolan
begin their respective legal discovery initiatives regarding who will be
subpoenaed or deposed and what evidence is or is not revealed.
SOFT OR AGGRESSIVE INVESTIGATION?
In an interview with Scoop Media, former Washington, DC United States
Attorney Joseph de Genova took a hard line, saying If the Congress does not
want to get answers to these critical questions regarding who profited [from
prior knowledge of the attacks], then it needs to be litigated. And asked
whether Americans have a right to know who sold large blocks of stock shares
in companies and airlines directly affected by the attacks or purchased
billions in ultra-safe Treasury notes directly prior to 9/11, de Genova added,
I believe someone will litigate the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) issue
related to the Ashcroft memo, if government agencies keep obstructing the
media -- the sooner, the better.
While thousands of American families, victimized by terrorism, still remain
numb with grief, information is being advanced daily regarding what could be
described by some as casual, if not negligent, long-term slipshod governmental
responsiveness to fundamental internal national security and safety questions
-- or worse. But even if they come out of their secret, sound-proof Capitol
bunker into the light of open hearings, questions still remain as to whether
they have the courage to forcefully seek answers to the real unanswered
questions.
Yes, weve come a long way from those pre-attack United and American Airline
put and call ratio arguments about lucky bets-- for the evidence regarding
profits of death is intriguing. This is real serious stuff. But curiously,
both the President and Vice-President have lobbied mightily for only one joint
investigative committee instead of multiple and bicameral, Enron-style
hearings. Maybe well get a stacked-deck, wink-and-a-nod, blue ribbon panel.
Only time will tell. But as the First Lady always reminds us: Dont worry.
Just tell your children theyre safe.
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Tom Flocco is an independent investigative journalist. Contact him via email
at: TomFlocco@cs.com Kyle F. Hence contributed additional research regarding
the SEC Control List section. .Copyright ) Tom Flocco. 2002. For fair use
only
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The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FLO207B.htmlGlobal Outlook , Issue No 2
9-11: Foreknowledge or Deception? Stop the Nuclear Threat. Now available (for
details click here) .
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