Jun 19, 2012 | Central Banking Elite, Government Agenda
Hammering the USSR’s Economy
In 1989 President George H. W. Bush began the multi-billion dollar Project Hammer program using an investment strategy to bring about the economic destruction of the Soviet Union including the theft of the Soviet treasury, the destabilization of the ruble, funding a KGB coup against Gorbachev in August 1991 and the seizure of major energy and munitions industries in the Soviet Union. Those resources would subsequently be turned over to international bankers and corporations. On November 1, 2001, the second operative in the Bush regime, President George W. Bush, issued Executive Order 13233 on the basis of “national security” and concealed the records of past presidents, especially his father’s spurious activities during 1990 and 1991. Consequently, those records are no longer accessible to the public. [1] The Russian coup plot was discussed in June 1991 when Yeltsin visited with Bush in conjunction with his visit to the United States. On that same visit, Yeltsin met discreetly with Gerald Corrigan, the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve. [2]
Because of numerous Presidential Executive Orders, the ethically questionable Project Hammer was deemed legal. Of course, even Hitler’s acts were “lawful,” as he had manipulated the laws to accommodate his actions. Many of Reagan’s executive orders were actually authored by Vice President Bush or his legal associates, and it is possible that Project Hammer was created by Reagan’s CIA Director, William Casey, who had directed OSS operations through Alan Dulles in Europe during World War II. Prior to his OSS affiliation, Casey worked for the Board of Economic Warfare which allegedly targeted “Hitler’s economic jugular.” [3] Allen Dulles, brother of John Foster Dulles, was the Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. He was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller Empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels.
Project Hammer was staffed with CIA operatives and others associated with the National Security apparatus. Covert channels were already in place as a result of other illegal Bush activities. Thus, it was a given (1) that the project would use secret, illegal funds for unapproved covert operations, and (2) that the American public and Congress would not be informed about the illegal actions perpetrated in foreign countries. The first objective was allegedly to crush Communism, a growing political philosophy and social movement that was initially funded by the usual group of international bankers who now supported their demise. To this end, the “Vulcans,” under George H. W. Bush, waged war against the Soviet Union. [4]
The Return of the Vulcans
In their reincarnation in the administration of George W. Bush, the Vulcans functioned as a supposedly benign group, led by Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) member Condoleezza Rice, who attempted to augment and compensate for the Bush’s lack of experience and education concerning foreign policy during his presidential campaign. Rice had been President George H. W. Bush’s Soviet and East European Affairs Advisor in the National Security Council during the Soviet Union’s dissolution and during the German reunification (July 1, 1990). The resurrected Vulcan group included Richard Armitage, Robert Blackwill, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Rabbi Dov S. Zakheim, Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz. Other key campaign figures included Dick Cheney, George P. Shultz and Colin Powell, all influential but not actually a part of the Vulcan Group. All of these people, associated with the George H. W. Bush administration, returned to powerful, strategic positions in George W. Bush’s administration.
Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz have been accused of being agents for the Israeli government. Investigations by Congress and the FBI have substantiated those allegations. Zakheim and his family were heavily involved in Yeshivat Sha’alvim, an educational organization in which students are taught to render absolute commitment to the State of Israel. [5]
Many of these individuals were also members of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) which was established in the spring of 1997 with the intention of promoting American Global leadership at any cost. The chairman and co-founder was William Kristol, son of Irving Kristol (CFR), considered the godfather of neo-conservatism which promotes the ideas of Max Shachtman and Leo Strauss, a noted Zionist and professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Kristol’s co-founder was Robert W. Kagan (CFR). Kristol is also the editor and co-founder, along with John Podhoretz, of the Weekly Standard Magazine, established September 17, 1995 and owned by Rupert Murdoch until August 2009. This “conservative” magazine is edited by William Kristol and Fred Barnes and promotes Middle East warfare and a huge military budget, a mentality that infects the most popular “conservative” talk show radio hosts. Kristol is a trustee for the Manhattan Institute which was founded by CIA Director William Casey and was staffed with former CIA officers.
The Vulcans had almost limitless financing from a cache known by several names — the Black Eagle Trust, the Marcos gold, Yamashita’s Gold, the Golden Lily Treasure, or the Durham Trust. Japan, under Emperor Hirohito, appointed a brother, Prince Chichibu, to head Golden Lily, established in November 1937 before Japan’s infamous Rape of Nanking, to accompany and follow the military. The Golden Lily operation carried out massive plunder throughout Asia and included an army of jewelers, financial experts and smelters. [6] While the Nazis also engaged in plundering the countries they invaded, they were not as organized and methodical as the Japanese. After the Allied blockade, Golden Lily headquarters were moved from Singapore to Manila where 175 storage sites were built by slave laborers and POWs. Billions of dollars worth of gold and other plundered treasures were stockpiled in these underground caverns, some of which were discovered by the notorious Cold Warrior, Edward G. Lansdale who directed the recovery of some of the vaults. Truman and subsequent presidents, without congressional knowledge, have used those resources to finance the CIA’s chaotic clandestine activities throughout the world. Much of the Middle East chaos is financed by those pillaged funds. A tiny portion of that treasure was the source of Ferdinand Marcos’ vast wealth. Marcos worked with the CIA for decades using Golden Lily funds to bribe nations to support the Vietnam War. In return, Marcos was allowed to sell over $1 trillion in gold through Australian brokers. [7]
In July 1944, the leaders of forty-four nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to plan the post-war economy and to discuss organizing a global political action fund which would use the Black Eagle Trust ostensibly to fight communism, bribe political leaders, enhance the treasuries of U.S. allies, and manipulate elections in foreign countries and other unconstitutional covert operations. Certainly, those politicos who managed the funds also received financial benefits. This trust was headed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson, assisted by John J. McCloy (later head of the World Bank) and Robert Lovett (later Secretary of Defense) and consultant Robert B. Anderson (later Secretary of the Treasury). [8] Anderson later operated the Commercial Exchange Bank of Anguilla in the British West Indies and was convicted of running illegal offshore banking operations and tax evasion. Investors lost about $4.4 million. Consequently, he was sent to prison for a token amount of time, one month. He was also under house arrest for five years. He could have received a ten-year sentence but Judge Palmieri considered Anderson’s “distinguished service” to the country in the “top levels of Government.” [9]
Between 1945 and 1947 huge quantities of gold and platinum were deposited in prominent banks throughout the world. These deposits came to be known as the Black Eagle Trust. Swiss banks, because of their neutrality, were pivotal in maintaining these funds. These funds were allocated to fighting communism and paying bribes and fixing elections in places like Italy, Greece, and Japan. [10] Stimson and McCloy, both retired from government service, continued their involvement in the management of the Black Eagle Trust. Robert B. Anderson, who toured the treasure sites with Douglas MacArthur, set up the Black Eagle Trust and later became a member of Eisenhower’s cabinet. [11] In order to maintain secrecy about the Trust, Washington officials insisted that the Japanese did not plunder the countries they invaded. Japanese officials who wanted to divulge the facts were imprisoned or murdered in a way that made it look like suicide, a common CIA tactic. [12] The Germans paid reparations to thousands of victims while the Japanese paid next to nothing. Military leaders who opposed foreign policies that embraced exploitation of third world countries were suicided or died from mysterious causes, which includes individuals such as George S. Patton, Smedley D. Butler and James V. Forrestal.
The Vulcan’s effort to crush Communism and end the Cold War was largely funded by that Japanese plunder. The Vulcans were resurrected when George W. Bush was installed as president in 2000, facilitated by election maneuvers, probably lots of payoffs, and Jeb Bush’s purge of Florida voters. They conducted other illegal operations, like securities fraud and money laundering. This entailed murder and false imprisonment to prevent penitent participants from divulging the activities of the group. During the process of accomplishing the main objective of destroying the Soviet Union, the operatives made massive profits. In September 1991, George H. W. Bush and Alan Greenspan, both Pilgrims Society members, financed $240 billion in illegal bonds to economically decimate the Soviet Union and bring Soviet oil and gas resources under the control of Western investors, backed by the Black Eagle Trust and supported later by Putin who for the right price purged certain oligarchs. The $240 billion in illegal bonds were apparently replaced with Treasury notes backed by U.S. taxpayers. [13] To conceal the clearance of $240 billion in securities, the Federal Reserve, within two months, increased the money supply to pre-9/11 numbers which resulted in the American taxpayer refinancing the $240 billion. [14]
The Takeover of Russia’s Oil Industry
BP Amoco became the largest foreign direct investor in Russia in 1997 when it paid a half-billion dollars to buy a 10 percent stake in the Russian oil conglomerate Sidanko. Then in 1999, Tyumen Oil bought Sidanko’s prize unit, Chernogorneft which allegedly made BP Amoco’s investment worthless. Tyumen offered to cooperate with BP Amoco on the development of Chernogorneft but BP Amoco was not interested. [15] In October 1998, Halliburton Energy Services had entered into an agreement with Moscow-based Tyumen Oil Company (TNK). Their efforts were focused on the four western Siberia fields, the first one being the Samotlorskoye field. [16] TNK has proven oil reserves of 4.3 billion barrels and possibly as many as 6.1 billion barrels, with crude oil production and refining capabilities of 420,000 barrels/day and 230,000 barrels/day, respectively. TNK markets gasoline through 400 retail outlets. [17] In 2002 Halliburton and Sibneft, Russia’s fifth largest crude oil producer, signed an agreement. Sibneft will use Halliburton’s new technologies to improve well construction and processing while Halliburton directs all project management. [18]
Tyumenskaya Neftyanaya Kompaniya (Tyumen Oil Company) was established in 1995 by government decree. It is now TNK-BP, the leading Russian oil company and ranks among the top ten privately owned oil companies worldwide in terms of crude oil production. The company, formed in 2003, resulted from the merger of BP’s Russian oil and gas assets and the oil and gas assets of Alfa, Access/Renova group (AAR). BP and AAR each own fifty percent of TNK-BP. The shareholders of TNK-BP own almost fifty percent of Slavneft, a vertically integrated Russian oil company. [19] This transaction was the biggest in Russian corporate history and was managed by Vladimir Lechtman, the Moscow partner for Jones Day, a global law firm with thirty offices and 2,200 lawyers worldwide. TNK-BP, Russia’s second-largest oil company employs almost 100,000 people and operates in Samotlor. [20]
Putin was financially rewarded by the collaborators and was happy to purge some annoying industrialists who stood in the way. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the manager of Yukos, the company that he built into Russia’s second-largest oil company after acquiring it for $168 million when his Bank MENATEP, the first privately owned but notoriously corrupt bank since 1917 and wiped out in August 1998, purchased it through a controversial government privatization auction in 1995. MENATEP was named as a defendant in the Avisma lawsuit which was filed on August 19, 1999. [21] The bank may have facilitated the large-scale theft of Soviet Treasury funds before and following the USSR’s collapse in 1991. [22] His company had borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from western banks. [23] He was arrested on October 25, 2003 and sentenced in June 2005 to eight years on fraud and tax evasion charges. He was allegedly targeted as a political enemy by President Vladimir Putin who went after other big business owners who apparently made money by acquiring states assets. Yukos was sold piecemeal to pay off $28 billion in back tax charges. Yukos was seized and given to Rosneft. [24]
When Khodorkovsky was arrested, his secretive business arrangement with the Rothschild family was exposed as Jacob Rothschild assumed Khodorkovsky’s 26% control of Yukos while Khodorkovsky’s directorial seat on the Yukos board went to Edgar Ortiz, a former Halliburton vice president during Dick Cheney’s reign as CEO at Halliburton. Cheney, as President and CEO of Halliburton, automatically had an association with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). [25] In November 1997, Dick Chaney, in anticipation of imminent events, had appointed Edgar Ortiz as president of Halliburton Energy Services, their global division. [26]
The Yukos Oil Company merged with the smaller Sibneft Oil Company on October 3, 2003 which created Russia’s largest oil and gas business and the world’s fourth-largest private oil company. [27] On May 11, 2007 Halliburton announced they had made an agreement with the Tyumen State Oil and Gas University to open a new employee-training center in Russia to grow their business in that country and in the surrounding region. They are currently training students from five countries, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia and the United Kingdom. [28] Halliburton was awarded a $33 million contract by TNK-BP to provide oil field services to develop the Ust-Vakh field in Western Siberia. [29]
September 11 — Black Op Cover-up
Three top securities brokers had offices in the World Trade Center, Cantor Fitzgerald, Euro Brokers and Garbon Inter Capital. Flight 11 struck just under the floors where Cantor Fitzgerald was located. Cantor Fitzgerald, with possible connections to the U.S. Intelligence apparatus, was America’s biggest securities broker and apparently the main target. Within minutes, an explosion in the North Tower’s vacant 23rd floor, right under the offices of the FBI and Garbon Inter Capital on the 25th floor caused a huge fire from the 22nd through the 25th floors. At the same time, there was an explosion in the basement of the North Tower. [30] A vault in the North Tower basement held less than $1 billion in gold, much of which was reportedly moved before 9/11. However, the government had hundreds of billions of dollars of securities which were summarily destroyed. The Federal Reserve, untouched by the crisis at its downtown offices (as they had everything backed up to a remote location), assumed emergency powers that afternoon. The $240 billion in securities were electronically cleared. [31] Then, at 9:03, Flight 175 slammed into the 78th floor of the South Tower just below the 84th floor where Euro Brokers were located. [32] Brian Clark, the manager at Euro Brokers, heard numerous explosions, apparently unrelated to what he referred to as the oxygen-starved fire caused by the plane crash.
The September 11 attacks related to the financial improprieties during the preceding ten years which spurred at least nine federal investigations which were initiated in 1997-1998, about the same time that Osama bin Laden, after twenty years as a CIA asset, announced a fatwa against the U.S. The records of many of those investigations were held in the Buildings Six and Seven and on the 23rd floor of the North Tower. Those investigations were sure to reveal the black Eagle Trust shenanigans. [33] Building Seven, not hit by a plane, collapsed at 5:20:33 p.m. but was vacated as early as 9:00 when evacuees claimed to see dead bodies and sporadic fires within the building.
By 2008 and even earlier the covert securities were worth trillions. The securities used to decimate the Soviets and end the Cold War were stored in certain broker’s vaults in the World Trade Center where they were destroyed on September 11, 2001. They would have come due for settlement and clearing on September 12, 2001. [34] The federal agency investigating these bonds, the Office of Naval Intelligence was in the section of the Pentagon that was destroyed on September 11. Renovations at the Pentagon were due to be completed on September 16, 2001. However, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), the entity that often monitors war games, was hurriedly moved. If they were monitoring the simultaneous war games that morning, they would have realized that the games were used as a distraction from the actual assault. Whatever hit the pentagon struck the Navy Command Center and the offices of the Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot (CNO-IP). [35] There were 125 fatalities in the Pentagon; thirty-one percent of them were people who worked in the Naval Command Center, the location of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Thirty-nine of the forty people who worked in the Office of Naval Intelligence died. [36]
On September 10, 2001 Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion, “We are, as they say, tangled in our anchor chain. Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.” [37] It was forgotten the following morning. Accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts who were in the section of the Pentagon being renovated met their unexpected deaths. The destruction of accounting facts and figures will prevent discovery of where that money went. I am quite certain someone knows where it is. Certainly this is not merely gross incompetence but private seizure of public funds. [38] At the time Rabbi Dov Zakheim was chief-financial officer for the Department of Defense. [39] In 1993, Zakheim worked for SPS International, part of System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor. His firm’s subsidiary, Tridata Corporation directed the investigation of the first “terrorist” attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. [40]
Certain National Security officials who had participated in the Cold War victory in 1991 thus comprised the collateral damage of the Cold War. They, along with hundreds of innocent people were in the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Their deaths were presumably required to conceal the existence of the Black Eagle Trust, along with the numerous illegal activities it had funded for over 50 years. This massive destruction, and the lost lives, constitutes a massive cover-up and continued lawlessness by the brotherhood of death, Skull and Bones, and their accomplices, the Enterprise. [41] The Enterprise was established in the 1980s as a covert fascist Cold Warriors faction working with other groups like Halliburton’s private security forces and the Moonies. Citibank is connected to the Enterprise, along with all the CIA front banks, Nugen Hand and BCCI.
Double Dipping
Alvin B. “Buzzy” Krongard was elected Chief Executive Officer of Alexander Brown and Sons in 1991 and Chairman of the Board in 1994. Bankers Trust purchased Alexander Brown and Sons in 1997 to form BT Alex Brown. Krongard relinquished his investments in Alex Brown to Banker’s Trust as part of the merger. He became Vice Chairman of Banker’s Trust where he personally interacted with wealthy clients who were intimately linked to drug money laundering. After a year of possible networking, Krongard joined (or as Michael Ruppert suggests, rejoined) the CIA in 1998 where his friend, Director George Tenet, concentrated his skills on private banking ventures within the elite moneyed community. Senate investigations verify that private banking firms frequently engage in money laundering from illicit drugs and corporate crime operations. [42] On January 28, 2000 the Reginald Howe and GATA Lawsuit was filed which accused certain U.S. bullion banks of illegally dumping U.S. Treasury gold on the market. The lawsuit named Deutsche bank Alex Brown, the U.S. Treasury, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve, and Citibank, Chase, as defendants. Gerald Corrigan was accused of having private knowledge of the scheme. [43] Krongard became the Executive Director of the CIA, essentially the Chief Operating Officer, and the number three man on March 16, 2001. Krongard, while at the CIA, arranged for Blackwater’s Erik Prince to get his first contract with the U.S. government, and later joined its board.
Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert, estimated that more than $100 million in illegal transactions appeared to have rushed through the WTC computers before and during the disaster on September 11, 2001. A Deutsche Bank employee verified that approximately five minutes before the first plane hit the tower that the Deutsche Bank computer system in their WTC office was seized by an outside, unknown entity. Every single file was swiftly uploaded to an unidentified locality. This employee escaped from the building, but lost many of his friends. He knew, from his position in the company, that Alex Brown, the Deutsche Bank subsidiary participated in insider trading. Senator Carl Levin claimed that Alex Brown was just one of twenty prominent U.S. banks associated with money laundering. [44]
Andreas von Bülow, a Social Democratic Party member of the German parliament (1969-1994), was on the parliamentary committee on intelligence services, a group that has access to classified information. Von Bülow was also a member of the Schalck-Golodkowski investigation committee which investigates white-collar crime. He has estimated that inside trader profits surrounding 9/11 totaled approximately $15 billion. Von Bülow told The Daily Telegraph “If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up behind bars.” Further, he said, “They have hidden behind a veil of secrecy and destroyed the evidence…they invented the story of 19 Muslims working within Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda in order to hide the truth of their own covert operation.” He also said, “I’m convinced that the US apparatus must have played a role and my theory is backed up by the [Washington] government’s refusal to present any proof whatsoever of what happened.” [45]
On September 26, CBS reported that the amount was more than $100 million and that seven countries were investigating the irregular trades. Two newspapers, Reuters and the New York Times, and other mainstream media reported that the CIA regularly monitors extraordinary trades and economic irregularities to ascertain possible criminal activities or financial assaults. In fact, the CIA uses specialized software, PROMIS, to scrutinize trades. [46]
Numerous researchers believe, with justification, that the transactions in the financial markets are indicative of foreknowledge of the events of 9/11, the attacks on the twin towers and the pentagon. One of the trades, for $2.5 million, a pittance compared to the total, went unclaimed. Alex Brown, once managed by Krongard, was the firm that placed the put options on United Airlines stock. President Bush awarded Krongard by appointing him as CIA Executive Director in 2004. [47]
Between September 6 and 7, 2001, the Chicago Board Options Exchange received purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines and only 396 call options. If 4,000 of those options were purchased by people with foreknowledge, they would have accrued about $5 million. On September 10, the Chicago exchange received 4,516 put options on American Airlines compared to 748 calls. The implications are that some insiders might profit by about $4 million. These two incidents were wholly irregular and at least six times higher than normal. [48]
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Company, who occupied floors 43-46, 56, 59-74 of the World Trade Center, Tower 2, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday. This compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley’s share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million. The U.S. government never again mentioned the trade irregularities after October 12, 2001. [49] Catastrophic events serve two purposes for the top criminal element in society — the perpetrators seize resources while their legislative accomplices impose burdensome restrictions on the citizens to make them more submissive and silent.
NOTES:
[1] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, pp. 4-5
[5] September 11 Commission Report by E. P. Heidner, 2008, p. 108
[6] Gold Warriors, America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, Verso Publishing, 2003, pp. 32-43
[9] Ex-Treasury Chief Gets 1-Month Term in Bank Fraud Case by Frank J. Prial, New York Times, June 28, 1987
[10] Gold Warriors, America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, Verso Publishing, 2003, p. 5
[13] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, pp. 4-6
[15] Tyumen Oil of Russia Seeks Links to Old Foes After Winning Fight By Neela Banerjee, New York Times, December 2, 1999
[16] Halliburton Energy Services Enters Into Alliance Agreement With Tyumen Oil Company, Press Release, October 15, 1998, http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/1998/hesnws_101598.jsp
[18] Halliburton Press Release, Halliburton And Russian Oil Company Sibneft Sign Framework Agreement, February 7, 2002, http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/2002/corpnws_020702.jsp
[19] TNK-BP, Our company, http://www.tnk-bp.com/company/
[20] Russia’s largest field is far from depleted By Jerome R. Corsi, Word Net Daily, November 04, 2005, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47219
[21] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 28
[22] Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, Source Watch, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mikhail_B._Khodorkovsky
[23] Russia’s Ruling Robbers by Mark Ames, Consortium News, March 11, 1999, http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/c031199a.html
[24] “Sovest” Group Campaign for Granting Political Prisoner Status to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, February 7, 2008
[25] Halliburton Man to Sub for Khodorkovsky, Simon Ostrovsky, Moscow Times, April 30, 2004 as noted in the September 11 Commission Report, p. 233; See also Arrested Oil Tycoon Passed Shares to Banker, Washington Times, November 2, 2003
[26] Halliburton Press Release, Ortiz Named President Of Halliburton Energy Services, November 19, 1997, http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/1997/hesnws_111997.jsp
[27] Russia: Yukos-Sibneft union forms world’s No. 4 oil producer, Global Finance, Jun 2003, http://mikhail_khodorkovsky_society.blogspot.com/
[28] Halliburton Opens Russia Training Center, International Business Times, May 11, 2007, http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20070511/halliburton-training.htm
[29] Halliburton gets Russia work, Oil Daily, January 26, 2006, http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-5579583_ITM
[30] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 2
[34] “Sioux City, Iowa, July 25, 2005 TomFlocco.com , According to leaked documents from an intelligence file obtained through a military source in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), on or about September 12, 1991 non-performing and unauthorized gold-backed debt instruments were used to purchase ten-year “Brady” bonds. The bonds in turn were illegally employed as collateral to borrow $240 billion — 120 in Japanese Yen and 120 in Deutsch Marks — exchanged for U.S. currency under false pretenses; or counterfeit and unlawful conversion of collateral against which an unlimited amount of money could be created in derivatives and debt instruments…” from Cash payoffs, bonds and murder linked to White House 9/11 finance, Tom Flocco, tomflocco.com
[35] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 45
[37] Rumsfeld’s comments were on the Department of defense web site but have been understandably removed, http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2001/s20010910-secdef.ht
[38] The War On Waste Defense Department Cannot Account For 25% Of Funds — $2.3 Trillion, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
[39] September 11 Commission Report by E. P. Heidner, 2008, p. 108
[40] Following Zakheim and Pentagon Trillions to Israel and 9-11By Jerry Mazza, July 31, 2006, http://www.rense.com/general75/latest.htm
[41] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 6
[42] Crossing the Rubicon, the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert, New Society Publishers, Canada, 2004, p. 56
[43] Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 by E.P. Heidner, p. 28
[44] Crossing the Rubicon, the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert, New Society Publishers, Canada, 2004, pp. 243-247
[45] USA staged 9/11 Attacks, German best-seller by Kate Connolly, National Post & London Telegraph, November 20, 2003
[46] Crossing the Rubicon, the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert, New Society Publishers, Canada, 2004, pp. 243-247
By Deanna Spingola
SOURCE: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/spingola/100208
Apr 24, 2012 | Events & Assassinations
Is there any truth in the allegations that informed circles made substantial profits in the financial markets in connection to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States?
Arguably, the best place to start is by examining put options, which occurred around Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to an abnormal extent, and at the beginning via software that played a key role: the Prosecutor’s Management Information System, abbreviated as PROMIS. [i]
PROMIS is a software program that seems to be fitted with almost “magical” abilities. Furthermore, it is the subject of a decades-long dispute between its inventor, Bill Hamilton, and various people/institutions associated with intelligence agencies, military and security consultancy firms. [1]
One of the “magical” capabilities of PROMIS, one has to assume, is that it is equipped with artificial intelligence and was apparently from the outset “able to simultaneously read and integrate any number of different computer programs or databases, regardless of the language in which the original programs had been written or the operating systems and platforms on which that database was then currently installed.” [2]
And then it becomes really interesting:
What would you do if you possessed software that could think, understand every major language in the world, that provided peep-holes into everyone else’s computer “dressing rooms”, that could insert data into computers without people’s knowledge, that could fill in blanks beyond human reasoning, and also predict what people do – before they did it? You would probably use it, wouldn’t you? [3]
Granted, these capabilities sound hardly believable. In fact, the whole story of PROMIS, which Mike Ruppert develops in the course of his book Crossing the Rubicon in all its bizarre facets and turns, seems as if someone had developed a novel in the style of Philip K Dick and William Gibson. However, what Ruppert has collected about PROMIS is based on reputable sources as well as on results of personal investigations, which await a jury to take a first critical look at.
This seems all the more urgent if you add to the PROMIS capabilities “that it was a given that PROMIS was used for a wide variety of purposes by intelligence agencies, including the real-time monitoring of stock transactions on all the world´s major financial markets”. [4]
We are therefore dealing with a software that
a) Infiltrates computer and communication systems without being noticed.
b) Can manipulate data.
c) Is capable to track the global stock market trade in real time.
Point c is relevant to all that happened in connection with the never completely cleared up transactions that occurred just before September 11, [5] and of which the former chairman of the Deutsche Bundesbank Ernst Weltke said “could not have been planned and carried out without a certain knowledge”. [6]
I specifically asked financial journalist Max Keiser, who for years had worked on Wall Street as a stock and options trader, about the put option trades. Keiser pointed out in this context that he “had spoken with many brokers in the towers of the World Trade Center around that time. I heard firsthand about the airline put trade from brokers at Cantor Fitzgerald days before.” He then talked with me about an explosive issue, on which Ruppert elaborated in detail in Crossing the Rubicon.
Max Keiser: There are many aspects concerning these option purchases that have not been disclosed yet. I also worked at Alex Brown & Sons (ABS). Deutsche Bank bought Alex Brown & Sons in 1999. When the attacks occurred, ABS was owned by Deutsche Bank. An important person at ABS was Buzzy Krongard. I have met him several times at the offices in Baltimore. Krongard had transferred to become executive director at the CIA. The option purchases, in which ABS was involved, occurred in the offices of ABS in Baltimore. The noise which occurred between Baltimore, New York City and Langley was interesting, as you can imagine, to say the least.
Under consideration here is the fact that Alex Brown, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank (where many of the alleged 9/11 hijackers handled their banking transactions – for example Mohammed Atta) traded massive put options purchases on United Airlines Company UAL through the Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE) – “to the embarrassment of investigators”, as British newspaper The Independent reported. [7]
On September 12, the chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, Mayo A Shattuck III, suddenly and quietly renounced his post, although he still had a three-year contract with an annual salary of several million US dollars. One could perceive that as somehow strange.
A few weeks later, the press spokesperson of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at that time, Tom Crispell, declined all comments, when he was contacted for a report for Ruppert´s website From the Wilderness, and had being asked “whether the Treasury Department or FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] had questioned CIA executive director and former Deutsche Bank-Alex Brown CEO [chief executive officer], A B ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, about CIA monitoring of financial markets using PROMIS and his former position as overseer of Brown’s ‘private client’ relations.” [8]
Just before he was recruited personally by former CIA chief George Tenet for the CIA, Krongard supervised mainly private client banking at Alex Brown. [9]
In any case, after 9/11 on the first trading day, when the US stock markets were open again, the stock price of UAL declined by 43%. (The four aircraft hijacked on September 11 were American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and UAL flights 175 and 93.)
With his background as a former options trader, Keiser explained an important issue to me in that regard.
Max Keiser: Put options are, if they are employed in a speculative trade, basically bets that stock prices will drop abruptly. The purchaser, who enters a time-specific contract with a seller, does not have to own the stock at the time when the contract is purchased.
Related to the issue of insider trading via (put or call) options there is also a noteworthy definition by the Swiss economists Remo Crameri, Marc Chesney and Loriano Mancini, notably that an option trade may be “identified as informed” – but is not yet (legally) proven – “when it is characterized by an unusual large increment in open interest and volume, induces large gains, and is not hedged in the stock market”. [10]
Open interest describes contracts which have not been settled (been exercised) by the end of the trading session, but are still open. Not hedged in the stock market means that the buyer of a (put or call) option holds no shares of the underlying asset, by which he might be able to mitigate or compensate losses if his trade doesn’t work out, or phrased differently: one does not hedge, because it is unnecessary, since one knows that the bet is one, pardon, “dead sure thing.” (In this respect it is thus not really a bet, because the result is not uncertain, but a foregone conclusion.)
In this case, the vehicle of the calculation was “ridiculously cheap put options which give the holder the ‘right’ for a period of time to sell certain shares at a price which is far below the current market price – which is a highly risky bet, because you lose money if at maturity the market price is still higher than the price agreed in the option. However, when these shares fell much deeper after the terrorist attacks, these options multiplied their value several hundred times because by now the selling price specified in the option was much higher than the market price. These risky games with short options are a sure indication for investors who knew that within a few days something would happen that would drastically reduce the market price of those shares.” [11]
Software such as PROMIS in turn is used with the precise intent to monitor the stock markets in real time to track price movements that appear suspicious. Therefore, the US intelligence services must have received clear warnings from the singular, never before sighted transactions prior to 9/11.
Of great importance with regard to the track, which should lead to the perpetrators if you were seriously contemplating to go after them, is this:
Max Keiser: The Options Clearing Corporation has a duty to handle the transactions, and does so rather anonymously – whereas the bank that executes the transaction as a broker can determine the identity of both parties.
But that may have hardly ever been the intention of the regulatory authorities when the track led to, amongst others, Alvin Bernard “Buzzy” Krongard, Alex Brown & Sons and the CIA. Ruppert, however, describes this case in Crossing the Rubicon in full length as far as possible. [12]
In addition, there are also ways and means for insiders to veil their tracks. In order to be less obvious, “the insiders could trade small numbers of contracts. These could be traded under multiple accounts to avoid drawing attention to large trading volumes going through one single large account. They could also trade small volumes in each contract but trade more contracts to avoid drawing attention. As open interest increases, non-insiders may detect a perceived signal and increase their trading activity. Insiders can then come back to enter into more transactions based on a seemingly significant trade signal from the market. In this regard, it would be difficult for the CBOE to ferret out the insiders from the non-insiders, because both are trading heavily.” [13]
The matter which needs clarification here is generally judged by Keiser as follows:
Max Keiser: My thought is that many (not all) of those who died on 9/11 were financial mercenaries – and we should feel the same about them as we feel about all mercenaries who get killed. The tragedy is that these companies mixed civilians with mercenaries, and that they were also killed. So have companies on Wall Street used civilians as human shields maybe?
According to a report by Bloomberg published in early October 2001, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began a probe into certain stock market transactions around 9/11 that included 38 companies, among them: American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp., American Express Corp., American International Group, AXA SA, Bank of America Corp., Bank of New York Corp., Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley, General Motors and Raytheon. [14]
So far, so good. In the same month, however, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that the SEC took the unprecedented step to deputize hundreds, if not even thousands of key stakeholders in the private sector for their investigation. In a statement that was sent to almost all listed companies in the US, the SEC asked the addressed companies to assign senior staff for the investigation, who would be aware of “the sensitive nature” of the case and could be relied on to “exercise appropriate discretion”. [15]
In essence, it was about controlling information, not about provision and disclosure of facts. Such a course of action involves compromising consequences. Ruppert:
What happens when you deputize someone in a national security or criminal investigation is that you make it illegal for them to disclose publicly what they know. Smart move. In effect, they become government agents and are controlled by government regulations rather than their own conscience. In fact, they can be thrown into jail without a hearing if they talk publicly. I have seen this implied threat time after time with federal investigators, intelligence agents, and even members of United States Congress who are bound so tightly by secrecy oaths and agreements that they are not even able to disclose criminal activities inside the government for fear of incarceration. [16]
Among the reports about suspected insider trading which are mentioned in Crossing the Rubicon/From the Wilderness is a list that was published under the heading “Black Tuesday: The World’s Largest Insider Trading Scam?” by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism on September 21, 2001:
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Between September 6 and 7, the CBOE saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options. Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these “insiders” would have profited by almost $5 million.
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On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance; again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent “insiders”, they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
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[The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.]
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No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
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Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co, which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley’s share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
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Merrill Lynch & Co, with headquarters near the Twin Towers, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day (a 1200% increase). When trading resumed, Merrill’s shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by “insiders”, their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
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European regulators are examining trades in Germany’s Munich Re, Switzerland’s Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. (Note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock, making the attacks a “double whammy” for them.) [17]Concerning the statements of the former chairman of the Deutsche Bundesbank Ernst Welteke, their tenor in various press reports put together is as follows:
German central bank president Ernst Welteke later reports that a study by his bank indicates, “There are ever clearer signs that there were activities on international financial markets that must have been carried out with the necessary expert knowledge,” not only in shares of heavily affected industries such as airlines and insurance companies, but also in gold and oil. [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001] His researchers have found “almost irrefutable proof of insider trading”. [Miami Herald, 9/24/2001] “If you look at movements in markets before and after the attack, it makes your brow furrow. But it is extremely difficult to really verify it.” Nevertheless, he believes that “in one or the other case it will be possible to pinpoint the source”. [Fox News, 9/22/2001] Welteke reports “a fundamentally inexplicable rise” in oil prices before the attacks [Miami Herald, 9/24/2001] and then a further rise of 13 percent the day after the attacks. Gold rises nonstop for days after the attacks. [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001] [18]
Related to those observations, I sent a request via e-mail to the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank on August 1, 2011, from which I was hoping to learn:
How did the Bundesbank deal with this information? Did US federal agencies ask to see the study? With whom did the Bundesbank share this information? And additionally:1. Can you confirm that there is such a study of the Bundesbank concerning 9/11 insider trading, which was carried out in September 2001?
2. If Yes: what is the title?
3. If Yes: who were the authors?
4. If Yes: has the study ever been made available to the public?
On August 2, I was then informed: “Your mail has been received by us and is being processed under the number 2011 / 011551.” Ultimately, however, the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank was only available for an oral explanation on the phone. With this explanation, I then turned to the press office of the federal financial regulator in Germany, the Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht, BaFin, with the following e-mail – and that because of obvious reasons:
Yesterday, I sent a request (see end of this e-mail) to the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank relating to insider trading connected to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and respectively relating to an alleged study carried by the Deutsche Bundesbank. The request carries the reference number 2011 / 011551.
The press office or respectively Mr Peter Trautmann was only available for an oral explanation. I repeat this now, because it is related to your entity. This will be followed by my further questions.
According to an oral explanation from the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank, there has never been a detailed and official study on insider trading from the Bundesbank. Rather, there has been probably ad-hoc analysis with corresponding charts of price movements as briefings for the Bundesbank board. In addition, it would have been the duty of the Bundesfinanzaufsicht to investigate this matter. The press office of the Bundesbank was also not willing to give out any written information, not even after my hint that this alleged study by the Bundesbank has been floating around the Internet for years without any contradiction. That was the oral information from the Bundesbank press office, or respectively from Mr Peter Trautmann.
Now my questions for you:
1. Has the BaFin ever investigated the 9/11 insider trading?
2. With what result? Have the results been made public?
3. Have there not been any grounds for suspicion that would have justified an investigation, for example as damaged enterprise: Munich Re, and as buyers of put options of UAL’s United Airlines Company: Deutsche Bank/Alex Brown?
4. Has the Deutsche Bundesbank ever enquired with BaFin what information they have regarding the 9/11 insider trading – for example for the creation of ad-hoc analysis for the Bundesbank?
5. Have the US federal agencies ever inquired if the BaFin could cooperate with them in an investigation?
Could you reply to me in writing, unlike the Deutsche Bundesbank, please? I would be very grateful for that!
The next day I did indeed receive an e-mail concerning this topic from Anja Engelland, the press officer of the BaFin in which she answered my questions as follows:
1. Yes, the former Bundesaufsichtsamt fur Wertpapierhandel, BAWe (federal supervisory for securities trading), has carried out a comprehensive analysis of the operations.
2. As a result, no evidence of insider trading has been found. Their approach and results have been published by the BAWe or BaFin in the annual reports for the years 2001 (cf S 26/27) and 2002 (cf p 156 above first paragraph). Here are the links. [See here and here.]
3. See annual reports 2001 and 2002. Put options on United Airlines were not traded on German stock exchanges (the first EUREX options on US equities were introduced only after the attacks on 9/11/2001); there were warrants on UAL and other US stocks, but those traded only in low volumes.
4. I personally do not know about such a request. Furthermore, the Bundesbank itself would have to comment on this.
5. BaFin is fundamentally entitled to the exchange of information with foreign supervisory authorities, like SEC, on the basis of written agreements, so-called memoranda of understanding (MoU). Regarding potential inquiries from foreign supervisory authorities, the BaFin can unfortunately not comment, this would be a matter of respective authority. For this I ask for understanding.
Then I wrote another brief note to BaFin, “in order to prevent any misunderstanding: your answers refers, as far as I understand, solely to the financial markets in Germany and Frankfurt, or not?” The reply from BaFin:
The answers refer to the German financial market as a whole and not only on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. In terms of the assessment of foreign financial markets, the relevant authorities are the competent points of contact.
In my inquiries, I mentioned, among other things, a scientific study by US economist Allen M Poteshman from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which had been carried out in 2006 regarding the put option trading around 9/11 related to the two airlines involved, United Airlines and American Airlines. Poteshman came to this conclusion: “Examination of the option trading leading up to September 11 reveals that there was an unusually high level of put buying. This finding is consistent with informed investors having traded options in advance of the attacks.” [19]
TO READ THE COMPLETE ASIAN TIMES ARTICLE CLICK HERE
Lars Schall is a German financial journalist. This article published by the Asian Times is a slightly modified and updated excerpt from the book Mordanschlag 9/11. Eine kriminalistische Recherche zu Finanzen, Ol und Drogen (Assassination 9/11: A criminalistic research on finance, oil and drugs),published in Germany by Schild Verlag.
SOURCE:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29863
By: Global Research, March 20, 2012
