When investigating this series of events that ties together terrorists, spies and bankers, there is a need to define the context of these relationships. There is a more than cozy relationship that exists between the intelligence community and the banking industry. One only needs to look at the background of a number of US intelligence executives to identify this very compelling pattern of career advancement.
That pattern suggests that after intelligence executives serve their time managing millions or billions of dollars of funds for which he cannot be held accountable (in the US, the annual intelligence budget is over $40 Billion) – they are rewarded by being promoted to the lofty air of financial executive. In exchange for that reward, they bring a range of ‘relationships’ to the bank which historically have proven financially lucrative. (One might safely assume they are not being hired for their acumen and experience as financial geniuses.) In a more than unique turnabout, the Deutsche Bank reversed the process and placed a banking executive (A.B. Krongard) as an Executive Director of the CIA! (This was Mr. Tenet’s gift to the Mossad.)
This is the world this article must explore – the marriage of intelligence organizations, banks, and illegal money. The world where banks make money off the ‘dark side’ of the economy: money laundering, bankrolling wars and revolutions, hiding the import and export of weapons and munitions, managing large, ill-gotten slush funds etc. The fact that the US banking industry has bought into this model is obvious. Examples include:
This model also applies to the non US intelligence agencies. The European model, however is a bit different. Because of the sophisticated nature of interlocking corporate directorships in Europe, European intelligence agents are retired into industry, IT consulting and business consulting career slots rather than banking. On both sides of the ocean, banking has a ‘dark side’ which engages ex-intelligence agents who forge a link that converts illegal funds into respectability.
On the US side, the offshoot of these practices are such scandals as the Iran Contra scandal and the Nugan-Hand banking scandal. On the European side, one finds such scandals as the BCCI-Vatican Bank scandal, the theft of Czech gold reserves, the disappearance of Soviet gold reserves and the laundering of Marcos gold from the Philippines. The thread that runs through these scandals is gold and money laundering– which brings this article to a major connection to the destruction of the World Trade Center, and a second compelling link to the German banking industry.
Since September 11, 2001, there has been an undercurrent of testimony that the collapse of the WTC Towers was preceded by a series of explosions inside the towers, which appeared to those fleeing as totally unrelated to the holocaust created on the upper floors by the jet airliners. To a very large degree, those statements have been “sealed” by the FBI along with statements by the NY Fire Department and rescue workers. That information will never see the light of day for the next twenty years. There are however, seven pieces of publicly available information which strongly suggest other explosions occurred in conjunction with the airline attacks on the WTC:
• Public knowledge of numerous eyewitness statements that there were multiple explosions. No one ever expected these statements to be sealed and kept off the record, but everyone knows multiple statements were made. Some witnesses have gone public:
"Louie Cacchioli, 51, told People Weekly on Sept. 24: "I was taking firefighters up in the elevator to the 24th floor to get in position to evacuate workers. On the last trip up a bomb went off. We think there were bombs set in the building."
"Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman and former Auxiliary Police Officer, Paul Isaac Jr. “many other firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.” Paul further elaborated that former CIA director Robert Woolsey, as the Fire Department’s Anti-terrorism Consultant, is sending a gag order down the ranks. “There were definitely bombs in those buildings.” [“Bombs in the Building: World Trade Center ‘Conspiracy Theory’ is a Conspiracy Fact,” Randy Lavello, PrisonPlanet.com]
• The investigating government agencies have difficulty in explaining how the towers collapsed. The WTC towers were designed to withstand a direct hit from a Boeing airliner, as testified to by the architect. There is at least one demolition expert who stated in the press that the collapse of the buildings looked controlled, but later mysteriously recanted that opinion after being visited by the FBI. Even the FEMA report suggests the only possibility it could find for the ignition of the huge diesel fuel tank under Building 7 was statistically improbable, if not impossible.
• An official letter from Underwriter Laboratories to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, saying the government’s official stance on why the buildings collapsed has no merit.
"We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all. …Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation. However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building’s steel core to "soften and buckle." (5) Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C."…. This story just does not add up." [The collapse of the WTC, Kevin Ryan, Underwriters Laboratories, 11/11/2004]
• Seismographic recording of the incidents, which suggests there were at least two subsequent explosions, and possibly three, after the planes hit the towers. At 9:06, three minutes after the second attack, there is a reading which exceeds the norm and equals the magnitude of the first two impacts. Prior to the collapse of Towers 1 and 2, there are very sizeable explosions, accompanied by eye-witness testimony, of explosions in the basements of those towers;
• Analysis of videotape of the collapse of the South Tower
"The evidence showing that the World Trade Center towers were demolished is compelling. Here are a few photos of explosives detonating during the collapse of the South Tower. Each frame is numbered by its position in the video. The video was shot at 30 frames per second. So an eight frame interval covers about one quarter of a second.
Frame 147 shows a row of explosives detonating right across the east face at the 79th floor.
Frame 203 shows a row of explosives detonating right across the east face at the 75th floor.
The right photos show the dust from the explosions outlined in red.
The third row of the photos shows the relative positions of the two lines of dust.
It has been claimed that the explosions of dust that span the east face of the tower, were caused by air being forced from the windows as each of the floors above collapsed. This explanation is obviously incorrect. If it was correct, such lines of dust would have been expelled from the windows of each floor in succession. That is, we would have seen such lines of dust expelled from floors 79, 78, 77, 76 and 75 in succession, but what we observe is an explosion of dust at floor 79, no new clouds of dust for a few floors, then another explosion of dust at floor 75. ….
It is worth noting that the second line of (much larger) explosions occur at the center of a section of mechanical floors (the three mechanical floors appear as a slightly darker gray band across the building and are important for the strength they impart to the building). It is possible that the mechanical floors 76 and 75 (and also 74) have no windows, but of course, if this is so, it raises many more questions than it answers. In particular, if the mechanical floors have no windows, then the explosions of dust from floor 75 cannot be caused by air being forced from them as the floors above collapsed. There should have been dust from the windows on floors 78, 77, 76, 74, 73 etc.
……. it would be feasible to gain covert access to the mechanical floors of the WTC to plant demolition charges. Even the 79th floor could be reached via the elevator shafts at the core of the building. Since the World Trade Center is a series of floors suspended from the core and stabilized by the external columns, it should only be necessary to rig the demolition charges where the floor supports connect to the core columns.
The dust due to the visible explosions is a whitish grey. The dust from the demolition of the upper section (which is disintegrating as it falls) is dark grey. One wonders what caused this difference." [http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/DemolitionWTC.htm]
The reference to the possibility of planting explosives in the building should draw attention to an internet posting by an IT worker from that Tower:
"On the weekend of 9/8, 9/9 there was a 'power down' condition in WTC tower 2, the south tower. This power down condition meant there was no electrical supply for approx 36 hrs from floor 50 up. I am aware of this situation since I work in IT and had to work with many others that weekend to ensure that all systems were cleanly shutdown beforehand ... and then brought back up afterwards. The reason given by the WTC for the power down was that cabling in the tower was being upgraded.
"Of course without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors and many, many 'engineers' coming in and out of the tower. I was at home on the morning of 9/11 on the shore of Jersey City, right opposite the Towers, and watching events unfold I was convinced immediately that something was happening related to the weekend work."[San Francisco Indymedia, Allen Aslan Heart, 4/23/2004 © 2004]
In a similar vein, other suspicious work on the WTC was reported after the fact:
"A photo ID pass for Sept. 5 found on one of the men charged with fraudulently obtaining a Tennessee driver's license from a Memphis woman gave him access to the six underground levels of the One World Center building. But which tenant hired Sakher 'Rocky' Hammad, 24, to work on its sprinklers is lost, said Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Alan Hicks on Friday. Hammad told federal authorities that he was working on the sprinklers six days before the twin towers were brought down by terrorists, court testimony revealed this week. But Hicks said the Port Authority, which owned the building, did its own sprinkler work, and that any other work involving sprinklers would have been arranged by an individual tenant. "We don't know (which one) because all our records were destroyed in the World Trade Center, as were some of the people who know that," Hicks said. [License Suspect Had WTC Repair Pass, But Port Authority Did its Own Work, GoMemphis, Bartholomew Sullivan, 2/16/2002]
Also reported in the world of coincidences, the woman (Katherine Smith) who provided the false ID to Rocky Hammad was killed in a bizarre auto accident the day before she was to testify in court about her role in the fake IDs. A suicide note was found, but the FBI determined that gasoline was poured on her clothes before she died. [AP, 2/13/2002, Reuters, 2/15/2002] In most news reports, this was left to the world of intriguing coincidence. Once again, the general reports have not emphasized certain pieces of information because they are inconvenient to the common perspective. Further investigation into the facts indicates that Katherine Smith was also the witness of record into a trial of individuals providing false identification to two of the hijackers. She was killed before being able to testify in this trial as well. The middle-man between Rocky Hammad and Katherine Smith who procured the false identification was Khaled Odtllah. Khaleded Odtallah had come to the US from Jerusalem, Israel where his wife, son and ten siblings still live. Katherine Smith was murdered in his car. While Rocky Hammad is generally reported to be from Jordan, his mother lives in Gaza, Israel. Hammad’s employment letter which covered his access to the WTC was from Denko Mechanical, Ltd. This company is actually a small shop run by Sergie Dimitry Davidenko. Research on his name indicates he is most likely a proficient ham radio operator, Ukrainian, and an ‘applied mathematician’ – whose work is referenced by at least two recent articles on missile test systems. Later on, when evidence is presented that the planes which flew into the WTC towers were guided by radio guidance systems, the involvement and disappearance of man with these skills becomes increasingly suspect.
The link between the work on the sprinkler system and the attack on the WTC becomes even more compelling when one realizes that a major component of that system – a 5,000 gallon water tank – was located on one of the floors of the South Tower struck by the attacking jet. (This information is presented in Section 6.6, starting on page 77.)
• Video tape evidence recorded on-site at the WTC by a rescuing fireman
"When the above-noted fire crew and cameraman Jules Naudet arrived at WTC's tower one along with other fire crews and entered the building's ground floor lobby, they were to a one completely puzzled -- actually astonished -- to find SIGNIFICANT and widespread damage to the entire lobby area; although NOT of a deep, structural kind. Moreover, NOWHERE was there ANY indication whatsoever of an incendiary-type explosion or ANY kind of fire in this area. Yet the incredible number of blown-out windows and other extensive though rather superficial damage throughout the lobby area was profoundly perplexing to these EXPERIENCED professional firefighters in relation to the impact of the plane eighty stories above. As one put it: "The lobby looked like the plane hit the lobby!" But it DIDN'T: it hit EIGHTY STORIES ABOVE. There is NO WAY the impact of the jet caused such widespread damage eighty stories below." [www.apfn.org]
• Testimony from a small rescue team that ventured onto the 22nd floor of Tower 1 prior to the collapse of the tower.
"The 48 Hours anchor was interviewing the Head of Security of the WTC about the evacuation who had received a call, after the South tower was down, from the Port Authority's Command Center on the 22nd floor asking for rescue. The Head of Security himself traveled to that floor in the company of a NY Fireman where they found the offices devastated to the point where they had to "tunnel through debris" to "dig out" the two or three Port Authority workers who were trapped there. All of this happened 73 floors below crash bombing impact." [Dick Eastman, 223 S. 64th Ave, Yakima, Washington]
It is with the realization that explosives were planted in the Towers, and that they were targeted at certain floors, that the deeper motives for this crime become apparent.
The first six pieces of information only lend credence to the seventh data point, which is where the interest needs to focus. The testimony comes from a gentleman who was accompanied by a fireman during a rescue effort on the 22nd floor. The two have testified to a massive amount of debris they had to crawl over and through during the course of their search. The conclusion of this effort was that the debris came from above the 22nd floor, i.e., the 24th and 23rd floors. If one searches the tenant listing of Tower One, there are no official residents on those floors. However, there is information which suggests that these floors were inhabited by the FBI, and used to store their records regarding the investigations into an alleged, international gold price-fixing scheme and international drug money-laundering. The co-location of these records should not be viewed as co-incidental. This report argues that the alleged gold price-fixing scheme was in fact a gold laundering scheme.
The stimulus for this investigation was a lawsuit initiated by GATA against a number a major bullion international banks and the former US Secretary of the Treasury. The lawsuit alleged that these banks conspired to manipulate and artificially depress the price of gold. The evidence presented by GATA was quite compelling, and suggested that 1) these parties had used national gold reserves to illegally regulate the price of gold, 2) these banks had created a significant risk that threatened the liquidity of all of the key players, and 3) that the national gold reserves had been illegally depleted as a result. The basis for this suit was analysis of gold market prices and trades that suggested approximately 14,000 tonnes of paper gold had been artificially created to keep gold prices depressed.
The logic of what GATA called a scam ‘on the American citizens and individual gold buyers’ was this. Bullion banks “loan” gold to each other at 1% or 2% interest. When they borrow gold to cover needs, they buy a gold future and assign it the lender. Thus the lender always has the “same” amount of gold, except some is ‘paper gold.’ According to GATA, these banks would loan gold to each other, and then sell the real gold, using the proceeds to invest in equities, which paid a higher return. This is a good deal when the investment’s return on the equity is greater than the costs of the increased price of gold. The GATA claim is that this process had been going on secretly for a number of years, with US private banks making hefty profits using US treasury gold. This process is not illegal – fixing-prices is. At some point in the process, these banks had loaned out more gold than could be produced by all the gold mines in the world in the next two and a half years. Because the world started viewing the dollar as overvalued, there was a move towards gold, which stood to drive the price of gold up – dangerously so. These banks then had to borrow and sell even more US gold, and then (it is contended) brought in the London banks to support them, to keep the price of gold artificially down. The prices had to be kept artificially low because if there was an actual call on the gold loans by one bank, it would bring them all down like a house of cards. There was not enough physical gold available to make good all the futures being held by the banks. (Using a gold-laundering theory to explain these trades, it is not the system at risk, but it’s executives who use the system to cover their crimes.)
It has been speculated that it was these banks – with a focus on the American banks -that somehow brought about an attack on the FBI office, using the cover of the airliner assault to destroy the evidence against them. According to this theory, the attack needed to happen before October 9, 2001, when this lawsuit opened in court. It may be fair to speculate that US bank executives were not worried about being convicted for violation of dubious and ambiguous laws. However – win or lose, this report speculates there was at least one group of bank executives that had plenty of reason to worry if this lawsuit saw the open courtroom, and that is the group that set out to destroy the World Trade Center. These are the executives who were worried that an investigation and trial would expose their gold laundering activity. If the illegal gold was confiscated by the judicial system, their lives – most likely – would be forfeit.
The argument that the attack on the WTC was an attempt to silence an investigation into gold transactions and money laundering has never seriously been considered. In a world that has recently seen reports of the emergence of 4,000 to 60,000 tonnes of illegal gold stolen from various national treasuries, no one seems to have asked: how is this gold being laundered. The selling behavior demonstrated by the bullion banks could also be interpreted as selling off huge, illegal gold hoards at a previously agreed upon price point. The hypothesis that a large portion of this may be laundered by the Deutsche Bank becomes more compelling when one focuses on the Deutsche Bank, and its possible reasons for wanting this investigation quashed – which no one, except maybe the FBI, has focused on. The Deutsche Bank (along with Dresdner, and US banks) had been conducting gold sales for years, and indeed, it was speculated in the GATA suit that the European banks in general had illegally dumped large amounts of their reserve gold to buoy up bank profitability.
"Deutsche Bank, the largest German bank, which had precious metals derivatives at the end of 1996 with a total notional value under US$5 billion, by the end of 1999 had grown this business to a total notional value in excess of $50 billion, or by more than 10 times in three years. What is more, a huge amount of this growth came in 1999, especially in the last half, as can be seen by comparing the average notional value for 1999 ($37.7 billion) with the year-end notional value ($51.2 billion). Note also that this growth was almost all in the longer maturities. Nor can the 1999 growth in Deutsche Bank's precious metals derivatives be ascribed in any major way to its acquisition of Banker's Trust. Its OCC report for March 31, 1999, listed precious metals derivatives with a total notional value of around $6 billion, which by June 30 were just over $1 billion….."
"The only major gold fund manager that I know who never owned a single share of Bre-X told me that he never bought the stock because: (1) even if you believed the company's story, the stock almost always looked too expensive; and (2) however great the ore deposit, large gold reserves are not built as quickly or as easily as Bre-X claimed to do. So too, the amazing emergence of Deutsche Bank from almost no gold derivatives business in 1996 to a book with a notional value approaching 5000 tonnes, larger by far than the book of any of the three principal U.S. commercial banks in this business, does not pass the smell test. Indeed, it is very hard to see any reason for the rapid creation of this huge position in gold derivatives other than to try to manipulate and control gold prices. [www.goldensextant.com, MPEG Commentary]
The question needs to be asked, however: what if the German banks, but primarily the Deutsche Bank – and possibly some American banks - were not selling its gold reserves, but rather was laundering gold for its clients from the dark side? Until this report, there has been no mention of this possibility. Not too long ago, several previous board members of the Deutsche Bank were indicted for helping high profile clients avoid taxes by laundering money into Switzerland. The bank certainly also had a reputation for the less dignified money laundering activity associated with ‘organized crime’ and the Chairman of the Deutsche Bank Board admitted the bank was “possibly” had been “misused” by these same Russian Mafiya types, previously linked to the Mossad by this report.
"On September 5, 1999, the German newspaper Weld am Sonntag quoted Deutschebank CEO Rolf Breuer saying that "It could be that we were abused as an intermediate coordinating point" in the fast-developing Russian money laundering scandal. Deutschebank and its U.S. affiliate Bankers Trust (BT) filed "suspicious transaction" reports about Russian clients, as BT had "correspondent banking" relationships with Russia's Inkombank, which "allegedly had ties to organized crime," according to USA Today ( 8-27-1999 ). Moreover, an Inner City Press story (9-11-1999) also revealed that German magazine Der Spiegel quoted Breuer as admitting that it was "possible" his bank was "misused" as an intermediary for money laundering." [The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and Michael C Ruppert, From The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
"On August 28, 2001, 14 days before the Trade Center attacks, former Deutschebank senior bond investment trader Kevin Ingram, pled guilty in a $2.2 million dollar money laundering conspiracy, resulting from a government sting operation investigating the illegal sale of night vision goggles, Beretta machine pistols, M-16 machine guns with silencers, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortars, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), TOW anti-tank missiles, and Stinger missiles, according to court papers examined by the New York Post."[ The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and Michael C Ruppert, From The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
Any serious investigation into illegal gold laundering by the FBI probably would have exposed transactions no one wanted to make public. Any FBI evidence would have to be destroyed, and the investigation stopped. One of the more convenient aspects of the attack on the WTC is that while destroying relevant FBI investigation materials, it also destroyed all US Deutschebank records:
"Michigan Senator Carl Levin's Minority Banking Report of February 2001 calls correspondent banking the "gateway to money laundering," a financial technique wherein illicit money is moved from bank to bank with "no questions asked," thereby cleansing funds prior to being used for legitimate purposes. Via correspondent banking relationships, banks not licensed in the U.S. may gain access to American financial markets by establishing a correspondent relationship with banks that are. Deutschebank is licensed in the U.S. and maintained offices at the World Trade Center. Deutschebank is licensed in the U.S. and maintained offices at the World Trade Center. All U.S. Deutschebank records were destroyed in the September 11 attacks." [The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and Michael C Ruppert, From The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
The original lawsuit was dismissed, and the investigation never started over. A reorganization of the FBI in 2002 refocused agency attention on terrorism, leaving bank crime to “other agencies.” Another suit seeking to avoid the shortcomings of the first suit, was initiated in 2003, and is scheduled to be heard in April of 2005 – after successfully surviving the defendant’s motions to dismiss.
What the GATA and the subsequent suit never considered was that while “large, inexplicable” (estimated at 6,000 to 14,000 tonnes) amounts of gold were being released on the market by the bullion banks, possibly this was a gold laundering operation. Certainly enough stolen gold had poured into Germany from various sources to explain a majority of the German trades (and possibly trades by US banks as well):
• 3,000 tonnes of gold stolen from Russia by the KGB, a theft made public in September 1991 by Grigory Yavlinski;
• 40 tonnes of Czech gold;
• an undisclosed amount of Third Reich (Nazi) gold stolen from the Holocaust victims and their survivors;
• at least 1,000 tonnes of Philippines gold from the Marcos family, which had previously been the wealth of the Japanese Imperial family hidden during World War II.. (Some estimates of this Golden Lily treasury reach up towards 60,000 tonnes.)
"Approximately 1,000 tons of the loot was liberated by Ferdinand Marcos before his ouster. Billions of dollars worth were shipped overseas by American intelligence agents and the Mafia. Much of the horde was cabbaged away in a high-security, subterranean storage cache buried beneath the Zurich airport. This vault was once used to conceal European gold from Hitler’s greedy SS scavengers. Fifty years later, some of the same bullion has found its way into the campaign coffers of ultra-conservative political candidates in the U.S., according to the Las Vegas Sun. But Marcos didn’t recover the lion’s share of the pelf. A six-month series in the Sun reported in 1993 that Marcos abandoned thousands of tons of gold hidden in his homeland. Gary Thompson, the newspaper’s former managing editor, and journalist Steve Kanigher published copies of gold certificates from Credit Suisse, deposit records from the Union Bank of Switzerland, the correspondence of Corazon Aquino and letters to Reagan administration officials documenting witness accounts that lackeys of the CIA and Army Special Forces carted off an unknown quantity of the bullion…. Citibank was drawn into the operation to negotiate ownership of a Philippine gold horde secreted in the Bahamas…. From the balmy islands, Imelda Marcos was heaving billions of dollars in gold on the black market, frantically, before the remains of their tin dictatorship was seized by the courts. The sudden infusion of Philippine gold on the world market threatened to depress the already-sagging price of the metal. This cabal settled on a drastic solution - a strategic terrorist act staged to drive up the price of gold. " [Saudi Entrepeneur Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 911 Terrorists, Alex Constantine]
While the early reports of this Philippine treasure were generally regarded by the media as rumor, the story was subsequently well substantiated by the reporting of David Guyatt. A major source for this documentation was a death bed statement by Brigadier-General Erle Cocke, in April 2000. Cocke was a banker before he became a black operative. He had worked as a “fixer” for "every President since Truman." Additionally, he was an Alternate Executive Director of the World Bank for four years, a member of the US delegation to the UN for two years running, with the pay and rank of a US Ambassador, a Knight of Malta and a Shriner Mason. According to these sources:
"the OSS--the wartime forerunner of America's spy agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)--began recovering the bullion plundered from a dozen or so nations. This bullion formed what became known as the "Black Eagle" fund, which was part of a secret agreement eclipsed behind the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. Consequently, the metal was placed under the care of OSS (and later CIA) operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana, who put it under the control of numerous corporate entities he formed for the purpose. These entities, in turn, proceeded to establish 176 bank accounts in 42 different countries in which to deposit these assets under private treaty agreement……. Santa Romana died in 1974, and following his death his former attorney and trustee was able to "acquire" considerable portions of Santa Romana's estate by illicit means. The lawyer was Ferdinand Marcos, who went on to become President of the Philippines and a favourite friend of the United States until his overthrow in 1986. The acquisition of these assets helped give rise to stories of "Marcos gold"--a legend that was supplemented by additional later recoveries of WWII gold and other loot using a Filipino Army battalion under the overall command of Marcos henchman General Fabian Ver." [Project Hammer Reloaded ,Part 1 of 2, Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 5 (August-September 2003), by David G. Guyatt]
"Additional evidence of Marco’s recovering the Golden Lily treasure comes from the Filipino newspaper, The Inquirer. In 1998 the paper published an article entitled "Soldiers of Fortune." The article revealed that all members of the 16th Infantry Battalion had signed a joint affidavit declaring that, together with members of the 51st Engineering Brigade, they had recovered 60,000 metric tons of gold from thirty sites between 1973 and 1985. Both units operated in strict secrecy under Marcos’ henchman Fabian Ver. " [Nazi Gold, Part 10: The Emperor's Golden Lily, Glen Yeadon , Copyright 2001-2004]
As part of this illegal gold movement, it is extremely important to notice where at least 50 tonnes of it went, because it starts a chain of events involving the banks of Bankers Trust, JP Morgan and the Deutschebank Alex Brown. It is also important to note that the gold started to be moved into the market place in the early 1980’s by Marcos himself and in the late 1980’s by his wife.
"In 1982, Ferdinand Marcos arranged via his right-hand man, General Fabian Ver, to transfer 50 tonnes of gold bullion to Switzerland via two chartered 747 aircraft. These were arranged by an individual using the name Ron Lusk, who had been retained by Ver to deliver the gold to Bankers Trust, Zurich." [Project Hammer Reloaded ,Part 1 of 2, Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003), David G. Guyatt]
"(in) 1983…, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, then-Vice President Bush authorized a Boeing 747 with a special "carriage" to airlift several tons of gold bars from Clark Air Force base in the Philippines to LaGuardia Airport in New York." [Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine operation paid for "vote switching" software, Online Journal, Wayne Madsen http://www.politrix.org]
"(David) Guyatt goes on to claim that a letter from Henry Kissinger …demanded that Marcos sell "63,321 tons of gold to 2000 US and European banks ….." The letter was dated February 21, 1986. Marcos refused and was overthrown as a result of his refusal. Imelda Marcos, however, chose to sell the gold to avoid criminal charges, and the gold was transferred aboard the US Eisenhower to the United States." [Nazi Gold, Part 10:The Emperor's Golden Lily, Glen Yeadon , Copyright 2001-2004
Bankers Trust becomes an important name in this report in that the merger of Bankers Trust (formed by JP Morgan in 1903) and Deutschebank Alex. Brown was conducted by “Buzz” Krongard. What it suggests is that Krongard, executives of JP Morgan, and executives of the Deutschebank were possibly in a position to be knowledgeable about the illicit gold movements that ultimately were covered up by the destruction of the World Trade Towers. Krongard has been implicated as a potential “person of interest” in the alleged cover-up by the US Government of what really happened on September 11 because of his association to the bank to which many illegal stock trades were traced, and the unexplained ‘shutdown’ of that investigation.
"By profession, Krongard is a banker and formerly was the Chairman and CEO of investment bank Alex. Brown, Inc. In September 1997, Krongard engineered the merger of Alex. Brown with Bankers Trust and became the Vice Chairman of the board of directors of Bankers Trust. A few months later, in January 1998, he was recruited as a "counselor" to CIA boss George Tenet. In March 2001, he was promoted to Executive Director, making him the No. 2 man of the spy agency." [Project Hammer Reloaded, Part 1 of 2, Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003), David G. Guyatt]
It also suggests that the management of the JP Morgan syndicate of financial institutions was in a position to be aware of these illegal gold transactions, as were other American financial institutions such as Citibank and Drexel.
"Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, New York, was a recipient of gold bullion from Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in January 1984." [Project Hammer Reloaded , Part 1 of 2, Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 5 (August-September 2003), by David G. Guyatt]
A final potential source of illegal gold in the market was uncovered in the 1990’s by the WJC. (World Jewish Congress). Recent disclosures from World War II documents released in the 1990’s demonstrated that the Swiss banks had understated the amount of gold received from Nazi Germany during the war. These amounts may have been adequate to explain the “inexplicable” gold volume being sold in the gold market, as suggested by GATA statistics. This illegal gold is also of interest because one of the key individuals heading this international suit against the Swiss banks was the President of the WJC – Edgar Bronfman. The Bronfman family, along with executives of JP Morgan, (as will later be demonstrated), were key investors in a Canadian company called Barrick – named as a defendant in the second gold price-fixing suit.
Winning or losing this lawsuit would be quite immaterial to a small number of people unless the Deutsche Bank had to reveal the sources of their gold. A substantial future revenue stream would be lost to the German banks if the underworld lost trust in them. It would be fair to speculate that a few bankers would suffer cruel deaths if the details of these gold thefts were revealed. It is hypothesized that the exposure of this gold laundering activity was the ‘issue’ that allowed German banking executives and Russian KGB/Mafiya lords to sit at the same table and discuss a mutual interest in destroying the World Trade Center. It created the incentive to leverage Russian Mafiya relationships within the Israeli Mossad, and initiate the attack on the World Trade Center.
Interestingly, it was also this same type of interest in ‘preventing public disclosure, or exposure’ that may have encouraged Bush to divert attention away from this economic motive for a crime.
"There is substantial evidence suggesting that a detailed investigation into Deutschebank's connection to Islamic terrorists and 9-11 might reopen a mysteriously closed 1991 investigation of criminal insider trading connected to Harken Energy, a Houston company where George W. Bush served on the board of directors as a major stockholder with his some of his father's key campaign contributors. On January 30, 1990 Harken, with a remarkably unsuccessful history of drilling projects, signed major oil drilling contracts with Bahrain. Five months later, Bush's company suffered an unexplained huge loss of stock value just prior to the Gulf War -- but not before the future president had already cashed out, making close to a million dollars selling his own stock. The future president completed his key insider trade eight days before Harken announced a $23 million second quarter corporate loss and about six weeks before the invasion. Having just profited by nearly $1 million--representing a 200 % insider windfall-- the SEC investigation of George W. was led by general counsel James R. Doty who, according to a UPI report, mysteriously neglected to interview any of the Harken directors --including the younger Bush -- regarding "enforcement" oversight. Moreover, Doty had previously served as George W. Bush's personal lawyer to Bush 43's purchase of the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. So, in the end, a future president--George W. Bush -- was cleared of insider trade wrongdoing by his personal attorney and by his father's counsel " [The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and Michael C Ruppert, From The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
The argument made by Flocco and Ruppert, while valid, misses the real cover-up. An investigation into the Deutsche Bank connection to the terrorists would have demonstrated that at the heart of the connection was a need to cover-up probable illegal gold movements. Moreover, the names of two banks (JP Morgan and Deutschebank) and three individuals (George Bush Sr., Adnan Khashoggi and Edgar Bronfman) reported to be involved in these probable illegal gold movements are linked to a single gold company: Barrick. These names are not linked as a group to any other gold company. These individuals, along with Sheik Kamal Adham, (the former head of the Saudi intelligence agency and a regular business partner of Khashoggi) have been widely reported as involved with responsibility (but not convicted) in money laundering schemes and illegal gold movements:
§ Bush: the Iran-Contra scandal, the Marcos gold;
§ Khashoggi: the BCCI-Vatican Bank money laundering scandal, Iran-Contra, MJK securities fraud, and the US savings and loans bankruptcies, the Sand casino bankruptcy, and the Marcos gold;
§ Shiek Kamal Adham: the BCCI-Vatican Bank scandal, Iran-Contra
§ Edgar Bronfman: Harris Bank and Household Bank money-laundering, the Nazi gold hoards, as well as the family history in Canada of bootleg alcohol smuggling.
If four suspected money-launderers, at least two of which are involved in prior movements of this gold, are all financially involved in a company responsible for the generation of billions of dollars of paper gold, and producing bullion from deposits with a history of dubious value, should not those facts warrant suspicion of that company’s intent.
In fact, the Barrick gold operation is a phenomenon that could not have occurred without the assistance of President George Bush Sr. In his last days as President, Bush pardoned his former political colleagues convicted in the Iran-Contra Scandal, including Adnan Khashogi. The Iran-Contra conspirators executed their crime with the heavy involvement of three individuals who continue to appear throughout this report:
§ Adnan Khashoggi;
§ Khalid bin Mahfouz, owner of 20% of BCCI; and
§ Shiek Kamal Adham, who belonged to a group that owned approximately 55% of BCCI, and was on the board with Mahfouz.
At the same time that Bush pardoned the convicted Iran-Contra conspirators, he authorized a procedural change which allowed Barrick (started with funding Khashoggi and Sheik Kamal Adham as an original investors) to claim $10 billion in unmined reserves in Nevada, for the meager cost of $10,000. It is speculated this process needed to be expedited because it was anticipated the Clinton administration would not approve transaction without sizeable royalty requirements. Not often reported, Barrick also paid $63 million for the company that owned those rights, although the details of that investment are not known.
About the same time Khashoggi and Adham were investing in Barrick, a partner of their BCCI partner Khalid bin Mahfouz was becoming a 12% investor in Harken, which would later be identified with George Bush Jr.’s insider trader.
"In 1987 an obscure Saudi financier named Adbullah Taha Bakhsh invested in Harken, a Texas oil company of which George W. Bush was a director from 1986 to 1993. The deal consisted of recapitalizing the company, which was going through difficult times. This Saudi investor is none other than the partner of Khalid bin Mahfouz and Ghaith Pharaon. And so Taha Bakhsh became an 11.5 percent shareholder in Harken Energy Corp. Between 1976 and 1982, Abdullah Taha Bakhsh – an investor in Harkin Energy, recall – was the representative for the bin Laden family." [The Real Intelligence Cover-Up: America's Unholy Alliance, Joe Trento's Column, 8/6/2003 ]
The current Bush administration has dropped all investigations of potential financial crimes associated with the destruction of the WTC. It has forced the FBI to drop the GATA investigation so as to focus on ‘terrorism.’ The Bush administration dropped the investigation of illegal trades once they were traced back to Israel. The 911 Commission report does not mention them, there is no SEC nor FBI report on the investigation. Any formal announcement of the findings disappeared a long time ago, and an only inadvertent leak let the world know what really happened. An investigation into the destruction of the WTC as a classic criminal act rather than an act of political terror would most likely result in exposure bringing disrepute to the Bush family, and some of the most powerful banking executives in the world. Criminal charges would also be possible. It would also start in motion actions required to return billions of dollars of illegal gold to their rightful national treasuries. It would probably bring about the collapse of a number of major financial institutions. Therein lies the heart of real the National Security issue.
5.4 Gold Laundering – A Hypothesis
Before attempting to unravel the mechanism by which the laundering of illegal gold may have been perpetrated, one needs to understand the magnitude and difficulty of this crime. Gold, because of its scarcity and value, is a closely monitored commodity. Gold traders across the world monitor supply and demand, and report regularly on web sites. They watch it so closely, that when unexplained amounts of gold on the market in the 1990s started to depress prices, they traced it to bullion bank sales of reserves. The annual mining and production of physical gold contributes only about 2,500 tonnes per year (See Figure 4 for annual production rates). The price of gold has remained relatively stable from 1992 to 2003 (See Table 4). Had there been a significant ‘dump’ of illegal gold in the magnitude of 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes or more in a short span of time, the transaction would have been easily identified by the market watchers as laundering activity. Hence, illegal gold from Russia, Switzerland or the Philippines would have had to been moved into the market slowly, with a credible paper trail. The strategy for laundering gold without depressing prices would have been a rate of laundering in the range of 10% of market supply and demand, possibly 200 to 300 tonnes per year. Anyone sitting on stolen gold could not dump it immediately, but would require institutional help in laundering 5% to 10% of the hoard per year, over ten to fifteen years – unless they got greedy, and wanted a faster payout.
The following Table 3 demonstrates the range of value for 1,000 or 2,000 tonnes of gold have. Based on market conditions, estimated illegal gold from the Philippines (at least 1,000 tonnes) and Russia (3,000 tonnes) might be worth up to $40 to $50 billion if unlaundered. If it was laundered and converted into the foundation for derivatives, at a ratio between 100:1 and 400:1, the managed value falls somewhere potentially between $4 trillion and $20 trillion.
Table 3
Troy Ounces |
Tonnes |
Low Value |
High Value |
1 |
|
$270 |
$320 |
32,150.7 |
1 |
$8,680,689 |
$10,288,224 |
1,000,000 |
31.1 |
$270,000,000 |
$320,000,000 |
24,000,000 |
746.5 |
$6,480,000,000 |
$7,680,000,000 |
32,150,700 |
1,000 |
$8,680,689,000 |
$10,288,224,000 |
64,301,400 |
2,000 |
$17,361,378,000 |
$20,576,448,000 |
Table 4
Year |
High |
Low |
Year |
High |
Low |
1972 |
$70 |
$44 |
1988 |
$485 |
$389 |
1973 |
$126 |
$64 |
1989 |
$417 |
$359 |
1974 |
$195 |
$117 |
1990 |
$424 |
$346 |
1975 |
$185 |
$135 |
1991 |
$403 |
$344 |
1976 |
$142 |
$102 |
1992 |
$360 |
$330 |
1977 |
$168 |
$127 |
1993 |
$407 |
$326 |
1978 |
$244 |
$166 |
1994 |
$398 |
$370 |
1979 |
$524 |
$217 |
1995 |
$397 |
$372 |
1980 |
$850 |
$474 |
1996 |
$416 |
$367 |
1981 |
$599 |
$391 |
1997 |
$368 |
$283 |
1982 |
$489 |
$297 |
1998 |
$315 |
$273 |
1983 |
$512 |
$374 |
1999 |
$324 |
$253 |
1984 |
$407 |
$303 |
2000 |
$326 |
$264 |
1985 |
$341 |
$284 |
2001 |
$291 |
$257 |
1986 |
$443 |
$326 |
2002 |
$343 |
$278 |
1987 |
$503 |
$390 |
2003 |
$417 |
$320 |
Figure 4
How might a bank launder $10 billion dollars, or 1,000 tonnes in gold? (Ten billion is a nice, round number, which conveniently matches the ‘market rumors’ of how much gold the Deutschebank has borrowed from the Bundesbank, i.e., how much gold the Deutschebank has put into the market.) There are two possible ways.
1. If laundering gold, a German bank would “borrow” $10 billion in gold from the Bundesbank with the publicly acknowledged intent to sell it on the open market, (to facilitate the carry trade, producer hedging, etc.) Then it would put the Bundesbank gold in its own vault and launder $10 billion in Russian bullion. Ultimately, the German bank would have to re-purchase $10 billion in gold, to create a record of repayment to the Bundesbank. Unfortunately, doing so would create a physical gold imbalance on its own balance sheet. What would need to happen is that the bank would need to create the financial transaction of a gold purchase, without ever actually receiving the physical gold. A gold future from a gold producer or bullion bank would work for this.
2. Another option for laundering gold would be to turn over to the buyer of the gold a “gold future certificate” saying the purchaser could take delivery of gold from a producer that had promised the gold to the bank, and then launder the stolen gold through the mining and production company. The mining and production company could claim the gold came from either the mine or a bank.
How could this be done? Quite simply, by buying, creating or corrupting a major gold producing company, that would be willing to facilitate such a fraud. The steps to doing so might be:
1. Create a major gold mining and producing company.
2. Attract capital from a few significant investors that would have a tendency to avoid intense scrutiny of operations.
3. Create credibility for the company by giving it the reserves large enough to accommodate the appearance of being able to support large volume trade.
4. Install trusted management to establish credibility and respectability in the investment market while watching over the company’s less reputable activity.
5. Create a ‘flood’ of small transactions to cover larger gold movements.
6. Scale up the gold laundering volume based on market limitations.
In reviewing recent history, there are familiar names (with a few mentioned elsewhere in this report in relation to other activities) who appear to have undertaken exactly the six steps outlined above, by creating and using Barrick Gold. Barrick is easily worthy of suspicion, but note that this is an unproven hypothetical scenario:
§ It has attracted investors and management who have a public history of being associated with in illegal or potentially fraudulent activity;
§ It has passed the smell test of the American judicial system that says it should go to trial over gold price-fixing charges;
"GATA consultant Reginald H. Howe brought a similar federal lawsuit in Boston in 2000. It was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds in 2002. Since then GATA has documented and publicized evidence of manipulation of the gold market by Barrick, Morgan Chase, other bullion banks, and the U.S. government." [Class-Action Suit Seeks Damages For Gold Investors from Barrick and J.P. Morgan Chase, Business Wire, 11/27/2004]
For the record, GATA’s charges have been neither upheld nor denied by the US courts system, although the charges have survived requests from the Barrick legal team to dismiss the suit.
§ It has achieved financial success that seems inexplicable to industry experts: unparalleled growth in volume, 60 straight financial quarters of profitability in the extremely risky futures commodity market, and growth while all competitors are in decline or closing.
A review of the six steps will demonstrate the involvement of various individuals and companies in the creation of a potential gold laundering machine.
Step 1: Create a major gold mining and producing company.
In 1983, two investors of international renown, worked with Peter Munk to establish Barrick.
"At its inception, Barrick’s principal investors were Saudi Arabians who had close ties to the Saudi Intelligence Services, or to the CIA, or to both. Those Saudi Investors were Sheikh Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi Intelligent Services at the same time that President Bush was head of the CIA; Adnan Khashoggi, the first of the Saudi investors in Barrick; and Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz, one of the biggest of the initial shareholders in Barrick and now head of Saudi Intelligence Services. Sheikh Adham was the CIA’s principal liaison to the Middle East and was so closely tied to the CIA that he even had an agency codename: “Tumbleweed.” [J. Taylor's Gold and Technology Stocks, Jay Taylor, 1/3/2004]
One of these same investors – Khashoggi – was a primary money mover for the Marcos family, thus linking him to the origins of one of the major sources of gold at the heart of this crime, and linking Barrick to a source of knowledge of illegal gold.
"Khashoggi had long been associated with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and the so-called Marcos gold. Indeed, so trusted was he that Marcos had him fronting for two "eclipsed" Marcos accounts--one in the name of Etablissement Mabari with the private Swiss bank of Lombard Odier & Cie, and the other in the name of Etablissement Gladiator at COGES Corraterie Gestion SA, Geneva." [Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003), David G. Guyatt ]
"Marcos and Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means to create a vehicle to use the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets. In 1989, Five Star Trust was officially established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a close friend of the Bush family… Five Star entities, active and dissolved, have been discovered in the Isle of Man, the island of Nevis, the Bahamas, Florida, Kentucky, and Texas. Other Five Star-related entities stored large sums of money in the Cook Islands, according to U.S. intelligence sources, and these funds were directly linked to Khashoggi and BCCI…. Five Star's accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed ." [Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine operation paid for "vote switching"software, Online Journal ,Wayne Madsen http://www.politrix.org]
Khashoggi’s acquaintance with Munk is reported to go back as far as 1974, when they were investment partners. Peter Munk is a Hungarian who fled from Hungary to Switzerland with his parents to escape the Holocaust.
Barrick was reportedly started in 1983, but remains inconspicuous for the period between 1983 and 1988. What is known is that in 1986, prior to his involvement in Barrick, Khashoggi failed in his attempts at another gold start-up company as chairman of a Denver-based exploration group called Mali American Mines. Investors were not impressed with the offering, and Khashoggi left Las Vegas without the necessary capital.
Khashoggi’s partner on the Barrick investment - Sheikh Kamal Adham – also has a checkered past of being involved in money laundering business deals:
"The great Afghan expert on Muslim strategy, General Kamal Adham, also the former head of the Saudi intelligence agency, is now under house arrest. He was responsible for arranging the meeting between Hekmatyar and a Soviet representative, Yu Voroustsov, in Taif Saudi Arabia. The meeting was requested by Dr.Najeebullah, the former President of Afghanistan in 1989. The reason for the arrest of Kamal Adham is said to be his role in heroin money laundering and recycling of drug money through BCCI." ['Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had links with KGB', The News International, Imran Akbar, 10/8/1992]
Sheikh Kamal Adham was a co-investor in the BCCI bank with Khalid bin Mahfouz, (Mahfouz owned 20% and Kamal Adham was part of an Arab group that owned 55%. Both were BCCI bank directors). (This bank was documented by the USDEA as responsible for over 120 money laundering incidents.) This relationship is of note because Mahfouz is the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden. Additionally, one finds “Abdullah Taha Bakhsh … represents Khalid bin Mahfouz’s financial interests in the Middle East.” Bakhsh, amongst other roles, was a 12% owner of Harken Energy - George Bush Jr’s company (see page 56). Khashoggi and Shiekh Kamal Adham would combine forces eleven years later to create the Oryx Corporation (Dubai). Oryx would be the owner of Rudy Dekker’s flight school in Florida, where Mohammed Atta and many of the supposed 911 hijackers received flight training.
This report finds both Khashoggi and Shiek Kamal Adham (now deceased) both having criminal records, both having been linked to financial fraud, and both directly linked to:
1) the distribution of massive quantities of illegal gold,
2) the creation of potential gold laundering operations, the investigation into which was covered up by the destruction of the World Trade Center,
3) the funding of a flight school used to train WTC attackers, and
4) the recruitment of flight school trainees through Khashoggi’s relationship with Yeslam Bin Ladin, the brother of Osama Bin Laden, or Adham’s relationship with Osama Bin Laden as brother-in-law.
At this point in time, Khashoggi remains protected by agencies of the US government (in the name of National Security) against arrest and prosecution by several nations.
Step 2: Attract capital from a few significant investors that would have a tendency to avoid intense scrutiny of operations.
During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, there would be at least two additional major investors brought into Barrick, as Khashoggi backed out. Khashoggi used his stock in Barrick as collateral to finance the arms sent to Iran by the US under President Reagan, and CIA Director George Bush.
The second group – after the Saudis - would be the Bronfman family, who merged its mammoth real estate firm, Trizec, with Barrick Gold. Today, the Bronfman family of New York is a widely respected name.
"To Montrealers, Charles Bronfman is the shy former owner of the Expos baseball team. In Israel, he is the country's most important foreign investor. But in Manhattan, where he now resides, Charles is merely the Big Apple's third-most-famous Bronfman. Nephew Edgar Jr. gets most of the attention as president and CEO of family-controlled Seagram Co. Ltd., which he has transformed from a purveyor of premium spirits into an international film and music powerhouse (through its Universal Studios and Polygram divisions). Elder brother Edgar Sr. is president of the World Jewish Congress and led the public battle to force Swiss banks to settle the claims of Holocaust survivors. But despite his low profile, Charles Bronfman has an array of interests: he controls Israel's largest conglomerate, Koor Industries Ltd., and is chairman of The Jerusalem Report. He is a renowned philanthropist, dispensing more than US$20 million annually through his personal foundation. Two years ago, he moved from Montreal to Manhattan after growing weary of the unstable political climate in Quebec. In 1991, Revenue Canada allowed his family trusts to move $2 billion offshore without paying taxes." [The rich 100, Ellen Himelfarb; Laura Janeshewski; Carolyn Pritchard; Cynthia Reynolds; Et al, Copyright UMI Company 1999, 07/30/1999]
After that recognition though, comes the recognition of other relationships which help explain how a ‘family’ like the Bronfman family might get involved in a business that might have links to illegal gold laundering. First, the Bronfman family uses the legal services of White & Case, who also represented the Marcos family, JP Morgan, and Banker’s Trust. (Bankers Trust reportedly was in possession of illegal gold from Marcos requiring laundering, and JP Morgan later – as shall soon be demonstrated – surreptitiously invested in Barrick.)
The Bronfman’s also have reported connections to the Israeli Mafia and the Bush administration through Arie Genger.
"Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "back channel" to the Bush Administration is Israeli-American businessman Arie Genger. Genger has been used to send messages between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Sharon. Genger met Sharon in 1981 when he was working for Sharon's good freind, Meshulam Riklis, one of the top operators in the Israeli Mafia. Genger heads the privately held, New York-based, Trans-Resources Inc, which owns Haifa Chemicals in Israel. He has numerous business connections to top Z-lobby and other notorious types. He sits on the investment committee of The Challenge Fund-Etgar LP which is chaired by Edgar Bronfman." [Sharon’s “Private Channel” to Bush Administration is a Riklis Man, Ha'aretz, 12/30/2001]
The most telling report regarding the Bronfman’s proclivity for possibly turning a blind eye to illegal money laundering is their involvement in Bank of Montreal, Harris Bank and Household Bank. If the following report is true, recruiting the Bronfmans for ownership of a gold laundering operation would have been ideal.
"In Chicago, is a branch of a huge Canadian octopus, the Bank of Montreal, owned by the … Bronfman family. … Their branch in Chicago, Harris Bank, has for some time been THE heavy weight in foreign currency trading, handling and exchanging most every type of money instrument. Several years ago Harris Bank merged with a known reputed money laundry, Household Bank, with units of Household International, headquartered in the Chicago-area. Household is the successor and alter ego to Nugan Hand Bank that operated in California, Australia, Manila, Saudi, London, and a few other places. The General Counsel of Nugan Hand was William Colby, former Director of Central Intelligence. Former Generals and Admirals, close to CIA, operated Nugan Hand's worldwide offices. It was a CIA proprietary operation, transferring clandestine funds, for "national security", for Southeast Asia secret operations, including assassinations, such as the Phoenix Program, murdering some 63,000 Viet Namese civilians who opposed the Saigon government. Also disguised as something else were the skimming off of U.S. weapons shipped to Viet Nam, some 20 per cent of which were stolen upon being off-loaded. Dope funds from the "Golden Triangle". Large U.S. military gambling pools. The dark underside of the real financial world. Nugan Hand was "The House". Colby became the unlisted general counsel of Household, Nugan Hand's alter ego. Amid a scandal starting with the assassination of one of its founders in 1980, and the shredding of its financial records, Nugan Hand disappeared. Rising from the espionage ashes, to continue the reputed money laundering, was Household, which had previously been mostly a loan shark operation, Household Finance Corporation. At about the time Harris Bank took over many of the units of Household Bank, 1996, the unlisted "general counsel" of Household, William Colby, was assassinated, covered up, his friends say, as a supposed "boating accident". Colby was about to make public statements about Nugan Hand, about Household, and a few other entities which he began to realize were not really carrying out a "national security" purpose but were a vast dirty money machine. Major owners of Harris Bank were the Peter Fitzgerald family of Chicago. He was ahead by between 25 to 50 million dollars when Harris Bank became a unit of Bank of Montreal.(His mandatory financial disclosure was reported in the Washington Post, 6/12/99, page A-3). Fitzgerald also reportedly has a sizable interest in one or more Mexican Banks, reportedly major dope money laundries, including Grupo Financiero Bancomer which was reportedly involved in a federal "sting" resulting in indictments May 19, 1998. [www.usdoj.gov/criminal/tost8ind.htm] Bancomer with branches in New York and Los Angeles reportedly operates through Harris Bank, by postal and wire transmissions, in what is called tri-national cash management system of Harris. The prosecutions were called "Operation Casablanca". The Chicago Tribune, sensitive to bank scandals, played down Bancomer's problem. (Head of Tribune Company for many years was board chairman of the Federal Reserve District Bank in Chicago.) "[Clinton's Money Laundry, Sherman H. Skolnick, 6/13/1999]
The third major group that would invest in Barrick in a significant way did so rather surreptitiously. In 1994, the controlling shareholder of Barrick was Horsham. The President of Horsham was Tariq Kadri, Khashoggi’s long-time lawyer. That year, Horsham joined with Argo Partnership (in which J.P. Morgan had a partnership interest), and acquired controlling interest of Trizec Corp. In 1996, Horsham acquired the remaining equity in Trizec Corp, and merged with Argo to become TrizecHahn Corporation – which became the controlling shareholder of Barrick with about 16% of its stock. A subsequent investigation by Donald W Doyle (CEO of Blanchard & Company) showed that Argo was owned jointly by JP Morgan Capital Corp and JP Morgan Securities Inc. The Managing Director of JP Morgan Capital Corp. was appointed to the Board of Directors of TrizecHahn, which in turn controlled Barrick. JP Morgan in turn, has a vested interest in Citibank, which was also reported to be one of the larger recipients of illegal gold from Marcos.
"Citibank's largest stockholder was J. P. Morgan, which in December 2000 merged with Chase Manhattan to form the all-powerful J. P. Morgan Chase. Bankers Trust was a J. P. Morgan creation from day one. " [ Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003), David G. Guyatt ]
The three major investment groups associated with Barrick each have a history of being linked – but not convicted – with money laundering schemes and illegal money movements. Should the convergence of these three groups in the financial control of Barrick be considered coincidental?
Step 3: Create credibility for the company by giving it the reserves large enough to accommodate the appearance of being able to support large volume.
If a new gold mining and producing company was going to be required to sell futures in the magnitude of $10 to $30 billion, it would need to demonstrate significant reserves to provide a credible offering in the international marketplace. In 1983 Barrick Gold Corp. was a start-up company with a single mine in Canada and a founder with no experience in the gold business – Peter Munk. According to his biography in the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame:
"…in 1983 … he bought a stake in an Alaskan placer mine and half the Renabie mine in Ontario. Gold production was a mere 3,000 oz. that year; revenue, roughly $1.7 million. He then purchased the Camflo mine in Quebec, which gave him a stellar technical team led by mining engineer Robert Smith. Munk then turned his attention to a Nevada heap-leach project producing a mere 40,000 oz. gold each year. The industry doubted its potential…"[Canadian Mining Hall of Fame]
By 2001 Barrick had amassed off-balance-sheet assets that were worth more than the market capitalization of the next five biggest gold-mining companies in the world combined. Barrick did not do this alone.
"At the very end of his presidency (President) Bush gave a sweetheart deal to the Canadian company Barrick Goldstrike. They got the rights to US land worth $10 billion in return for a nominal payment to the treasury of $10,000. In one of his last acts as president Bush pardoned Khashoggi's alleged (Iran-Contra) co-conspirators, who were key members of Bush's own cabinet. As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi – or against Bush himself…..To express its gratitude for these favors Barrick Goldstrike hired (Bush) right after he left office and donated $148,000 to the Republican Party, at least that is the amount that can be traced." [Bush the Elder’s Scheme to Sell Pardons and Get a Payoff – Where is the Outrage Over a 10 Billion Dollar Taxpayer Ripoff?, Jock Gill, 2/26/2001]
Again, for the record, Barrick bought the American company (for $63 million) which in turn, purchased the land rights. In 1996, Barrick is again reported as having received help from the elder George Bush in getting the Congo’s government monopoly reserve – the Gold Office of Kilomoto, worth 100 tonnes of gold reserve.
If the reports of the 1992 purchase are correct, that would mean the mineral deposits acquired by Barrick for $10,000 represent about 32 million troy ounces. In 1997, the Annual Report of Barrick reported that the company’s gold reserve in 1994 was 37.6 million ounces. This would imply that without the ‘Bush bonanza’, Barrick might not have the credible reserves to engage in the transactions it did over the next seven years. It is also possible that the Bush gift is what brought the Americans and JP Morgan into the game plan. It is reported that Khashoggi sold his investment in Barrick to finance his portion of the Iran-Contra guns for drugs deal, hence the Reagan/Bush administrations complicity in Barrick may go back even further than the 1992 sweetheart deal.
Khashoggi and Bush, both deeply implicated in the Iran Contra scandal (laundering drugs and money for weapons) – created Barrick. Any serious investigation into the gold dealings of the bullion banks would have exposed this complicity. Prevention of this exposure may have been a primary motivation for misdirecting or stunting the investigation into the attack on the World Trade Center. Even worse - it may also have been a motive for allowing the carnage to take place.
Step 4: Install trusted management to establish credibility in the investment market while watching over the company.
As far back as the Annual Reports for Barrick’s can be located, one of the most consistent members of the Advisory Board has been Karl Otto Pohl, former President of the German central bank (Bundesbank) and chief officer of the International Bank of Settlements and IMF. This would be pretty powerful talent for a start-up company, but would make sense if the Bundesbank had an interest in staying close to the management and activities of Barrick. In a potential gold laundering scheme by a German bank, complicity by the Bundesbank would be a requirement, as the Bundesbank would be the initial provider of legal gold being used to cover the sale of illegal gold.
In 2002, just after the Deutsche Bank Alex Brown Securities Canada and Adnan Khashoggi were being sued by MJK Securities for fraud, former Canadian CEO of Deutschebank became an Executive Director board member of Barrick’s. That individual was Tye W. Burt - the former Chairman of Deutsche Bank Canada and Deutsche Bank Alex Brown Securities Canada, and Managing Director and Head of Deutsche Bank’s Global Metals and Mining Group. Again, an executive of Khashoggi’s financial partner (Deutsche Bank Canada) is brought into a control position.
Additionally, one will discover that the Advisory Board of Barrick has brought in a large number of board members that create “credibility” for Barrick: Former President George Bush (Sr.) served as Honorary Senior Advisor, Senator Howard H. Baker, a former Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate and White House Chief of Staff; and Senator William Cohen, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense have also served. President Bush's ambassador to Canada (1989-92), Edward N. Ney, had been for many years a Bush political operative and an international coordinator of Bush's ``privatized'' intelligence activities. In 1992, Ney quit as ambassador and became a director of the Barrick Gold Corp. Additionally, one more recently finds Andrew Young and Vernon Jordan, Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada, and Paul G Desmarais Sr, probably the wealthiest individual in Canada.
Of special interest is Mr. Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada. Mr. Mulroney appears to be more than a passive participant who garners respectability for Barrick. Besides being on the advisory board of Barrick, he has been a Director of TrizecHahn Corporation since 1996. In 1992, prior to President’s Bush executive change to the procedures which allowed Barrick to contractually lock-up the gold reserves, Mr. Mulroney met with President Bush on three occasions. Mr. Mulroney, at this time was working closely with Karlheinz Schreiber, an infamous German-Canadian arms dealer
"… shortly after stepping down as prime minister in 1993, Brian Mulroney accepted $300,000 over 18 months from Karlheinz Schreiber, an infamous German-Canadian arms dealer. In cash. To help promote a fresh pasta business and develop international contacts, said a spokesman for Mr. Mulroney. " [Canada’s Mulroney Baloney, Stevie Cameron, Globe & Mail, 11/22/2003]
These payments were later used to by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to accuse Mr. Mulroney of accepting kickbacks to facilitate a $1.5 billion deal with Franz Josef Strauss, then head of the Bavarian government and chairman of Airbus Industrie. Mr. Mulroney sued for defamation, and won.
"In 1995, with the RCMP digging into the circumstances surrounding the deal, a government lawyer wrote to the Swiss authorities asking them for help. The letter alleged that Mr Schreiber had used a Zurich bank account to pay the former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, a C$5m (£2.1m) kickback. Mr Mulroney sued and two years later won an apology and a settlement of C$2m. The government also apologised to Mr Schreiber, but did not offer him any compensation." [Schreiber: The man who would topple kings, The Guardian, John Hooper, 1/14/200]
The key piece of information in this story is that Mr. Mulroney had a business relationship with Karlheinz Schreiber. The question then becomes, what type of businessman is Mr. Schreiber?
"Although Germany has been trying to extradite him from Canada since August, 1999, on fraud charges involving three government contracts in Canada and one in Saudi Arabia, it was Mr. Schreiber's 1991 secret political contribution of one million Deutsche marks (DM) to Germany's Christian Democrats that brought him international infamy. Delivered in a suitcase to the party's treasurer, and as usual in cash, the undeclared donation brought down Helmut Kohl, the former chancellor of Germany, in the worst political crisis in that country since the war. Known as the Spendenaffare or slush-fund scandal, it spawned two parliamentary inquiries. Investigations showed it was Mr. Schreiber who organized the payment of secret commissions on a DM 446-million deal to sell Thyssen tanks to the Saudis in the 1991 gulf war. Half the money went for secret commissions to pay bribes and kickbacks. None of this money was his own; it was provided by German munitions companies. Mr. Schreiber's job was to spread it where needed and by his own admission, his main beneficiaries were politicians. He took a percentage as his fee." [Schreiber: The man who would topple kings, The Guardian, John Hooper, 1/14/200]
Once again, a key participant in the Barrick organization is linked to individuals who have been linked to money laundering and weapons deals.
This is a very credible group of individuals, all working to support the image of respectability for a company started by individuals repeatedly associated with investor fraud and financial misrepresentation. It is probably also of coincidence that in the months prior to acquisition of American mineral rights by Barrick, Brian Mulroney met with President Bush on three occasions. This contact may or may not have been necessary, because court documents from the Iran/Contra trials have shown that Khashoggi on at least two occasions had direct phone contact with George Bush Sr. The two were not strangers.
Step 5: Create a ‘flood’ of small transactions to cover larger gold movements.
In the second suit which accused the bullion banks of illegal price fixing, initiated by Blanchard in 2003, Blanchard alleged that:
"…Barrick used private derivative contracts and engaged in off-balance sheet accounting to conceal the addition of billions of dollars worth of gold…..Barrick's actions made it "virtually impossible for gold analysts and investors to determine the size and the market impact of its trading positions”….J.P. Morgan financed Barrick's alleged short selling with remakably advantageous terms not available to others. None of the lawsuit's allegations have been proven in court." [Barrick Gold, J.P. Morgan Chase accused of manipulating gold market, CBC News Online, 12/18/2002]
Analysts were essentially saying that billions of dollars of gold had been added to the market in a series on transactions that were virtually impossible to analyze. In one year alone, according to the annual report, Barrick placed over 6.8 million options – a haystack of transactions.
Step 6: Scale up the gold laundering volume based on market limitations.
In 1988, when Barrick started, it reported sales of 341 thousand ounces (10 tonnes) of gold. By 2001 its annual sales of gold equaled 6.3 million ounces (194 tonnes). Its short positions for 2000 and 2001 totaled 14.3 million ounces, which is significantly more than the annual gold sales of all the central banks in the 1990’s. Global investment demand for 2000 and 2001 combined was 6.7 million ounces. (J Taylor’s Gold and Technology Stocks, Donald W Doyle, Vol. 22, No 15, 12/15/2003). Clearly, with a large assist from Bush, this fledgling gold company became the major gold mover in the world.
All of these suspicions may be unfounded, but the circumstantial evidence certainly warrants thoughtful consideration and investigation:
§ There are thousands of tonnes of illegal, stolen gold in bullion banks throughout the world, which need to be laundered.
§ Commodity experts that watch the gold market have made claims that significant, inexplicable amounts of gold are showing up in the market.
§ There has been no known formal investigation into the possible laundering of this gold other than the FBI investigation buried in the World Trade Center.
§ A significant group of powerful individuals, with demonstrated links to the movement of illegal gold, have been directly involved in the creation of a gold producing company, which is now in a court battle over the legality of some of its trades.
§ A significant group of powerful individuals with reputed connections to money laundering activity are associated with the management and ownership of this gold producing company.
§ The success of this company in gold hedging defies expert industry expert comprehension. The company has been extremely successful mining land that industry experts thought was “doubtful” in its potential.
§ Some of the same people that started, controlled and owned significant portions of this gold company started, controlled and owned a company that staged and ‘trained’ eleven of the 911 hijackers, who were involved in the destruction of the World Trade Center. This ‘terrorist’ event effectively ended the investigation in global gold movements.
Someone wanted to make sure that the buildings of the World Trade Center came down, and that no one was able to remove information from the 23rd and 24th floor before it happened. A key investigation was halted first by the destruction of evidence, and then by the removal of investigative resources. Continuing that investigation would have brought to light a host of crimes against the citizens of the world. While many organizations
