B.C.C.I., Osama bin Laden, George Bush, Adnan Khashoggi
B.C.C.I., Osama bin Laden, George Bush, Adnan Khashoggi
This is research on 9/11, Bush, Osama binLaden, without much analysis..
This is the type of research I did on 9/11. There were reports that the CIA was involved with Osama bin Laden, which of course he was. That was the “counter-narrative,” which was very true, but very deceptive. Al-Qaeda didn’t hijack the planes. They were on autopilot and flown to an Air Force Base. They didn’t hit the buildings.
I keep this in mind when I read the “What Really Happened at Wuhan” books.
This started off as a timeline on B.C.C.I and grew into Osama bin Laden when I discovered his involvement, then to George Bush and Adnan Khashoggi. There’s a lot of information in here. More than I can summarize quickly. Most of it is raw OSINT. Maybe I’ll be able to connecting more dots for you soon. It will be most useful at this point to the reader who has already done some research in these areas. I’m going to leave it as a free article for awhile, then make it paid.
Just a few people mentioned, in alphabetical order: Agha Hasan Abedi, Robert Altman, James Bath, Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, George Bush, Jeb Bush, William Casey, Jimmy Carter, CIA, Clark Clifford, Rodriguez Gacha, Bob Graham, Cyrus Hashemi, Saddam Hussein, Adnan Khashoggi, Bert Lance, Ferdinand Marcos, Charles Mathis, Medellin Cartel, Zayed Sultan Hahyan, Abu Nidal, Oliver North, Daniel Ortega, Andrew Young.
TIMELINE BEGINS
1972. When banking was nationalised in Pakistan in 1972, Mr. (Agha Hasan) Abedi founded the BCCI with the Bank of America NT & SA as a major shareholder. Registered in Luxembourg, the BCCI began its operations from a two-room head office in London. Wikipedia
1974. James R Bath receives a call from Salem bin Laden to buy a F-27 turboprop. Bath made friends with George Bush in Texas Air National Guard. On behalf of Salem bin Laden, Bath purchased the Houston Gulf Airport. Bath became sole director Skyway Aircraft Leasing in Cayman Islands. Bath brokered $150 million in aircraft sales to BCCI. This firm was set up by the same firm that set up a corporation for Oliver North in Iran-Contra. SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud
November 3, 1975. President Gerald Ford fired CIA Director William Colby and others on November 3, 1975. Colby was cooperating too much in the ongoing investigations of Congress into MK Ultra and CIA assassination programs. These firings came to be known as "Halloween Massacre." President Ford chooses George Bush to be CIA Director. Smithsonian Magazine
The background here is the MK Ultra and Assassination hearings were getting close to exposing the CIA’s child sex trafficking service to Congress. Richard Nixon, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Gerald Ford were all provided MK Ultra victims. They conducted a scam to create “Executive Privilege” (Watergate).
January 12, 1976. Robert Hanssen enters FBI service as a Special Agent. FBI. Hanssen was an accountant who had worked in the Financial Section of the Inspection Services Division of the Chicago Police Department. The FBI later described his duties as "White Collar Crime squad" and "accounting matters in the Field Office's criminal division." Later he would sell PROMIS software to Osama bin Laden.
January 30, 1976. George Bush becomes CIA Director.
July 4, 1976. On the American Bicentennial, Jonathan Netanyahu, the brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, is killed in an Israeli raid of an airplane held by hijackers at an Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Soon after the Jonathan Institute is founded in his name to fight terrorism. I don’t put it past Benjamin Netanyahu to martyr his own brother. In fact I think it’s likely. Wikipedia
July 8, 1976. Salem bin Laden gives James Bath power of attorney. Bath was a close friend and business associate of George Bush. Democratic Underground
September 1976. "The Jonathan Institute was founded in Israel in September 1976, focused on 'terrorism'". Wikispooks
September 1, 1976. The Safari Club was created by France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran, according to the 22-year Director of Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency, Turki bin Faisal Al Saud. (1). The Safari Club began making deposits into BCCI through CIA Director George Bush. They said it was to fight Communism. Adam Fitzgerald. The Safari Club took it's name from Adnan Khashoggi's "Safari Club" on Mount Kenya. After the initial meeting in Kenya they met in Cairo, Egypt. Africa News. Khashoggi would go on to become the largest international arms broker in the world.
1977. "1977: Hillary Rodham Clinton joins the Rose Law Firm. Jackson Stephens joins with former Carter administration budget director Bert Lance and a group of Mideast investors--later identified as key figures in the corrupt Bank of Credit & Commerce International--in an unsuccessful attempt to acquire Financial General Bank shares in Washington, D.C. Amid the legal maneuvers surrounding the takeover attempt, a brief is submitted by the Stephens-controlled bank data processing firm Systematics; two of the lawyers signing the brief are Hillary Rodham and Webster Hubbell." National Interest
October 1977. "In October, just weeks after his resignation, Lance met with Pakistani BCCI founder Agha Hasan Abedi, the Pakistani founder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, or BCCI. At the time, BCCI was said to be the fastest-growing bank in the world. It's assets had grown from $200 million in 1972 to more than $2 billion in 1977. As a bank friendly to Muslim concerns, BCCI was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the petrodollars flowing into the Middle East in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo." SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud (page 30).
December 20, 1977. "Negotiations to sell the National Bank of Georgia to Pharaon and BCCI began over Thanksgiving weekend in 1977, through discussions among Lance, Abedi, and other BCCI officials. On December 20, 1977, Lance announced he was selling his NBG stock to Pharaon for $2.4 million at #20 a share - twice what it had been worth only a few weeks earlier. ... Why had Saudis paid top dollar for a failing bank that was a target of federal regulators? The Senate investigation concluded that "gaining access to President Carter and the White House was ... one of the reasons the "Arabs" were interested in having Lance represent them and in buying his interest in the National Bank of Georgia." SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud (page 30).
1978. "Despite his protestations to the contrary ('I am not a member of the CIA or any other intelligence agency.'), a persistent rumor is that Bath was recruited by the CIA, sometime after he started working as the front man for Saudi investor Salem bin Laden in 1978. (Salem was Osama's older brother who died in 1988.) Evidently, Salem made large investments in the United States using Bath as his proxy. Ultimately, Bath was drawn into the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) scandal." NNBD
February 17, 1978. Bert Lance and Jackson Stephens joined together to help BCCI in a hostile takeover of Financial General Bankshares. Financial General filed a lawsuit on February 17 and named "Bert Lance, Bank of Credit & Commerce International, Agha Hasan Abedi, Eugene J. Metzger, Jackson Stephens, Stephens Inc., Systematics Inc. and John Does numbers 1 through 25." Francis Saul II, chairman of Financial General Bankshares, was represented by William Barr. Systematics was represented by C.J. Giroir, Webster Hubbell, and Hillary Rodham Clinton of the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock. Conservapedia
March 18, 1978. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Bert Lance with violations of federal securities' law, and BCCI's application to purchase Financial General Bankshares was denied. Abedi then formed a new takeover vehicle, Credit and Commerce American Holdings (CCAH), based in the Netherlands Antilles.
July 2, 1979. The Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (JCIT) was convened in Jerusalem, Israel. Wikispooks "George Bush and the late Sen. Henry Jackson spoke at the institute's first conference.." SOURCE. Good writeup below. 911 Blogger
July 3, 1979. On the advice of National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter signed a directive to arm Mujahideen who were fighting to overthrow a pro-soviet regime in Afghanistan. SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud (page 97).
ttps://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v12/d76
October 23, 1979. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chairman of a National Security Council Special Coordination Committee Meeting, presses for funding for the Mujahideen to impress Saudi Arabia. Funds are to be in the form of cash provided through Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. "Communications Equipment" are also provided. History.State.gov
February 24, 1979. U.S.S.R. invades Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden said he was there within days, before the end of 1979. SOURCE: Losing bin Laden.
Early 1980s. "BCCI had played a key role in American operations in Iraq since the early eighties, when CIA director William Casey met every few months at the Madison Hotel in Washington D.C., with Hasan Abedi, the bank's founder. Though Abedi was Pakastani, increasingly BCCI had become a Saudi operation with major investors such as Kamal Adham and Ghait Pharaon." SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud (Pages 77-78).
1980. "The CIA looked the other way while Afghanistan’s opium production grew from about 100 tonnes annually in the 1970s to 2,000 tonnes by 1991. In 1979 and 1980, just as the CIA effort was beginning to ramp up, a network of heroin laboratories opened along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. That region soon became the world’s largest heroin producer. By 1984, it supplied a staggering 60% of the US market and 80% of the European. Inside Pakistan, the number of heroin addicts surged from near zero (yes, zero) in 1979 to 5,000 in 1980, and 1.3 million by 1985 – a rate of addiction so high the UN termed it “particularly shocking”. Guardian
1980. "In 1980, the late Saudi businessman and arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi took delivery of the 86 meter (282 ft) Nabila. Built by Benetti in Italy, she became the 8th largest yacht in the world and appeared in the 1983 James Bond movie, Never Say Never Again." Yacht Harbour
February 3, 1980. Zbigniew Brzezinski visits the Mujahideen at the Khyber Pass in Pakistan to discuss an aid package. Some people claim this is Osama bin Laden. Global Politics. Here is the Washington Post's take: "President Carter's national security adviser peered resolutely with gun in hand at Soviet controlled Afghanistan from the top of a Pakistani military outpost high above the strategic Khyber Pass. It looked like a scene from a late-night Grade B television movie called "Zbig at the Khyber Pass" as Zbigneiw Brzezinski, high White House aide, hesitated for a second and then declined an offer to fire the Chinese-made light machine gun toward Afghanistan. Instead he invited the Pakistani soldier at the gunpoint to shoot the weapon. ... Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher added, "the American people admire your fight for freedom and believe in the long run you will persevere." As if rehearsed, the refugees replied in chorus, 'Inshallah,' God willing."
July 28, 1980. William Casey travels to Madrid, Spain, to meet with representatives of Iran, who are holding Americans hostage. William Casey says that "if Iran could assure that American hostages were well treated until their release and were released as a "gift" to the new administration, "the Republicans would be most grateful and 'would give Iran its strength back.'" The meeting is arranged by Cyrus and Jashmid Hashemi. Global Research. Gutenberg "The late Cyrus Hashemi, an Iranian expatriate living in London, is a key figure in the 'October Surprise' allegations charging that William Casey and other members of President Reagan's election team in 1980 engaged in negotiations with Iran, whereby Iran would delay the return of U.S. hostages held in Iran until after the November, 1980 election, in return for the U.S. providing Iran with needed arms for its war against Iraq. ... Cyrus Hashemi was to have acted as the middle-man in these secret negotiations between Casey (William Casey, Ronald Reagan's campaign manager and future CIA Director) and Iran. ... His records have been withheld from disclosure to the Subcommittee (investigating B.C.C.I.) by a British judge. Their release might aid in reaching judgments concerning Hashemi's activities in 1980, with the CIA under President Carter and allegedly with William Casey." The BCCI Affair
1981. When the Federal Reserve approved the take over of Financial General Bankshares by CCAH in 1981, it had substantial circumstantial evidence before it to suggest that BCCI was behind the bank's purchase. The Federal Reserve chose not to act on that evidence because of the specific representations that were made to it by CCAH's shareholders and lawyers, that BCCI was neither financing nor directing the take over. …. In approving the CCAH application, the Federal Reserve relied upon representations from the Central Intelligence Agency, State Department, and other U.S. agencies that they had no objections to or concerns about the Middle Eastern shareholders who were purporting to purchase shares in the bank … In approving the CCAH application, the Federal Reserve permitted BCCI and its attorneys to carve out a seeming loophole in the commitment that BCCI not be involved in financing or controlling CCAH's activities. This loophole permitted BCCI to act as an investment advisor and information conduit to CCAH's shareholders. The Federal Reserve's decision to accept this arrangement allowed BCCI and its attorneys and agents to use these permitted activities as a cover for the true nature of BCCI's ownership of CCAH and the First American Banks. The BCCI Affair
January 5, 1981. Ronald Reagan takes office. Iran releases their hostages after 444 days. UPI
Word of the long-sought release came at 11:36 a.m., less than a half-hour before Ronald Reagan succeeded Carter as president.
Freedom came at the end of a day of non-stop negotiations in four capitals involving bankers and government officials in the largest financial transaction in history.
The U.S. Treasury said $8 billion was transferred to an Algerian account in London to be turned over to Iran.
Washington immediately ordered U.S. banks to begin moving frozen Iranian assets into the Federal Reserve. The Iranian government then announced that "a large portion of the Iranian assets consisting of cash, gold and promissory notes has been received by the Algerian Central Bank to be dispatched to Iran in due course."
Powell said the main escrow agreement, signed by the United States and Iran yesterday morning, must be now signed by representatives of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of Algeria, and the Bank of England -- all of whom are in Algiers.
March, 1981. Rafi Eitan and Ari Ben-Manashe moved to New York to facilitate arm sales from U.S. to Iran. As their arms sales increased, they had to start a front company for the accounts. They chose to name their company ORA, which means light in Hebrew. SOURCE: Gideon’s Spies, pages 169-170.
September 1981. U.S. enters into a military partnership with Israel. Israel becomes "a depository for pre-positioned arms and ammunition for American armed forces." SOURCE- Samson Option, 287
10.21.81. "Congress narrowly approves sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia. Implicit in the deal is that Saudi fund anti-communist forces in Afghanistan, Angola, and elsewhere." SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud (pages 60-61).
1982. "…in 1982, Osama settled in Peshawar, the command headquarters of the jihad near the Khyber Pass, known as the Dodge City of the Afghan rebels, bringing with him engineers and heavy construction equipment from the Saudi Binladin Company to build roads and depots for the mujahideen. 'In those years, there was no Al Qaeda,' says Prince Turki. 'Bin Laden gave money, equipment, and construction material from his family’s company.'” SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud (page 103).
1982-1992. The BCCI Affair
"A baseline for assessing the BCCI-CIA story is the CIA's official record of its use of BCCI and its targeting of the bank, as set forth in several hundred CIA records created from 1982 through 1992. ... Unfortunately, that record also contains ostensible gaps in knowledge on the part of the CIA about the activities of key contacts in the Middle East for U.S. intelligence -- including BCCI shareholders Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil, and BCCI customer and Iran/Contra arms merchant Adnan Khashoggi -- which strain belief. Outside the documentary record provided to the Subcommittee by the CIA, there is additional material, consisting of BCCI documents, testimony from BCCI officials and insiders, and extrinsic, circumstantial and historic information describing other substantial contacts between BCCI and the intelligence community. These include contacts between BCCI and:
** former U.S. intelligence officials, including a former head of the CIA;
** former and current foreign intelligence officials; and
** individuals engaged in covert operations on behalf of the United States government, including in the Iran/Contra affair. In addition, the Subcommittee has received allegations of meetings between former CIA director William Casey and BCCI's head, Agha Hasan Abedi."
June 6, 1982. On June 6, 1982, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation "Peace for Galilee" and invaded Lebanon in order to create a 40 km buffer zone between the PLO and Syrian forces in Lebanon and Israel. Wikipedia
August 1982. The formal opening of BCCI branch in Miami, FL is attended by Jeb Bush, Gov Graham, and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young. The BCCI Affair
August 23, 1982. Bachir Gemayel elected President of Lebanon.
September 4, 1982. "The Israeli radio reported today that Prime Minister Menachem Begin met secretly last Wednesday with President elect Bashir Gemayel of Lebanon. … According to the radio report, Mr. Begin criticized Mr. Gemayel for publicly denying his friendship with Israel. A leader of the right-wing Christian Phalangists, Mr. Gemayel's militias have reportedly received military aid from Israel for years, and the Begin Government hopes that after his installation as President later this month he will sign a peace treaty with Israel." NY Times
September 9, 1982. "Israel has given Mr. Gemayel an ultimatum of signing a peace treaty or accepting a 'special status' for a 40-kilometer security zone along Israel's northern border, which would effectively preclude the reunification of Lebanon. … Both Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon have indicated their disappointment at Mr. Gemayel's obvious desire to distance himself from Israel at this time." CS Monitor
September 14, 1982. Bachir Gemayel, President of Lebanon is assassinated. NY Times
September 16, 1982. "The Sabra and Shatila massacre (also known as the Sabra and Chatila massacre)[4][5] was the killing of between 460 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by a militia close to the Kataeb Party (also called Phalange), a predominantly Christian Lebanese right-wing party, in the Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. From approximately 18:00 on 16 September to 08:00 on 18 September 1982, a widespread massacre was carried out by the militia in plain sight of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), its ally.[6][7][8][9] Wikipedia
September 21, 1982. Reagan announces he is sending troops to Lebanon. "My fellow Americans: The scenes that the whole world witnessed this past weekend were among the most heart-rending in the long nightmare of Lebanon's agony. Millions of us have seen pictures of the Palestinian victims of this tragedy. There's little that words can add, but there are actions we can and must take to bring that nightmare to an end. It's not enough for us to view this as some remote event in which we ourselves are not involved. For our friends in Lebanon and Israel, for our friends in Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East and for us as Americans, this tragedy, horrible as it is, reminds us of the absolute imperative of bringing peace to that troubled country and region. … Lebanon elected a new President two short weeks ago only to see him murdered even before he could assume his office. This week, a distressed Lebanon will again be electing a new President. May God grant him safety as well as the wisdom and courage to lead his country into a new and happier era. With this goal in mind, I have consulted with our French and Italian allies. We have agreed to form a new multinational force similar to the one which served so well last month, with the mission of enabling the Lebanese Government to resume full sovereignty over its capital - the essential precondition for extending its control over the entire country. … The Lebanese Government, with the support of its people, requested this help. For this multinational force to succeed, it is essential that Israel withdraw from Beirut." NY Times
1983. CIA launders large amounts of money through Vatican Bank. Some of the money is used to fund the "Solidarity" movement in Poland. Richard Brenneke is in charge of U.S. financial arrangements. SOURCE- Gideon's Spies, page 414. (2). The U.S. bought weapons from the Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, and took them to Central America, where the guns were exchanged for drugs. SOURCE- Irangate, the Secret Government, and the LaRouche Case. (3).
Spring 1983. Adnan Khashoggi joins the board of American University. Eagle Online.
Khashoggi served on AU's board of trustees from spring 1983 to the spring of 1989. Khashoggi's donation of $5 million to the university went towards the construction of a new convocation and sports arena, to be the named the Adnan Khashoggi Sports and Convocation Center, as stated in an article from 1985 in The Washington Post.
The complex would also bear the names of other benefactors, namely in the Bender Sports Arena and the John M. Reeves Aquatic Center. However, after criminal charges surfaced, the issue of keeping the building's namesake was under debate. Khashoggi was eventually acquitted of all charges, but in 1986 he admitted, on national television, to advancing $5 million toward the shipment of arms in the Iran-Contra scandal, The Eagle previously reported.
By this time, Khashoggi was already a well-known arms dealer in the Middle East, having taken payments from defense companies since the 1970s which totaled more than $100 million dollars. The Eagle and the Post published editorials advocating for the removal of Khashoggi's name from the center.
Washington Post: “An editor of the school newspaper calls it "blood money." A faculty member lambastes it as "appalling." The president of the school defends it as a generous gift from a worthy benefactor.” AP: “Echoing the sentiments of some of the school’s 12,500 students, Kat Hurst, 21, a senior from Bethesda, Md., said, ″I just happen to feel that the university should not be accepting money from an arms dealer″
March 17, 1983. "George Bush had a secret meeting with Donald P. Gregg and Felix Rodriguez in the White House. As a result the National Security Council established a secret scheme to provide aid to the Contras in Nicaragua." Spartacus Educational
April 18, 1983. U.S. Embassy bombed in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people. 17 were Americans. Wikipedia. “The victims were mostly embassy and CIA staff members, but also included several US soldiers and one US Marine Security Guard.”
October 10, 1983. During Shamir's first term as prime minister from October 10, 1983 until September 13, 1984, Israeli military intelligence began arming and training "Arab jihadis" in Pakistan including Osama bin Laden. The Hezb-e-Islami fighters led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were provided with arms paid for by the CIA and Saudi Arabia and delivered by Israelis from the weapons taken from the battlefields of Lebanon. Bollyn
October 22, 1983. Marine barracks were bombed twice in Lebanon. Attacks killed 220 Marines and 307 total, including 58 French who were part of multinational peacekeeping force. UPI: "Earlier this month, the Marines started taking fire from surrounding Shiite neighborhoods, and Geraghty said he had 'clear indication that there were new elements in town that were specifically targeting Marines.' Finally, the Americans had received 'a lot' of warnings about car bomb attacks, Geraghty said, and four Marines were injured by a booby-trapped car only four days before the attack on their headquarters. Despite the embassy bombing, the Marine headquarters at Beirut airport was not protected against a similar kamikaze attack. There were no ditches, tank traps or other heavy objects that would have stopped a big truck coming through at speed. When the disaster occurred, a sentry at the perimeter fence had no ammunition in his rifle."
Rescuers continue to probe the wreckage of the U.S. Marine command, Monday, Oct. 24, 1983 in Beirut building that was destroyed on Sunday by a terrorist bomb. In the background can be seen the control tower of the Beirut airport. (AP Photo/Zouki)
January 1984. "As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow’s invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war." NBC
Summer 1984. American University announces the "Adnan Khashoggi Center" for sports. American.edu
Summer 1984 - July 1985. Adnan Khashoggi proposes an arms-for-hostages trade agreement between the United States and Iran with Israel as an intermediary. Senate Intelligence
September 21, 1984. US Embassy bombing in Beirut, Lebanon kills 24. "Embassy operations were moved here in July because American officials felt that this Christian suburb of East Beirut was safer from terrorist attack than West Beirut. On Thursday the six-story building was devastated by a suicide car bomber." NY Times
LEBANON - SEPTEMBER 21: Attack On U.S - Embassy In Beirut On September 21st, 1984 In Beyrouth,Liban (Photo by Frederic REGLAIN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
July 1985. Adnan Khashoggi writes to National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane lobbying for arms sales to Iran via Israel (essentially the "arms for hostages" deal). Senate Intelligence
August 8, 1985. Adnan Khashoggi signs a "Declaration of Trust" with a representative of Imelda Marcos. The Marcos are looting the Philippines. Khashoggi is providing money laundering services into real estate in the United States, with the assistance of major US banks. Village Voice
October 4, 1985. Osama bin Laden acquired PROMIS software from the KGB (reportedly) at an unknown date. I chose the date October 4, 1985, because there is dated correspondence of espionage between Robert Hanssen and the KGB. "On Oct. 4, 1985, the Justice Department charges, Hanssen sent a fateful letter, addressed to a KGB officer in Washington. Inside was a second missive marked "Do not open. Take this envelope unopened to Viktor I. Cherkashin." Hanssen knew well who Cherkashin was: Moscow's chief counterspy at the Soviet embassy, a KGB colonel adept at handling double agents. (Cherkashin was already masterminding the activities of CIA mole Aldrich Ames, who was not uncovered until 1994.) Inside that second envelope was an anonymous offer to send a trove of classified papers to the KGB in exchange for $100,000, and a proposal to keep on selling similar secrets. "They are from certain of the most sensitive and highly compartmented projects of the U.S. intelligence community, " Time. Robert Hanssen provided PROMIS software to the KGB, who in turn provided it to Osama bin Laden. On June 15, 2001, Jerry Seper of the Washington Times reported that Osama bin Laden had received PROMIS. Original 2001 article of Jerry Seper is not available - here is one summary of an article Seper wrote in early 2003: "Bin Laden reportedly bought the U.S. intelligence community's version of the Promis database software on the Russian black market, after former FBI Agent Robert P. Hanssen had stolen it for the Russians, and used Promis in computer-based espionage against the United States," Mr. Hamilton said in a two-page fact sheet. The software not only would have given bin Laden the ability to monitor U.S. efforts to track him down, the authorities said, but also could have given him access to databases on specific targets of his choosing and the ability to monitor electronic-banking transactions, easing money-laundering operations for himself or others." The significance of the PROMIS software cannot be overstated. It was spyware that was installed in the world's financial computers. It tracked movements in the financial markets. The spyware, infused with Artificial Intelligence algorithms, patterned market responses to shocks in financial markets due to terrorism. The Transnational Organized Crime Network knew how to invest their money in the ultimate insider trading schemes- terrorism-based insider trading. The embassy and marine barracks bombings would have provided a pattern before 9/11. All the world's intelligence major intelligence agencies seem to have had some knowledge and profited in some way from this scheme. Note: The dates of transfer of PROMIS should be known the the FBI who had an investigation on the PROMIS leak. This information would provide a better insight into the terrorism-based insider trading network, should the FBI ever decide to honor their Oath.
1986. List Verse. BCCI underwrites bailout of Arbusto oil company, George Bush’s oil company. They never hit any oil offshore. It probably had something to do with using the rig location to ferry drugs into the United States from Central America.
"When Harken Energy took over the collapsed Arbusto oil company in 1986, it was underwritten for $25 million by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, better known as BCCI. Coincidentally or not, BCCI also had many of the same rich Middle Eastern businessmen involved in its operations as Arbusto had."
January 1986. "In early January, 1986, Prime Minister Peres sent Amiram Nir, Terrorism Advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister, as an emissary to meet the President about the Iran initiative. According to evidence received by the Committee, Nir urged the President and Poindexter to reconsider the transfer of arms to Iran for the release of hostages. The Committee received copies of various draft findings prepared during early January. One finding, dated January 6, was signed by the President apparently after review and discussion with the Vice President, Regan and Poindexter." Senate Intelligence
February 26, 1986. Ferdinand Marcos, Dictator/President of Philippines, abdicated and fled into exile on a U.S. Air Force jet." Chicago Tribune
Corazon Aquino, widow of a martyr and now the hero of her nation, Wednesday began the daunting task of trying to fulfill the hopes of millions of courageous people who brought her to power in a remarkably nonviolent revolution.
Early 1986. "...Khashoggi came to Paris to meet with Chinoy in early 1986 to discuss continuing transactions he had until then been conducting through BCCI's Monte Carlo branch. According to Chinoy, the meeting was set up when Chinoy wished to learn more about the reasons for the sudden increase in assets and activity of the Monte Carlo branch of BCCI, which was under his jurisdiction as chief manager for the French region of the bank. He learned from Manir Karim, the branch manager for Monte Carlo that most of the new assets and activity were the result of a very successful relationship that had been developed with Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Khashoggi had two to three "very active" deposit accounts at Monte Carlo, according to Chinoy, and kept very large balances there, paying "his crew" through travellers checks at the rate of $100,000 to $150,000 each month. Chinoy decided to learn more, and met with Khashoggi and Karim in BCCI's office in Paris: I met Khashoggi in a small room at the bank. He told me he had a deal, he was to be a supplier, buy American arms through Israel and supply them to the Iranians. What he wanted was a four day credit." Khashoggi told Chinoy he was working directly for the U.S. government and the CIA, and needed BCCI because none of the parties involved in the Iran/Contra affair trusted one another: The Israelis wanted their money for the arms whereas the Iranians would only pay when the arms physically would reach them. The Americans wanted their money as soon as they gave their arms to the Israelis and Khashoggi did not have the money himself at the time. Khashoggi wanted a revolving $5 million credit, and the charges he was prepared to pay were generous -- 2% front end fees per transaction. For $2 million you would get $40,000 per transaction. Then you would get interest at 1 1/2 % over LIBOR for the actual number of days the overdraft loan or line of credit was operating." The BCCI Affair
Spring 1986. "… in the spring and summer of 1986, Khalid bin Mahfouz, the Saudi banker who had gone to Texas in the seventies, spent nearly $1 Billion to become BCCI’s biggest shareholder." SOURCE: House of Bush/House of Saud (Page 78).
April 8, 1986. LA Times
In an apparent contradiction of Israeli claims that Israel played only a minor role in the shipment of U.S. arms to Iran this year, sources confirmed Friday that a top aide to Prime Minister Shimon Peres tried to help two arms merchants obtain $15 million to finance a U.S.-to-Iran weapons deal this spring. The aide, Amiram Nir, accompanied Saudi Arabian arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and Iranian businessman Manucher Ghorbanifar to a meeting in London the night of April 8 with Roland W. (Tiny) Rowland, chief executive of Lonrho, a British trading and mining conglomerate, sources said. The meeting continued into the early morning.
April 22, 1986. Cyrus Hashemi informs on international arms dealers. Larouche
June 2, 1986. "Seymour Hersh published a front-page story in the New York Times exposing General Manuel Noriega’s twenty-year association with the Columbia drug cartels. The expose appeared just as Noriega was in Washington to receive a medal of honor for the Inter-American Defense Board. The article alleged that Noriega was involved in money laundering, arms dealing and political assassinations…. After the unflattering attention sparked by Hersh’s article, Noriega called Oliver North seeking counsel in cleaning up his image." SOURCE: Whiteout, page 286.
July 16, 1986. "MI5 has a fat file on another of the middlemen (Tiny) Rowland used. His name was Cyrus Hashemi. Ostensibly an Arab millionaire playboy would would spend $150,000 on the turn of a card at a Mayfair casino and give doormen Rolex watches for parking his Ferrari, Hashemi allowed his BCCI bank accounts to be used to send Saddam’s money on down the money trail. The MI5 intelligence file on Hashemi also says that he was trying to broker a better deal for his services. On July 16, 1986, he suddenly collapsed at his Belgravia home and was rushed to a private clinic owned by BCCI. Two days later he was dead. SOURCE: Gideon's Spies (page 402). "At the time of his death last summer, Cyrus Hashemi, 42, was the key government witness in the prosecution of an alleged $2-billion arms smuggling conspiracy that involved 17 individuals and companies, including a retired Israeli general, accused of planning to ship missiles and spare parts to Iran. ... “We’ve asked the Customs Service to review all the facts to see if there was foul play,” Rudolph W. Giuliani, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in an interview. ... At the time of his death last summer, Cyrus Hashemi, 42, was the key government witness in the prosecution of an alleged $2-billion arms smuggling conspiracy that involved 17 individuals and companies, including a retired Israeli general, accused of planning to ship missiles and spare parts to Iran. ... Hashemi also was under indictment for allegedly shipping arms to Iran during the 1980 American hostage crisis. ... In recent months, speculation that Hashemi’s death may somehow have been connected to actions by international intelligence agents has been raised by members of his family, by some European news accounts and by defendants in the arms conspiracy case still pending trial in New York. LA Times
July 21, 1986. "At the time of his death last summer, Cyrus Hashemi, 42, was the key government witness in the prosecution of an alleged $2-billion arms smuggling conspiracy that involved 17 individuals and companies, including a retired Israeli general, accused of planning to ship missiles and spare parts to Iran. ... 'We’ve asked the Customs Service to review all the facts to see if there was foul play,” Rudolph W. Giuliani, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in an interview." LA Times
July 29, 1986. "On the same day, Vice President Bush was given a briefing in Jerusalem by Mr. Nir. The Vice President attended the meeting at the suggestion of LTC North. According to a memorandum dated a week later by an official who was present at the briefing, Nir indicated he was briefing the Vice President at the request of Prime Minister Peres. He conceded the problems encountered in the program, but argued that the Iranians with whom they were dealing were ones who could 'deliver.' He also discussed the problem of the sequence of release of additional hostages. According to the memo, the Vice President made no commitments and gave no direction to Nir." Senate Intelligence
September 1986. Adnan Khashoggi presses the United States government to complete an arms sale to Iran or refund money. Senate Intelligence
December 1, 1986. "the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on December 1, 1986, undertook a preliminary inquiry into the sale of arms to Iran and possible diversion of funds to the Contras." Senate Intelligence
1987. The U.S. provides about $700 million and military intelligence and training to Mujahideen (Osama bin Laden). SOURCE. House of Bush/ House of Saud (page 104).
1987. Adnan Khashoggi sells his yacht "Nabila" to the Sultan of Brunei. The Sultan of Brunei sells it to Donald Trump. Yacht Harbour. That's one version. This one says Trump bought it from a "Swiss holding company." Boats.Drivema
January 15, 1987. AP WASHINGTON (AP) _ “The $5 million gift that Adnan Khashoggi pledged to The American University in 1984 is troubling some students and faculty members who disapprove of the Saudi’s involvement with arms trading and the Iran case.”
June 8, 1987. The BCCI Affair
"Khashoggi's use of BCCI for the Iranian arms sales was first described, in passing, in an Iran/Contra committee deposition on June 8, 1987, describing the movement of $10 million from Credit Swisse which would to through BCCI four times to produce $40 million of sales "and therefore, additional profit." In the same deposition, the witness, Khashoggi business manager Emanuel Floor, described Ghorbanifar as stating, "these are my associates," and writing down the name, 'BCCI.' Floor described BCCI as acting not merely as Ghorbanifar and Khashoggi's bank for the purpose of these transactions, but as an actual partner in the Iranian arms deals."
1988. "in 1988, BCCI employees alerted Bank of England officials that Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal was using an account at a BCCI branch in London." Washington Post
February 1988. The Subcommittee investigation of BCCI began in February, 1988, early in the second year of a two-year investigation of the relationship between drug trafficking to U.S. foreign policy and law enforcement. The BCCI Affair
May 4, 1988. Jamal Khashoggi pictured with Mujahideen and a Stinger missile.
October 1988. The BCCI Affair
"From the time of BCCI's indictment on drug money laundering charges in Tampa, Florida in October, 1988, there was little doubt to anyone looking at the facts that BCCI had been used to launder drug money. The Customs agents working on the 'C-Chase' case against BCCI, moved millions of dollars in U.S. currency, representing the proceeds of cocaine sales through BCCI Panama, BCCI Luxembourg, and LOANS Switzerland as a result of the knowing participation of several BCCI officials."
October 31, 1988. Rudy Giuliani received a criminal referral on illegal BCCI activities and refuses to investigate. Village Voice
Contrary to Giuliani’s 1989 claims, however, his office did receive a hand-delivered, October 31, 1988, criminal referral about BCCI signed by top Federal Reserve and New York State Banking Department officials, as well as a November 8 follow-up letter listing suspected Panamanian and Colombian drug money deposits then flowing through BCCI’s New York office.
1989. Osama bin Laden renames the Mujahideen to al Qaeda. SOURCE: Losing Bin Laden, page 9.
January 20, 1989. George Bush is inaugurated as the 41st President of the United States. Robert Maxwell visits the White House around this time. Robert Maxwell was the father of Ghislaine Maxwell and represented the Rothschild organized crime network.
April 1989. "In April 1989, a network of Israeli arms traffickers, operating out of Miami, made a shipment of 500 Israeli manufactured machine guns through the Caribbean island of Antigua for the use of members of the Medellin cartel. Later, one of these weapons was used in the assassination of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, and several other of the weapons were found in the possession of cartel kingpin Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha after his death in a gunfight with Colombian drug agents." The BCCI Affair
April 18, 1989. Adnan Khashoggi arrested. UPI
"Saudi Arabian businessman Adnan Khashoggi, once among the wealthiest men in the world, was arrested Tuesday on a warrant charging him with illegal real estate dealings in New York with former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, the Justice Ministry announced. Khashoggi, also a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, was arrested on the basis of an international warrant issued by the United States and was being held in prison pending hearings on an expected U.S. extradition request, ministry spokesman Joerg Kistler said."
May 5, 1989. Adnan Khashoggi is removed from the board of American University.
May 17, 1989. Robert Maxwell brought his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, down from New York to the Potamac River in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump, John Tower, William Webster, and others attend. I bet Khashoggi was also present. Chicago Tribune
October 30, 1989. George Bush jogs near American University's campus. Adnan Khashoggi is with him. dcist
President George H.W. Bush, right, and a Secret Service agent jog by a lone fisherman Monday October 30, 1989 on Haines Point in Washington, D.C. Bush took the short noon-time jog along the Potomac River where fishing is popular. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander)
January 1990. The January 1990 plea agreement between BCCI and the U.S. Attorney in Tampa kept BCCI alive, and had the effect of discouraging BCCI's officials from telling the U.S. what they knew about BCCI's larger criminality, including its ownership of First American and other U.S. banks. The BCCI Affair
April 1990. In April, 1990, the Bank of England reached an agreement with BCCI, Abu Dhabi, and Price Waterhouse to keep BCCI from collapsing. Under the agreement, Abu Dhabi agreed to guarantee BCCI's losses and Price Waterhouse agreed to certify BCCI's books.
April 4, 1990. Adnan Khashoggi arrives at the Manhattan Federal Court in New York.
July 2, 1990. Imelda Marcos and Adnan Khashoggi are acquitted of charges against them. AP
“Imelda Marcos, acquitted of federal charges that she helped her husband loot the Philippine treasury, celebrated at a noisy party with co-defendant Adnan Khashoggi.” “Khashoggi, whose acquittal freed him of restrictions on his movements, headed for Palm Beach, Fla. The 54-year-old financier said he would fly to France, then to his native Saudi Arabia to visit Islam’s holiest shrine at Mecca.”
July 5, 1991. BCCI seized by the Bank of England. Newsweek
The accusation was only the latest in the wake of BCCI's seizure by the Bank of England on July 5. Once a $20 billion operation in 73 countries, and the bank of choice for drug dealers and arms smugglers as well as more naive depositors, BCCI is the subject of investigations that range from reported payoffs to former governments in Peru and Guatemala to alleged financing of the terrorist activities of Abu Nidal. (The Sunday Times of London reported over the weekend that Abu Nidal earned $100 million in profits over 10 years through arms deals financed by BCCI.) Last week the Bank of England emphasized the U.S. connection, confirming BCCI's controlling interest in First American and accusing the rogue bank of using First American to finance fraud around the globe. Those revelations only intensified criticism of Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. The Justice Department had known for three years of a possible secret link between BCCI and First American but has so far issued but one subpoena. …
Critics in the conspiratorial camp didn't yet have much of a case. Their grounds for suspicion: recent suggestions by the media that the Central Intelligence Agency used BCCI as a front for covert operations coupled with speculation that the CIA ordered a cover-up. No way, says Robert Mueller, head of the Justice Department's criminal division: "Not by private lobbyists, not by the White House, not by the CIA.
Late July 1990. "Last week the widening scandal at Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) erupted into a worldwide brawl. Angry demonstrations broke out in downtown Hong Kong as depositors learned they might never again see their savings. In the West--where reputations as well as money were at stake--there was genteel name-calling. British Prime Minister John Major and Labor's Neil Kinnock attacked each other on the floor of the House of Commons. The Manhattan district attorney's office accused the Justice Department of impeding its investigation." Newsweek
7.25.91. Some of the players here. The rudd site
Early 1990s. Osama bin Laden moves into the void following the exposure of BCCI. Money.CNN:
"Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., also highlighted information that his committee made public several months ago but was overlooked generally with regard to the operation of a bank in Sudan that was established by bin Laden in the early 1990s. Levin said bin Laden allegedly provided the AlShamal Islamic Bank (www.shamalbank.com) with $50 million in start-up capital. Levin said he believes that at least until last year, bin Laden had been the leading shareholder of the bank. Levin also pointed out that in testimony given earlier this year at the embassy bombing trials, one witness testified that bin Laden's network had half a dozen accounts at the AlShamal Bank to fund their activities. One account was in bin Laden's own name. The AlShamal bank's Web site says it has correspondent relationships with major banks in financial capitals, Levin said. They include Credit Lyonnaise (based in Geneva), Commerz Bank in Germany, ING Bank in Indonesia, and Standard Bank in South Africa. Levin said each of those banks "has correspondent accounts with U.S. banks, and that's a problem. AlShamal's Web site also lists relationship with three American banks, including Citibank, American Express Bank and the Arab American Bank, recently bought by the National Bank of Egypt." (In other words, while BCCI was being busted, Osama was transferring financial operations). Book depository: "The Al-Shamal Islamic Bank of Khartoum, founded in 1983, is one of the major financial institutions of Sudan, and one of the leading Islamic banks worldwide. A declassified U.S. Department of State report dated August, 1996 and a French investigation into Al Shamal Islamic Bank separately concur that Osama bin Laden invested $50m of his inherited fortune in the bank on his arrival in Sudan in 1991, in a joint venture with senior National Islamic Front members.According to public records, among the investors in the Al Shamal Islamic Bank include a Geneva-based financial services conglomerate headed by Prince Mohammed al-Faisal al-Saud, son of the late King Saud and a cousin of the current Saudi monarch, King Fahd."
July 25, 1991. USA Today paper.
July 29, 1991. Time magazine covers BCCI. On the cover: "The World's Sleaziest Bank." "How B.C.C.I. became a one-stop shopping center for criminals and spies - and how the U.S. is trying to cover up its involvement." Time Magazine. They got that right.
August 4, 1991. "Critics in the conspiratorial camp didn't yet have much of a case. Their grounds for suspicion: recent suggestions by the media that the Central Intelligence Agency used BCCI as a front for covert operations coupled with speculation that the CIA ordered a cover-up. No way, says Robert Mueller, head of the Justice Department's criminal division: "Not by private lobbyists, not by the White House, not by the CIA. "Thornburgh also defended his record to The New York Times, saying his department 'brought the first and so far the only prosecution of BCCI'--resulting in the convictions last year of five BCCI executives in Tampa, Fla., for laundering drug money. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency has ordered an internal review of its involvement with BCCI." Newsweek
August 10, 1991. Danny Casolaro assassinated. He was investigating Mena Airport, the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, Iran-Contra, BCCI, and INSLAW (PROMIS). Conservapedia
August 19, 1991. "DOCUMENTS LINK BCCI TO SLAIN MEDELLIN CARTEL LEADER. They provide the strongest evidence yet that BCCC specifically sought drug traffickers' money in Colombia and helped them move it around the globe to avoid detection. Among those listed in the document as giving instructions on the administration of Rodriguez Gacha's accounts after BCCI bought a local Colombian bank in 1985 is Feroz Deane, the first executive vice president of BCCC. He left the country in 1988 after banking authorities discovered BCCC was running an illegal office on the second floor, allowing people to move money out of the country illegally through an affiliate in Nassau, Bahamas." Washington Post
October 1, 1991. Senator John Kerry addresses reporters October 1, 1992 at the U.S. Capitol about the release of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism's report on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International's (BCCI) illegal financial dealings. ROBERT GIROUX/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES. That's a nice name for a Senate Subcommittee - "Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations." They may as well have called it the Subcommittee on the CIA. C-Span link to John Kerry's address to media on 10.2.91. Kerry: "BCCI constituted international global crime of a level that boggles the mind." "BCCI systematically bribed political figures around the world." "BCCI's strategy was to find a strategy into the corridors of political power."
Hank Brown, R-Colorado: "We're dealing with 79 countries in what I believe is perhaps the broadest spanning criminal conspiracy the world's seen."
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 1: US Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) addresses reporters 01 October 1992 at the US Capitol about the release of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism's report on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International's (BCCI) illegal financial dealings. BCCI officials were indicted in 1991 amid allegations of fraud, money laundering for drug dealers and support of terrorists. (Photo credit should read ROBERT GIROUX/AFP via Getty Images)
https:/ ww.c-span.org/video/?32882-1/bcci-investigation
November 16, 1991. "3 LEADING FIGURES AT BCCI INDICTED IN U.S. BANK FRAUD. A Federal grand jury here indicted Aga Hassan Abedi, 68 years old, a resident of Pakistan who was the bank's principal founder and president; Swaleh Naqvi, 57, the bank's acting president who is believed to be in Abu Dhabi, and Ghaith R. Pharaon, 50, a Saudi Arabian who was a large shareholder in the bank. "We will undertake every effort to bring them to the bar of justice," said Robert S. Mueller 3d, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division. The indictment came on the day William P. Barr was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee to succeed Dick Thornburgh as Attorney General. The pace at which Mr. Thornburgh had dealt with B.C.C.I. became an issue in his unsucessful race this fall for a Senate seat from Pennsylvania. B.C.C.I., a huge international bank officially based in Luxembourg, was founded more than a decade ago by bankers from Pakistan and Abu Dhabi and was largely run out of London. It is now at the center of what many are calling history's biggest banking scandal, involving accusations of laundering drug money, multibillion-dollar embezzlement and bribery of politicans and public officials. The indictment handed up today did not mention accusations that the bank also secretly acquired control of First American Bank of Washington, whose chairman was Clark M. Clifford, the former Secretary of Defense. Asked if charges would be brought against First American and its officials, Mr. Mueller replied, "when we have the evidence in hand that would support charges that would lead to an indictment." Early this year, the Federal Reserve was reported to have forwarded evidence to the Justice Department concerning First American." NY Times
November 4, 1992. "House Banking Committee Chairman Henry Gonzalez (D-TX) accused the U.S. Department of Agriculture of spending an entire weekend shredding documents that described the administration’s role in obtaining $5.5 billion in U.S.-taxpayer-guaranteed agricultural loans for Iraq from the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL). According to Machakos, a secretary whom another source identified as likely to be Tissia A. Caldwell of the Justice Management Division spent all day Wednesday, November 4, and part of Thursday, November 5, shredding documents. A senior career DOJ official confirmed the “wholesale destruction” of documents in another division of the Justice Department as well. “It started immediately after the election and is more extensive than anything in anyone’s memory,” he told us. “There are a lot of records to purge. Here you have twelve years – Inslaw, BCCI, BNL, etc.”" Mother Jones
December 1992. The BCCI Affair
The BCCI Affair, A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown is published December 1992. “Former CIA officials, including former CIA director Richard Helms and the late William Casey; former and current foreign intelligence officials, including Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil; and principal foreign agents of the U.S., such as Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, float in and out of BCCI at critical times in its history, and participate simultaneously in the making of key episodes in U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the Camp David peace talks to the arming of Iran as part of the Iran/Contra affair. Yet the CIA has continued to maintain that it has no information regarding any involvement of these people, raising questions about the quality of intelligence the CIA is receiving generally, or its candor with the Subcommittee. The CIA's professions of total ignorance about their respective roles in BCCI are out of character with the Agency's early knowledge of many critical aspects of the bank's operations, structure, personnel, and history. The errors made by the CIA in connection with its handling of BCCI were complicated by its handling of this Congressional investigation. Initial information that was provided by the CIA was untrue; later information that was provided was incomplete; and the Agency resisted providing a "full" account about its knowledge of BCCI until almost a year after the initial requests for the information. These experiences suggest caution in concluding that the information provided to date is full and complete. The relationships among former CIA personnel and BCCI front men and nominees, including Kamal Adham, Abdul Khalil, and Mohammed Irvani, requires further investigation.
June 25, 2001. "Until last week the Iran-contra scandal seemed ready to fade from the courts, the news and the mind. After costing more than four years and $25.5 million, the investigation headed by special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh was limping to a close. A federal appeals court had overturned Lieut. Colonel Oliver North's felony conviction, and a retrial seemed unlikely. The same outcome seemed possible for former National Security Adviser John Poindexter's conviction. ... - The Iran-contra affair may be only part of a broader and previously undisclosed pattern of illegal activities by intelligence agencies during the tenure of Ronald Reagan and his CIA chief William Casey. Sources close to the unfolding investigation of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International told TIME that U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, maintained secret accounts with the globe-girdling financial empire, which has been accused of laundering billions of dollars in drug money, financing illegal arms deals and engaging in other crimes. .... Former government officials and other sources confirm that the CIA stashed money in a number of B.C.C.I. accounts that were used to finance covert operations; some of these funds went to the contras. Investigators also say an intelligence unit of the U.S. defense establishment has used the bank to maintain a secret slush fund, possibly for financing unauthorized covert operations. More startling yet, even before North set up his network for making illegal payments to the contras, the National Security Council was using B.C.C.I. to channel money to them. The funds were first sent to Saudi Arabia to disguise their White House origins; then they were deposited into a B.C.C.I. account maintained by contra leader Adolfo Calero." Time
9/11/01. Never Forget.
September 26, 2001. Money.CNN
"New details of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden's finances emerged Wednesday in a Senate Banking Committee hearing on money laundering. Among other things, the committee learned of a bank established by bin Laden with links to banks around the world and bank accounts at the fraud-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International... This tidbit of information had been in the possession of U.S. investigators as long as a decade ago, but overlooked, a senator testified. This is because bin Laden had not then been identified as a focus of U.S. terrorism concerns. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who conducted an investigation into the fraud-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International, said bin Laden held a number of accounts with BCCI. 'When we shut it down, we dealt him a very serious economic blow. Kerry said."
FOOTNOTES
(1). "In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Iran. The principal aim of this club was that we would share information with each other and help each other in countering Soviet influence worldwide, and especially in Africa." Wikipedia. "Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, February 2002, quoted in Trento, Prelude to Terror (2005), p. 102."
(2). Now the extraordinary and, at times, bizarre story can be told of how the CIA and the Vatican Bank created that $200 million slush fund for Solidarity. In 1983, the CIA maintained a well-developed slush fund to mount “no-questions-asked black operations”” all over the world. Richard Brenneke, a mild-mannered man with the careful speech pattern of an accountant, was the senior CIA operative in charge of the agency’s funding for those operations. He worked sixteen-hour days juggling covert funds in and out of Swiss banks, like Credit Suisse in Geneva, and sending them on complex transfers around the banking world. With the full authority of CIA director William Casey, Brenneke had started to use the Vatican Bank for money laundering. Casey had introduced Brenneke to Bishop Paul Marcinkus. Brenneke had since made a number of visits to Marcinkus’s office in a seventeenth-century tower inside the Vatican walls. “On a good day $400 million was laundered,” Brenneke recalled. A substantial portion of the money came from the CIA’s ultrasecret operations. “Like other intelligence agencies, the CIA had established backdoor links with the mafia. The CIA, like the Vatican, had a very real fear Italy could fall into the hands of the Communists. The CIA saw the mafia as a bulwark against that happening. Consequently, the CIA took the view that the mafia’s activities in Italy were to be tolerated if they helped ensure that NATO member Italy did not fall into Moscow’s hands at the polling booths,” said David Yallop (to the author). By 1983, the CIA had extended its secret links to International crime to include arming Iran and the contras in Nicaragua. Brenneke said: “Money from guns sold to the Iranians was used by the agency to buy drugs in South America. Cocaine was shipped back to the States and sold on to the mafia. That money was then used to buy weapons for the contras in Nicaragua. It go so out of hand I told President Reagan’s national security adviser, Don Gregg. I was told to forget it.” By then, Brenneke said, he had laundered $10 billion. A considerable portion of the money came from the Gotti mafia family of New York. The Gotti family, like the Gambino and Columbo crime families, were devout Catholics. FBI intercepts show the bosses gave generously to the church. Another mafia chief, Slavtore “Lucky” Luciano, boasted of visiting the Vatican before his death. “By 1983 the Vatican Bank was being routinely used by the Mafia to move money both into and out of Italy. The money came from drugs, prostitution, and a variety of other crimes that the Vatican officially condemned,” said Yallop.
(3). "Brenneke says he was involved after 1983 in CIA-Mossad operations to deliver weapons from the Soviet bloc to the Contras and to the PLO. This included arms shipments from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, which were arranged in liaison with officials of George Bush's office . On the return runs, the planes were often loaded with illegal narcotics. Brenneke's business associates in Germany included Klaus-Dieter Lensch and Fritz Miinard."
END