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