Investigative Report Is Alan Greenspan a Money Launderer?

[seemslikeadream]

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan takes a low profile when it comes to billions in money laundering.

Posted July 1, 2004
By Christopher Whalen


Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan takes a low profile when it comes to billions in money laundering.


Members of Congress recently made some tough statements about violations of money-laundering laws committed by Riggs National Bank and Swiss giant Union Bank of Switzerland. Rep. Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.), who chairs the House Financial Services subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, began a hearing at the end of May by noting that the panel would examine the "inexcusable lack of compliance and enforcement" by both banks and the agencies that supposedly regulate them.

Kelly lambasted Daniel Stipano, deputy chief counsel of the Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), noting that the OCC's credibility was so diminished that Riggs employees continued to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, even after an OCC examiner was placed on site. Said Kelly: "It is evident that this is still a work in progress" and concluded that a new centralized regulator to attack money laundering is needed. Said Kelly: "Brazen violators should be going to jail."

These latest cases of major violations of money-laundering laws mimic the earlier scandal involving the sales of dollars in Russia via the Bank of New York, scandals that are just the latest examples of financial institutions that got caught in the complex web of laws and regulations governing the movement of cash offshore. So rampant and widespread is the movement of dollars offshore that the basic story had been dramatized by films and TV shows such as Law & Order.

"Nearly three years ago, the Justice Department called the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal 'just' a Russian tax-evasion scheme," reported Lucy Komisar for Pacific News Service in August 2002. "Now, European investigations show that BONY was a channel for organized crime. And according to a document obtained by Pacific News Service, some of the alleged Russian mafia leaders have operated freely in the United States. The widening scandal reveals Washington's dangerous reluctance to confront international criminal networks. In August 1999, U.S. investigators revealed that Russians had laundered at least $7 billion through accounts at BONY, a major U.S. institution with important Russian business."

more
http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/06/11/National/Investigative.Reportis.Alan.Greenspan.A.Money.Launderer-690804.shtml

[seemslikeadream]

1. If you'd like to read more about Riggs

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=9558&mesg_id=11993&page=

[seemslikeadream]

2. The Complete Saudi Primer

SAUDI ARABIA
Under the Influence

As a presidential candidate in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush promised that, if elected, he would use the full weight of the White House to pressure oil-producing countries to increase production if there was a gas-price crisis. He charged, "The president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price" and promised that as president he would "convince them to open up the spigot to increase the supply." Yet, when Saudi Arabia led the fight within OPEC last month to cut production and raise prices, the president "refused to lean on the oil cartel" and refused to even "personally lobby OPEC leaders to change their minds." Now, with esteemed journalist Bob Woodward reporting that the Bush administration and top Saudi officials agreed to manipulate oil prices in conjunction with the 2004 election, President Bush's passivity towards Saudi Arabia is raising disturbing questions. Why won't the administration exert serious pressure on the regime both on oil and terrorism policy? Why does the president continue to refer to Saudi Arabia as "our friend" when the country has potential ties to the 9/11 terrorists? Why, as author Daniel Benjamin reported, did the administration weaken efforts to scrutinize potential Saudi money-laundering schemes before 9/11? A look at the president's "deep personal ties with Saudi officials" – and his financial connections to the Saudi royal family and powerful Saudi businessmen – may provide clues.

BUSH'S PERSONAL FINANCIAL TIES TO SAUDIS RUN DEEP: According to various sources, Bush has been awash in Saudi money for years. Journalist/author Craig Unger in his new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" traced millions "in investments and contracts that went from the Saudis over the past 20 years to companies in which the Bushes and their allies have had prominent positions - Harken Energy, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group among them." According to the Boston Herald, that includes a $1 million gift from Prince Bandar to the Bush Presidential Library in Texas.

THE BCCI-BUSH-SAUDI-TERRORIST NEXUS: The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which was investigated by Congress in the 1980s, appears to be at the nexus of the Bush-Saudi connection. It's principal was Khalid bin Mahfouz, a man USA Today reported was among Saudi businessmen who, even after the U.S.S. Cole attack, "continued to transfer tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden." Under Mahfouz (who was later indicted for his actions at BCCI), the Wall Street Journal noted in 1991 that there was a "mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy" and "number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken — all since George W. Bush came on board." And according to U.S. officials who investigated the bank in the 1980s, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations." A secret French intelligence report "identifies dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed. Many went on to work in banks and charities identified by the United States and others as supporting al Qaeda."

WAS BCCI'S INDICTED PRINCIPAL A BUSH BUSINESS BACKER?: Author Kevin Phillips, a top Republican strategist under President Nixon, reported in his new book, "Bush made his first connection in the late 1970s with James Bath, a Texas businessmen who served as the North American representative for two rich Saudis (and Osama bin Laden relatives) - billionaire Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI insider Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath put $50,000 into Bush's 1979 Arbusto oil partnership, probably using bin Laden-bin Mahfouz funds." Also of interest: Former CIA Director James Woolsey testified to the Senate on 9/3/98 that Mafouz's sister was married to Osama bin Laden. And according to the conservative American Spectator, "Bush has given conflicting statements about Bath's investment in Arbusto, finally admitting to the Wall Street Journal that he was aware that Bath represented Saudi investors."

more
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=99415

[teryang]

3. They can't operate without crime money from...

...terrorist financing fronts, drug trafficking cartels, and intelligence agencies profiting from both and carrying on illegal arms transactions. It's the iron triangle that keeps America's financial system afloat.

[uptown ruler]

4. wouldnt shock me, you?

Spreading The Word
The Irony Curtain Shop

[Octafish]

5. Some say the Western economies would collapse w/o Narcodollars

Some "underreported" info from 1997. Please note the players remain largely the same -- the Big Guys:

MONEY LAUNDERING

Narco-corruption in North America is most significantly manifested in money laundering. Ninety-one percent of the $197 billion spent on cocaine in the U.S. stays there, and American banks launder $100 billion of drug money every year. Those identified as money laundering conduits include the Bank of Boston, Republic National Bank of New York, Landmark First National Bank, Great American Bank, People's Liberty Bank and Trust Co. of Kentucky, and Riggs National Bank of Washington.

Citibank helped Raul Salinas (the brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas) move millions of dollars out of Mexico into secret Swiss bank accounts under false names. Swiss authorities have declared that this money (which totals $100 million) consists of payments from drug traffickers to Salinas, and are preparing to seize it.

In 1993, two directors at the American Express Bank International (AEBI) in Beverly Hills, California wired drug money from Juan Garcia Abrego - the Mexican cocaine baron arrested and extradited to the United States in January 1996 - from the First City Texas Bank in McAllen, Texas to accounts in the Manhattan branch of Banker's Trust of New York. AEBI then invested the money in London, Switzerland, Mexico and Houston.

In addition, Manufacturers Hanover, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank and Irving Trust have admitted not reporting money transfers to the U.S. government (the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 requires that all transactions over $10,000 be reported).
The Bank of America has been fined $4.75 million for not revealing transfers of more than $12 billion.

CONTINUED BFEE CRIMINALITY...

http://www.ckln.fm/~asadismi/cancon.html

The source is a guy specializing in Canada's role in the Octopus. Most interesting reading...

[Octafish]

6. CRIME OF THE CENTURY: CIA Cocaine International Agency

Now, who headed the CIA when all this was taking off?

Would it be the same name that cropped up during the assassination of President Kennedy?

CRIME OF THE CENTURY:
CIA: Cocaine International Agency

"(It is an) issue that feels like a dagger in the heart of African-Americans... Any evidence that supported drug trafficking would indeed be the crime of the century." --USA Today

In a historic report released in October 1998, the CIA's Inspector General (IG) Frederick Hitz confirmed long-standing allegations that the Agency facilitated drug trafficking by the Contras during the 1980s. The CIA-created Contra army fought against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua from 1981 to 1990 in a war that killed 40,000 Nicaraguans. The Contras were notorious for targeting civilians, schools and medical centres. Hitz listed 50 Contras involved in the drug trade including some of its top leaders and admitted that the CIA placed drug traffickers in command positions in the Contra army. The Agency had extensive knowledge of Contra drug trafficking and protected it by failing to act against the traffickers, withholding evidence and misleading investigators. The Reagan administration provided similar "protection" and the report shows that drug trafficking and money laundering went up to Reagan's National Security Council (NSC), where Lt. Col. Oliver North was in charge of Contra matters.

Hitz's report marks the CIA's first admission about alliances with drug traffickers, an alliance it has maintained since 1943 when the Agency was known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). This long and sordid history involves CIA collaboration with heroin exporters in Sicily, France, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as with cocaine-dealing Cuban exiles in Miami. In Laos, CIA planes ferried heroin which addicted thousands of U.S. soldiers fighting in Vietnam.

The Inspector General's report was issued in response to Gary Webb's series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News entitled "Dark Alliance" which appeared in August 1996 and linked drug smuggling by the Contras to the crack cocaine explosion in Los Angeles during the 1980s. Webb was forced to resign from his job at the Mercury News due to a campaign of vilification unleashed against him by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, but the storm of controversy generated by his series forced the CIA to issue the report. The IG report vindicates Webb and is far more damning to the CIA than Webb's series.

According to Hitz, the CIA knew about Contra drug running from the start. A September 1981 CIA cable stated that ADREN (the earliest Contra force) had decided to use drug trafficking as a "financing mechanism." The cable adds that in July 1981, two ADREN members made the first delivery of drugs to Miami. A few months after discovering that ADREN was smuggling drugs into the U.S., the CIA made one of ADREN's leaders, Enrique Bermudez, commander of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the main Contra army which was organized by the Agency. In 1982, Bermudez enlisted Norwin Meneses, a major Nicaraguan cocaine trafficker, to raise money for the Contras. Meneses and Danilo Blandon, another Nicaraguan trafficker, then began selling tons of cocaine to black street gangs in Los Angeles (with millions of dollars in proceeds going to the Contras), helping touch off the crack explosion in the U.S. A 1988 FBI cable identifies Meneses as working for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The FBI also believed that Meneses "was and may still be an informant for the CIA." At the time, the FBI was unsuccessfully trying to indict Meneses on federal cocaine trafficking charges. The Meneses-Blandon drug ring was concentrated in California but also sold cocaine in Oregon, Washington and Texas.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ckln.fm/~asadismi/ciadrugs.html

[seemslikeadream]

7. Oh Octafish, you're talkin' bout cocaine, Minstrel Boy talkin' bout

opium, where does my loyalty lie?

[Minstrel Boy]

10. "I want a new drug"

One that does what it should
One that won't make me feel too bad
One that won't make me feel too good

That's the trouble with the news today. It doesn't come with Huey Lewis.

As for divided loyalties, I know; it's a toughie:

Coke,



or smack?



It must be great being the CIA, and not needing to choose.

[seemslikeadream]

11. I don't know but we've got to keep the fish off the opium!

[Octafish]

14. LMAO! That's my old roommate. He still owes me $227.

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!



"License? Isn't it on the bumper back there?"

[seemslikeadream]

26. Octafish is any of this new to you?

lanparty (1000+ posts) Wed Jun-30-04 09:48 PM
Response to Original message

21. I'm curious if ...
I'm curious if Prescott Bush was involved in the planned Smedley Butler coup of Franklin Delanor Roosevelt???

He financed Hitler. Why not bring the totalitarian state home?????

Solon (1000+ posts) Wed Jun-30-04 09:49 PM
Response to Reply #21

22. Found a connection between him and


either JP Morgan's or Du Pont's Financial Officers, have to look it up again.

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. . . ."Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there." - William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937.


Solon (1000+ posts) Wed Jun-30-04 09:52 PM
Response to Reply #22

24. Here's the source...

Excerpt:

Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. had been chairman of the finance committee of the Du Pont Corporation (1930-40). In 1933, Carpenter oversaw Du Pont's purchase of Remington Arms from Sam Pryor and the Rockefellers, and led Du Pont into partnership with the Nazi I.G. Farben Company for the manufacture of explosives. Carpenter became Du Pont's president in 1940. His cartel with the Nazis was broken up by the U.S. government. Nevertheless, Carpenter remained Du Pont's president as the company's technicians participated massively in the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic bomb. He was chairman of Du Pont from 1948 to 1962, retaining high-level access to U.S. strategic activities.

Walter Carpenter and Prescott Bush were fellow activists in the Mental Hygiene Society. Originating at Yale University in 1908, the movement had been organized into the World Federation of Mental Health by Montagu Norman, himself a frequent mental patient, former Brown Brothers partner and Bank of England Governor. Norman had appointed as the federation's chairman, Brigadier John Rawlings Rees, director of the Tavistock Psychiatric Clinic, chief psychiatrist and psychological warfare expert for the British intelligence services. Prescott was a director of the society in Connecticut; Carpenter was a director in Delaware.

Source: http://www.unclenicks.net/Canvas/du_pont.html

Being this close to the Du Pont empire, I would say he had knowledge at least, the names of many of the conspirators were not revealed in the Congressional Report. Researching all of this for a Novel I'm going to write. A "What if" as in "What if the Fascist coup succeeded?"


and make sure you see these
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1898389

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x655980

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x656451

[al bupp]

9. William Colby?

The man who preceded GHWB as CIA Director, and died under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

As CIA Station Chief for Saigon he:

Launches Accelerated Pacification Campaign, part of which was the Phoenix Project, in which individuals were assigned "neutralization" quotas of up to 1,800 VCI per month. The jargon term "VCI" refers to Viet Cong Infrastructure, meaning anyone connected to the civil or military administration of any North Vietnamese activity, such as tax collecting, political officers, etc. Over its lifetime, Phoenix is responsible for 20,000 assassinations.

(From: http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/william-colby)

[Octafish]

12. Poor Colby. Drowned in a "canoe" accident.

Odd he wasn't wearing his customary life jacket.



WILLIAM COLBY

was a lifelong spook who started in the OSS, working with ANGLETON in Italy (including the Rat Lines). In Southeast Asia, he ran the Phoenix Project, and laundered countless millions in Laotian heroin profits through the Nugan-Hand Bank.

Replacing RICHARD HELMS as DCI in 1973, he plotted the Australian coup, ran the bloody Angola ops, and ran damage control during the Church & Pike hearings. Later involved in BCCI and many other CIA banking scandals.

Died suprisingly, under peculiar circumstances, in 1996. It was ruled he'd gone on a midnight canoe ride, had "a stroke or a heart attack" and then fell in the water and drowned. This was possible because he was uncharacteristically without his lifejacket, which never was found. His body was fished from the river after a nearly weeklong search only some 100 yards from where his canoe had been found.

He was widely known first as the "Grey Man", then as he aged the "Old Grey Man". In 1998, the matter of his death remains officially closed.

SOURCE:

http://www.subliminal.org/mugbook/spooks/colby.html


BTW: A hearty welcome to DU al bupp! That's a great Hubble picture of the interesting supernova.

[seemslikeadream]

16. I can't believe you got that picture first

or that we picked the same one to post!!!!


and that al bupp's a great guy

[Octafish]

20. Yeh. The pic kind of "jumped" out of the page.

Weird.

Here's a nice BCCI overview, where the road always seems to lead:

Crooked Banks

from the book

The CIAs Greatest Hits

by Mark Zepezauer

EXCERPT...

Naturally, the CIA felt right at home. In fact, one former BCCI official claims to have been told that the CIA, and Director Richard Helms in particular, actually started the bank, and that it "wasn't a Pakistani bank at all."

Before collapsing, BCCI managed to facilitate a host of CIA covert operations, notably George Bush's efforts to pump weapons to Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Edwin Wilson's "unauthorized" arming of Libya.

Efforts to unravel all of BCCI's mysteries will never succeed. Its directors had the good sense to feather the nests of enough prominent US politicians, of both parties, to ensure that any investigation will be half-hearted at best.

Not surprisingly, CIA-connected lobbyists have worked to undermine any probe. Roughly $20 billion of BCCI's assets remain unaccounted for.

SOURCE:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/CrookedBanks_CIAHits.html

[al bupp]

24. A Schism amonst the Pirates?

Given the CIA's past dealings, and longstanding connections to them, why do you think they'd turn on the BushCo, as they've clearly done recently?

Is it simple incompetence leading to a power struggle among the Skulls & Bonesmen? I realize there's been bad blood over heavy (many would say ham) handed handling of "intelligence", not to mention Ms Plume, however I'm wondering what musings you all might have about what the esoteric part of the story might be.

[al bupp]

25. Thanks, and

:yourock:

[al bupp]

19. Odd, yes

But, as an old buddy used to say, what goes around comes around...

Thanks for the welcome.

I shouldn't be surprised, Octafish, that you recognized the supernova pic, since you're clearly a discriminating observer. Here's the full size version:



It's one of a number of hubble shots I tend to rotate around as desktop wallpaper.

[Octafish]

21. Wasn't that gas shell part of a series?

It seemed to depict faster-than-light spread of the cloud? Then it was determined the shell only appeared to be expanding because of different time exposures provided different details? Like this fascinating star, sometimes I'm full of hot gas, too.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/light_echo_030326.html

Thanks for the kind words, al bupp! That truly is a beautiful example of a stellar evolution. You seem to be a Fellow New Frontiersman. There are quite a few on DU! Lensmen, I think.

[al bupp]

23. Right Again

Yes, indeed it's apparently a very enigmatic example of stellar evolution. Here's the brief from Nasa:

Variable star V838 Monocerotis lies near the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy, about 20,000 light-years from the Sun. Still, ever since a sudden outburst was detected in January 2002, this enigmatic star has taken the center of an astronomical stage while researchers try to understand where it fits into the picture of stellar evolution. As light from the stellar flash echoes across pre-existing dust shells around V838 Mon, its appearance changes dramatically. Revealed in a sharp snapshot recorded in February by the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, this portion of the dust shell is about six light-years in diameter. But because light reflected from the dust follows only a slightly indirect path compared to the direct line-of-sight to the star, the light echoes visible now are only lagging about two years behind the outburst itself. Astronomers expect the expanding echoes to continue to light up the dusty environs of V838 Mon for at least the rest of the current decade. (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040305.html)

As for the New Frontier, I'm all for reaching for the stars. And I'm somewhat in awe of astrophysicists who seem to be able to extrapolate the most amazing theories from the scantiest of indirect evidence. However, I'd like to see us clean up the mess in our collective backyard before we go trashing other worlds, though I suppose the two endeavors needn't be mutually exclusive.

[seemslikeadream]

22. Thanks al for the reminder - how fragile we are

http://www.space.com/images/light_echo_animation_030226_02,0.gif

If blood will flow when fresh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

[seemslikeadream]

15. William Colby was an extremely orderly man

According to his family and friends, William Colby was an extremely orderly man and thus the last moments of his life are out of character. The AP first misquoted Mrs. Colby as having spoken to her husband on the day of his death, stating he was not feeling well but was going canoeing anyway. Inital press reports ran "presumed drowned" from an "apparent boating accident" Colby's wife rebutted the AP report The AP later reported that Mrs. Colby had said her husband was feeling fine and never mentioned any plans to go canoeing.

What he had done that evening was call his wife, said he planed to eat dinner, take a shower then goto bed.

Investigators suggest that he left his dinner (clams and white wine) went out in his canoe in the middle of the night on a rough and windy river without a lifejacket
(not his usal routine)
then had a heart attack, slipped into the water and drowned.
His body surfaced in the marsh near his home 1 week after he disapered. An autopsy suggested he drowned as a result of a heart attack or stroke...

Do you think the medical examiner maybe related to Fahmy Malak?

http://cbn2.tripod.com/d80.html

[Minstrel Boy]

8. How the Octopus feeds

David Guyatt is a great resource for those who want to study a dissection of the Octopus. Many articles and e-books available for download at http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/

A couple of excerpts:

THE MONEY FOUNTAIN

The Dark Face of International Finance

Ever since the Nugan Hand Bank affair of the late seventies, bank crashes have followed a slick and familiar template. Narcotics trafficking, gun running, CIA covert ops., money laundering and fraud on a massive scale are just some of the ingredients that have sent bank after bank crashing to its knees. Once the smoke clears bank depositors and shareholders are left picking up the tab.

...

The sheer volume of money skating around the world's financial markets is staggering and a huge proportion of it is illegal. Of a massive $ 6 trillion that annually circulates the globe, one quarter - $1.5 trillion - is illicit, and a third of this, $500 billion, are narcodollars. $200 billion of narcotics are shipped to the US annually, roughly one third of the total annual import bill. Random forensic testing throughout the US reveal that virtually every single bank note contains microscopic traces of cocaine. More money is spent, globally, on dope than food.22 With these sums at stake, banks and the financial community are, de facto, laundering dirty money.

Operating within the CIA is a small team known as the "Fifth Column". Staffed by experienced computer hackers using a Cray supercomputer, this group track dirty money accumulated in secret offshore bank accounts by "scores of high level U.S. political figures".23 Once the funds are tracked and the secret authorisation code located the money is electronically swept-up and deposited in the U.S. Treasury. Intelligence sources estimate that in excess of $2 billion has been gathered in this manner and none of the now-poorer high profile figures are contemplating lodging complaints. Illegal? You betcha' it is, but no more than any one of a dozen other operations that have previously come to light.

A great many more bank scandals can be expected in the coming years. Why this should be so is simple. It's not their money they're playing with. It's yours and mine. If a bank goes belly-up, culpable bank executives slide into other cushy jobs with other banks or disappear down the sunset-trail toting a swag-bag of "lost" loot - sometimes both. Simply stated high-finance is a "connected" world where president's touch shoulders with mobsters; bankers shake hands with Masons; regulators buckle under political pressure; law enforcement protects crime; the CIA "does its thing" and fortunes can be and are won.
http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/the_money_fountain.htm

THE OCTOPUS

The Criminal Cabal of Guns & Drugs

...

Meanwhile, it is a sad fact that the narcotics industry has been lurking behind almost every major – and most minor – wars over the past five decades. The war is Southeast Asia that encompassed Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand witnessed a vast explosion in Opium and Heroin trafficking – with the connivance of the CIA. Much of this resulted from the decision to covertly arm, at a cost, local warlords to fight in the battle against communism. In order to be able to buy these weapons, local military commanders took control of and increased Opium production in their region. This was then exchanged for weapons and the Opium found its way to the US and Europe.

The guns for dope model that developed during the Vietnam war proved effective elsewhere, too. Similar structures were later developed in Afghanistan, El Salvador and even up to and including Kosovo – where the NATO backed KLA trafficked heroin.

...

During hearings in 1987, the Senate Sub Committee on Terrorism, Narcotics & International Operations revealed a series of “secret memo’s” written by General Paul F. Gorman who as head of “Southern Command” commanded the US military presence in South America during the 1980’s. Gorman had written: “There is not a single group in unconventional warfare that does not use narcotics to fund itself.” He was referring to the US backed Contra’s supported by Colonel Oliver North and the national Security Council of the US. This was the tip of the iceberg, however. Every conflict from Vietnam on through Lebanon, Afghanistan, Croatia and Kosovo has relied on the guns for drugs equation operated by the Octopus. One very senior Pentagon source described how this came about to author Monica Jensen-Stevenson: “What started out in Vietnam as a neat way to find money to fund covert operations had developed into a huge industry. The men and women who are involved, maybe they can’t get off the merry-go-round. Maybe it keeps spinning faster and faster, they make more and more money, and even if they wanted to duck out, they can’t.” Theodore Shackley, one of the key CIA figures involved in covert operation since Vietnam described in his book The Third Way that low intensity conflicts are not really fought to be won but to bleed both sides so as to maximise black market commerce and to secretly field test new weapons and techniques on a “training battlefield.”

In her book The Last Circle, author Carol Marshall outlines an international company, First Intercontinental Development Corporation (FIDCO) that she said led her “straight to the head of the octopus.” She then lists the Board of Directors of FIDCO who included Robert Maheu Snr, right hand man of Mob and CIA connected Howard Hughes and Robert Booth Nichols, self-confessed CIA agent with powerful Mafia affiliations. Among others on the board were Michael McManus, former assistant to President Reagan and Clint Murchison Jnr., owner of the Dallas Cowboys NFL football team. The latter is the son of Clint Murchison Snr., who was one of the motivating factors behind General Douglas MacArthur’s failed Presidential attempt in 1952. Muchison senior was also closely associated at this time with Richard Nixon, who later became US President and had financial dealings with him that involved Jimmy Hoffa, a Mafia figure connected to the Teamsters Union. Others who were close friends of Murchison senior included FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover. That Clint Muchison senior had dealings with the Mafia is undisputed. For example, 20% of the Murchison Oil Lease Company was owned by Gerardo Catena, a leading lieutenant of the Genovese crime family. Of interest, too, are Murchison’s Texas connections. Investigative journalist, Pete Brewton, in his book The Mafia, CIA & George Bush, ties former President George Bush to leading Mafia figures in Texas.
http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/the_octopus.htm

[goforit]

13. NOW this would be the icing on the cake!!!!

This is just unbelievable!!!

[Minstrel Boy]

17. Was evidence against Greenspan destroyed in the WTC?

And was it destroyed before the building collapsed?

Hey, just askin'.

Here is evidence supplied by the Head of Security of the WTC on network television indicating that the FBI floors (the 22nd, 23rd and 24th floors) of the North Tower -- 70 floors below the crash-bombing impact -- had been devastated and reduced to debris that this same Head of Security himself dug through to get to trapped persons (whom he saved).

But it was on these floors that the entire accumulation of evidence and investigation briefs on two highly important cases were being stored:

the case against Mobil Oil and James Giffen on illegal oil swaps between Iran and Kazakhstan (at that time before a New York grand jury as described in great detail by Seymore Hersh in the July 9 New Yorker magazine);

and even more important, the evidence in the investigation of GOLD PRICE FIXING stemming from charges brought against Alan Greenspan, Morgan & Company, Goldman Sachs. (see below for full reconstruction of this crime -- that is now all but confirmed by this revelation of a bomb devastating the FBI floors of the North Tower before the tower collapsed.)
http://prisonplanet.com/unasked_questions_about_bombs_in_the_wtc_on_sept_11_2001.html

[seemslikeadream]

18. more from link

"Nearly three years ago, the Justice Department called the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal 'just' a Russian tax-evasion scheme," reported Lucy Komisar for Pacific News Service in August 2002. "Now, European investigations show that BONY was a channel for organized crime. And according to a document obtained by Pacific News Service, some of the alleged Russian mafia leaders have operated freely in the United States. The widening scandal reveals Washington's dangerous reluctance to confront international criminal networks. In August 1999, U.S. investigators revealed that Russians had laundered at least $7 billion through accounts at BONY, a major U.S. institution with important Russian business."

Pacific News Service reported almost two years ago that "the BCCI and the BONY cases show the danger of letting criminal networks fester." The news service described how Khalid bin Mafouz, the No. 2 BCCI official, got off with a minor fine when the Pakistan-based BCCI collapsed in a megafraud that made $8 billion "disappear." Mafouz, who is Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law and one of his reputed financiers, never revealed where the missing billions went.

Regulators and politicians love to paint money laundering as an "us versus them" battle with the forces of evil -- the drug traffickers, criminal gangs and terrorists who threaten America's security. And there is no doubt that physical U.S. currency is a primary means for terrorists and drug traffickers to store and move the proceeds from their activities.

Consider just one episode from the U.S. occupation of Iraq: "When a United States Army sergeant broke through a false wall in a small building in Baghdad on a Friday afternoon a little over a year ago, he discovered more than three dozen sealed boxes containing about $160 million in neatly bundled $100 bills," reported the New York Times on June 6. "Later that day, soldiers found more cash in other hideaways near the Tigris River, in an exclusive neighborhood that elite members of Saddam Hussein's government once called home. By the end of the evening, they had amassed 164 metal boxes, all riveted shut, that held about $650 million in shrink-wrapped greenbacks. The cash was so heavy, and so valuable, that the Army needed a C-130 Hercules cargo plane to airlift it to a secure location."

[al bupp]

27. US Banks Launder ~$250-$500 Billion in Criminal Proceeds Annually

Lest we forget, there was the work of Al Giordano, et al at Narconews.com, who's digging into the money laundering aspects of the Citigroup-Banamex merger in 2001, which resulted in his having to fight (and eventually win) a legal battle in NY.

From: "Dirty Money" Foundation of U.S. Growth and Empire
La Jornada, May 19, 2001
By James Petras

As Senator Levin summarizes the record: "Estimates are that $500 billion to $1 trillion of international criminal proceeds are moved internationally and deposited into bank accounts annually. It is estimated half of that money comes to the United States".

(http://www.narconews.com/petras1.html)

Now, I wonder how much the chairman of the Fed know about all this "dirty money" making its way through U.S. banks? I'm just guessing he
knows where some of the figurative bodies are buried, which might explain his longevity in that post.

[seemslikeadream]

28. from your link

The second and related route which the big banks use to launder hundreds of billions of dirty money is through "correspondent banking" (CB). CB is the provision of banking services by one bank to another bank. It is a highly profitable and significant sector of big banking. It enables overseas banks to conduct business and provide services for their customers - including drug dealers and others engaged in criminal activity - in jurisdictions like the U.S. where the banks have no physical presence. A bank that is licensed in a foreign country and has no office in the United States for its customers attracts and retains wealthy criminal clients interested in laundering money in the U.S. Instead of exposing itself to U.S. controls and incurring the high costs of locating in the U.S., the bank will open a correspondent account with an existing U.S. bank. By establishing such a relationship, the foreign bank (called a respondent) and through it, its criminal customers, receive many or all of the services offered by the U.S. big banks called the correspondent. Today, all the big U.S. banks have established multiple correspondent relationships throughout the world so they may engage in international financial transactions for themselves and their clients in places where they do have a physical presence. Many of the largest U.S. and European banks located in the financial centers of the world serve as correspondents for thousands of other banks. Most of the offshore banks laundering billions for criminal clients have accounts in the U.S. All the big banks specializing in international fund transfer are called money center banks, some of the biggest process up to $1 trillion in wire transfers a day. Through June 1999, the top five correspondent bank holding companies in the United States held correspondent account balances exceeding $17 billion; the total correspondent balances of the 75 largest U.S. correspondent banks was $34.9 billion. For the billionaire criminals an important feature of correspondent relationships is that they provide access to international transfer systems - that facilitate the rapid transfer of funds across international boundaries and within countries. The most recent estimates (1998) are that 60 offshore jurisdictions around the world licensed about 4,000 offshore banks which control approximately $5 trillion in assets.
One of the major sources of impoverishment and crises in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Russia and the other countries of the ex-U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, is the pillage of the economy and the hundreds of billions of dollars which are transferred out of the country via the corresponding banking system and the Private Banking system linked to the biggest banks in the U.S. and Europe. Russia alone has seen over $200 billion illegally transferred in the course of the 1990s. The massive shifts of capital from these countries to the U.S. and European banks has generated mass impoverishment and economic instability and crises. This in turn has created increased vulnerability to pressure from the IMF and World Bank to liberalize their banking and financial systems leading to further flight and deregulation which spawns greater corruption and overseas transfers via private banks as the Senate reports demonstrate.
The increasing polarization of the world is embedded in this organized system of criminal and corrupt financial transactions. While speculation and foreign debt payments play a role in undermining living standards in the crises regions, the multi-trillion dollar money laundering and bank servicing of corrupt officials is a much more significant factor, sustaining Western prosperity, U.S. empire building and financial stability. The scale, scope and time frame of transfers and money laundering, the centrality of the biggest banking enterprises and the complicity of the governments, strongly suggests that the dynamics of growth and stagnation, empire and re-colonization are intimately related to a new form of capitalism built around pillage, criminality, corruption and complicity.

mo rogha leannán :hi: