Posted on 10/10/2001 5:43:01 AM PDT by liberallarry
Osama bin Laden's extensive financial interests in Britain are outlined today in a French parliamentary report that says the City is a money laundering haven for billions of pounds of tainted and terrorist money. Up to 40 companies, banks and individuals based in Britain can legitimately be suspected of maintaining direct or indirect relations with the terrorist, according to a 70-page annexe, The Economic Environment of Osama bin Laden, attached to the French report. Compiled by an independent team of financial experts whose identity the French parliamentarians have undertaken not to reveal, the annexe reveals that the structure of Bin Laden's financial network bears a striking similarity to that used by the collapsed BCCI bank for its fraudulent operations in the 1980s. "This document clearly shows the great permeability of the British banking and financial system and the fragility of the controls operated at its points of entry," write the authors of the French report, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian. The annexe establishes numerous links between Bin Laden with international arms and oil dealers and even members of the Saudi elite. It also pinpoints the relationship and its subsquent breakdown between Osama bin Laden and his family's holding company, Saudi BinLadin Group, and its multiple subsidiaries, investments and offshoots in Europe. Many of the individuals concerned, several with British connections, were also involved in various senior roles with BCCI, the report says. Hundreds of banks and companies are mentioned, from Sudan, Geneva and London to Oxford, the Bahamas and Riyadh. The names of half a dozen former BCCI clients and officials, including Ghaith Pharaon, wanted by the US authorities for fraud, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker who was closely involved with the bank before it was closed down by the Bank of England in 1991, recur throughout the annexe and are directly linked to Bin Laden through banks, holding companies, foundations and charities, at least one of which, the International Development Foundation, has its headquarters in London. "The convergence of financial and terrorist interests, apparent particularly in Great Britain and in Sudan, does not appear to have been an obstacle with regard to the objectives pursued [by Bin Laden]," the annexe concludes. "The conjunction of a terrorist network attached to a vast financing structure is the dominant trait of operations conducted by bin Laden." The Bin Laden study appears as an appendix to a French parliamentarians' report that blames lax and outdated legislation, inadequate enforcement and the lack of political will to challenge powerful commercial interests for the City's status as a global money laundering centre. The exhaustive 180-page report is based on interviews with senior Metropolitan police officers, leading City regulators and European judges investigating cross-border financial crimes in Spain, Belgium and France. "Those responsible for combating financial crime are depressed and discouraged by an archaic and dysfunctional system," said the author, Arnaud Montebourg, a Socialist MP. "The British authorities must realise that they have fallen badly behind." The report, titled The City of London, Gibraltar and the Crown Dependencies: offshore centres and sanctuaries for dirty money, says criminal organisations "have been able to exploit to their profit the reckless financial deregulation of the 1980s", which Britain has failed to accompany with "the security measures demanded for all too long by the battle against money laundering and financial crime". Between 1986 and 1998, only 357 money laundering cases came to trial in London, compared with 538 in Italy and 2,034 in the United States in 1995 alone.
American and British banks should be given greater latitude in their ability to seize assets. This is war, and the criteria for determining guilt (by association) should be widened.
Londres accusé de laxisme dans la lutte antiblanchiment
I'm working on sources.
Yes. The FDIC should be eliminated, and the banks should have to buy account insurance in the private marketplace. That would result in the insurance companies keeping close tabs on what they are doing, kind of like how Moody's and S&P rate bonds. The insurance companies will take close looks at how banks are valuing their commerical real estate investments. Banks that are going nuts on speculative investments will have to pay higher insurance rates, to discourage such. Or, if the insurance companies are behind the times and are using inappropriate valuation techniques, the banks can not offer insurance at all, and informed consumers can decide for themselves if the higher interest rates are worth the added perceived risk.
GATA also figures in.
Fact is all of London is a haven for extremist Muslims of all types. And for Muslim sects of all types. The English have allowed huge numbers of Muslims to immigrate to the UK over the last 40 years. From Pakistan/ Arabia/ North Africa etc.
Un demi-frère sous haute surveillance
Sorry about the language. I'm just following the leads. Maybe someone else can find this stuff in English.
I can't go very fast in French. Someone with better language skills will have to pursue it.
Follow the money trail.
Mahfouz is mentioned in this article.
This is the problem Bush faces!
Who's your enemy,who's your friend,who's a terrorist,who's your capitalist banker co-hort?
I sure need to read all this!
Does anyone have the energy and time to do a thingy...."How Bin Ladens $$$$$ is connected to me?"
I suspect that it would make us crazy!!!!!!
Going there now!
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