9-11 Insider Traders: Why don't we know who they are—or more importantly

9-11 Insider Traders: Why don't we know who they are—or more importantly—why don't we care? By Michael Gaddy

From August 26th to September 11th 2001, events in the stock market should have alerted those in government that something was amiss. Were those trades missed by our "experts' that cost us 30 billion dollars in taxes each year or did our government know what was happening and look the other way? The presently unknown "speculators" operated out of the Toronto, Canada and Frankfurt, Germany, stock exchanges and their profits have been estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

These speculators sold "short" 38 stocks that could reasonably be expected to fall in value as a result of the attacks of September 11. Short selling of stocks involves the opportunity to gain large profits by passing shares to a friendly third party, then buying them back when the price falls.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency uses a tool called Promis to monitor the stock exchanges of the world so as to predict traumatic events. Historically, if such trading activity precedes a traumatic event, it is an indication of foreknowledge. Fox News on Oct. 16, 2001, broke stories disclosing the use of sophisticated Promis software by the FBI and the Justice Department. A multitude of court records and investigative reports have established not only the reality, but also the versatility of a program initially designed to incorporate data from a variety of data bases in different languages into one readable format. Fox and the Washington Times have both reported based on interviews with Justice Department officials that PROMIS is used to monitor banking and financial transactions in a virtual real-time environment.

All of the knowledge of these trades was known immediately as they occurred according to an expert with the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). Lynne Howard of the CBOE said: "We would have been aware of any unusual activity right away. Any unusual volume would have triggered it. There is an automated system called 'blue sheeting,' or the CBOE Market Surveillance System, that everyone in the business knows about. It provides information on the trades - the name and even the Social Security number on an account - and these surveillance systems are set up specifically to look into insider trading. The system would look at the volume, and then a real person would take over and review it, going back in time and looking at other unusual activity. The system is so smart that even if there is a news event that triggers a market event it can go back in time, and even the parameters can be changed depending on what is being looked at. It's a very clever system and it is instantaneous.

Even with the system, though, we have very experienced and savvy staff in our market-regulations area that are always looking for things that might be unusual. They're trained to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Even if it's offshore, it might take a little longer, but all offshore accounts have to go through U.S. member firms - members of the CBOE - and it is easily and quickly identifiable who made the trades. The member firm who made the trades has to have identifiable information about the client under the 'Know Your Customer' regulations (and we share all information with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)"

Taking a look at the specific trades gives us the actual companies that were involved in the trades and the irregular volume. The documented pre-Sept. 11 insider trading that occurred involved only companies hit hard by the attacks. They include United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley, Merrill-Lynch, Axa Reinsurance, Marsh & McLennan, Munich Reinsurance, Swiss Reinsurance, and Citigroup.

Not only selling short, but also "put options" were involved in the massive trading in the days prior to September 11. "Put options" are highly leveraged bets, tying up blocks of stock, that a given stock's share price will fall dramatically.

An examination of "put options" during this period with the above-mentioned companies would reveal the following: On Sept. 6, 2001, the Thursday before the tragedy, 2,075 put options were made on United Airlines and on Sept. 10, the day before the attacks, 2,282 put options were recorded for American Airlines. Given the prices at the time, this could have yielded speculators between $2 million and $4 million in profit. This averages out to 75 times the number of normal activity on these entities.

No similar trading occurred on any other airlines. (Bloomberg Business Report, the Institute for Counterterrorism, Herzliyya, Israel citing data from the CBOE) Morgan Stanley saw, between Sept. 7 and Sept.10, an increase of 27 times in the purchase of put options on its shares. (Institute for Counterterrorism Report, Mechanics of Possible Bin-Laden Insider Trading Scam, Sept. 21, citing data from the CBOE) Merrill-Lynch saw a jump of more than 12 times the normal level of put options in the four trading days before the attacks. (CBOE report)

Although quite a number of news agencies reported on such unusual activity in stock trading in the aftermath of September 11th, the subject has all but died in the past 15 months. Could it have been bin Laden and his operatives that profited from this activity? Apparently not, a National Public Radio report on Oct. 16 reported Britain's Financial Services Authority had cleared bin Laden and his operatives of insider trading.

Well, if it wasn't bin Laden, then who made all this money based on prior knowledge that the attacks were going to take place? The Israeli Institute for Counter-Terrorism was the first agency to release a detailed report on the insider trading. That alone is evidence of a direct relationship between the financial markets and terrorist investigations.

We are now engaged in a war that will take thousands of lives and cost untold billions of dollars. Our government has based the heart and soul of this war on its assessment of direct involvement by Iraq and its connections with terrorists and their attacks on this country. Why is this angle of who actually perpetrated the heinous acts of 9/11 not been pursued? If the people who placed these stock market transactions and made millions were not the perpetrators themselves, their prior knowledge makes them accomplices.

Consider the following: Government agencies queried say the matter is still under investigation and so none of the government investigating bodies -including the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and DOJ -are speaking to reporters about insider trading. Even so, suspicion of insider trading to profit from the Sept. 11 attacks is not limited to U.S. regulators. Investigations were initiated in a number of places including Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Spain. As in the United States, all are treating these inquiries as if they were state secrets.

Compare that with the following statements made in the days following September 11th.

60 Minutes from Sept. 19, 2001, "Sources tell CBS News that the afternoon before the attack, alarm bells were sounding over unusual trading in the U.S. stock options market." "This could very well be insider trading at the worst, most horrific, most evil use you've ever seen in your entire life…This would be one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence," said Dylan Ratigan of Bloomberg Business News, interviewed on Good Morning Texas on Sept. 20, 2001.

"I saw put-call numbers higher than I've ever seen in 10 years of following the markets, particularly the options markets," said John Kinnucan, principal of Broadband Research, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Germany's Bundesbank chief, Ernst Weltke, said "that a report of the investigation showed "bizarre" fiscal transactions prior to the attacks that could not have been chalked up to coincidence, they could not have been planned and carried out without a certain knowledge, particularly heavy trading in oil and gold futures."

ABC World News reported on Sept. 20, "Jonathan Winer, an ABC News consultant said, it's absolutely unprecedented to see cases of insider trading covering the entire world from Japan, to the U.S., to North America, to Europe."

What were the actual profits garnered by the people with prior knowledge to the horror of 9/11? Andreas von Bulow, a former member of the German Parliament responsible for oversight of Germany's intelligence services estimated the worldwide amount at $15 billion, according to Tagesspiegel on Jan. 13.

Regardless of how we choose to look at this issue, someone made a tremendous profit when their knowledge could have stopped the murder of over 3,000 people and billions of dollars in damages. All the experts in the business tell us the information on who made these trades was available almost instantaneously, up to and including Social Security Numbers! It has been over 18 months now that our government has known who these people are. Why are we not demanding our government tell us who profited from these heinous acts?

"I am still wondering who the real murderers are? Atre they the ones that pulled the trigger, or those that benefited from the aftermath? "

That would be the ones that pulled the trigger.

Anyone look at the link I posted? See the last story:

September 11, 2001 (E): Data recovery experts later looking at 32 hard drives salvaged from the 9/11 attacks discover a surge in credit card transactions from the WTC in the hours before and during the attacks. Unusually large sums of money were rushed through computers even as the disaster unfolded. Investigators say, "There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million. They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed." [Reuters, 12/19/01]

Actually, I don't agree with the author's faith that something is definetly to be found here, and there are market experts, working for the FBI, who report that nothing unusual took place (see link.)

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/2/62018.shtml

But, there is more here than what's been uncovered linking Saddam to 9/11 and I think that is the angle that is worth exploring, IMO.

The "journalist" writing this is talking out of their clymer. Of course nothing PUBLICLY is being done on the short and put activity described. All terrorists need money. The reason these accounts, activities, and players are being treated like "state secrets" is because (doh!) THEY ARE STATE SECRETS!

I am a securities regulator. By the time this activity was fully tabulated, end of 10/01. Documents and ID of the accounts compiled, 12/01. Interviews and field investigations, 3/02. Next round of the investigations is plowing through the shell entities, offshore firms, and front orgs located god knows where. That is probably ongoing.

Every time you hear of "charitable organizations" being busted for "possible terrorist ties" think of this article. The people being taken down at this point are either in it up to their eyeballs, or can tell us who is pulling their strings, with a large enough sentence hanging over them.

All good valid points, but my real interest is that this case among a dozen others including the story of Mossad agents who were tracking the 9/11 hijackers, as reported on Fox News:
http://100777.com/nwo/104a.htm

While these stories have yet to be resolved, so many are actively looking to manufacture a link between Saddam and 9/11, though admittedly it looks like most people don't really even care anymore and are content that regime change justifies the death of American soldiers and the spending of American treasure.

The investigations fizzled when it was recognized that the stocks in question had been falling prior to 9/11, and that the volume was not inconsistent with averages. The options seemed to have a huge increase in activity simply because they were thinly traded, and the researchers looked at percentages and not numbers.

"The reason these accounts, activities, and players are being treated like "state secrets" is because (doh!) THEY ARE STATE SECRETS! "

That's what I think too. Somewhere there is a list, of who did the trades and who those people are talking to. My guess is that we have already gotten many of the perpetrators one way or another.

But I'm also curious if the exchanges paid off on all the trades, or if they held up funds pending the investigation. I think it would have been prudent to hold funds if the trading appears to be suspicious.

True. Equally true a lot paper burned or floated to the charred earth from the top of the towers that fateful day. A lot of computers were vaporized. A key link erased. I've always thought the enemy attacked on many different levels that day and everything we know may be wrong (to quasi-quote Firesign Theater).

I've always thought the enemy gauged and capitalized on someone's greed that day. And if our government knows this, it is too demoralizing to national pride to make it public knowledge.

That is too closed a conspiracy scenario.

How about something like the CIA/FBI as well as several foreign intelligence agencies, including Saudi Arabia, know something is 'up.' Rumors fly (remember the stock market fell on reports that Vince Foster's body was moved from a secret apartment) and a few connected folks who are wired in place a couple bets.

Nothing particularly malicious on the part of the bettors, but it stinks to high heaven and the intelligence agencies that knew about it or the American intelligence agencies that did nothing, have a lot of explaining to do.

The documented pre-Sept. 11 insider trading that occurred involved only companies hit hard by the attacks. They include United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley, Merrill-Lynch, Axa Reinsurance, Marsh & McLennan, Munich Reinsurance, Swiss Reinsurance, and Citigroup.

This is one of those stories that never gets answered satisfactorily. Lots of us are hoping the truth comes out, but we ain't holding our breaths.

One freeper named nopardons claimed to have some sort of insider knowledge of the investigation, but she has turned out to be an unreliable dipstick.

Lets put that in context; market experts consulted by the government reported nothing unsual occured. That is not the same as the discovery of definitive proof, merely a representation of the government position on an on going investigation--hmm, rather strange?

Also, there are investigations in Japan and Germany that are still on-going and I am not sure about any status on that front.

What ever happened to the 911 investigation?

Has it even started?

Thousands dead and more than a year has passed and not a peep out of the 9-11 independent investigation.

Where is that hero of transparent government, Henry Kissinger?

I am in full agreement, and I don't expect to ever know the truth or be satisfied with yet another government investigation.

However, there is more 'here' than there is evidence linking Saddam to 9/11; in that sense, I think as an editorial, it is critical of folks who have simply filed 9/11 in the memory hole, content to feast off the excitement of 'regime change in Iraq.'

OK, let's put it in context.

Reporters and conspiracy theorists with little or no knowledge of the market and how it works state that there is unusual activity, and it is deemed reasonable to accept their opinion over those who have extensive knowledge of the markets.

The idea that there are still investigations ongoing shows how little is there. Each trade is easily traced as to who placed it. It's not like these things are done anonymously. If there was anything, the paper trail would at least lead to offshore blind accounts, indicative of shady dealings. It does not.

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