Posted on 11/30/2007 7:55:34 PM PST by Fred
The NYC Diamond District, where all aspects of the global diamond trade are concentrated, was the scene of a terrorist plot to kill Americans. One (or more?) diamond dealers were involved.
In August 2003, authorities stopped a trio of would-be terrorists from unthinkable carnage against Americans and these terrorists stated desire to uindermine the US economy. Authorities caught three men trying to smuggle a shoulder-fired missile into Americca. The missile in question is a Russian-made model and one of the most lethal in the world. It is so powerful, that it can shoot down a commercial jetliner.
Acccording to news reports, the prime suspect in the case is wealthy diamond jeweler, Yehuda Abraham, who operates in the secret shadowy, criminal world of the New York City Diamond District. Federal agents carted loads of files and computer records taken from Abraham’s office on West 47th Street.
One night in October 2002, prosecutors say, a client entered Mr. Abraham's 12th-floor Midtown Diamond Diistrict office and handed him $30,000 in hundred dollar bills, an odd, but normal transaction in the shady world of international gem dealers.
Mr. Abraham, by the government's account, counted out every note, then gave the client his business card. But this was not a jewelry sale, prosecutors allege. It was a secretive terrrorist deal, with a code number and a cash commission, in which Yehuda Abraham agreed to transfer the client's money to a bank account in Europe, out of the sight of federal regulators. (NOTE This constitues the crimes of evading US banking laws, currency conbersion and money laundering.)
The code number used by Abraham was to identify the FBI agent posing as a "client," consisted of the serial number of a $1 bill in Abraham's possession. It was like something out of a James Bond movie. Abraham’s actions were hardly the sort of elaborate precaution an ordinary criminal would take. This was a well-thought out conspiracy by cunning and careful criminals who may have been involved in similar crimes.
Abraham and one co-conspirator were arrested in the Diamond District while the third conspirator was arrested at a hotel near Newark, New Jersey airport. Hemad Lekhani is the British arms dealer who first caught the attention of Russian intelligence agents in Moscow.
He reportedly offered $85,000 dollars for an Igla missile. The latest model is able to bring down a plane from more than three miles away. Dick Clark, ABC News Consultant: "The old ones that are 20 and 30 years old that don't work very well are relatively easy to get and very cheap. But the complete modern missile set is very expensive and very hard to get." Chechen rebels used an Igla to kill more than 100 Russian soldiers last year on a helicopter. Last November, two missiles narrowly missed an Israeli 757 taking off from Mombasa, Kenya.
Al Qaeda has produced training videotapes showing how to use the missile launchers. And just this week, police in Saudi Arabia broke up an unrelated Al-Qaeda plot to shoot down a British Airways jet. The FBI says the SAM missile which eventually was smuggled into this country, finally arriving in Newark, was never dangerous. The Russians made it inoperable as part of a sting operation to catch the dealers.
The feds say they arrested Lakhani when he tried to make his final sale of the missile to an FBI witness, posing as a terrorist.
After that, two gems dealers, the alleged money men in the deal, were arrested in the diamond district. One is 75-year-old Yehuda Abraham. Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings Institute: "It takes a little bit of luck to stop this type of operation while it is being hatched." Authorities say they were onto Lakhani from the very beginning. They followed his every move. Officials say he did not contact any Islamic terrorist groups. This was home grown terrorism that may have been concoted with other Mideast accomplices.
Hemant Lakhani, an international arms dealer of British nationality and Indian ethnicity who lives in the predominatly Jewish section of London, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, a Muslim from Malaysia, and Yehuda Abraham, a wealthy Jewish-American gem dealer who works out of New York City's diamond district, have in common is that they all plotted against Americans and American interests in connection with a plot to purchase surface-to-air missiles on behalf of terrorists.
Except that the alleged terrorists they were dealing with were really FBI agents and informants, who had been tracking them for over a year in an effort to smoke out the rest of Osama bin Laden's worldwide network. A leak to the media, however, forced the feds to go public before the trap could be fully sprung, at least according to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.
Several aspects of this case are extremely odd. Hemant Lakhani, a.k.a. Hemad, a.k.a. Hekyat – Beginning with his exact name, we get conflicting accounts of just who and what this guy is. By some accounts he's an "international arms dealer," yet his neighbors described him as "Mr. Average" and were shocked when the cops beat down the doors of the Lakhanis' home in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Hendon, a north London suburb.
The Guardian and others characterize the 68-year-old Indian-born British national as an amateur in the arms trade, whose last known profession was as a garment trader and the manager of a West End clothing store. Julian Borger disdains him as "a blusterer, rather too anxious to impress on his contact that he is a 'serious businessman' capable of getting hold of 'high-class stuff.'"
Yet in the same newspaper we read: "A source close to British intelligence yesterday described Mr. Lakhani as a 'known arms dealer' who was thought to conduct most of his business offshore. He put 'feelers' out and 'clearly knew who he was selling the missile to,' the source added, making the point that Mr. Lakhani would not have been involved in a 'blind deal.'" The internet turns up sparse evidence of Lakhani or what he does for a living.
Yehuda Abraham is even more of a question mark.What possible connection could this 76-year-old pillar of the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City have to do with international terrorism? Mr. Abraham is described by the New York Times as "a slight, stooped 76-year-old gem dealer, with a house in Queens, an office in New York's Diamond District and shops around the world including Saudi Arabia which has an official policy against dealing with Jews." Pretty much the last person you might expect to be involved in a scheme to sell SAMs to Al Qaeda. And yet Abraham’s links to Israel by history, heritage and religion are strong.
Mr. Abraham was the money man, a shadowy figure who facilitated the work of terrorists by giving them the means to finance their actions – the purchase of the missiles – through an informal money transfer system, known as hawala, which is common in the Middle East and a preferred method of finance for terrorists; where drug dealers, crininals and terrorists launder money and transfer funds out of the US without the peering eyes of the US governmentand the IRS.
The third member of this disparate trio, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, is even more shadowy than the others: described as a "Malaysian resident," he turned up on the scene the week before the final transaction was to occur, apparently to launder the proceeds. The Washington Post reports: "Hameed, who is charged with operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, was allegedly brought into the deal only this week to handle a scheduled down payment of $500,000 on the purchase of 50 more missiles, officials said."
Hameed is described in some news accounts as an employee of Abraham's Ambuy International, a.k.a. Ambuy Gem Corp., probably the only Jewish-owned company to boast of offices in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Both Hameed and Abraham are charged with operating an illegal money-laundering scheme, which could get them a mere 5 years prison time and a $250,000 fine.
Their companies operate in all the wrong places—Burma, Angola, Sierra Leone, and Congo. America Mineral Fields (AMF), renamed ADASTRA, partnered with AngloAmerican in DRC, and was recently bought by First Quantum of Canada.
Jean-Raymond Boulle, Maurice Tempelsman (JACQUELINE KENNEDY'S COMPANION FOR MANY YEARS--LEFT HIS WIFE TO MOVE IN WITH HER--HANDLED HER FINANCES---INCREASED HER HOLDINGS DRAMATICALLY), Walter Kansteiner, Ed Royce (R-CA), and Corporate Council on Africa members like Halliburton, Boeing, Cargill and Freeport McMoran—--
----these are the architects of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), America’s NAFTA for Africa. AGOA destroys local markets, erects discriminatory trade barriers, undermines local economies to enrich elites and impoverish the masses—in the language of diamondthink, the AGOA promotes free trade.
In August 2003, authorities stopped a trio of would-be terrorists from unthinkable carnage against Americans and these terrorists stated desire to uindermine the US economy. Authorities caught three men trying to smuggle a shoulder-fired missile into Americca. The missile in question is a Russian-made model and one of the most lethal in the world. It is so powerful, that it can shoot down a commercial jetliner.
Acccording to news reports, the prime suspect in the case is wealthy diamond jeweler, Yehuda Abraham, who operates in the secret shadowy, criminal world of the New York City Diamond District. Federal agents carted loads of files and computer records taken from Abraham’s office on West 47th Street.
One night in October 2002, prosecutors say, a client entered Mr. Abraham's 12th-floor Midtown Diamond Diistrict office and handed him $30,000 in hundred dollar bills, an odd, but normal transaction in the shady world of international gem dealers. <<<<
Here is the thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1313753/posts
Jetliner missile plot trial begins
Notice this diamond-related article by Mary Jacoby....
Fusion GPS’ Glen Simpson’s wife.
Wonder if she has ever used Canadian Ari ben Menashe as a source? He was involved in Mugabe’s diamond business as a security consultant.
The fact this was published in WSJ is also relevant: Simpson’s Fusion GPS operation emerged from WSJ financial investigations that lent themselves to opposition research. As far as Beny Steinmetz goes, he helped William Browder and Edmond Safra start Hermitage Capital as part of an effort to invest Western dollars in Russia, related to oil/gas and titanium production.
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