The Hidden Financial Ties between the Bush and the Bin Laden Families.

A Financial Crime

Several days after the September 11 attacks, it was known that certain stock market maneuvers with the characteristics of a "financial crime" were made six days before the attacks. [1]The United Airlines shares (the company which owned the planes that crashed against the southern part of the WTC and in Pittsburg) in the Stock artificially fell 42%. Those of American Airlines (the company that owned the plane that crashed against the northern part of the WTC and the allegedly plane that disappeared when it crashed against the Pentagon) fell 39%. No other airline in the world had been subject to such speculative schemes, except for the KLM Real Dutch Airlines.

So, it can be said that a plane of the Dutch company was also targeted by the terrorists to launch perhaps a fifth attack in a hijacked plane too. Identical maneuvers were also recognized on the put options of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co which were multiplied by 12 a week before the attacks. The said society had 22 floors of the WTC. The same thing happened with the put options of the leading stockbroker of the world: Merryl Lynch & Co which headquarters was located in a neighboring building next to the WTC in danger of collapsing. Its shares were multiplied by 25; especially the put options on the shares of insurances involved: Munich, Re, Swiss and AXA.

The Chicago Monitoring Commission of stock operations was the first one to call people’s attention. It affirmed that in Chicago’s stock market, the “knowers” had 5 million dollars gains or benefits from United Airlines, 4 million dollars from American Airlines, 1.2 million dollars from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co and 5.5 million dollars from Merryl Lynch & Co. The monitoring experts every major stock market checked and rechecked the gains of the “knowers”. All investigations were coordinated by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). [2]

On October 15, 2001, a video-conference was filmed in which the national authorities presented their first reports. It was showed that the illegal gains would sum hundreds of millions of dollars, that is, “the greatest and most important financial crime of all times” perpetrated by these “knowers”.
It was possible to state that most financial transactions had been “made” by the Deutsche Bank and its American investment affiliate, Alex Brown. [3] Until 1998, this society was managed by a peculiar man: Mister A. B. Krongard, marines’ Capitan, shooting and martial arts lover. This banker became adviser to the director of the CIA and, since March 26, 2001, was number three in the American espionage agency (CIA). Based on the importance of the investigation and A. B. Krongard’s influence, it was thought that Alex Brown society would cooperate with the authorities to facilitate the financial criminals’ identification. But this was not the case and nothing has been done up to now. Likewise, it was thought that the revelations made by Ernest Backes [4] several months ago regarding the existence of the registers of the main inter-banks transactions made by two “clearing” organizations would have facilitated the investigators hunting. But, once again, nothing was done.

Despite the militaristic statements made by western leaders against “Terrorism”, the fact is that no investigation has been actually finished; as if they want the whole thing to be forgotten, even when world peace is in danger and many things depend on this. It is about leading the world public opinion to think that the discretion and opacity of the tax heavens would not help or lead to find “clues” of these illegal transactions which would then lead to find the criminal terrorists involved in the attacks.
Meanwhile, the financial criminals have prudently relinquished to the 2.5 million dollars of the gain from American Airlines for the alert given prevented them from collecting the last millions earned.

Osama Bin Laden’s Fortune

At the same time, other investigations were carried out to determine the importance of Osama Bin Laden’s fortune, the alleged author of the terrorist attacks, and locate the financial societies he controlled.
Graduated in Management and Economy from King Abdul Aziz University, Osama Bin Laden is a very clever businessman. In 1979, his tutor, Prince Turki al Fayçal al Saud (by then, director of Saudi Arabia secret services from 1977 to August 2001), asked him to direct and financially manage the CIA secret operations in Afghanistan. In a few years, the CIA invested 2 billion dollars in Afghanistan to provoke the failure of the USSR’s invasion. This has been the most expensive secret operation ever made by the American espionage agency. It was unique in history.

In 1994, while Ben Laden had become America’s number one enemy and Saudi Arabia had divested him of his nationality, Osama Bin Laden inherited about 300 million dollars, his part from family society Saudi Binladen Group SBG. [5] This holding, the most important one of Saudi Arabia, made half of its total money from construction and public works, and the other half came from engineering, real states, distributions, telecommunications and edition.

SBG founded also an investment Swiss society, the SICO (Saudi Investment Company) which at the same time founded other societies with the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia affiliates. The SBG also has important interests in General Electric, Nortel Networks and Cadbury Schweppes. SBG’s industrial activities are represented in the United States by Adnan Khashoggi (former brother in law of Mohammed al Fayçal) whereas its financial capitals are managed by the Carlyle Group. Up to 1996, SBG’s affiliates’ legalization was prepared in Lausanne (Switzerland) by its adviser, Nazi banker Francois Genoud -picture to the right. [6]

SGB was also much linked to the Wahhabi regimen, the ruling regimen in Saudi Arabia, and was the only company hired to build the sacred sites of the kingdom, Medina and the Mecca. Likewise, it also had most of BTP contracts for the construction of American military bases in Saudi Arabia and for the reconstruction of Kuwait after the Gulf War.
The SGB was founded in 1931 by the Patriarch, the sheikh Mohammed Ben Laden. After his death in 1968, his oldest son Salem succeeded him. But Salem died in a “plane crash” in Texas, United States, in 1988. Today, the SBG is managed by Bark, the second son of the founder.

But, despite the fact that the SBG has stated it had no contacts with Osama Bin Laden since 1994, many authors and experts have established the difference between the positive law and the costume law. For them, the fundamentalist leader still has his moral authority and gets his part of the money too.

Osama Bin Laden [7] invested his inheritance in founding several banks, food and agriculture societies and the distribution of Sudan. Among these companies, Osama Bin Laden invested 50 million dollars in the Al-Shamal Islamic Bank in which Tadamon Islamic Bank (logo to the lower right) is a reference shareholder.

Due to this financial overlapping, Osama Bin Laden became the business partner of the Minister of Social Affairs of the United Arab Emirates and of the Dar al-Maal al Islami, which prince Mamad Al Faisal uses to finance the group of movements, associations and the Wahhabis of the world on behalf of Saudi Arabia. Osama Bin Laden also has important interests in the Dubai Islamic Bank of Mohammed Khalfan Ben Kharbash, minister of finance of the United Arab Emirates.

Assisted at the beginning by Colonel Omar Asan el-Bechir, and later by Hassan el-Tourabi, Osama Bin Laden was able to develop several companies in Sudan by building an airport, freeways, a pipeline and controlling most of the production of the Arabic gum. But, despite all this, he was expelled out of Sudan in 1996. It was suspected Osama Bin Laden had been a shareholder of Al-Shifa pharmaceutical lab bombed by Clinton in 1998 for the allegedly production of chemical weapons. It’s been also believed Osama Bin Laden had a leading role in the international trade of opium where Afghanistan is the major producer.

Osama Bin Laden has had a spiritual authority upon the powerful Muslim charitable associations, especially the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and the foundation of King Fahd’s brother in law, the Abdul Aziz al Ibrahim.
If we add to his fortune the stock of weapons he might have kept from the first war in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden’s fortune could be assessed between 300 and 500 million dollars, a figure quite different from the 6 billion dollars some political personalities have said he has. Anyway, up to now, there has been no evidence to prove the possible links between the societies controlled by fundamentalist leader Osama Bin Laden and the perpetrators of the September 11 «financial crime».

The Financial Partners of Osama Bin Laden

Two well-known personalities have been omnipresent in Osama Bin Laden’s societies: the sheik Khaled Salim Ben Mahfouz and Saleh Idris. According to Forbes Magazine, Khaled Ben Mahfouz is ranked 251 among the richest of the world with a fortune assessed 1.9 billion dollars. His father founded the main bank of Saudi Arabia, the National Commercial Bank (picture -the headquarters of the NCB is in Djeddah) which founded several societies with the Bin Laden Group’s SICO. Mahfouz’ sister married Osama Bin Laden. [8] Up to 1996, the Bin Mahfouz and the Bin Laden benefited from the services and advises of Francois Genoud for the establishment of their financial subsidiaries.

Khaled Ben Mahfouz has a residence in Houston, Texas, and with the support of the Bush family, he bought part of the city airport for his personal business. He also has many societies world wide.
Despite being a usual and trade partner of Osama Bin laden, Khaled Ben Mahfouz is a much respected businessman in the most important Stocks of the world. This is an important element for he was also involved in a huge banking scandal at the beginning of the 90s: the «crack» case or BCCI’s bankruptcy -see the report. [9] The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was an Anglo-Pakistani institution with subsidiaries in 73 countries. It was controlled by three powerful families: the Gokal (Pakistan), the Ben Mahfouz (Saudi Arabia) and the Geith Pharaon (Abu Dhabi). This bank was used by Ronald Reagan to bribe and corrupt the Iranian government so that it would delay the liberation of the American hostages from Teheran embassy. The purpose was to sabotage and discredit the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency (Operation “October Surprise”). Later, sponsored by the former director of the CIA and Vice-president George Bush (father), the Reagan Administration used again the BCCI to transfer its contributions to the “Contras” in Nicaragua as well as the CIA money for the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan that fought the Soviet Union and communism.

The BCCI was also involved in the arms traffic of Syrian “trader” Sarkis Sarkenalian, in the Keatinga scandal in the United States, in the affairs of “trader” Marc Rich and the funding of group Abu Nidal, etc. All in all, the BCCI had serious problems when it was found out that it laundered money from the Medellin Cartel. When it was finally closed, the BCCI divested from their savings million of clients in the world who could never get their money back.

It is true the BCCI was manipulated but to think the bank was founded by the CIA must not surprise us. There is an old banking tradition in the American secret services since the foundation of the OSS by business attorneys and Wall Street stockbrokers. Two former directors of the CIA, Richard Helms and William Casey, worked for the BCCI, as well as CIA influent prestigious agents Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghobanifar (the main traders of the Irangate), not to mention Kamal Adham (brother in law of King Fayçal and chief of Saudi Arabia secret services until 1977), prince Turki al-Fayçal al-Saud (chief of Saudi Arabia secret services until August 2001) and Abdul Khalil (deputy director of the said secret services).

The BCCI worked closely with SICO, [10] a Swiss affiliate of Saudi Bin Laden Group investments. Among the main managers of SICO we have Osama Bin Laden’s half-brother, Yeslam Bin Laden, who was recently granted the Swiss nationality and lives nowadays in Geneva.
A year before its bankruptcy, the BCCI was used to make a huge illegal enrichment operation for George W. Bush son, the current President of the United States, when he was the manager of a small oil society called Harken Energy Corporation. Harken got the oil concessions of the state of Bahrain as part of a commission for the American-Kuwaiti contracts negotiated by President George Bush father. [11] Khaled Bin Mahfouz was a shareholder of Harken with 11.5%. His shares were “taken” to one of his representatives, Abdullah Taha Bakhsh. On his side, one of Osama Bin Laden’s brothers, Salem, was one of the representatives of the Board of Directors of Harken Company through his American representative James R. Bath.

Accused as the main responsible for BCCI’s bankruptcy, Khaled Bin Mahfouz was sentenced by the American justice in 1992. However, he was able to get rid of the accusations against him in 1995 due to a 245 million dollars agreement with his financial partners.
On his part, Saleh Idris, director of the Saudi Sudanese Bank which was only a Sudanese subsidiary of Khaled Ben Mahfouz’ National Commercial Bank, was Osama Bin Laden’s partner in the pharmaceutical plant of Al-Shifa. In England, Saled Idris has been IES Digital Systems’ major shareholder, an important company which produces high-tech materials of electronic surveillance. Lately, Baroness Cox has been surprised in the House of Lords for IES Digital Systems guarantees the protection of the most sensitive and strategic British governmental and military sites. [12]

From BCCI to the Carlyle Group

BCCI’s main responsible and clients are found today in the Carlyle Group, an investment fund in administration specialized in the management of financial capitals. It was created in 1987, for years before BCCI bankruptcy. Currently, Carlyle manages 12 billion dollars and has major shares in Seven Up (which also bottles the Cadbury Schweppes), Federal Data Corporation (which equipped the Federal Aviation Administration and its system of civil air traffic surveillance) and the United Defense Industries Inc. (the main military supplier of the American, Turkish and Saudi Arabic armies). Through the companies it controls and manages, the Carlyle Group is the 11 among the American arms companies.

In 1990, the Carlyle Group was accused of funds extortion. A lobbyist of the Republican Party, Wayne Bernman, had “racketed” the pension funds of the American retirees to finance the Bushes electoral campaigns. One of the persons in charge of the said funds accepted to give a million dollars to the Carlyle Group in order to get a public contract in the state of Connecticut.
The Carlyle Group manages the most important part of the Saudi Bin Laden Group financial funds. Among its managers, we have Sami Mubarak Brama, the representative in Great Britain of the Khaled Ben Mahfouz and Talat Othmann, a former manager of the Harken Energy Corporation, the society that helped George W. Bush to become rich illegally.

The Carlyle Group is managed by Frank C. Carlucci (former deputy director of the CIA and later Secretary of Defense) who is advised by James A. Baker III (President Reagan former chief of staff, later Secretary of the Treasury and then Secretary of State of George Bush father). Another adviser is Richard Darman (former Budget Director).
Contrary to what the whole world think, Osama Bin Laden has been not only a CIA intermediary hired to fight the Arab nationalism and the Soviet Union when it invaded Afghanistan, thus raising the radical Islamism, but still, he and his family are one of the main financial partners of the Bush family.

If as some American official think, the Bin Laden family maintains its relations with Osama Bin Laden and finances his political activities then, the Carlyle Group which manages the millionaire funds of the Saudi Bin Laden Group would be involved in the financial crime. Consequently, Bush father would then be one of the luckiest who benefited from the speculative schemes of September 11, 2001.