Evidence for Informed Trading on the Attacks of September 11

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/11/18/evidence-for-informed-trading-on-the-attacks-of-september-11/3/
by Kevin Ryan
November 18, 2010

Just after September 11th 2001, many governments began investigations into possible insider trading related to the terrorist attacks of that day.  Such investigations were initiated by the governments of Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Monte Carlo, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States, and others.  Although the investigators were clearly concerned about insider trading, and considerable evidence did exist, none of the investigations resulted in a single indictment.  That’s because the people identified as having been involved in the suspicious trades were seen as unlikely to have been associated with those alleged to have committed the 9/11 crimes.

This is an example of the circular logic often used by those who created the official explanations for 9/11.  The reasoning goes like this: if we assume that we know who the perpetrators were (i.e. the popular version of “al Qaeda”) and those who were involved in the trades did not appear to be connected to those assumed perpetrators, then insider trading did not occur.

That’s basically what the 9/11 Commission told us.  The Commission concluded that “exhaustive investigations” by the SEC and the FBI “uncovered no evidence that anyone with advance knowledge of the attacks profited through securities transactions.”  What they meant was that someone did profit through securities transactions but, based on the Commission’s assumptions of guilt, those who profited were not associated with those who were guilty of conducting the attacks.  In a footnote, the Commission report acknowledged “highly suspicious trading on its face,” but said that this trading on United Airlines was traced back to “A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda.”[1]

With respect to insider trading, or what is more technically called informed trading, the Commission report was itself suspect for several reasons.  First, the informed trades relating to 9/11 covered far more than just airline company stock.  The stocks of financial and reinsurance companies, as well as other financial vehicles, were identified as being associated with suspicious trades.  Huge credit card transactions, completed just before the attacks, were also involved.  The Commission ultimately tried to frame all of this highly suspicious trading in terms of a series of misunderstandings.  However, the possibility that so many leading financial experts were so completely wrong is doubtful at best and, if true, would constitute another unbelievable scenario in the already highly improbable sequence of events represented by the official story of 9/11.

In the last few years, new evidence has come to light on these matters.  In 2006 and 2010, financial experts at a number of universities have established new evidence, through statistical analyses, that informed trades did occur with respect to the 9/11 attacks.  Additionally, in 2007, the 911 Commission released a memorandum summary of the FBI investigations on which its report was based.[2] A careful review of this memorandum indicates that some of the people who were briefly investigated by the FBI, and then acquitted without due diligence, had links to al Qaeda and to US intelligence agencies.  Although the elapsed time between the informed trades and these new confirmations might prevent legal action against the guilty, the facts of the matter can help lead us to the truth about 9/11.

Early signs

Within a week of the attacks, Germany’s stock market regulator, BAWe, began looking into claims of suspicious trading.[3] That same week, Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Martino, made it clear that he had concerns by issuing this public statement: “I think that there are terrorist states and organisations behind speculation on the international markets.”[4]

Within two weeks of the attacks, CNN reported that regulators were seeing “ever-clearer signs” that someone “manipulated financial markets ahead of the terror attack in the hope of profiting from it.”  Belgian Finance Minister, Didier Reynders, said that there were strong suspicions that British markets were used for transactions.[5] The CIA was reported to have asked the British regulators to investigate some of the trades.[6] Unfortunately, the British regulator, The Financial Services Authority, wrote off its investigation by simply clearing “bin Laden and his henchmen of insider trading.”[7]

Conversely, German central bank president, Ernst Welteke, said his bank conducted a study that strongly indicated “terrorism insider trading” associated with 9/11.  He stated that his researchers had found “almost irrefutable proof of insider trading.”[8] Welteke suggested that the insider trading occurred not only in shares of companies affected by the attacks, such as airlines and insurance companies, but also in gold and oil. [9]

The extent of the 9/11-related informed trading was unprecedented.  An ABC News Consultant, Jonathan Winer, said, “it’s absolutely unprecedented to see cases of insider trading covering the entire world from Japan to the US to North America to Europe.”[10]

By October 2001, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the four other options exchanges in the US had joined forces with the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate a list of 38 stocks, as well as multiple options  and Treasury bonds, that were flagged in relation to potential informed trades.  SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt gave testimony to the House Financial Services Committee at the time, saying, “We will do everything in our power to track those people down and bring them to justice.”[11]

Mary Bender, chief regulatory officer at the CBOE, stated “We’ve never really had anything like this, [the option exchanges are] using the same investigative tools as we would in an insider-trading case. The point is to find people who are connected to these heinous crimes.”

The people ultimately found included an unnamed customer of Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown (DBAB).  This involved a trade on United Airlines (UAL) stock consisting of a 2,500-contract order that was, for some reason, split into chunks of 500 contracts each and then directed to multiple exchanges around the country simultaneously.[12] When the 9/11 Commission report pointed to a “single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda,” it was referring to either DBAB or its customer in that questionable trade.

Michael Ruppert has since written about DBAB, noting that the company had previously been a financier of The Carlyle Group and also of Brown Brothers Harriman, both of which are companies closely related to the Bush family.  Ruppert also noted that Alex. Brown, the company purchased by Deutsche Bank to become DBAB, was managed by A.B. (Buzzy) Krongard, who left the firm in 1998 to join the CIA as counsel to director George Tenet.[13] Krongard had been a consultant to CIA director James Woolsey in the mid 1990s and, on September 11th, he was the Executive Director of the CIA, the third highest position in the agency.

Stock and Treasury bonds traded

In 2002, investigator Kyle Hence wrote about the stocks involved in the SEC’s target list.  Those that had the highest examples of trade volume over the average were UAL [285 times over average], Marsh & McLennan (Marsh) [93 times over average], American Airlines (AMR) [60 times over average], and Citigroup [45 times over average].[14] Other stocks flagged included financial firms, defense-related companies, and the reinsurance firms Munich Re, Swiss Re and the AXA Group.  Put options for these reinsurance firms, or bets that the stock would drop, were placed at double the normal levels in the few days before the attacks.  Regulators were concerned about “large block trades” on these stocks because the three firms were liable for billions in insurance payouts due to the damage inflicted on 9/11.[15]

The four highest-volume suspect stocks — UAL, Marsh, AMR and Citigroup — were closely linked to the attacks of 9/11.  The two airline companies each had two planes hijacked and destroyed.  Marsh was located in the exact 8 floors out of 110 in the north tower of the WTC where Flight 11 impacted and the fires occurred.  Citigroup was the parent of Travelers Insurance, which was expected to see $500 million in claims, and also Salomon Smith Barney, which occupied all but ten floors in World Trade Center (WTC) building 7.  Oddly enough, Salomon Smith Barney had both Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney on its advisory board until January 2001.

Marsh occupied a number of floors in the south tower as well.  This is where the office of Marsh executive, L. Paul Bremer, was located.  Bremer was a former managing director at Kissinger Associates and had just completed leading a national terrorism commission in 2000.  The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Bremer was a source of early claims that rich Arabs were financing Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.  In an article on the 9/11 informed trades, the Chronicle reported that “The former chairman of the State Department’s National Commission on Terrorism, L. Paul Bremer, said he obtained classified government analyses early last year of bin Laden’s finances confirming the assistance of affluent Middle Easterners.”[16]

On the day of 9/11, Bremer was interviewed by NBC News and stated that he believed Osama bin Laden was responsible and that possibly Iraq and Iran were involved too, and he called for the most severe military response possible.  For unknown reasons, Google removed the interview video from its servers three times, and blocked it once.[17]

The trading of Treasury bonds just before 9/11 was also flagged as being suspicious.  Reporters from The Wall street Journal wrote that the “U.S. Secret Service contacted a number of bond traders regarding large purchases of five-year Treasury notes before the attacks, according to people familiar with the probe. The investigators, acting on a tip from traders, are examining whether terrorists, or people affiliated with terrorist organizations, bought five-year notes, including a single $5 billion trade.”[18]

Some reports claimed that the 9/11 informed trades were such that millions of dollars were made, and some of that went unclaimed. [19] Others suggested that the trades resulted in the winning of billions of dollars in profits.  One such suggestion was made by the former German Minister of Technology, Andreas von Buelow, who said that the value of the informed trades was on the order of $15 billion.[20]

The FBI Investigations

In May 2007, a 9/11 Commission document that summarized the FBI investigations into potential 9/11-related informed trading was declassified. [21] This document was redacted to remove the names of two FBI agents from the New York office, and to remove the names of select suspects in the informed trading investigations.  The names of other FBI agents and suspects were left in.  Regardless, some information can be gleaned from the document to help reveal the trades and traders investigated.

On September 21, 2001, the SEC referred two specific transactions to the FBI for criminal investigation as potential informed trades.  One of those trades was a September 6, 2001 purchase of 56,000 shares of a company called Stratesec, which in the few years before 9/11 was a security contractor for several of the facilities that were compromised on 9/11.  These facilities included the WTC buildings, Dulles airport, where American Airlines Flight 77 took off, and also United Airlines, which owned two of the other three ill-fated planes.

The affected 56,000 shares of Stratesec stock were purchased by a director of the company, Wirt D. Walker III, and his wife Sally Walker.  This is clear from the memorandum generated to record the FBI summary of the trades investigated.[22] The Stratesec stock that the Walkers purchased doubled in value in the one trading day between September 11th and when the stock market reopened on September 17th.  The Commission memorandum suggests that the trade generated a profit of $50,000 for the Walkers.  Unfortunately, the FBI did not interview either of the Walkers and they were both cleared of any wrongdoing because they were said to have “no ties to terrorism or other negative information.” [23]

However, Wirt Walker was connected to people who had connections to al Qaeda.  For example, Stratesec director James Abrahamson was the business partner of Mansoor Ijaz, who claimed on several occasions to be able to contact Osama bin Laden.[24] Additionally, Walker hired a number of Stratesec employees away from a subsidiary of The Carlyle Group called BDM International, which ran secret (black) projects for government agencies.  The Carlyle Group was partly financed by members of the bin Laden family.[25] Mr. Walker ran a number of suspicious companies that went bankrupt, including Stratesec, some of which were underwritten by a company run by a first cousin of former CIA director (and President) George H.W. Bush.  Additionally, Walker was the child of a CIA employee and his first job was at an investment firm run by former US intelligence guru, James “Russ” Forgan, where he worked with another former CIA director, William Casey.[26] Of course, Osama bin Laden had links to the CIA as well.[27]

Another trade investigated by the FBI, on request from the SEC, focused on Amir Ibrahim Elgindy, an Egyptian-born, San Diego stock advisor who on the day before 9/11 had allegedly attempted to liquidate $300,000 in assets through his broker at Salomon Smith Barney.  During the attempted liquidation, Elgindy was said to have “predicted that the Dow Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon crash to below 3,000.”[28]

The 9/11 Commission memorandum suggests that the FBI never interviewed Mr. Elgindy either, and had planned to exonerate him because there was “no evidence he was seeking to establish a position whereby he would profit from the terrorist attacks.”  Apparently, the prediction of a precipitous drop in the stock market, centered on the events of 9/11, was not sufficient cause for the FBI to interview the suspect.

In late May 2002, Elgindy was arrested along with four others, including an FBI agent and a former FBI agent, and charged with conspiracy to manipulate stock prices and extort money from companies.  The FBI agents, Jeffrey A Royer and Lynn Wingate, were said to have “used their access to F.B.I. databases to monitor the progress of the criminal investigation against Mr. Elgindy.”[29] A federal prosecutor later accused Elgindy, who also went by several aliases, of having prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.  Although the judge in that case did not agree with the prosecutor on the 9/11 informed trading accusation, Mr. Elgindy was eventually convicted, in 2005, of multiple crimes including racketeering, securities fraud, and making false statements.

The Boston office of the FBI investigated stock trades related to two companies.  The first was Viisage Technologies, a facial recognition company that stood to benefit from an increase in terrorism legislation.  The Viisage purchase, made by a former employee of the Saudi American Bank, “revealed no connection with 9/11.”  However, the Saudi American Bank was named in a lawsuit brought by the 9/11 victims’ families due to the bank having — “financed development projects in Sudan benefiting bin Laden in the early 1990s.”[30]

The second company investigated by the Boston FBI office was Wellington Management, a company that allegedly held a large account for Osama bin Laden.  The FBI found that Wellington Management maintained an account for “members of the bin Laden family” but dropped the investigation because it could not link this to “Osama, al Qaeda, or terrorism.”[31]

Although the connections to al Qaeda in three of these cases (Walker, the Viisage trader, and Wellington Management) can be seen as circumstantial, the amount of such evidence is considerable.  The quality of the FBI investigations, considering the suspects were not even interviewed, was therefore much less than “exhaustive”, as the 9/11 Commission characterized it.

The summary of FBI investigations released by the 9/11 Commission also described how the Commission questioned the FBI about damaged computer hard drives that might have been recovered from the WTC.  This questioning was the result of “press reports [contending] that large volumes of suspicious transactions flowed through the computers housed in the WTC on the morning of 9/11 as part of some illicit but ill-defined effort to profit from the attacks.”[32] The Commission came to the conclusion that no such activity occurred because “the assembled agents expressed no knowledge of the reported hard-drive recovery effort” and “everything at the WTC was pulverized to near powder, making it extremely unlikely that any hard-drives survived.”

The truth, however, is that many such hard-drives were recovered from the WTC and were sent to specialist companies to be cleaned and have data recovered.  A German company named Convar did a good deal of the recovery work.

In December 2001, Reuters reported that “Convar has recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty doomsday dealings.” Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at Convar, testified that “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.”  Director of Convar, Peter Henschel, said that it was “not only the volume, but the size of the transactions [that] was far higher than usual for a day like that.”[33]

By late December 2001, Convar had completed processing 39 out of 81 drives, and expected to receive 20 more WTC hard drives the next month.  Obviously, the 911 Commission memorandum drafted in August 2003 was not particularly reliable considering it reported that the FBI and the 911 Commission had no knowledge of any of this.

Statistical confirmations

Considering that the FBI and 9/11 Commission overlooked the suspicious connections of informed trading suspects like Wirt Walker, and also claimed in 2003 to have no knowledge of hard drive recoveries publicly reported in 2001, we must assume that they did a poor job of investigating.  Today, however, we know that several peer-reviewed academic papers have reported solid evidence that informed trades did occur.  That is, the conclusions reached by the official investigations have now been shown, through scientific analysis, to be quite wrong.

In 2006, a professor of Finance from the University of Illinois named Allen Poteshman published an analysis of the airline stock option trades preceding the attacks.  This study came to the conclusion that an indicator of long put volume was “unusually high which is consistent with informed investors having traded in the option market in advance of the attacks.”[34] Long puts are bets that a stock or option will fall in price.

The unusually high volume of long puts, purchased on UAL and AMR stock before these stocks declined dramatically due to the 9/11 attacks, are evidence that the traders knew that the stocks would decline.  Using statistical techniques to evaluate conditional and unconditional distributions of historical stock option activity, Professor Poteshman showed that the data indicate that informed trading did occur.

In January 2010, a team of financial experts from Switzerland published evidence for at least thirteen informed trades in which the investors appeared to have had foreknowledge of the attacks.  This study focused again on a limited number of companies but, of those, the informed trades centered on five airline companies and four financial companies.  The airline companies were American Airlines, United Airlines and Boeing.  Three of the financial companies involved were located in the WTC towers and the fourth was Citigroup, which stood to lose doubly as the parent of both Travelers Insurance and the WTC 7 tenant, Salomon Smith Barney.[35]

More recently, in April 2010, an international team of experts examined trading activities of options on the Standard & Poors 500 index, as well as a volatility index of the CBOE called VIX.  These researchers showed that there was a significant abnormal increase in trading volume in the option market just before the 9/11 attacks, and they demonstrated that this was in contrast to the absence of abnormal trading volume over periods long before the attacks.  The study also showed that the relevant abnormal increase in trading volume was not simply due to a declining market.[36] Their findings were “consistent with insiders anticipating the 9-11 attacks.”

Conclusion

In the early days just after 9/11, financial regulators around the world gave testimony to unprecedented evidence for informed trading related to the terrorist attacks of that day.  One central bank president (Welteke) said there was irrefutable proof of such trading.  This evidence led US regulators to vow, in Congressional testimony, to bring those responsible to justice.  Those vows were not fulfilled, as the people in charge of the investigations let the suspects off the hook by conducting weak inquiries and concluding that informed trading could not have occurred if it was not done directly by Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda.

The “exhaustive investigations” conducted by the FBI, on which the 9/11 Commission report was based, were clearly bogus.  The FBI did not interview the suspects and did not appear to compare notes with the 9/11 Commission to help make a determination if any of the people being investigated might have had ties to al Qaeda.  The Commission’s memorandum summary suggests that the FBI simply made decisions on its own regarding the possible connections of the suspects and the alleged terrorist organizations.  Those unilateral decisions were not appropriate, as at least three of the suspected informed trades (those of Walker, the Viisage trader, and Wellington Management) involved reasonably suspicious links to Osama bin Laden or his family.  Another suspect (Elgindy) was a soon-to-be convicted criminal who had direct links to FBI employees who were later arrested for securities-related crimes.

The FBI also claimed in August 2003 that it had no knowledge of hard drives recovered from the WTC, which were publicly reported in 2001.  According to the people who retrieved the associated data, the hard drives gave evidence for “dirty doomsday dealings.”

The evidence for informed trading on 9/11 includes many financial vehicles, from stock options to Treasury bonds to credit card transactions made at the WTC just before it was destroyed.  Today we know that financial experts from around the world have provided strong evidence, through established and reliable statistical techniques, that the early expert suspicions were correct, and that 9/11 informed trading did occur.

People knew in advance about the crimes of 9/11, and they profited from that knowledge.  Those people are among us today, and our families and communities are at risk of future terrorist attacks and further criminal profiteering if we do not respond to the evidence.  It is time for an independent, international investigation into the informed trades and the traders who benefited from the terrorist acts of September 11th.

Notes

[1] National Commission on the Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, July 2004, p 172, and Chapter 5, footnote 130, http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf

[2] 9/11 Commission memorandum entitled “FBI Briefing on Trading”, prepared by Doug Greenburg, 18 August 2003, http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00269.pdf

[3] Dave Carpenter, Exchange examines odd jump: Before attack: Many put options of hijacked planes’ parent companies purchased , The Associated Press, 18 September 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/cjonline_oddjump.html

[4] BBC News, Bin Laden ‘share gains’ probe, 18 September 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1548118.stm

[5] Tom Bogdanowicz and Brooks Jackson, Probes into ‘suspicious’ trading, CNN, 24 September 2001, http://web.archive.org/web/20011114023845/http://fyi.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/24/gen.europe.shortselling/

[6] James Doran, Insider Trading Apparently Based on Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks, The London Times, 18 September 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/londontimes_insidertrading.html

[7] David Brancaccio, Marketplace Public Radio: News Archives, 17 October 2001, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2001/10/17_mpp.html

[8] Paul Thompson and The Center for Cooperative Research, Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute:  A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 – and America’s Response, Harper Collins, 2004.  Also found at History Commons, Complete 9/11 Timeline, Insider Trading and Other Foreknowledge http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=insidertrading

[9] Associated Press, EU Searches for Suspicious Trading , 22 September 2001, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34910,00.html

[10] World News Tonight, 20 September 2001

[11] Erin E. Arvedlund, Follow The Money: Terrorist Conspirators Could Have Profited More From Fall Of Entire Market Than Single Stocks, Barron’s (Dow Jones and Company), 6 October 2001

[12] Ibid

[13] Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: the decline of the American empire at the end of the age of oil, New Society Publishers, 2004

[14] Kyle F. Hence, Massive pre-attack ‘insider trading’ offer authorities hottest trail to accomplices, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), 21 April 2002, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HEN204B.html

[15] Grant Ringshaw, Profits of doom, The London Telegraph, 23 September 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/telegraph_profitsofdoom.html

[16] Christian Berthelsen and Scott Winokur,  Suspicious profits sit uncollected:  Airline investors seem to be lying low, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 September 2001, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F2001%2F09%2F29%2FMN186128.DTL#ixzz14XPGwh6e

[17] Lewis Paul Bremer III on Washington, DC, NBC4 TV, 11 September 2001, Vehmgericht http://vehme.blogspot.com/2007/08/lewis-paul-bremer-iii-on-washington-dc.html

[18] Charles Gasparino and Gregory Zuckerman, Treasury Bonds Enter Purview of U.S. Inquiry Into Attack Gains, The Wall Street Journal, 2 October 2001, http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2001/wallstreetjournal100201.html

[19] Christian Berthelsen and Scott Winokur

[20] Tagesspiegel, Former German Cabinet Minister Attacks Official Brainwashing On September 11 Issue Points at “Mad Dog” Zbig and Huntington, 13 January 2002, http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/VonBuelow.html

[21] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[22] The 9/11 Commission memorandum that summarized the FBI investigations refers to the traders involved in the Stratesec purchase.  From the references in the document, we can make out that the two people had the same last name and were related.  This fits the description of Wirt and Sally Walker, who are known to be stock holders in Stratesec.  Additionally, one (Wirt) was a director at the company, a director at a publicly traded company in Oklahoma (Aviation General), and chairman of an investment firm in Washington, DC (Kuwam Corp).

[23] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[24] Sourcewatch, Mansoor Ijaz/Sudan, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mansoor_Ijaz/Sudan

[25] History Commons, Complete 911 Timeline, Bin Laden Family, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?financing_of_al-qaeda:_a_more_detailed_look=binladenFamily&timeline=complete_911_timeline

[26] Kevin R. Ryan, The History of Wirt Dexter Walker: Russell & Co, the CIA and 9/11, 911blogger.com, 3 September 2010, http://911blogger.com/news/2010-09-03/history-wirt-dexter-walker-russell-company-cia-and-911

[27] Michael Moran, Bin Laden comes home to roost : His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful story, MSNBC, 24 August 1998, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101

[28] Alex Berenson, U.S. Suggests, Without Proof, Stock Adviser Knew of 9/11, The New York Times, 25 May 2002, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E4DB143BF936A15756C0A9649C8B63

[29] Alex Berenson, Five, Including F.B.I. Agents, Are Named In a Conspiracy, The New York Times, 23 May 2002

[30] History Commons, Complete 911 Timeline, Saudi American Bank, http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=saudi_american_bank

[31] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[32] 9/11 Commission memorandum

[33] Erik Kirschbaum, German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals, Reuters, 16 December 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/reuters_wtc_drives.html

[34] Allen M. Poteshman, Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, The Journal of Business, 2006, vol. 79, no. 4, http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/503645

[35] Marc Chesney, et al, Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the Options Markets, Social Sciences Research Network, 13 January 2010, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1522157

[36] Wing-Keung Wong, et al, Was there Abnormal Trading in the S&P 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks?, Social Sciences Research Network, April 2010, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1588523

 

Excellent Research

Once again, Kevin Ryan is among the pioneers assembling critical information that can be used to solve who is really behind the crimes of 9/11. Well done, Kevin.
So, who put the nano-thermite in the towers? I don’t know, but I’ll bet the owners of the Federal Reserve have a pretty good idea.
Follow the money.

I subtitled two German videos

I subtitled two German videos about Convar, the German company that rescued some of the hard disks found at the WTC site. Unfortunately YouTube has removed one of those because of a copyright claim. The one below is still there. I will look for the source file of the taken down video and upload it to a file hoster later today for those interested. Both deal with insider trading.

The Dutch news show 'Zembla' also had an item about Convar. I subtitled this too.

Here's a download link for

Here's a download link for the video that was removed:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AMYO57YC

It's part of an episode of the German current affairs show 'Galileo' from January 16, 2002 about Convar and the WTC hard disks. It too is subtitled in English.

If anyone wants to upload it to YouTube, be my guest, but be warned that it was removed from my channel and I received a strike for it. The copyright claim is from SevenOne, a German media company that apparently posseses the rights.

Copyright

is a vehicle for censorship and control. If I must choose (and I realize this may be a false dilemma) between a world where nobody has copyright, causing massive revenue loss or a world where copyright is enforced at the whim of commercial and political interests, I choose the former.

Copyright is also an excuse for a far-reaching surveillance infrastructure that is then used for anything but copyright enforcement, while copyright enforcement in all its current malevolent incarnations is undesirable to begin with.

Nothing has spread its filthy tentacles over our freedom of expression and freedom of information as aggressively as copyright has. I presume few people ever look at the columns in the lower left corner of 911blogger. Under "news and blogs", third from above, there is a link to Richard Stallman, a living legend. Unfortunately it's defective. Here's a working link.

There is a book about Richard Stallman, called "Free as in Freedom". You can read it online. If you want to know the philosophy behind the licenses for such things as Firefox, Wikipedia, GNU/Linux and the software 911blogger runs on, read it sometime. Get to know what "copyleft" is, and the value of sticking to your principles. Stallman is a scientist, a programmer, a philosopher, an uncorruptable ideologue and an incredibly obtuse, unsung genius who deserves to be recognized.

Thanks for offering this download.

Copyright

Great film on the subject...

Remix - A Manifesto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdwN6rRU0Xk

Ominous clouds...

Now that the elections are over, Congress can get back to the job of censoring the internet.

S. 3804: Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA)

"Simply put, the COICA allows the government to keep “blacklists” of websites the government, in its sole discretion, decides are “dedicated to infringing activities.” The COICA does not require any hearing or judicial review, just “BAM” your website is gone. Not just the allegedly infringing material, not just the webpage upon which it appears, your entire website."

http://blawgit.com/2010/11/17/congress-back-to-censoring-internet/commen...

Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee

"On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.”

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/coica-web-censorship-bill/

I'm puzzled this issue isn't getting more attention.

This is the internet kill switch -- right here. And hardly anyone even knows about it.

Yes

I've seen this.... but what's the difference with the Patriot Act I or II, the Military Commissions Act.... Hell, these guys officially have the right to murder American citizens.

I'm not sure why this site is even allowed to exist. After all, aren't we providing "material support" to terrorists? (Anybody who doesn't watch Fox News)

This site is probably still up

because this isn't law yet.
But it might become law, soon.
It would be a kill switch indeed, seems like there're getting a bit desperate.

Will the bull ...eh... bill pass?

Oregon Senator Wyden effectively kills Internet censorship bill

"Sir Tim Berners-Lee, often cited as the father of the world wide web, has called Internet disconnection laws in the name of copyright protection a "blight" on the net."

Well said SC

I chose Linux and open sourced software over 3 years ago now, and havent looked back. Stallman is a strange, strange man but definitely a man who should be recognized for his contribution to the world.

Acceleration

"Perhaps it's understandable that some network administrators feel that the best way to accelerate a Windows system is at 9.81 meters per second squared."

The destruction of «potentially responsive records»

David Callahan - executive editor of SmartCEO - submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the SEC regarding the pre-9/11 put options.

The SEC responded:

«“Based on the information you provided in your letter, we conducted a thorough search of the commission’s various systems of records and consulted with other commission staff. However, we have been advised that the potentially responsive records have been destroyed. Therefore, we did not locate identify any information responsive to your request.”

http://maxkeiser.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/FOIAresponseGIF1.gif

http://911blogger.com/news/2010-06-15/sec-government-destroyed-documents...

I do not know if American law allowed the destruction of these «potentially responsive records».

Excellent

Kevin, you did it again. I want to add:

After the event, Baer graciously granted WeAreChangeLA members Stewart Howe and Jeremy Rothe-Kushel an interview in front of the Hammer Museum on Wilshire Boulevard. Although he avoided dealing with the operational aspects of the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Baer appeared to affirm or suggest Israeli Mossad and White House foreknowledge of the attacks. Baer laid out his take on a benign scenario for the "famous white van" associated with Mossad agents detained on 9/11 after being seen filming and celebrating the attacks. Baer also said that it could mean something "worse."

At the end of the interview Baer makes a very provocative statement:

"I know the guy that went into his broker in San Diego and said 'cash me out, it's going down tomorrow.'"

He then went on to say that this man's "brother worked in the White House."

WeAreChangeLA 'debriefs' former CIA Case Officer Robert Baer about apparent Mossad and White House 9/11 foreknowledge, and more

It's

more likely a brother of Cheney than Dubya then.

I think you mean

"a brother working for Cheney" than "a brother working for Dubya then" yes?

Just thought I'd ask as I'm hoping that these two don't have any more brothers than we already know about.

Cheers!

joking

was meant to mean : Dubya wasn't workin in the whitehouse ie wasnt running the show ever
unless we count reading off an autocue or repeating words coming into his ear through an audio device
and cheney on the other hand was someone who did a lot of work in the whitehouse
(sorry dont know much about sibling head count- i have a wicked sense of humour and it got the better of me) humor in the US spelling

Thank you

Thanks for more great work, Kevin. I can't wait to see you pull all these pieces together in a book!

Pass the Mayo

From the article:
"The people ultimately found included an unnamed customer of Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown (DBAB). This involved a trade on United Airlines (UAL) stock consisting of a 2,500-contract order that was, for some reason, split into chunks of 500 contracts each and then directed to multiple exchanges around the country simultaneously.[12] When the 9/11 Commission report pointed to a “single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda,” it was referring to either DBAB or its customer in that questionable trade."

Obviously that's a very wealthy customer. What did Buzzy Krongard do at the bank before going to the CIA?

"His last post before resigning to take his senior role in the CIA was to head Bankers Trust – Alex Brown's private client business, dealing with the accounts and investments of wealthy customers around the world."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mystery-of-terror-inside...

So who took his place? His underling of course, who for some reason quit after 16 years at the company the day after 9-11.

"LONDON, Sept. 14— Deutsche Bank A.G., Europe's largest bank, said Mayo Shattuck III quit as head of its United States securities unit, Alex. Brown."

"Mr. Shattuck, 46, who worked for Alex. Brown for 16 years, was made co-head of investment banking in January, overseeing Deutsche Bank's 400 brokers who cater to wealthy clients."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E5DD1F38F936A2575AC0A...

Obviously he is the guy to talk to about this trade.

"By 1991 he became president and chief operating officer at Alex. Brown, second to future Central Intelligence Agency Executive Director A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard."

"In 1997, they helped engineer the company's sale to Bankers Trust for $1.7 billion; after Bankers Trust in turn was acquired by Deutsche Bank he served as Chairman of the Board of Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown and, also serving as heads of Investment Banking and Private Banking."

"Shattuck resigned on September 12, 2001 as head of the Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown. By October 26, he was appointed President and CEO of Constellation Energy Group"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_A._Shattuck_III

He was a Bush supporter who gave the max amount in Bush's re-election campaign, the 2000 elections are not available.....

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres04/search.php?cid=&name=Shattuck&employ=%...

Not just anyone can get the President of the U.S. to make policy announcements at your company......

"I want to thank the President and the CEO of Constellation Energy, Mayo Shattuck. That's a pretty cool first name, isn't it, Mayo. (Laughter.) Pass the Mayo. (Laughter and applause.) His wife, Molly, appreciated that. (Laughter.)" -- President G Bush June 22, 2005
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-133467854.html

And this?:

"Sunday, 14 October 2001
Share speculators have failed to collect $2.5m (£1.7m) in profits made from the fall in the share price of United Airlines after the 11 September World Trade Centre attacks.

The fact that the money is unclaimed more than a month later has re-awakened investigators' interest in a story dismissed as coincidence.

It may be that investors who were able to predict the share price crash so skilfully are reluctant to be seen profiting from tragedy. But investigators now wonder whether there is a more sinister explanation."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mystery-of-terror-inside...

Maybe the guy that made the trade took off running the next day. Who knows?

Jim

I'm pining for some more blog articles from ya.

I'm always impressed by your source library...hope you're doing well.

Cheers

Slight distraction

Someone else demanded some of my time, I didn't want to be rude so I gave it to them....

http://www.911oz.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=9216&page=7

I do have some more productive things in the works though, thanks for the kind words. Happy Holidays

Switching to the topic at hand. Thanks Mr Ryan for a very interesting/informative article!

Project Hammer

And let’s not forget the 240 billion dollars worth of bonds (converted to 10 year treasuries) that were coming due on September 12, 2001.
Coincidently, those securities were in the basement of the towers, and although the majority of the international bankers gold was removed before hand (whew, that was close!), the paperwork for those Black Eagle Trust bonds, which funded W’s fathers regime change acts 10 years before, unfortunately were lost.
Thankfully the Federal Reserve anticipated such an attack and had everything of importance (except those bonds) backed up in remote locations that day. And wouldn’t you know it, the federal agency investigating those bonds and the 2 + trillion "tangled in the anchor chain" of the pentagon paperwork; the Navy Command Center and the offices of the Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence, took a direct hit on 9/11.
Regrettably over 30 % of the people that died worked for the Naval Command center as well as many accountants looking into that 2 trillion, which is now forever “tangled.”
Alas we may never know the whole story of Project Hammer because the records of many of those investigations were held in Buildings Six, Seven and on the 23rd floor of the North Tower.

Darned of luck.

More here:

http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Articles/Bush-Family-Hammer.htm

upwards

redistribution of wealth as its the man in the street who gets to pay for this by tax or by the devaluation of the dollar in his pocket when the fed issues more money, inflating the currency of this empire

L. Paul Bremer

In the section Stock and Treasury bonds traded,
information about L. Paul Bremer is given. Also mentioned is the NBC interview with Paul Bremer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2pW6WZhZrQ

Mike Ruppert

his take on the insider trading was that someone got greedy and it wasnt part of the masterplan- ref the truth and lies of 9/11 vid- youtube

i think either that or someone in a foreign security service did it though not involved in the plot

Well done, Kevin

“everything at the WTC was pulverized to near powder, making it extremely unlikely that any hard-drives survived"

I wasn't aware that a Commission memorandum actually made this preposterous excuse. The January 2002 Galileo segment on Convar's website that Arie provides above clearly shows the hard drives being processed. More proof the Commission was an outright fraud. Any real investigation would have subpoenaed that data.

I was reminded of this comment to "Ghost in the Machines":

"Nothing in this article is true. No hard drives were ever sent to Germany. And no data was ever tracked. There was not one hard-drive that could have been salvaged from the wreckage. They were lucky to find any pieces of material larger than a dollar bill intact."

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/the-ghost-in-the-machines-th...

The actual text of the Commission memorandum:

http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00269.pdf

"Moreover, one of the New York agents pointed out, from personal experience, that everything at the WTC was pulverized to near power, making it extremely unlikely that any hard-drives survived to the extent they data be recovered."

Reads like it was transcribed by a chimpanzee (but definitely not an orangutan;)

More on the 9/11 insider trading ...

Another great piece of research by Kevin Ryan. This is a very helpful and easy to follow summary of this important aspect of 9/11 research.

I posted an interesting bit of information relating to the 9/11 insider trading at 911Blogger.com a couple of years back, "British Hedge Fund Manager Admits Profiting from 9/11 Short Selling." Be sure to read the comments at the end of this posting by rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, saying, "The best trading day in the history of Société Générale [the bank he'd worked for] was September 11, 2001. ..."

Great article, Kevin!

Very clear, concise, and well-researched. You truly are a gifted writer.

How did they bury the Convar revelations?

"In December 2001, Reuters reported that “Convar has recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty doomsday dealings.” Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at Convar, testified that “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.” Director of Convar, Peter Henschel, said that it was “not only the volume, but the size of the transactions [that] was far higher than usual for a day like that.”[33]"

In any case, this is perhaps the clearest example of the LIES of the 9/11 Commission.