Enron, investment espionage and the White House
Active CIA and FBI agents were “loaned” to Enron for corporate espionage tied to offshore special purpose entities, pre-9/11 insider trading and profits of death
by Tom Flocco
[This story was originally published on July 16, 2002. It is being reprinted as Enron executives testify in court about the corporation’s usage of Special Purpose Entities (SPE’s) in off-shore accounts which bankrupted the energy giant. A U.S. intelligence source told TomFlocco.com that the Enron SPE’s were directly linked to Senator Hillary Clinton’s secret CIA proprietary account at Crozier Bank in Grenada and other off-shore accounts containing stolen and laundered U.S. Treasury funds. TF]
Washington—April 19, 2006—TomFlocco.com—There is growing evidence that the FBI and other government intelligence entities are more closely linked to the documented accumulation of pre-9/11 insider trading profits than was originally thought.
 |
But the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee has not publicly referred to prior knowledge of the attacks as it relates to stock transaction profits, while also failing to publicize the critical Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “control list” report tracing what in effect were stock trading profits of death.
During a phone interview, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spokesman Tom Crispell denied that the CIA was monitoring “real-time,” pre-September 11 stock trading activity within U.S. borders using such software as the Prosecutor’s Management Information System (PROMIS) or the Echelon satellite monitoring system.
When we asked Crispell whether the CIA had been scrutinizing world financial markets for national security purposes, he replied, “I have no way of knowing what operations are [being affected by our assets] outside the country.”
CIA and 9-11 investment espionage linked to Enron
A January 23, 2002 Houston Chronicle report revealed that Enron Corporation’s top security team, including four former CIA officers and an ex FBI agent left the company to form a private firm, Secure Solutions International (SSI), while continuing with Enron via a consulting contract.
John W. Presley, the FBI agent now heading SSI could not be reached for comment. But the team probed a “variety of allegations of fraud and other kinds of rule-breaking by Enron workers,” according to the Chronicle.
Team member and former CIA agent David M. Cromley’s business biography at Enron listed him as Enron’s director of business analysis, the Chronicle reported, adding that Cromley gave Enron executives “detailed and unique information” allowing them to make “investments, sales of assets, joint ventures and [financial] products.”
But no public information has been forthcoming as to whether such “detailed and unique information” or sensitive CIA software was used in conjunction with Enron’s controversial off-shore investment products, or whether their missing assets may have been employed in what former German Minister of Technology, Andreas von Bulow, estimated at $15 billion in insider trading profits. (Tagesspiegel , Berlin, 1-13-2002)
Von Bulow then buttressed his astounding charges: “26 intelligence services in the U.S. with a budget of $30 billion....For 60 decisive minutes, the military and intelligence let fighter jets stay on the ground....48 hours later, however, the FBI presented a list of suicide hijackers. But within ten days, it emerged that seven of them were still alive.”
An examination of SSI’s website revealed that its corporate members have “managed cutting-edge counterterrorism and counter-proliferation operations for the CIA, implemented advanced technical information and security programs for the CIA, and conducted a wide range of investigations for the FBI,” while also “overseeing all security arrangements for several large gas pipeline companies.”
It is yet to be determined if Congress or Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will publicly question CIA Director George Tenet or FBI Director Robert Mueller to specifically confirm whether CIA and FBI employees were "loaned" to Enron's corporate espionage program, involved in personal pre 9/11 insider trading, or merely relaying sensitive insider political information to others involved in prior knowledge of the attacks.
Fraud-racked Enron has had at least 20 CIA agents on the payroll in the last eight years. But while the Houston Chronicle reported the operatives as “former” CIA, a February 26, 2002 National Enquirer story quoted a top Washington insider familiar with several secret investigations into Enron as reporting that they were active CIA—given “leaves of absence without pay and put on the Enron payroll.”
The source added that Enron’s CIA members used “info gleaned from a satellite project called ‘Echelon,’ which intercepted emails, phone calls and faxes with detailed business information,” adding that “pure and simple, [taxpayer-funded] U.S. intelligence agents were involved in corporate espionage.”
Another Enquirer source with ties to the CIA revealed that "the cozy deal between Enron and the CIA allowed the 'on-loan' undercover operatives to return to the Agency's payroll before Enron's collapse."
CIA links to the U.S. financial community traverse a curious variety of unexamined threads; and mega-money conglomerate Citigroup has allegedly been repeatedly charged with money laundering, while its board of directors includes John Deutch, former CIA Director, Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary and intimate friend of Enron’s Ken Lay, and former CIA Executive Director Nora Slatkin.
Senate and House links to terrorist financier
Congress has a close CIA link. Former Senate Joint Intelligence Co-Chairman Bob Graham and his House Intelligence Co-Chairman and former CIA operative Porter Goss were meeting with the Chief of the Pakistani Intelligence Service on the morning of the Sept.11 attacks, according to published reports.
Wide reports link two intelligence leaders in the Senate and House directly to the leader of Pakistan's intelligence arm, The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and indirectly to the leader of the 9/11 Hijackers.
 |
|
Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad
|
A Times of India (10-12-2001) story revealed that Pakistani ISA Director General Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after the U.S. attacks—confirmed by top sources in India, because of evidence produced by India showing his links to alleged “hijacker” Mohammed Atta,
The Times said that "U.S. authorities sought his [Ahmad's] removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 was wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh on the instructions of ISI Lt. General Ahmad."
Senior [U.S.] government sources "have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief."
The Times added that "while they did not provide details, they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh's mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link."
Serious questions remain as former Senate Joint Intelligence Co-Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) and his House Intelligence Co-Chairman, former CIA operative Porter Goss (R-FL—now CIA Director), were meeting with ISI Chief, Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad on the morning of the September 11 attacks according to wide reports.
These and other growing connections indicating prior knowledge of the attacks also make a case for how the profits of death were accumulated by insider trading via the U.S. Stock Market; but the SEC will not release its "Control List" of suspicious stock trades involving companies and airlines directly related to the attacks.
Congress allowed FBI to cover up secret SEC “control list”
According to the San Francisco Chronicle (10-19-01), the SEC privately asked North American securities firms to participate in an information-sharing system to trace “large numbers of trades in securities of companies [directly] affected by the attacks.
Curiously, the SEC asked companies “to designate senior personnel who appreciate ‘the sensitive nature’ of the case [pre-attack insider trading], and can be relied upon to ‘exercise appropriate discretion,’ as ‘point’ people linking government investigators and the [securities] industry,” specifically requesting names, titles, phone numbers and e-mail of the designated senior personnel.
On October 2, 2001, Canadian securities officials confirmed that the SEC had asked firms to review records for 38 companies, suggesting that some buyers and sellers might have had advance knowledge of the attacks.
Congress has allowed the FBI to refuse to make public what the Chronicle reported as an SEC “control list” containing confidential information about transactions, individuals, relationships, and entities identified by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in the probe.
The existence of the SEC list would still be a secret if not for an accidental leak via the Canadian securities officials.
There is as yet no reporting regarding whether the “entities” were SPE’s linked to Enron. The SEC added, “Because the control list contains confidential information, we ask that you disseminate it within your institution only on a need-to-know basis.”
The Wall Street Journal (10-2-2002) reported that the Secret Service was also probing an unusually high volume of five-year U.S. Treasury note purchases made prior to the attacks—one purchase included a single $5 billion trade.
Treasury notes are among the best investments in the event of a world crisis, with their value having risen substantially in the days after September 11.
Moreover, the Associated Press reported that a German Central Bank study strongly pointed to “terrorism insider trading” not only in airline and insurance companies but also in gold and oil futures, all of which resulted in millions of dollars linked to pre-attack insider trading—that is, having prior knowledge as to when the event would occur.
Enron, Deutsche Bank & Mayer, Brown and Platt
Evidence allegedly linking Deutsche Bank (DB) to terrorists and 9-11 insider trading is clearly quite extraordinary: 1) The alleged “hijacker” pilot and two accomplices had bank accounts at its Hamburg branch, 2) One of DB’s unnamed private investors never claimed $2.5 million in United Airlines put option contract profits following the attacks, 3) Its global “private banking” chief Mayo Shattuck III, resigned the day following the attacks in the middle of a three-year $40 million contract to become an energy executive, 4) DB hired away SEC enforcement and investigation chief Richard Walker just 20 days after the attacks, 5) Its recent senior investment banker Kevin Ingram pleaded guilty to money laundering involving Stinger missiles and multiple varieties of arms sales to Pakistani and Egyptian citizens just 14 days prior to Sept.11, and 6) Deutsche Bank was connected to 9-11 insider trading but Congress has not questioned former Alex (A.B.) Brown division head A. B. “Buzzy” Krongard—later appointed by George Bush as Executive Director (number three) of the CIA—regarding intelligence and “real-time” stock trade monitoring.
More extraordinary, however, is the fact that Congress, the Bush administration and the Justice Department ignored this critical evidence which has yet to be publicly presented in a court of law.
European reporters found that much of the suspicious pre-attack trading passed through Deutsche Bank and especially via CIA Executive Director A.B. Krongard’s former Alex Brown investment division by means of a procedure called portage, which assures the anonymity of individuals making the transactions.
CFO.com, an online site for corporate executives, revealed on 1-28-2002 that Deutsche Bank bank was a limited partner in either the controversial Enron special purpose entities (SPEs) LJM or Chewco—off balance sheets and off-shore products heavily involved in Enron’s demise, and run by Enron CFO Andrew Fastow.
 |
|
William R. McLucas
|
“The deletion was made at the behest of William McLucas, former SEC enforcement director, who was curiously hired by Enron after the 9-11 attacks on October 31.”
The former employee also claims to have received instructions to destroy the draft of the SEC filing, providing more evidence of obstruction of justice while McLucas has yet to testify in court.
John P. Schmitz, Enron and Bush 41
John P. Schmitz, George H.W. Bush’s former deputy counsel during the elder Bush’s vice-presidency and presidency, is connected to many of the issues surrounding Enron, Mayer Brown, and Deutsche Bank.
 |
|
John P. Schmitz
|
Schmitz, fluent in German and a Partner in global law firm Mayer, Brown has clients that include Bayer AG (German maker of the antibiotic Cipro which fights Anthrax, about which former Judicial Watch chairman Larry Klayman had a great deal of interest.
The public interest firm filed suit seeking the Bush administration’s anthrax documents to ascertain why the White House starting taking heavy doses of Cipro the day of the attacks—nearly a month before anthrax was even discovered on Capitol Hill, and while postal workers continued to sort mail in contaminated offices—some dying in the process.
John Schmitz’s Mayer Brown profile also reveals that he represented Enron, adding that “we were active in Germany [with Enron] until the end....It [bankruptcy] surprised me as well as anyone else,” according to Reuters (1-4-2002).
Moreover, Mayer Brown also represents Deutsche Bank on a regular basis regarding its electronic commerce activities; and interestingly, Schmitz’s law firm maintains an office with Enron in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in the Caspian Sea basin Enron went bankrupt.
Many 9-11 victim families will recognize Mayer-Brown, as the firm also represents United Airlines against some 40 9-11 families seeking answers in court regarding the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks, after eschewing monetary relief from the Congressional 9-11 Victim Compensation Fund.
NSA destroyed 9-11 data on Americans and U.S. companies
Two individuals with close intelligence ties told the Boston Globe (10-27 2001) that since September 11, the super secret National Security Agency (NSA), acting on the advice of their lawyers, destroyed data collected on American citizens and corporations which angered intelligence agencies seeking leads in the anti-terrorist probe.
Our two calls to then Joint-Congressional Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Senator Richard Shelby, to confirm details revealed by the sources were unreturned.
Since that October Globe report, no other media outlet or court of law has examined the heated discussions with the CIA and intelligence committee staff members, as NSA lawyers turned down requests to preserve the intelligence because regulations prohibit data collecting on Americans, inviting lawsuits, according to the two former senior U.S. officials.
However, TomFlocco.com talked to Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA Director of Counter-terrorism, who said “the law allows [intelligence officials] exceptions in certain circumstances.”
Both the CIA and FBI declined comment during our attempted contacts.
Cannistraro added, “If American citizens are believed to be involved in some way in a foreign intelligence operation that could lead to terrorism against this country, I believe the NSA is required to save or maintain the information.”
When asked about the NSA and the 9/11 attacks, the former CIA official said, “In this case, I believe they should have saved the surveillance data.”
Congress has been tight-lipped, and government investigators are extremely frustrated that many possible leads stemming from the Sept.11 attack were not being followed due to possible NSA obstruction of justice.
FBI agents indicted in September 11—linked stock scheme
On the heels of alleged CIA involvement in public stock trading and use of sensitive prior knowledge before 9-11, on May 22, FBI agents Jeffrey A. Royer and Lynn Wingate were charged with racketeering conspiracy, securities fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.
Royer was also charged with extortion, according to an examination of an unsealed federal indictment: United States vs. Elgindy, Royer, Wingate, Cleveland, and Peters, filed in New York District Court by U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegard—all of which clouds probes of pre-attack insider trading profits by any prosecutor—Patrick Fitzgerald included.
Many Americans are unaware that Valerie Plame-Wilson was reportedly investigating issues surrounding the September 11 money-trail—and its links to off shore accounts, according to U.S. intelligence sources familiar with the investigation.
Vinegard’s news release said “the allegations reveal a shocking partnership between an experienced stock manipulator and law enforcement agents, undertaken for their illicit personal financial gain.”
Royer and Wingate allegedly used the FBI’s Automated Case Support database to actually monitor the investigation, passing confidential information about the investigations of companies to participants in a stock manipulation scheme, according to reports.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Breen said stock advisor Amir Ibrahim Elgindy, charged in the indictment, called his Salomon Smith Barney broker, trying to sell $300,000 in stock from his children’s trust funds on the afternoon of Sept.10, 2001.
During the conversation, Elgindy “predicted that the Dow Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon crash to below 3,000,” according to reports.
Soft 9-11 investigation?
During our interview in Washington with former Washington, DC United States Attorney Joseph de Genova, TomFlocco.com was told, “If the Congress does not want to get answers to these critical questions regarding who profited [from prior knowledge of the attacks], then it needs to be litigated.”
When we asked whether Americans have a right to know who sold large blocks of stock shares in companies and airlines directly affected by the attacks or purchased billions in ultra-safe Treasury notes directly prior to 9/11, de Genova added, “I believe someone will ultimately litigate the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) issue related to the Ashcroft memo limiting FOIA responses if government agencies keep obstructing the media—the sooner, the better.”
