Archive for the 'Arms Trade' Category
France & UK Ignore Corporate Bribery: One Hand Launders the Other
Inter Press Service (IPS), Dec 29, 2006
Investigators find evidence that Siemens (German electronics & engineering firm), Total (French oil company), and BAE (British arms conglomerate) paid multi-millions of dollars in bribes through bank accounts in Switzerland and other offshore centers.
France and the UK argue “national security” to block inquiries. Concern is more likely the “security” of top officials who got kickbacks.
Spain’s discovery that funding for Basque terrorist group ETA goes through tax havens is dramatic proof that “national security” lies not in protecting but in dismantling the global offshore secrecy network.
Saddam’s secret money-laundering trail
United Press International (UPI), June 2, 2004
A detailed analysis of Saddam Hussein’s secret money-laundering techniques shows here for the first time how he used the same offshore money launderers as Osama bin Laden. That covert money network, based in the tax havens of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Panama and Nassau, helped bankroll the war machines of both Iraq and al-Qaida.
More than 1,000 pages of confidential corporate, bank and legal documents show how the network functioned. The papers come from court cases filed in several European countries, from corporate records, from investigations by Italian police, from a report of the Kroll international investigative agency, and from private sources. The documents are the basis of further investigations coordinated in Europe by the prosecutor of Milan.
Rumsfeld Queried on Offshore Banking Reform
The American Reporter, May 27, 2003
It hasn’t been reported in the U.S. press – until here, now – but Milan, Italy’s chief prosecutor has obtained thousands of documents that show how for more than 20 years Saddam Hussein used the Western bank and corporate secrecy system to launder bribes skimmed from oil revenues to pay his security forces and buy Western arms during international embargoes.
The key countries - whose governments openly allow these money-laundering systems to exist – were Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Panama and Nassau. Corporate registrations and bank accounts there use “straw men” and secrecy rules to cover up true owners of companies and accounts.
Are criminals in Russia sending missiles to Iraq?
Sacramento Bee, Feb 23, 2003
American officials fear that Belarus is the middleman for Russian weapons sales to Iraq, according to last week’s Newsweek. The magazine noted that Leonid Kozik, a Belarus official who visited Iraq last fall, is on the board of a Russian-Belarussian company that markets weapons from those countries.
Iraq is subject to a U.N. arms embargo. If Iraq is getting Russian weapons through Belarus — either with the approval of Russian officials or via corrupt private firms — it refocuses attention on the destabilizing impact of the criminalization of the Russian state and the uncontrolled expansion of the world’s arms bazaar. Both developments have been largely ignored by Washington, with failure to confront Russian corruption a legacy of the Clinton administration and refusal to deal with weapons sales a result of the longtime political influence of arms-makers.
Police spoke to U.S. terror suspect
MSNBC.COM, Sept 16, 2002
MSNBC exclusive: Document shows Tunisian with alleged al-Qaida links gave information to Italians two years ago
A Tunisian-born terrorism suspect placed two weeks ago on Washington’s list of most-wanted militants confessed two years before to Italian police that he helped run an elaborate arms smuggling ring that aided Islamic militants, but it’s not clear whether Italian and U.S. officials acted on the information. The case, revealed in a confidential document obtained by MSNBC.com, raises new questions about intelligence gathering in the war on al-Qaida.
Dealing with Dictators: Bell Helicopters skirted U.N. embargo to sell to Serbia
In These Times, Sept 13, 2002
At a time when Americans are concerned about corporate fraud and corruption, another sort of corporate lawbreaking has been revealed in a report prepared for The Hague war crimes trial of former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic: the violation of an international U.N. arms embargo.
According to U.N. investigators, on June 5, 1998, Serbia paid $154,785 to Bell Helicopter Textron, a Texas company, for spare parts for the maintenance of Bell helicopters. At the time, Serbia was under a U.N. arms embargo—in February, more than a year before NATO bombing began, it had commenced attacks against Kosovo—but it was in dire need of helicopters and other war supplies.
Serbia’s Deadly Choppers - U.S. Firm Sold Parts to Milosevic
Pacific News Service, Aug 16, 2002
Bell Helicopters of Texas sold parts to Serbia during a U.N. arms embargo, a report to the war crimes trial of ex-president Slobodan Milosevic shows. The Milosevic regime, writes PNS investigative reporter Lucy Komisar, paid through a secret offshore financial network that included a byzantine web of global tax havens.
At a time when Americans are concerned about U.S. corporate corruption, a tribunal in The Hague has revealed another shadowy deal with international reverberations. Bell Helicopters of Texas sold parts to Serbia during a U.N. arms embargo, when Serbia was involved in a genocidal war using helicopters. The regime of ex-president Slobodan Milosevic paid through a complex, secret offshore financial network.
L’ex-préfet mêlé à un trafic de «mercure rouge»
Dimanche (Lausanne), 14 décembre 2001
Pour vendre 600 kg de matériel nucléaire à des Saoudiens, l’ex-conseiller national UDC et son notaire ont pris moult précautions. Berne ouvre une enquête.
Mercredi, le Ministère public de la Confédération a reçu un envoi curieux en provenance des Etats-Unis: un paquet de documents explosifs attestant l’existence d’un vaste trafic de mercure rouge via la Suisse pour un montant de 200 millions de francs. «Mercure rouge est le nom de code donné à toutes sortes de matériel nucléaire passé en contrebande», précise Hansruedi Indermühle du laboratoire AC de Spiez; cette notion floue englobant uranium, plutonium, césium voire osmium 187 et autres contrefaçons.
SVP-Politiker dealte mit Uran
SonntagsBlick (Zurich) 9 Dezember 2001
BERN - 600 Kilo nukleares Material wollten Ex-SVP-Nationalrat Bernard Rohrbasser und Notar R. verkaufen - an die Saudis. Verwickelt in den dubiosen Handel ist auch das Departement für auswärtige Angelegenheiten. Jetzt ermittelt die Bundesanwaltschaft.
Diesen Mittwoch erhielt die Bundesanwaltschaft brisante Dokumente von der Journalistin Lucy Komisar aus den USA. Diese belegen, dass 1992 über die Schweiz ein gross angelegter Handel mit Red Mercury - Codename für nukleares Material (siehe Box) - abgewickelt werden sollte. Es ging dabei um die Summe von 200 Millionen Franken.
Swiss Bank Denies Link to Bioweapons, Islamic Militants
Pacific News Service, Nov 14, 2001
When tracking down the terrorist money trail, Washington will inevitably wind up in Switzerland. Swiss banks have long been used by shady characters worldwide to launder money. One of them might be a good starting point for U.S. investigators seeking terrorist funding sources and illicit bioweapons trade.
GENEVA–To protect America from terrorist attack, the United States must investigate illicit trade in biological weapons and trace the movement of terrorist money. A good starting point is a controversial Swiss bank that may have facilitated the sale of hazardous biological materials to Islamic militants.
Swiss bank handled sale from Russian bioweapons company
Earth Times News Service, Nov 12, 2001
GENEVA– As the U.S. searches for the culprits who let loose an anthrax attack on America and for the money trail of Islamic terrorists believed to have plotted the attack on the World Trade Center, key questions are: “How does the illicit trade in biological weapons operate and how is terrorist money moved?”
For answers to both those questions, the U.S. ought to zero in on a Swiss bank that handled a sale from a known Russian biological weapons producer, Biopreparat, to a company, Interplastica, with links to Islamic militants.
BCCI and the Bushes
Lucy Komisar writes about the criminal offshore bank BCCI and the way it connected the Bushes, the Saudis, Saddam and Osama bin Laden 
in her chapter, “BCCI’s Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad,” in ”A Game As Old As Empire.”
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