Thursday, January 31, 2019

Elliott Abrams,Israel Profits From Guatemala Maya Holocaust - Same For Venezuela,Trump ?

When Congress cut off funds to the Contras, an anti-Sandinista guerrilla force created by the U.S., Abrams successfully persuaded the Sultan of Brunei to cough up $10 million for the cause. Unfortunately, Abrams, acting under the code name “Kenilworth,” provided the Sultan with the wrong Swiss bank account number, so the money was wired instead to a random lucky recipient-.
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/30/elliott-abrams-venezuela-coup/


Abrams' efforts to push for pro-Israel policies in the 1990s dovetailed with his appointment to the NSC. When Abrams was appointed the Reagan administration point man on Latin America, he came to the State Department with no expertise in the region and did not speak Spanish. Similarly, Abrams became the NSC's Middle East specialist without any real expertise in the region—other than his family ties to Israel, his polemical writings for neoconservative publications, his right-wing Zionism, and his experience overseeing the Iran-Contra arms trade, in which Israel functioned as the major broker - https://ifamericaknew.org/us_ints/nc-feith.html



Note that virtually all arms sells profits in Guatemala as well as the  Iran Contra arms deals brokered under the eyes of Israeli agent Elliott Abrams ensconced in all Repulican administarations including Trump's is always working for Israel's interests which are the same as those of Jewish Russian-Israeli  oligarch i the end as well as to the Jewish financial elite of the City of London and the U.S. and U.S.citizens are just pawns to those interests just like so many Latin Americans and Guatemala Maya victims of his and his Israeli masters were and still are.




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Both Kissinger  and Abrams are outstanding examples of Zionist Jews having infiltrated the most importsnt political financial and decision making - even dictating when America or even other nations go to war under what conditions while the citizens of the U.SS. or other  country aren't even aware of behind the scenes Israeli agents playing with them like puppets.If only the results were funny or even positive but with Israeli Zionists or their representatives calling the shots no good comes to any country who is infiltrted by pro Israel Zionists or their stooges...Just the clear role of 9/11 being the result of both Israelis living and acting in the U.S. to plan  and execute the events as well as having agentsor insider conspirators in the NSA,CIA,FBI AND  EVEN THE U.S. MILITARY AND PENTAGON(I.E.COHEN AND RABBI DOV     WHERE INSIDERS THERE ARE SUSPECT IN ATTACKING .....................
When on the rare occasions it was ever mentioned by U.S. Israeli controlled news media such as NY Times,or the Jewish Zionist controlled television 'NEWS',it is always alluded to that the U.S. supplied all  the arms to Guatemala and genocidist General Efrain Rios Montt.In fact it was Israel who made all the war profits As forensic evidence has proven all the all the unarmed indigenous Maya male,female,children and infants,who died at the hands of Israeli trained Guatemala military
had Galil rifle bullets i8n their bodies and spent Gilil rifle shells all around ! At the end of the Carter presidency ,the Reagan-Bush or Bush-Reagan regime rode in to the White House on a victory orchestrated in great part by Israel's deal with Iran in collsion with the Reagan-Bush GOP RODE IN ON THE TAIL OF THE IRAN U.S. EMBASSY HOSTAGE CRISIS THAT ISRAEL HELPED THE GOP TO PULL OFF BY MAKING A DEAL FOR ARMS TO IRAN  THROUGH ISRAEL IF U.S. EMBASSY HOSTAGES WERE HELD AS PRISONERS UNTIL AFTER U.S.PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND CARTER WOULD LOSE TO REAGAN-BUSH IN 1980.Later the fruits of Iran Contra would allow arms profits to further escalte by selling arms to Iraq and Saddam Hussein  and
destabilize both Iraq and Iran - two countries seen as enemies of IsraelGuns,drugs and thugs is just business as usual if you are the state of Israel and control both the U.S. and Russia.
While the profits made by Israel in war crimes of Central America as well as voff the war between Iran and Iraq remain hidden including cocaine trafficking by the contras and or Israeli criminals and the CIA,ET.AL. REMAIN MURKY it seems pretty cler that as usual Israel  greatly profited including at the expense of U.S. government hidden subsidies to finance these war AND SRUG CRIMES.

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https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/30/allan_nairn_trump_s_venezuela_envoy

In the case of Guatemala, Abrams and the Reagan administration were approving the shipment of weapons, money, intelligence and the provision of political cover to the army of Guatemala as they were sweeping through the northwest Mayan highlands, wiping out 662 rural villages, by the army’s own count, decapitating children, crucifying people, using the tactics that in this era we associate with ISIS. In one particular case, in 1985, an activist for the relatives of the disappeared, named Rosario Godoy, was abducted by the army. She was raped. Her mutilated body was found alongside that of her baby. The baby’s fingernails had been torn out. The Guatemalan army, when asked about this atrocity, said, “Oh, they died in a traffic accident.” When Elliott Abrams was asked about this accident, he affirmed also that they died in a traffic accident. This activist raped and mutilated, the baby with his fingernails pulled out, Abrams says it’s a traffic accident.
It’s very parallel to the stance Abrams took on Panama. When Noriega, the CIA-backed dictator of Panama, who was involved in the drug traffic, who the U.S. later decided to overthrow—when the forces of Noriega abducted the Panamanian dissident Hugo Spadafora and cut off his head with a kitchen knife, Jesse Helms, of all people, tried to investigate in the U.S. Congress, and Elliott Abrams stopped him, saying, “No, we need Noriega. He’s doing a very good job. He’s working with us.”
In the case of El Salvador, after the massacre in El Mozote, where a U.S.-trained battalion massacred more than 500 civilians, slitting the throats of children along the way, Abrams took the lead in denying that such a thing had ever happened. And he later described the results of the Reagan administration policy, his policy, in El Salvador as a fabulous achievement. He said this even after the El Salvador Truth Commission had issued a report saying that more than 85 percent of the atrocities had been committed by the armed forces and its death squads, death squads which had a particular practice of cutting off the genitals of their victims, stuffing them in their mouths and putting them on open display on the roadsides of El Salvador.
When I appeared on the Charlie Rose TV show with Elliott Abrams, I suggested that he be put on trial, that he be brought before a Nuremberg-style tribunal and tried for his role in facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity. He dismissed the idea of him being put on trial as “ludicrous,” but he did not actually deny any of the facts of what he has done—what he had done. He said it was all necessary in the context of the Cold War. So, this is Elliott Abrams, who has now been put in charge of key aspects of the U.S. policy toward Venezuela.......
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May 10, 2013 - Elliott-Abrams ... humanity committed against the indigenous Mayan Ixil population as a result ... Guatemala: Rios Montt Convicted of Genocide.



Oct 5, 1986 - the degree to which Israel contrived the Iran-contra diplomacy and ..... using proprietaries and "cut-outs" to effect policy while preserving deniability. Always ..... But increasing reports of the contra involvement in the cocaine


While I know it took a willing U.S. government for Elliott Abrams' beloved apartheid state of Israel to arm and train Guatemalan soldiers to use and massacre using Israel's Galil rifles and Galil bulletts as forensic science has documented ovr and again where these massacres took place,the profits for these massacares and rapes came from Israel.But where is the holocaust memorial to and for the Maya who were holocausted by Israel ? although the world almost has as many Jewish holocaust memorials as Starbucks has coffee shops - where even in Guatemala is a Maya holocaust memorial that explains the forensic facts and that 100% OF  Mayan bodies autopsied  IN Guatemaqla as a result of 1980's miliitary massacres against them during the REAGAN-BUSH REGIME THAT MR. ABRAMS  PRESIDED OVER and gave his 'human rights' seal of approval.so the great Zionist Christian General ,(just as Henry Kissinger took  before him took care of Richard Nixon's and his political clients' bloody coup against Allende in Chile)
Elliott Abrams was a defender of El Salvador Army Major Roberto  D'aubuisson implicsted in the brutal assassination of Archbishop and a boastful admirer of Israeli military who although not Jewish was able to send a son to school   in Israel.This shows that Israelis and their infiltaters within the U.S. government such as Elliott Abams are able to represent Israel's interests,particularly arms sells to Latin America, over interests of Americans and of  course against peace because Israel would not hsve been able to sell weapons to Iran  and the most fascist right wing  Zionist  pro Israel military
regimes of Guatemala,El Salvador,Honduras et.cetara 

As for as I can estimate by shear amount of Israeli arms sold in Central America in the 1980's it was ISRAEL THAT WAS THE CHIEF BENEFICIARY AND APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN  A BENEFICIARY OF DRUGS PARTICULARLY COCAINE SOLD BY CONTRAS ET.AL. IN THE U.S. AS WELL AS PROFITS MADE IN SELLING THE ARMS TO IRAN.

to be continued


'
Feb 2, 2017 - Elliott Abrams spent the Reagan years abetting genocide—now, he has ... to ensure that General Efraín Ríos Montt, Guatemala's then-dictator, 

Elliott Abrams ,Iran Contra,Israel War Crimes,Profits In Central America,Trump,Venezuela

Donald Trump knows Israelis were involved in 9/11 and that they were the main beneficiaries of this false  flag that could only be carried out with sympathetic agents within the U.S. government itself.

https://www.mondialisation.ca/rethinking-iran-contra-a-much-darker-story/19992

The Iran-Contra scandal was exposed in fall of 1986 after the shooting down of a North supply plane over Nicaragua and revelations in Lebanon of Reagan’s arms sales to Iran. A White House staff shake-up, including North’s firing, and some wrist-slaps from Congress for Reagan’s alleged inattention to details resolved the scandal, at least that was how Official Washington saw it.
The few dissenters who wouldn’t accept that tidy conclusion – such as Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh – were mocked and marginalized by the news media, including the Washington Post (which ran an article concluding that Walsh’s consistency in pursuing the scandal was “so un-Washington” and that he would depart as “a perceived loser”).
But an accumulating body of evidence suggests that the traditional view of Iran-Contra was mistaken, that this conventional understanding of the scandal was like starting a novel in the middle and assuming you’re reading the opening chapter.
Indeed, it now appears clear that the Iran-Contra Affair began five years earlier in 1980, with what has often been treated as a separate controversy, called the October Surprise case, dealing with alleged contacts between Reagan’s presidential campaign and Iran.
In view of the latest evidence – and the crumbling of the long-running October Surprise cover-up – there appears to have been a single Iran-Contra narrative spanning the entire 12 years of the Reagan and Bush I administration, and representing a much darker story.

And it was not simply a tale of Republican electoral skullduggery and treachery, but possibly even more troubling, a story of rogue CIA officers and Israel’s Likud hardliners sabotaging a sitting U.S. president, Jimmy Carter..........................

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https://www.wrmea.org/1987-january/israeli-arms-sales-to-central-america-an-overview.html

Israeli Arms Sales to Central America: An Overview

By Jane Hunter

On November 25 Attorney General Edwin Meese announced that "representatives of Israel" had funneled profits from arms sales to Iran to the contras in Central America through a Swiss bank account. His disclosure broadened and illuminated the scandal that arose earlier in the month when it was revealed that Israel and an ad hoc group operating out of the White House had been selling weapons to Iran.
When matched with President Reagan's longtime fixation on uprooting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, his administration's bafflingly contradictory behavior in dealing with Iran, a state it had often and vehemently pronounced "terrorist," suddenly became clearer. Apparently, in exchange for approving and assisting Israel in the arms sales it was intent on making to Iran, the President received Israeli cooperation in funding the contra mercenaries, whose avowed goal is to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.
In this scenario, the negotiations for US hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon, which both the Administration and Israel have used to justify the dealings with Iran, were of secondary importance, at best.

Israeli Denials

Israel heatedly denied having anything to do with passing funds to the contras, or any linkage with them. Yet in addition to evidence that Israel did shunt up to $30 million of its Iran arms profits to the contras, there is much to connect Israel with the Administration's efforts over the past few years to bypass Congressional restrictions on US aid to the contras.
Indeed, in retrospect it appears that Israel's willingness to cooperate with Administration goals in Central America contributed greatly to the conversion of an initially cool White House into an ardent supporter of Israel. A memorandum of understanding signed in 1981 committed Washington and Tel Aviv to cooperation in the "third world." That arrangement was suspended by the US in late 1981 after Israel annexed the Golan Heights. Although the US-Israeli agreement was not reinstated until November 1983, during the hiatus Israel began selling light arms of East bloc design to the CIA for the contras.
A National Security Agency document from 1983 records a US request for Israel to arm the contras, and in July 1983 an Administration official told the New York Times that Israeli willingness to cooperate in Central America had gone far to mend US-Israeli relations, which had deteriorated during and after Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
However, as Congress became disenchanted with the CIA-run contra program, the Administration wanted more from Israel: It wanted Israel to assume primary responsibility for the contras' logistics and training, and it wanted Israel to popularize the contra program with its supporters in Congress and in the US Jewish community. When then Prime Minister Shamir met with Reagan Administration officials in November 1983 to restructure the US-Israel "strategic alliance"—it was formally signed March 19, 1984—a joint political-military committee was established to coordinate, among other things, "third world" activities.

A Deal with Israel

At an April 1984 Washington meeting of the committee, a leak which could only have come from the Administration said that Washington would offer to fund Israeli development assistance programs in Africa in exchange for Israel taking over the contras. Israel wanted the US assistance money to offer African nations considering reestablishing diplomatic relations, since all but four African governments had cut their ties with Israel in the wake of its 1973 war. At that time Congress had just cut off funds to the contras. According to recent information, the Administration made at least two such attempts in 1984 to enlist Israel's aid with the contras.
Representing Israel at the 1984 meeting was David Kimche, who was recently identified as Israel's top contra specialist. Kimche was also a key Israeli player in the Iran segment of the current scandal. It was he who came to the White House in July 1985 to persuade the Administration to endorse Israel's ongoing weapons sales to Iran. At that time, however, quiet but urgent protests from some of Israel's Democratic supporters in Congress who were opposed to the President's contra policy convinced Israel not to become involved in such a sweeping contra program as that proposed by the Reagan Administration.
Instead, Israel increased its covert support of the contras, shipping arms through the Guatemalan and Salvadoran military and providing trainers for newly-recruited contra mercenaries in their camps in Honduras and Costa Rica. By early 1985 it was reported that Israel had increased arms shipments and had donated several million dollars to the contras. This donation might have been drawn directly from Israel's US aid, some of which was said to have been diverted to the contras.
When the Senate amended the 1986 foreign aid bill to prevent the Administration from funneling aid to the contras through Israel and other US aid recipients, the Administration insisted on rewriting that amendment (after the bill had gone to a conference committee) so that it merely forbade conditioning a recipient's aid on its willingness to donate to the contras.

Donations to Contras

With that restriction out of the way, retired General Richard Secord and National Security Council staff aide Lt. Col. Oliver North—both of whom had helped coordinate the Iran arms sales with Israel—began to collect kickbacks on their US aid from Israel and possibly Egypt for donation to the contras.
Secord and North were also involved in the contra supply network that was exposed when a plane full of weapons was shot down over Nicaragua on October 5. (At least one of the contra supply planes reportedly was purchased with $15 million in donations Secord extracted from Saudi individuals in appreciation for Administration support for the 1981 sale to Saudi Arabia of AWACS aircraft, against which Israel's lobby had put up a terrific fight.)
Although the Israelis have protested the allegations of Attorney General Meese and the President that they overcharged the Iranians and diverted the profits to the contras, a report given to the Los Angeles Times a week before news of the contra connection broke said that the Swiss bank account from which contributions to the contras were drawn had been set up by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and was under the control of Yaacov Nimrodi, the longtime Israeli arms dealer and former military attache in Tehran, whom Prime Minister Peres recommended for involvement with Washington in the Iran arms sale scheme.
It was reported that the money had been drawn out by Adolfo Calero, a member of the contras' ruling triumverate, and that a top aide to Calero, Julio Montealegre, had gone to Israel for two weeks at the end of January, 1986. The timing of Montealegre's trip is significant, coming right after the January 17th signing of an executive order waiving restrictions on the sale of US arms to Iran by President Reagan

Israeli Ties to Somoza

National Public Radio, which reported the contra aide's visit, also said the contras were trying to recover a boatload of weapons that the late Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle had bought from Israel, but that the Carter Administration had begged Israel not to deliver. The weapons were the last of many loads which Israel had shipped to Somoza during the year before the dictator's fall in July 1979, when Israel was the only nation willing to supply him with arms. The Israeli weapons helped prolong Somoza's tenure, at the end of which his military was killing 500 Nicaraguans a day.
The report of the contra claim on Israel, if true, establishes the contras as heirs of Somoza and highlights Israel's long Central American involvement, which began with Somoza's father, Anastasio Somoza Garcia.
In 1939, nine years before the creation of Israel, Somoza Garcia allowed Jewish leaders to buy Polish arms in his name for Haganah, the pre-state army in Palestine. Like his son after him, Somoza Garcia ruled Nicaragua as his own fiefdom and was notoriously acquisitive. In 1947 he accepted $200,000 and a large diamond to issue passports needed by Haganah purchasing agents for arms-buying in Europe. In 1979 Israel would argue that its debt to the first Somoza justified what amounted to helping his son bomb the civilian population of Nicaragua.
Israel forged another valuable Central American connection with Guatemala when that country's UN ambassador served on the UN Special Committee on Palestine in 1947. After visiting Palestine and meeting such figures as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, Ambassador Garcia Granados took the lead in pushing the partition plan under which Israel was created.
During the 1960s Israel expanded to Latin America the US-funded development assistance programs which had gained it considerable diplomatic influence in Africa. In Central America Israeli experts worked on projects in agriculture, housing, and such technical fields as banking. They also worked on "patriotic youth" training programs which brought them into contact with future military leaders. In the 1970s, as Israel's rapidly developing arms industry sought markets, these contacts would stand it in good stead.
By 1975 Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador had all become Israeli customers, with Honduras and El Salvador receiving from Tel Aviv the region's first jet combat aircraft.
The accession in 1977 of the Carter Administration, with its human rights policy stipulating the cutoff of US aid to notorious human rights abusers, provided an enormous opportunity for Israel to move into the gap. Now, just as Somoza of Nicaragua bought the gear for his war from Israel, so did Guatemala and El Salvador. Both were also military regimes fighting insurgencies, and both turned to Israel for weapons after they were cut off by Washington because of brutal methods they employed against their citizens.
In Guatemala, Israel also provided military, counterinsurgency, and intelligence advisers for what has been called a genocidal war against the largely Mayan Indian population of the country's northwestern highlands. The Israeli firm Tadiran installed two intelligence computers, one of which reportedly was used to select death squad victims and, by monitoring utility usage, pinpoint urban guerrilla safe houses. Israel is now advising the Guatemalan military, many of whom go on scholarships to Israel, on a forced resettlement scheme in the rural highlands. Tadiran has funded an electronics school for the army, and Israel has helped it set up a factory to manufacture ammunition and replacement parts for its Israeli rifles.
With US and European funding, Israel has begun advising the Salvadoran military on a similar "pacification" program to resettle in controlled hamlets the peasants the army has previously bombed out of guerrilla-controlled zones. Several years ago the Salvadoran military were using Israeli-supplied napalm for their attacks on the civilian population. In the late 1970s, Israeli advisers trained the Salvadoran secret police ANSESAL, many of whose operatives have since been linked to death squads. Israel has also installed a computer in El Salvador similar to that given Guatemala.
In Honduras, whose people, after Haiti's, are the poorest in this hemisphere, Israelis are working on a US Agency for International Development-sponsored irrigation program near the Nicaraguan border in territory used by the contras. At present an Israeli sales team headed by the Israeli ambassador to Honduras is trying to conclude the sale of at least a dozen Israeli-manufactured Kfir combat aircraft to replace the now-aging Mysteres it sold there a decade ago. The story of the negotiations, as they have spanned the eruption of the Iran-contra scandal, is instructive.
Originally the Reagan Administration had wanted to give the Hondurans American-manufactured F5-E's to secure their continued cooperation in providing bases for the contras. Washington was annoyed when Israel preempted them with a signed letter of intent from the Hondurans for the purchase of Kfir aircraft, but agreed to partially finance any Israeli sale and leave the final choice to the Hondurans. Now the White House leans toward the Israeli sale—because the Administration believes it will be easier to get past Congress!
Jane Hunter is editor and publisher of Israeli Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 19580, Sacramento, CA 95819. 

Wednesday, January 30, 2019



9/11:Why Is FAFT Covering Up Israel's World Wide Terrorist Money Launding Scandal ?

FAFT acronym for Financial Action Task Force


http://factsnotfairies.blogspot.com/2008/06/israel-pm-ehud-olmerts-money.html

Israel PM Ehud Olmert, Menachem Atzmon, ICTS International, Morris Talansky Global Technologies, U.S.Stock Money Launderers, WTC, 9/11/01, SwissAir 111 Crash, 9/2/98
What is even stranger is the coincidence of another Israeli controlled U.S. or NASDAQ penny stock, ICTS International, that guarded Logan Airport, Boston on 9/11, was controlled and managed by Menachem Atzmon who was also convicted of money laundering for his and Netanyahu's and Ehud Olmert's Likud Party...............



https://www.timesofisrael.com/now-a-member-of-anti-money-laundering-body-has-israel-truly-cleaned-up-its-act/


Israel’s rapid transformation from blacklisted trouble spot to FATF member, and the justice minister’s glowing characterization of the country’s fight against money-laundering, however, is hard to square with numerous economic realities that suggest abiding problems in this field.
If Israel is doing such a good job combating money laundering, how does one account for the astonishingly high number of ghost apartments(apartments that remain empty for most of the year) in the country, and the surge in sales of ultra-high-end luxury cars — both seen as a tell-tale sign of money launderers in action? What about the relatively mild punishments (Hebrew link) for those convicted in fraud cases involving billions of dollars? Not to mention complaints from law enforcement in places like France and the United States that Israel is not cooperating sufficiently on international financial crimes?
Furthermore, how can the officially asserted claim of having effectively faced down money laundering be reconciled with estimates that 20-25 percent of Israel’s economy is off the books? Or the law that allows new immigrants and returning residents to earn income “abroad” (even from shell companies) for ten years without paying taxes on it or, still more problematically, even reporting it — a law that remains on the books despite Israeli tax officials’ relentless efforts to have it amended? What about the fact that for over a decade Israeli law enforcement failed to crack down on, and appears to continue to turn a blind eye to, Israel’s semi-underground investment scam industry, which defrauded victims all over the world out of billions, and also serves as a conduit for criminals to move their money around the world under the guise of online trading?...............


Jan 11, 2010 - Memory: ICTS International guarded Logan Airport, Boston on 9/11, was ... of money laundering for his and Netanyahu's and Ehud Olmert's Likud Party. ... Israeli plutocrat MenachemAtzmon was co-treasurer of the Likud, ..

9/11:Why Is FAFT Covering Up Israel's World Wide Money Launding Scandal ?

British Israei money launderer Michael Zwebner was aided by ex Jerusalem Mayor aqnd ex Iranian
Israeli President of Israeli Moshe Katsav to promote his worthless shares of UCSY or Air Wter Corp incorporated in Nevada and run out of Miami Floriada in the early and mid 2000's.
Menachem Atzmon convicted of money laundering there for traansfering money from Israeli government to Netenyahu and Olmert's and his own Likud Party in the 1990's still was allowed to not only enter the U.S. but incorporate the money laundering stock fraud ICTS International and then use it to buy Huntleigh airport rent-a-cops and the contract to guard Logan airpot Boston just in time to allegedly according to the official story accidentally allow Mohamed Atta and his Saudi terrorists to board flights 11 and 175 or both AND COLLIDE INTO THE WTC ON THAT INFAMOUS MORNING ON SEPTEMBER 11,2001 !


Ehud Olmert's Criminal Ties to U.S. Air Water Corp Stock Fraud and. British Israeli con ..... that both Israel President Moshe Katsav as well as ex Jerusalem Mayor ... speech as well as have takenMichael Zwebner Ehud Olmert ,Moshe Katsov 


ICTS executive Menachem Atzmon was even convicted in his own country of ..... into ,the New YorkWTC or World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11/01 !!

Jul 18, 2007 - WTC,9/11,Boston Logan Trial:Israeli ICTS 'Security';Frank,Kennedy, ..... Menachem Atzmon of ICTS International has had direct familiar and ..




https://www.timesofisrael.com/now-a-member-of-anti-money-laundering-body-has-israel-truly-cleaned-up-its-act/


Israel’s rapid transformation from blacklisted trouble spot to FATF member, and the justice minister’s glowing characterization of the country’s fight against money-laundering, however, is hard to square with numerous economic realities that suggest abiding problems in this field.
If Israel is doing such a good job combating money laundering, how does one account for the astonishingly high number of ghost apartments(apartments that remain empty for most of the year) in the country, and the surge in sales of ultra-high-end luxury cars — both seen as a tell-tale sign of money launderers in action? What about the relatively mild punishments (Hebrew link) for those convicted in fraud cases involving billions of dollars? Not to mention complaints from law enforcement in places like France and the United States that Israel is not cooperating sufficiently on international financial crimes?
Furthermore, how can the officially asserted claim of having effectively faced down money laundering be reconciled with estimates that 20-25 percent of Israel’s economy is off the books? Or the law that allows new immigrants and returning residents to earn income “abroad” (even from shell companies) for ten years without paying taxes on it or, still more problematically, even reporting it — a law that remains on the books despite Israeli tax officials’ relentless efforts to have it amended? What about the fact that for over a decade Israeli law enforcement failed to crack down on, and appears to continue to turn a blind eye to, Israel’s semi-underground investment scam industry, which defrauded victims all over the world out of billions, and also serves as a conduit for criminals to move their money around the world under the guise of online trading?...............


Now a member of anti-money-laundering body, has Israel truly cleaned up its act?

Blacklisted 16 years ago, Israel has gained entry to the Financial Action Task Force, yet new immigrants can bring in unreported income for 10 years and vast scams go unprosecuted


.”

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked speaks at a press conference about Israel joining the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in 
Tel Aviv on December 10, 2018. (Flash90)

Last month, Israel announced that it had been accepted as a full member of the 
Financial Action Task Force, an international body that sets standards in the fight 
against money laundering and terror financing. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who 
presided over a December 10 press conference announcing the event, told reporters 
that Israel’s acceptance into the FATF was a strategic achievement as significant as its 
2010 accession to the OECD, the 36-member policy-setting body of relatively wealthy 
countries committed to democracy and free market economies.
“The FATF has 35 full-member countries and we are number 36,” Shaked said at the 
press conference. “This puts us in the company of a small number of countries — the 
G20 and additional countries that are leading the world in the battle against money 
laundering.”

Last month, Israel announced that it had been accepted as a full member of the Financial Action Task Force, an international body that sets standards in the fight against money laundering and terror financing. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who presided over a December 10 press conference announcing the event, told reporters that Israel’s acceptance into the FATF was a strategic achievement as significant as its 2010 accession to the OECD, the 36-member policy-setting body of relatively wealthy countries committed to democracy and free market economies.

The achievement is all the more significant, she pointed out, because only 16 years ago Israel was on the organization’s blacklist.
“We are the first country that got into the FATF on its first attempt,” Shaked said. “We were ranked third in terms of the effectiveness of our anti-money laundering regime, after the United States and Britain.”


Executive secretary of the Financial Action Task Force David Lewis (left) poses with Dr. Shlomit Wagman, head of the Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority on the occasion of Israel’s acceptance as a member of the FATF, Tel Aviv, December 10, 2018. (Justice Ministry)
Shaked also predicted that joining the organization would be good news for the Israeli economy.
“This will help our financial sector become an international player. It will help our economy and business sector and situate Israel as a safe place to invest.”
Israel’s rapid transformation from blacklisted trouble spot to FATF member, and the justice minister’s glowing characterization of the country’s fight against money-laundering, however, is hard to square with numerous economic realities that suggest abiding problems in this field.
If Israel is doing such a good job combating money laundering, how does one account for the astonishingly high number of ghost apartments(apartments that remain empty for most of the year) in the country, and the surge in sales of ultra-high-end luxury cars — both seen as a tell-tale sign of money launderers in action? What about the relatively mild punishments (Hebrew link) for those convicted in fraud cases involving billions of dollars? Not to mention complaints from law enforcement in places like France and the United States that Israel is not cooperating sufficiently on international financial crimes?
Furthermore, how can the officially asserted claim of having effectively faced down money laundering be reconciled with estimates that 20-25 percent of Israel’s economy is off the books? Or the law that allows new immigrants and returning residents to earn income “abroad” (even from shell companies) for ten years without paying taxes on it or, still more problematically, even reporting it — a law that remains on the books despite Israeli tax officials’ relentless efforts to have it amended? What about the fact that for over a decade Israeli law enforcement failed to crack down on, and appears to continue to turn a blind eye to, Israel’s semi-underground investment scam industry, which defrauded victims all over the world out of billions, and also serves as a conduit for criminals to move their money around the world under the guise of online trading?
Could it be that the authors of the FATF report were not aware of these phenomena? Some experts suggest that they were aware, but that in other countries the situation is even worse — so that Israel is indeed, relatively speaking, among the global leaders in the fight against money laundering and terror financing.

‘A very positive report’

Money laundering serves an essential function in any crime motivated by financial gain. It is the process that allows beneficiaries of crime to disguise the source of their funds, reintroduce those funds into the legitimate economy and, if successful, spend their ill-gotten gains with impunity.
“Money laundering is the thing that permits drug traffickers to stay in business and sell Fetanyl, that allows criminals to pay off people in government, to engage in human trafficking or worse,” Kieran Beer, the editor-in-chief of MoneyLaundering.com, the news site of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMs), told The Times of Israel by phone from New York.
“We don’t want crime to pay, and the way crime pays is through laundered funds,” he said.

Kieran Beer (Twitter)
The FATF was founded in 1989 by the G-7 summit in Paris and grew out of the United States’s efforts to crack down on the global drug trade and the realization that international cooperation was needed to track and forfeit the proceeds of transnational crime in a global economy.
Global awareness of the need to combat money laundering increased after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and after several high-profile leaksabout the way high net worth individuals store their money offshore.
Countries wishing to join the FATF are subject to an on-site evaluation in which their anti-money laundering regime is evaluated on the basis of 40 critera, including how seriously the judicial system takes the crime of money laundering, whether the country confiscates proceeds of crime, whether banks and financial institutions know the names of the beneficiary owners of bank accounts, and whether financial and other institutions are properly regulated and supervised. The idea behind these recommendations is to plug every possible hole that criminals could use to introduce dirty money into the financial system. Since criminals can be creative, the FATF recommendations are continually being updated.





Jan 11, 2010 - Memory: ICTS International guarded Logan Airport, Boston on 9/11, was ... of money laundering for his and Netanyahu's and Ehud Olmert's Likud Party. ... Israeli plutocrat MenachemAtzmon was co-treasurer of the Likud, ..