Israelis were 9-11 short sale stock buyers, betting on WTC terror strikes, story killed

[Timothy_Fitzpatrick]

Between August 26 and September 11, 2001, a group of speculators, identified by
the American Securities and Exchange Commission as Israeli citizens, sold "short" a
list of 38 stocks that could reasonably be expected to fall in value as a result of the
pending attacks. These speculators operated out of the Toronto, Canada and
Frankfurt, Germany, stock exchanges and their profits were specifically stated to be
"in the millions of dollars."

Short selling of stocks involves the opportunity to gain large profits by passing
shares to a friendly third party, then buying them back when the price falls.

Historically, if this precedes a traumatic event, it is an indication of foreknowledge. It
is widely known that the CIA uses the Promis software to routinely monitor stock
trades as a possible warning sign of a terrorist attack or suspicious economic
behavior. A week after the Sept.11 attacks, the London Times reported that the CIA
had asked regulators for the Financial Services Authority in London to investigate
the suspicious sales of millions of shares of stock just prior to the terrorist acts. It
was hoped the business paper trail might lead to the terrorists.

Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a clandestine but
official effort to resolve the market manipulations There has been a great deal of talk
about insider trading of American stocks by certain Israeli groups both in Canada
and Germany between August 26 and the Sept.11 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon.

Lynne Howard, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE),
stated that information about who made the trades was available immediately. "We
would have been aware of any unusual activity right away. It would have been
triggered by any unusual volume. There is an automated system called 'blue
sheeting,' or the CBOE Market Surveillance System, that everyone in the business
knows about. It provides information on the trades - the name and even the Social
Security number on an account - and these surveillance systems are set up
specifically to look into insider trading. The system would look at the volume, and
then a real person would take over and review it, going back in time and looking at
other unusual activity."

Howard continued, "The system is so smart that even if there is a news event that
triggers a market event it can go back in time, and even the parameters can be
changed depending on what is being looked at. It's a very clever system and it is
instantaneous. Even with the system, though, we have very experienced and savvy
staff in our market-regulations area who are always looking for things that might be
unusual. They're trained to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Even if it's
offshore, it might take a little longer, but all offshore accounts have to go through
U.S. member firms - members of the CBOE - and it is easily and quickly identifiable
who made the trades. The member firm who made the trades has to have
identifiable information about the client under the 'Know Your Customer' regulations
(and we share all information with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)"

Given all of this, at a minimum the CBOE and government regulators who are
conducting the secret investigations have known for some time who made the
options puts on a total of 38 stocks that might reasonably be anticipated to have a
sharp drop in value because of an attack similar to the 9/11 episode. The silence
from the investigating camps could mean several things: Either terrorists are
responsible for the puts on the listed stocks or others besides terrorists had
foreknowledge of the attack and used this knowledge to reap a nice financial harvest
from the tragedy.

Source: Angel of the West