Clearstream Affair: Neocon Coup or French Watergate?

by **Gouda** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:39 am

Well it wouldn't be limited hang-out if our attention wasn't suddenly drawn to the 3rd shell in the game, SWIFT, while frantic mergers and acquisitions of the other two "black boxes of financial globalization" (see Lucy Komisar article Chiggerbit posted) proceed apace in order to further consolidate control and secrecy over operations. Refresher on SWIFT vis-a-vis Clearstream (Deutche Boerse) and Euroclear (Euronext), from the Wiki info: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Clearstream does not hold a monopoly in this market: Euroclear, owned by Euronext, and SWIFT are competitors. However, SWIFT mainly assures routing, while only Euroclear and Clearstream supply cross-borders securities clearing and settlement services; Clearstream's quasi-monopoly is demonstrated by this European Union statement declaring that "Clearstream Banking AG is an unavoidable trader partner" [5].<hr></blockquote> Clearstream & Euroclear are clearly where one would find (a lot of) the smoking money behind the elite's financing of the military-intel-arms-drugs n' terror complex, if one was so inclined to give that some light of day. So where are they assuring us *sarcasm* they are looking for "terror" transactions? At SWIFT transfers of, generally, above-board small fry. As Clearstream and Euroclear get hustled back into America's respectable business news, the diminutive member, SWIFT, is suddenly thrust out into the international spotlight with pants down. From yesterday's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/washington/22cnd-intel.html?ei=5065&en=6ea0fee64e216599&ex=1151640000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print">New York Times</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Bank Data Secretly Reviewed by U.S. to Fight Terror By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN WASHINGTON, June 22 - Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials. The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions... The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans' financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.... Officials described the Swift program as the biggest and most far-reaching of several secret efforts to trace terrorist financing. Much more limited agreements with other companies have provided access to A.T.M. transactions, credit card purchases and Western Union wire payments, the officials said... Data from the Brussels-based banking consortium, formally known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, has allowed officials from the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to examine "tens of thousands" of financial transactions, Mr. Levey said... Swift's database provides a rich hunting ground for government investigators. Swift is a crucial gatekeeper, providing electronic instructions on how to transfer money between 7,800 financial institutions worldwide. The cooperative is owned by more than 2,200 organizations, and virtually every major commercial bank, as well as brokerage houses, fund managers and stock exchanges, uses its services. Swift routes more than 11 million transactions each day, most of them across borders.<hr></blockquote> SWIFT may be a crucial gatekeeper of global finance - but certainly, we know, not the crucialist.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:23 am

Gouda, you beat me to it... But why is this war-criminal government, up to its eyeballs in blood-money and corruption, proven liars, thieves and mass murderers, being permitted to access the private financial information of innocent people around the world? Is there no mechanism, no mechanism at all, to protect the citizens of any country from American violation of privacy and terrorism?

by **chiggerbit** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:39 am

Interesting that Lucy's article was published in October, 2001: Using a court order that dates back to last March -- based on a complaint filed by Clearstream -- police raided Backes' house two weeks ago looking for the records. Backes calls the move a warning to other critics of the secret financial system. What do you suppose bacame so important to find that a search warrent issued back in March is suddenly used in October, 2001? Gee, what changed between March 2001 and October? Well, I suppose we would need to ask her when she wrote the article.

by **chiggerbit** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:46 am

I don't have time to search right now--does anyone know the date of the raid?

by **Byrne** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:59 am

chiggerb, Searched & found this: <a href="http://images.indymedia.org/imc/victoria/explosive_.txt" target="top">images.indymedia.org/imc/victoria/explosive_.txt</a> which states: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Using a March 2001 judicial order based on a complaint made by Lussi before he was fired, police raided Backes’ house on September 19 [2001] in search of records. He says they seized unimportant documents and diskettes; he keeps the microfiches outside the country as “life insurance.” “The raid was organized to impress [others] not to repeat what this dangerous guy Ernest Backes has done,” he says. <hr></blockquote> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=byrne@rigorousintuition>Byrne</A> at: 6/23/06 9:00 am

by **Byrne** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 11:34 am

A search on Cryptome came up with this: <a href="http://cryptome.quintessenz.org/mirror/clearstream.htm" target="top">cryptome.quintessenz.org/mirror/clearstream.htm</a>, which has a link to an Excel file containing a list of alleged 4,147 accounts of Clearstream.

by **sijepuis** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:32 pm

Great thread! You're all on the right track. I agree entirely with your assessment, Qutb, regarding the division of Europe in two competing factions. Sad, and it is not by chance. Divide and conquer. Chiggerbit, there's little question that the PTB, notably Washington, military-industrialists and financial institutions, are putting all their weight behind Sarkozy, and the French media are obliging them, big time, I can assure you. As I've said here before, Sarkozy is a staunch North Atlanticist, is pro-Israel and is "tough on scum" [Muslims]. He'd make Paris fit in seamlessly with London, Washington and Tel Aviv. Chirac and Villepin, contrary to Sarkozy, are are part of a dwindling group of old-school Gaullists, who, while embracing free-marketism, are traditionally cautious with regard to the US. But there's a broader picture to be seen. Here's a hum-dinger of an article that underlines Washington's need for pro-American leaders, like Sarko [and recently ensconced Merkel, I might add], in Europe: <a href="http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/6/20/7507/99110">Conservative plutocrats of the Right and Left call for a « Euro-American-style Europe »</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>On June 1st, the European Parliament adopted two resolutions dealing with relations between the European Union (EU) and the U.S. In each case, the resolutions arose from initiatives deliberated by a policy group even though no request had been made by the Parliament. . . . The first resolution concerns a transatlantic partnership agreement. It issues from a group within the Parti Populaire Européen which chose Elmar Brok to draft it. Mr. Brok is a German Christian Democrat who is well-known for his decisive rôle during the work of the convention which prepared the treaty project establishing a Constitution for Europe. This resolution, which concerns political relations with the United States, was introduced by the committee on foreign affairs of the European Parliament. <hr></blockquote> This article is a must read for anyone interested in European politics (disheartening, as it is!) I won't quote any further from it but, in essence, the US intends to have locked the EU into a EU-U.S. free-trade zone by 2015, so as to preempt a possible alignment with Russia/Caucasia/China. Washington is full steam ahead in preparing the groundwork, saddling the European Commission with a virtual army of neocon lobbyists. The 2006 revival of the Clearwater scandal in France is simply one incident in a much broader campagne. Think of ALL that was accomplished simply by introducing a purportedly false list of names into an ongoing financial scandal. Destabilisation of the Villepin/Chirac government, the discreditation of EADS as leader in the European defense industry, not to mention the gutting of the credibility of France's judicial system .... The 'Dark Hand' simply sits back to watch all of the players slit one anothers' throats!, with flames amply fanned by a complicit media. Who does this benefit, ultimately?

by **chiggerbit** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:50 pm

Thanks, Byrne!. And I agree, sijepuis, a fascinating thread. Has this subject been discussed here before? I really need to start reading ALL the threads. Very complicated and unfamiliar to me, but worth the time. I can see that I should try to learn more. The date of the raid was September 19 [2001]?????? Oh, boy, what little secrets are hidden here? Remember, Villepin wouldn't have had time to piss off Bushie yet by that day. This has to do with 9/11--I can just smell the stink wafting from this one. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=chiggerbit@rigorousintuition>chiggerbit</A> at: 6/23/06 3:00 pm

by **Byrne** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:27 pm

I see (from an Observer article today, <a href="http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1805586,00.html" target="top">here</a>) that Sarkozy has been in London for 'unofficial meetings' with Tony Blair twice in the past few weeks. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>... Leaving the country is no way to win an election in the long run, but for his previous unofficial meeting with Blair, according to French sources, Sarkozy spent a weekend in Florence. The two men first met in 2002... In spring 2004, when he was finance minister, Sarkozy made his first request for a head-to-head with Blair. The Elysee Palace was not keen, but it is believed that Peter Mandelson intervened and a meeting was arranged for 25 May. Last October they met privately at a hotel in London, after the Elysee had asked Downing Street to turn down a request for an official encounter. Most tellingly, Sarkozy's campaign team - 'The Firm' - has drawn direct inspiration from the Blairite spin tradition. According to Le Monde journalist Philippe Ridet, 'La Firme Nicolas' is a crack team of thirtysomething workaholic men, with the latest mobile phones, Ralph Lauren suits and an image-building obsession that stops at nothing: 'It's a political style we have never seen in France before.' <hr></blockquote>

by **Byrne** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:35 am

Cryptome has a link to an Excel file of 33,341 Clearstream accounts in 2002: <a href="http://cryptome.org/clearstream2002.htm" target="top">cryptome.org/clearstream2002.htm</a> I was interested in the connections of Clearstream to 911 and al-Qaeda (not that I think that these 2 subjects are directly linked!). The Lucy Komisar RealAudio file that I lnked to upthread (which mentions such connections) does not work. I came up with the following snippets:<blockquote>Quote:<hr>from the Wiki entry on al-Qaeda : Financial activities of al-Qaeda have been a major preoccupation of the US government following the September 11, 2001 attacks, leading for example to the discovery of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's tax evasion, for which his wife, Lucía Hiriart de Pinochet, has been arrested in January 2006. It was also discovered by investigative reporter Denis Robert that funds from Osama bin Laden's Bahrain International Bank transited through illegal unpublished accounts of "clearing house" Clearstream, which has been qualified as a "bank of banks".<hr></blockquote> More detailed info is at <a href="http://69.69.245.68/voxpop/banks11.htm" target="top">69.69.245.68/voxpop/banks11.htm</a>, which features an article by Lucy Komisar entitled 'Banking with Bin Laden'. Chiggerb, Can you explain why the raid of 19th Sept. 2001 was significant, & why you think it was prompted?

by **chiggerbit** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 1:14 pm

Well, the raid was authorized clear back in ..what?...March, and time couldn't be found to execute the warrent until a few days after 9/11? Scurry, scurry. Considering the early news, that suddenly disappeared, about the put options, I can't help but be suspicious that Clearstream might have been in a position to know who profitted from those put options. Gotta wonder what kind of information bomb hides in that list.

by **clang1** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:20 pm

Hi, I am new to the board. I used to work for The Clean. The most corrupt firm that I have ever worked for. Clearstream is not quite 'owned' by the d'bourse. Well, it is but the fusion between (Cedel) now Clearstream and the D'Bourse was a 50%/50% proposition. Clearstream Luxembourg I think still pretty much does what it wants. To discount re Gouda's post and discounting the OP's comment Quote: "One thing I don't understand: if, as I suspect, there is a US-based neocon "dark hand" behind the affair, why would they risk the immense media exposure of Clearstream's central role in international money-laundering, several suspicious murders and its implication in everything from the international drug trade to terrorism?" by simply stating well the D'Bourse owns Clearstream is to not see the forest for the trees. What goes on in Luxembourg is quite separate (for lack of a better word --on edit, within these contexts is perhaps a better way to say this) than the goings on of the Bourse in Frankfurt. As well much of this dirty business well pre-dates the D'Bourse purchase of Clearstream. The Bourse got the good with the bad. There is a pit of vipers there in Luxembourg. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=clang1@rigorousintuition>clang1</A> at: 7/6/06 10:58 am

by **Gouda** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:58 pm

clang, are you saying that the wikipedia entries are incorrect? Or that the interpretations of the facts are incorrect? My understanding is that Clearstream is a division of DB Group, DB Group also owning the Frankfurt exchange. Separate divisions of one group may have different operations, but they are under one control - and I'd assume that shady multi-billion dollar/euro transactions carried out between accounts held by extremely powerful clients for very important operations would necesarily come under some kind of "know & go" from the upper echelons of DB Group. Normal, above-board clearing operations may be of no concern to DB Group ownership, but the sensitive types of operations we are talking about here I would think are of crucial concern. Here are the wiki links: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearstream_scandal">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cle...am_scandal</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Clearstream Banking S.A. (CB) is the clearing division of Deutsche Börse, based in Luxembourg. It was created in January 2000 through the merger of Cedel International and Deutsche Börse Clearing, part of the Deutsche Börse Group, which owns the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Cedel, established in 1971, specialized in clearing and settlement. In 1996 it obtained a bank licence. In July 2002 Deutsche Börse purchased the remaining 50% of Clearstream International for €1.6 billion.<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_B%C3%B6rse">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deu...B%C3%B6rse</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Deutsche Börse Group LSE: DHE is a marketplace organizer for the trading of shares and other securities. It also is a transaction services provider. It gives companies and investors access to global capital markets. More than 3,200 employees service customers in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. Deutsche Börse has locations in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Spain, as well as representative offices in London, Paris, Chicago, New York, Hong Kong, and Dubai. FWB Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse (Frankfurt Stock Exchange), is one of the world's largest trading centers for securities. With a share in turnover of around 90 percent, it is the largest of the eight German stock exchanges. Deutsche Börse AG operates the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Deutsche Börse is owner of Clearstream.<hr></blockquote> This org chart from the DB website seems to confirm this; Clearstream SA 100% under DB Group AG: <a href="http://deutsche-boerse.com/dbag/dispatch/en/kir/gdb_navigation/about_us/10_Deutsche_Boerse_Group/30_Company_Structure">deutsche-boerse.com/dbag/..._Structure</a> Would be very good to get the facts on this "cleared." By the way, Clang, I think many here would be very interested to learn a little about the nature and scale of the corruption you witnessed there. Cheers. edit: I certainly do not doubt there are a pit of vipers in Lux - but can we be so certain that those engineering the takeover of Clearstream did not know this, and perhaps even thought it a nice asset for the growing portfolio? Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 7/6/06 11:03 am

by **friend catcher** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:03 pm

A barrister I knew several years back who dealt exclusively with fraud, as a defender, told me that Swiss bank accounts were not the place to put dirty money if secrecy was an issue and Luxembourg was the first choice for serious dodgy accounts. Not sure if that's still true but tiny little Luxembourg seems to do very well for itself.

by **Gouda** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 1:12 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>The Bourse got the good with the bad.<hr></blockquote> A little edit-cross-posting. Right, and my point is that, assuming they knew what they were getting (I am pretty sure they did) they were not entirely unhappy with the "bad", which some of these transglobal vipers may interpret as "good". The bigger they can make these conglomerates, the more powerful they are, the easier it is to protect from attacks of justice, and the more difficult they are to untangle. Though I also see this as their biggest weakness: the bigger they are the harder they fall (but that's another thread).

Clearstream Affair: Neocon Coup or French Watergate?

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