PTech Owner's Assets Confiscated In Albania
Ptech owner's assets confiscated in Albania
http://www.theamericanmonitor.com/ar...ia_alqadi.html
Devlin Buckley, 1/16/07
The Albanian government has seized the assets of a wealthy Saudi that, for several years, reportedly maintained simultaneous connections to both al-Qaeda and the U.S. government while serving the interests of the CIA.
“The Finance Ministry said it ordered authorities to block four apartments, a house, four bars and shops, and more than 2 hectares (about 5 acres) of land belonging to Yasin al-Qadi,” the Associated Press reports, citing the Official Gazette.1
Yasin al-Qadi, the owner of the property, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, “heads the Saudi-based Muwafaq Foundation…an al-Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen.”2 The Treasury has thus identified the prominent entrepreneur as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).3
Despite his alleged affiliations to terrorism, al-Qadi has maintained concurrent contacts within influential Washington circles.4 In fact, prior to being publicly connected to money laundering and terrorist financing, al-Qadi regularly spoke of his relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney.5
Al-Qadi, who has been identified as one of Osama bin Laden’s “chief money launderers,”6 owned a prominent U.S. technology firm and alleged CIA front known as Ptech.7 He also escorted U.S. officials around during their visits to Saudi Arabia.8
As reported by the Associated Press, al-Qadi “allegedly worked with Osama bin Laden to provide support to terror networks in Albania,” prompting the recent confiscation of his assets in that country.9
According to the Associated Press, al-Qadi used six different names for the recently seized assets, all of which were in the Tirana area, Albania’s capital city.10
The confiscation comes approximately 14 months after the Albanian government made a similar seizure of property belonging to al-Qadi,11 who is suspected of laundering about $10 million in Albania alone for the al-Qaeda network.12
As documented in a report issued by the Library of Congress, “In December 2001, Albanian authorities announced the discovery of a major instance of terrorist support money being concealed behind the facade of a legitimate business operating in Albania.”13
“Yasin al-Qadi,” the report states, “the Saudi Arabian head of a company called Karavan Construction, has been accused of using a twin-tower construction project being built by that company in Tirana to launder money for al Qaeda.”14
“In 2004 the government confirmed that the location was being used to launder financial activities for al-Qaeda,” and in October 2005 “the Albanian authorities took possession of office space at the so-called Twin Towers of central Tirana,” the Southeast European Times recently noted.15
Al-Qadi has a history of using legitimate businesses to reportedly launder money for terrorist activities.
Most notably, he once owned a Quincy, Massachusetts-based technology company known as Ptech,16 which he allegedly used to funnel cash to Islamic militants.17
Raided by federal authorities in 2002, Ptech marketed highly sophisticated software to numerous U.S. government agencies,18 maintained a security clearance with the military,19 and held several sensitive contracts.20
Intelligence officials have privately confided to 9/11 whistleblower Indira Singh that Ptech served as a front for the CIA, apparently laundering mob-linked drug money for covert operations.21
A similar pattern is apparent in Albania, where Yasin al-Qadi, according to federal law enforcement officials, assisted the CIA with efforts to provide underground support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).22
As author Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed documents in his book, The War on Truth, “Extensive military training and assistance was provided to the KLA during the Kosovo conflict in the late 1990s by both American and British forces.”23
“This training continued,” Ahmed writes, “despite the fact that it was documented in a 1999 Congressional report by the US Republican Party Committee that the KLA is closely involved with
The extensive Albanian crime network that extends throughout Europe and into North America, including allegations that a major portion of the KLA finances are derived from that network, mainly proceeds from drug trafficking; and Terrorist organizations motivated by the ideology of radical Islam, including assets of Iran and of the notorious Osama bin-Ladin -- who has vowed a global terrorist war against Americans and American interests."24
Indeed, according to Fatos Klosi, the head of Albanian intelligence, “a major network of bin Laden supporters was established in 1998 in Albania under the cover of various Muslim charities.”25
One charity to allegedly launder money in Albania for the al-Qaeda network was Yasin al-Qadi’s Muwafaq Foundation.26
Khalid bin Mahfouz, an extremely influential and wealthy Saudi who “established and funded” the Muwafaq Foundation, was once the principal shareholder and director of BCCI,27 a criminal enterprise used by the CIA during the 1980s to funnel cash to Osama bin Laden for the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.28
As former DEA undercover agent Michael Levine explained to The New American in 1999, the U.S. armed and funded “the worst elements of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan — drug traffickers, arms smugglers, anti-American terrorists. We later paid the price when the World Trade Center was bombed [in 1993], and we learned that some of those responsible had been trained by us. Now we’re doing the same thing with the KLA.”29
“These guys,” Levine said, referring to the KLA, “have a network that’s active on the streets of this country. ... They’re the worst elements of society that you can imagine, and now, according to my sources in drug enforcement, they’re politically protected.”30
According to Yossef Bodansky, Director of Research of the International Strategic Studies Association, “The role of the Albanian Mafia, which is tightly connected to the KLA, is laundering money, providing technology, safe houses, and other support to terrorists within this country.”31
“In any case,” Bodansky told The New American, “a serious investigation of the Albanian mob isn’t going to happen, because they’re ‘our boys’ — they’re protected."32
This may help explain why, according to FBI whistleblower Robert Wright, his investigation into Yasin al-Qadi during the 1990s was "intentionally and repeatedly thwarted and obstructed" by higher ups at the FBI.33
According to Agent Wright, who seized $1.4 million directly linked to al-Qadi in 1998,34 “FBI intelligence agents lied and hid vital records from criminal agents for the purpose of obstructing his criminal investigation of the terrorists in order to protect their ‘subjects,’ and prolong their intelligence operations,” as reported by the group representing Wright, Judicial Watch.35
"The supervisor who was there from headquarters was right straight across from me and started yelling at me: 'You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects,'" Agent Wright told ABC News in 2002.36
According to Agent Wright and other members of his former unit, the money trails of the 1998 African embassy bombings led back to al-Qadi, but even after the bombings, FBI headquarters wanted no arrests.37
According to Agent Wright, it is very likely that 9/11 would have been prevented if he had simply been allowed to do his job.38
Yasin al-Qadi, in addition to crossing paths with the CIA in Albania, Kosovo, and the United States, may have also been involved with covert operations in Bosnia during the mid-1990s.39
Al-Qadi’s charity, the Muwafaq Foundation, which was established by former BCCI head Khalid bin Mahfouz,40 provided support to Islamic militants in Bosnia,41 where the CIA conducted operations of mutual interest.42
As London’s The Spectator has noted, “If Western intervention in Afghanistan created the mujahadeen, Western intervention in Bosnia appears to have globalised it.”43
“From 1992 to 1995,” according to The Spectator, “the Pentagon assisted with the movement of thousands of mujahadeen and other Islamic elements from Central Asia into Europe, to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs.”44
During the civil war, Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnia’s then president, invited Mujahideen fighters into the region and incorporated them into the Bosnian army.45
As Adrian Morgan recently reported for Spero News, “Izetbegovic was portrayed by the Clinton administration as a moderate, though it was recently revealed that he was in the pay of a Saudi Al Qaeda operative, Yassin al-Khadi (Yassin al Qadi).”46
Izetbegovic reportedly received $195,000 from al-Qadi in 1996,47 the same year the wartime president earned the "International Democracy Award" from the Center for Democracy.48
End Part I
