--- begin forwarded text To: "Bruce Tefft" <btefft@community-research.com> Thread-Index: AcTSpMVj5XG6vXZWTjG/IuLd8itgOwBF6nSQ From: "Bruce Tefft" <btefft@community-research.com> Mailing-List: list osint@yahoogroups.com; contact osint-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list osint@yahoogroups.com Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:51:40 -0500 Subject: [osint] CIA finds Arafat's $1.9bn fortune Reply-To: osint@yahoogroups.com CIA finds Arafat's $1.9bn fortune By PETER ANAV in Jerusalem 22nov04 THE late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat controlled a network of companies, investments and bank accounts with a value totalling at least $1.9 billion, according to the Austrian business magazine Format. Quoting a Central Intelligence Agency report, it said yesterday the CIA had conducted inquiries after receiving information that a holding company of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation had invested $11.6 million in a small pharmaceutical company in the Canadian town of Belleville, Ontario. Format said investigators had "stepped on an anthill" when they uncovered the stake held by the Palestinian Commercial Service Corporation in Bioniche Life Sciences. They uncovered a whole network of PLO funds such as Chalcedony, Onyx, Evergreen, SilverHaze and Avmax International, the latter based on the Caribbean island Aruba. The magazine said it had seen a file "detailing in concrete terms for the first time how much money was involved". The financial network was alleged to have been run by Arafat. Format said between 1998 and the Palestinian uprising of 2000, an Austrian bank and a group called Casino Austria financed a gambling casino frequented by Israelis at Jericho on the West Bank. It also alleged Arafat controlled $1.03 billion in bank accounts in Austria, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Arafat's nephew yesterday arrived in Paris from Cairo to pick up the deceased leader's medical records. Nasser al-Qidwa, who was accompanied by the Palestinian Authority's representative in France, Leila Shahid, did not make any statement. Arafat's death has caused speculation, controversy and continuing mystery. He was admitted to a Paris hospital on October 29 and died on November 11. However, his cause of death has not yet been revealed. Late on Friday, lawyers for Arafat's widow Suha said she had been given her husband's medical file and had left for her second home in Tunisia. Mrs Arafat, invoking French medical confidentiality laws, has kept a tight grip on information relating to her husband's treatment during his last days. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, discuss-osint@yahoogroups.com. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor bisoldi@intellnet.org http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: osint-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: osint-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: osint-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'