[osint] CIA finds Arafat's $1.9bn fortune

[R.A. Hettinga]

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To: "Bruce Tefft" <btefft at community-research.com>
Thread-Index: AcTSpMVj5XG6vXZWTjG/IuLd8itgOwBF6nSQ
From: "Bruce Tefft" <btefft at community-research.com>
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Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:51:40 -0500
Subject: [osint] CIA finds Arafat's $1.9bn fortune
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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.




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-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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"... 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'