Research into smuggling

Research into the Smuggling Trade
Smuggling report

Information compiled by Sonya Fay Ash Pryor


BCCI's drug money laundering. The UAE was a major center for heroin money. Banks in UAE catered for traffickers from the 'Golden crescent' countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

1991 - The fall of the Soviet system, presented Islamic finance with the greatest opportunity for growth since its revival in 1976.

1991-2002 - About 40kg of weapons usable, uranium and plutonium was stolen, from poorly protected nuclear facilities, in the former Soviet Union, between 1991 and 2002.

1995 - About 80% of the drugs that enter Europe transit through Turkey. In the late 1990's the annual drug budget of the Turkish mafia, was slightly higher than the annual budget of the Turkish government.

3 November 1996 - A car crash near Susurluk in Turkey. The passengers were all involved in smuggling drugs to Europe. High ranking politicians were also involved in this illegal trade, along with the Turkish mafia.

1997 - During Albanian unrest, 100,000 passports were stolen. Interpol says they could be used to smuggle, members of Islamist groups into Europe. Weak states with low law enforcement are ideal grounds for smuggling.

In 1998 - Albania's new role in the Balkans, when bin Laden and the Iranian revolutionary guards signed a deal, to use Albania and Kosovo, for forthcoming armed attacks in Europe. Iranian involvement in Albania dates back to 1997, robbery, terrorism, drug smuggling, arms, kidnapping and white slavery were primary sources of income. Mohsen Nurbakan the governor of the Iranian central bank, told domestic Iranian banks to invest in Albania. Iranian banks became a source of hard currency in Albania.

1998-99 - Defendants in the 1999 trial in Cairo, against the Islamic Jihad, Egyptian terror group, provided insights into the Afghan Arab network in Albania. Most of them were employed by Islamic charities in Tirana. Shawki Salama was al Qaeda's Albanian cell leader, he ran a racket in Tirana. He ran a forgery business, forging identities, passports and birth certificates, which he learned in 1994 in Sudan.

1999 - By 1999 US intelligence services were aware that the Dubai Islamic bank, served as a major conduit for bin Laden's funds. Dubai's lax banking
practices were easily circumvented, and funds sent by the Dubai Islamic bank were linked to al Qaeda operatives, and the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in 1998. Nearly half the $500,000 used by the terrorists to prepare 9/11, had been wired to the US from Dubai, UAE banks. In 1998 al Qaeda accounts at the Dubai Islamic bank in UAE were closed under pressure from the US.

1999 - It was under Taliban rule in 1999 that opium production in Afghanistan reached its height, with a 4,581 ton yield. Drug money was used to fund terrorism. The network of Haji Juma Khan, an Afghan, head of a heroin trafficking organization, that was a principle source of funding for the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists. Khan's boats would ship Afghan heroin out of Karachi port, and would return from the

Middle East loaded with weapons for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

2 June 2000 - Attempted acquisition of plutonium and uranium. It was reported that Islamic Jihad had tried to obtain small amounts of uranium and plutonium from Russia.

2001 - Money laundering experts claim, that funds are shipped in boxes, from UAE. Until the beginning of 2001, up to two flights a week, were going from UAE to Kandahar Afghanistan, with boxes of dollars inside. Afghanistan gold was the most reliable means of exchange. The Taliban demanded that taxes on opium, be paid in gold, not cash. Boxes of gold bullion were flown from UAE to Kandahar, on Ariana the Afghan airline, on regular flights. At the end of 2001, the Afghan regime began to collapse, al Qaeda shipped several containers of gold to Sudan. The Taliban took about $10 million worth of gold out of Afghanistan. The money used to fund 9/11 went through UAE.

11 September 2001 - 9/11 attacks.

2002 - The Islamic movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, and smuggling in the Golden crescent. About 60% of exported Afghan drugs in 2002, passed through central Asia. The IMU controlled 70% of the opium and heroin that moved through the area, and set up heroin labs in the territories under its control. Contacts in Chechnya helped move the heroin to reach Europe.

2002 - al Qaeda depends heavily on the hawala, informal banking system, whereby funds are transferred without financial or government scrutiny or accountability. Pakistani bankers estimate the hawala system accounts for $3 billion entering Pakistan each year, compared to only $1 billion via the formal banking system. In Pakistan alone there are over 1,000 hawaladars, of which some deals are $10 million.

2002 - According to Daniel Pearl, Sony corp used a smuggling network in Asia, as part of its marketing strategy in the region. Smuggled electronic items into Pakistan came from UAE, Iranian port of Baider Abbas.

2002 - Daniel Pearl was kidnapped by Jaish I Mohammed, (Army of Mohammed), while investigating the ATTA trade in Pakistan. Smuggling was a large part of terror funds, merchants set the volume of smuggled goods, via the
ATTA to Pakistan, at 80% of total Pakistani imports.

2002 - Most smuggled items come from distributors in the Gulf. Sony Gulf distributor in UAE, sells TV sets to traders, who ship them to the Iranian port of Baider Abbas, from there some go to the Afghan border near Heart, then southeast to Kandahar, onto Jalalabad, then typically enter Pakistan illegally along the Khyber pass, near Peshawar.

2002 - One of the main markets in Pakistan is the Karkhamo bazaar in Peshawar, where 600 merchants mainly from Afghanistan, supply a variety of foreign goods. Terror's important source of income is smuggling. Daniel Pearl, while investigating the ATTA trade in Pakistan, wrote just before he was kidnapped, smuggling offers employment to people in the tribal areas of the Afghan border. Smuggling is an industry, and it's the largest entry in the terror balance of payments.

9 January 2002 - Daniel Pearl and Steve Stecklow. Taliban banned TV but collected profits on smuggled Sonys. Wall street journal article.

31 January 2002 - A group calling itself the 'National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty', claimed to have kidnapped Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter. The group demands the release of all Pakistani prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, in exchange for Pearl's return.

17 February 2002 - Douglas Farah. Al Qaeda's road paved with gold. Secret shipments travel through a lax system in UAE. Washington Post.

18 October 2002 - Valentin Tsvetkov, governor of the Gold rich Magadan region, was shot dead in Moscow. Some believe his killing was linked to a dispute over the regions natural Gold wealth. Suspects were arrested but no one convicted.

2003 - In Afghanistan and Somalia there is no traditional banking system, everything is done through hawala. Hawaladars use gold to balance the books. Hawala dealers hold gold instead
of currencies, to conduct their business worldwide. The price of gold. Islamic banking and the hawala are both regulated by sharia law. The body that oversees Islamic finance is the Sharia supervisory board of Islamic banks and institutions, known as the Sharia Committee. Donations to bin Laden and his followers reach Afghanistan in the form of gold, boxes of gold bullion are flown from UAE, and al Qaeda ships gold via UAE.

2003 - Secrecy and speed of transaction, is why the hawala system appeals to terror groups and Islamists extremists, who make use of the system. Hawaladar finance attacks on US embassies and fund armed groups. Hawala networks are controlled by Indians and Pakistanis who migrated to the Gulf. In Pakistan alone, $5 billion moves through the network each year. According to the UN the hawala industry turnover is at least $200 billion a year.

2003 - UN estimates Afghanistan produced 3,600 tons of opium, from poppies. More than three quarters of global supply. The Taliban and its allies gained more than $150 million from drugs in 2003. There are strong central links between Haji Juma Khan, Mullah Omar and bin Laden.

2003 - The bulk of the drug money enters Turkey in suitcases carried by couriers.

2004 - UN estimates, opium, from the poppy crop in Afghanistan could be 5,400 tons. Grown in rural parts of the country.

16 February 2004 - Russia has been developing another transport scheme, designed to bypass the Suez canal. The North-South corridor, a bilateral declaration was signed in Moscow 6 February 2004. From Mumbai India to the Caspian port of Olya in the Astrakhan region, via Baider Abbas in Iran, is expected to bring Russia billions of dollars in revenue. Russia, Iran and India signed an agreement on the development on the North-South corridor in September 2000. Russia estimates that the North-South link will be able to handle up to 20 million tones of freight a year, becoming a rival of the Suez canal. A channel for goods shipped to and from Russia and an alternate transit route between Asia and Europe. An alternative transport link from Asia to Europe.

March 2004 - A meeting of al Qaeda leaders near the Pakistan Afghan border where attendees discussed future terrorist operations in Europe and the US.

March 2004 - A report of 16 October 2004 said, Adnan El-Shukrijumah is said to have attended the March 2004 terrorist summit in Waziristan Pakistan, and from there was believed to have directed surveillance efforts in the financial districts of New York.

2005 - Mario Scaramella says, he has long been involved in investigating the smuggling of radioactive material by the KGB, and its successors. He said in 2005, that Soviet destroyers had laid 20 nuclear torpedos in the
Bay of Naples in 1970, where they remained.

June 2005 - The UK Mail on Sunday said, that in June 2005, Italian police launched an investigation into a plot, to smuggle uranium from the Soviet Union into Italy, after being tipped off by Mario Scaramella.

13 July 2005 - al Qaeda has remained in control of the Afghan production heroin industry. Al Qaeda has close relations with the Albanian mafia, which assists in smuggling the sale of heroin through Europe, and the US, paying MS-13 gang $40,000 for each sleeper agent smuggled into the US from Mexico.

7 October 2006 - Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist, with the Liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was shot dead in her Moscow block of flats. Alexander Litvinenko was investigating her death, when he was fatally poisoned. A critic of Putin and his Chechen policies. She wrote regularly on human rights abuses, and had received death threats because of her work.

1 November 2006 - Alexander Litvinenko told Mario Scaramella on the day he fell ill, that he had organized the smuggling of nuclear material out of Russia, for his FSB employers. Scaramella met Litvinenko on 1 November 2006 to discuss a death threat aimed at both of them. In an interview with The Independent soon after the poisoning became public, Scaramella said, that Litvinenko, a friend since 2001, told him he had masterminded the smuggling of radioactive material to Zurich in 2000. The operation would have been one of the last carried out by Litvinenko, while still an FSB officer, in a unit tackling organized crime and smuggling.

10 November 2006 - According to Italian police, the accused Pakistanis smuggled huge sums of money to different countries. With the help of Indians based in UAE, the accused smuggled illegal drugs into Europe via Turkey. Their group comprises Albanians as well, who are wanted, and the Indians in UAE are wanted too. The Pakistani embassy in Italy asked Italian officials to provide details of those arrested.



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