The Washington Post
BRUSSELS — The president of Germany’s central bank said Saturday there was mounting evidence that people connected to the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., sought to profit from the tragedy by engaging in "terrorism insider trading" on European stock and commodity markets.
Ernst Welteke, head of the Bundesbank, said a preliminary review by German regulators and bank researchers showed highly suspicious sales of shares in airlines and insurance companies, along with major trades in gold and oil markets, before Sept. 11, suggesting they were conducted with advance knowledge of the attacks.
Welteke said his researchers came across what he considers almost irrefutable proof of insider trading as recently as Thursday, but he refused to release any detailed information pending further consultations with regulators in other European countries and the United States.
"What we found makes us sure that people connected to the terrorists must have been trying to profit from this tragedy," he said at a meeting of European finance ministers and central bankers.
Besides massive short-selling of airline and insurance stocks, Welteke said "there was a fundamentally inexplicable rise" in world oil prices just before the attacks that suggest certain groups or people were buying oil contracts that were then sold for a much higher price. He said German researchers also detected movements in gold markets "which need explaining."
"If you look at the movements in markets before and after the attacks, it really makes your brow furrow," Welteke said. "It is extremely difficult to really verify it, but we are confident we will be able to pinpoint the source in at least one or two cases."
Financial authorities in Europe said their scrutiny of suspicious stock sales formed part of a broader inquiry into the global financial dealings of Osama bin Laden, who is widely suspected as the mastermind of the terror bombings.
Bin Laden, the scion of a Saudi construction magnate, is estimated to be worth as much as $300 million. He is known to have developed an elaborate financial network, including companies in Cyprus, Tunisia and Switzerland that help launder earnings and donations from supporters scattered throughout the Persian Gulf, North Africa and Muslim communities in Europe.
Swiss prosecutors also are focusing their attention on an investment bank in Lugano called Al Taqwa, which means "fear of God" in Arabic. Swiss police suspect it may have handled important transactions for bin Laden, but they have not been able to find conclusive proof of links to terrorist plots.
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