identified by the American Securities and Exchange Commission as Israeli citizens, sold “short” a list of 38 stocks that could reasonably be expected to fall in value as a result of the pending attacks. These speculators operated out of the Toronto, Canada and Frankfurt, Germany, stock exchanges and their profits were specifically stated to be “in the millions of dollars.”

Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a clandestine but official effort to resolve the market manipulations There has been a great deal of talk about insider trading of American stocks by certain Israeli groups both in Canada and Germany between August 26 and the Sept.11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

.On September. 6, 2001, the Thursday before the tragedy, 2,075 put options were made on United Airlines and on Sept. 10, the day before the attacks, 2,282 put options were recorded for American Airlines. Given the prices at the time, this yielded to speculators, at a bare minimum, between $2 million and $4 million in profit.

The question of pre-knowledge of the attacks and, most importantly , the issue of the highly sensitive question of the identities not only of the individuals involved but also where an open investigation might lead. This immediately became a subject of great official concern, both in Washington and Tel Aviv.

In the United States, a number of agencies were involved in this investigation: the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and DOJ –were early on forbidden to speak to the media about the allegations of insider trading. Suspicion of insider trading to profit from the September 11 attacks was not limited to U.S. regulators. Investigations were also initiated in Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Spain. At the urgent request of the United States, these inquiries were conducted under conditions of strict secrecy.

Lynne Howard, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), stated that information about who made the trades was available immediately. "We would have been aware of any unusual activity right away. It would have been triggered by any unusual volume. There is an automated system called 'blue sheeting,' or the CBOE Market Surveillance System, that everyone in the business knows about. It provides information on the trades - the name and even the Social Security number on an account - and these surveillance systems are set up specifically to look into insider trading. The system would look at the volume, and then a real person would take over and review it, going back in time and looking at other unusual activity."

Howard continued, "The system is so smart that even if there is a news event that triggers a market event it can go back in time, and even the parameters can be changed depending on what is being looked at. It's a very clever system and it is instantaneous. Even with the system, though, we have very experienced and savvy staff in our market-regulations area who are always looking for things that might be unusual. They're trained to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Even if it's offshore, it might take a little longer, but all offshore accounts have to go through U.S. member firms - members of the CBOE - and it is easily and quickly identifiable who made the trades. The member firm who made the trades has to have identifiable information about the client under the 'Know Your Customer' regulations (and we share all information with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)"

Given all of this, at a minimum the CBOE and government regulators who are conducting the secret investigations have known for some time who made the options puts on a total of 38 stocks that might reasonably be anticipated to have a sharp drop in value because of an attack similar to the 9/11 episode. The silence from the investigating camps could mean several things: Either terrorists are responsible for the puts on the listed stocks or others besides terrorists had foreknowledge of the attack and used this knowledge to reap a nice financial harvest from the tragedy.

Adam Hamilton of Zeal LLC, a North Dakota-based private consulting company that publishes research on markets worldwide, stated that "I heard that $22 million in profits was made on these put options..."

Federal investigators probing into these deals became very reluctant to even discuss their probings, let alone to release any information they might have disclosed. Bits and pieces appearing in the American media made it obvious that these trades existed and that it was expected to reveal the persons and groups involved. The feverish rise of rampant rumor following the attacks were seen by American authorities, in specific the top levels of the Bush administration, as leading to unwanted conclusions. Strong protests were made to the White House by Israeli diplomatic entities asking for a blackout on any Federal investigations because they would clearly lead to the exposure of not only Israeli business interests but to the involvement of the Israeli government itself. The study is certainly not the first on possible insider trading in connection to the attacks but it is disconcerting in comparison with the conclusions of the regulatory authorities. As of September 2001, the Securities Exchange Commission and its European counterparts were interested in the atypical stock exchange movements before the attacks.

In an official statement of July 2004, the official American regulatory agency stated that it examined more than 9,5 million transactions in the weeks preceding September 11, then delivered its conclusions to the National Commission on the terrorist attacks (911 commission).

According to this commission, unusual transactions certainly took place but each had a’ non-criminal explanation.’ The authorities evoke, for example, analyst’s investor advice to explain certain rises of volumes.

An identical and cooperative attitude on the part of the ex-COB now the AMF (French SEC), which stated in its annual report of 2002: "the elements obtained forbid to show any evidence that financial groups related to the instigators of the attacks could have used the Stock Exchange to realise operations"

Just a month after the attacks the SEC sent out a list of 38 stocks to various securities firms around the world requesting information. The list included stocks of American, United, Continental, Northwest, Southwest and US Airways airlines, as well as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, the American International Group, AIG, Cigna, CAN Financial, John Hancock, MetLife, General Motors, Raytheon, W.R. Grace, Lone Star Technologies, American Express, the Bank of New York, Bank One, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns

Six years after the attacks of World Trade Center, it is the disconcerting conclusion of a recent study by Marc Chesney and Loriano Mancini, professors at the University of Zurich, that: “Atypical volumes, very rare on certain titles, lead to suspicions of insider trading. "

The authors, one a specialist in derivatives, the other a specialist in econometrics, worked on the options to sell, used to speculate on the fall, of 20 great American groups, in particular in aeronautics and finance.

Their analysis relates to the transactions carried out between the 6 and September 10, 2001 compared to the average volumes recorded over long period (ten years for the majority of the companies).

The two specialists, in addition, calculated the probability of several options of the same sector having significant volumes in a few days.

"We tried to see whether the movements recorded on certain titles little before the attacks were common. We show that, for certain companies like American Airlines, United Airlines, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citigroup, Marsh & McLehnan, movements are scarce from a statistical point of view, a fortiori in comparison to the volumes observed for other values like Coke or Hewlett-Packard, explains Marc Chesney, a former professor with (the prestigious business school) HEC, author of "Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism" (published by Ellipses Editions).

“For example, 1.535 contracts of options to sell in the term October 2001, with 30 dollars, were exchanged on American Airlines on September 10, against a daily average of approximately 24 contracts over the three previous weeks "the fact that the market is bear at the time" does not explain enough these surprising volumes "

The authors also studied the profitability of the options to sell, and of purchase, for an investor having bought a product between the 6th and the 10th "For certain titles, the profits were enormous. For example, investors having acquired options to sell of Citigroup with a maturity at October 2001 could potentially have gained more than 15 million dollars "

The conjunction of the data between volumes and profitability, the two authors conclude "the probability that there were offences of initiates (insider trading) is strong for American Airlines, United Airlines, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan.

Chronology of events prior to the 9/11 attacks:

September 6-7, 2001: 4,744 put options (a speculation that the stock will go down) are purchased on United Air Lines stock as opposed to only 396 call options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the UAL puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. [New York Times; Wall Street Journal]

September 10, 2001: 4,516 put options are purchased on American Airlines as compared to 748 call options. [New York Times; Wall Street Journal.]

September 6-11, 2001: No other airlines show any similar trading patterns to those experienced by UAL and American. The put option purchases on both airlines were 600% above normal. This at a time when Reuters (September 10) issues a business report stating "airline stocks may be poised to take off."

September 6-10, 2001: Highly abnormal levels of put options are purchased in Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA Re (insurance) which owns 25% of American Airlines, and Munich Re. All of these companies are directly impacted by the September 11 attacks.

It has been documented that the CIA, the Israeli Mossad and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs reported to be descended from Promis software. This is to alert national intelligence services of just such types of attacks. Promis was reported, as recently as June, 2001, to be in Osama bin Laden's possession and as a result of recent stories by FOX, both the FBI and the Justice Department have confirmed its use for U.S. intelligence gathering through at least this summer. This would confirm that the CIA had additional advance warning of imminent attacks. [Washington Times, June 15, 2001; “Fox News,” October 16, 2001]

Conclusion: It should be fairly obvious to most objective readers that the 9/11 attack came as no surprise to a number of groups and individuals who, while not directly involved in it, nevertheless took advantage of insider information to profit by it handsomely. And it should be equally evident that no one wanted to lose any profits they might make as a result of the attack and said nothing to anyone. That all this was shut down should not come as any kind of a surprise to Americans who have become painfully aware of the immense flood of deliberately misleading disinformation and suppression of unwanted and unwelcome news in the American media. BH