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Clearstream Network Sued for Trafficking Iranian Terror Money

 

COMMENT: Sur­vivors of the 241 Marines killed in the 1983 Beirut bar­racks bomb­ing have sued Clearstream, a sub­sidiary of Deutsche Borse (itself owned by the major Ger­man com­mer­cial banks [1] and, by exten­sion, the Bor­mann cap­i­tal net­work [2].)

Chan­nel­ing mil­lions of dol­lars back to the Iran­ian regime, Clearstream is alleged to have sub­stan­tive­ly aid­ed that gov­ern­men­t’s ter­ror­ist infra­struc­ture.

In our vis­its with the hero­ic Lucy Komis­ar [3], we have seen the appar­ent role of Clearstream in numer­ous ter­ror inci­dents and covert oper­a­tions, includ­ing the Ban­co Ambrosiano affair, the Octo­ber Sur­prise [4] and 9/11. [5]

Bernie Mad­off also used a cou­ple of accounts at Clearstream [6], per­haps as a vehi­cle for some of the wrong­do­ing in his oper­a­tion.

Dubbed “the stream that wash­es,” by insid­er wags, Clearstream exem­pli­fies the over­lap between the sup­pos­ed­ly respectable over­world and the crim­i­nal under­world and dark sanc­tum of black ops.

Note that Clearstream’s par­ent orga­ni­za­tion is try­ing to pur­chase the New York Stock Exchange, a move being opposed by some law­mak­ers.

“Deutsche Borse Unit Sued over Alleged Iran Funds” by Jay Solomon; Wall Street Jour­nal; 8/16/2011. [7]

EXCERPT: . . . . The plaintiffs—family mem­bers of the 241 U.S. ser­vice­men killed in the 1983 bomb­ing of a Marine Corps bar­racks in Beirut—are seek­ing the funds as par­tial pay­ment of the $2.7 bil­lion that a fed­er­al judge in 2003 ordered Iran to pay the vic­tims of the bomb­ing. The judge ruled that Tehran had orches­trat­ed the attack, at the time the largest ter­ror­ist act ever com­mit­ted against U.S. cit­i­zens. Iran has denied any role in the bomb­ing.
The plain­tiffs, accord­ing to records at the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York, allege that in 2008 Clearstream and a sec­ond finan­cial insti­tu­tion helped Iran move the mon­ey out of accounts at Cit­i­group Inc.‘s Citibank unit in New York after a fed­er­al court had ordered the funds frozen. The plain­tiffs say Clearstream and the sec­ond bank fraud­u­lent­ly masked Iran’s con­trol of the accounts as a means to win the release of the mon­ey. . . .

. . . . A Clearstream rep­re­sen­ta­tive said Mon­day that the com­pa­ny does­n’t com­ment on ongo­ing lit­i­ga­tion. But Clearstream said in court fil­ings that the mon­ey held at its accounts at Citibank was Clearstream’s prop­er­ty, and not Iran’s. . . .

. . . . The Clearstream rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the com­pa­ny began clos­ing the accounts of its Iran­ian cus­tomers in late 2007 “in light of the polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment at the time.” . . .

. . . . The U.S. Dis­trict Court for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York ini­tial­ly ordered Citibank in June 2008 to freeze $2.25 bil­lion of Clearstream accounts that the plain­tiffs alleged were con­trolled by Iran. The funds were large­ly made up of debt instru­ments rather than cash, accord­ing to court doc­u­ments. Clearstream’s lawyers sub­mit­ted records that argued $250 mil­lion of the frozen $2.25 bil­lion did­n’t belong to Iran, and the fol­low­ing month a judge ordered Citibank to release the funds. The plain­tiffs are now alleg­ing that the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by Clearstream and the sec­ond bank was fraud­u­lent. . . .

. . . . Rough­ly $2 bil­lion remains frozen at Citibank, and the claimants and Clearstream con­tin­ue to fight for con­trol of the funds at the South­ern Dis­trict Court of New York. That asset seizure, if proved to be Iran’s mon­ey, would mark the biggest con­fis­ca­tion of Iran­ian assets abroad since the 1979 Islam­ic rev­o­lu­tion. . . .

. . . . Clearstream, pri­mar­i­ly a clear­ing­house for finan­cial trades, spe­cial­izes in man­ag­ing trans­ac­tions for gov­ern­ments. The com­pa­ny says it pro­vides ser­vices to more than 60 cen­tral banks glob­al­ly. . . .

. . . . Deutsche Börse is cur­rent­ly in nego­ti­a­tions to take over NYSE Euronext  Inc., which oper­ates the New York Stock Exchange. Some U.S. law­mak­ers have raised the alle­ga­tions against Clearstream as a rea­son that the U.S. gov­ern­ment should ques­tion Deutsche Börse’s suit­abil­i­ty to take over the NYSE. . . .