Listen:
MP3 Side 1 | Side 2
RealAudio
1. The first side of the program (and the first part of the second) consists of the reading of two documents from John Loftus concerning the role of Enron as a broker on behalf of U.S. energy companies negotiating with the Taliban for a proposed pipeline across Afghanistan. The documents are self-explanatory. In the context of Mr. Loftus’ analysis, recall some points concerning the compromising of U.S. intelligence in connection with the attacks. (This should not be misunderstood as constituting an endorsement by Mr. Loftus for the working hypothesis presented in For The Record programs concerning 9/11.) The lawsuit referred to in the Loftus pieces is discussed in FTR 357.
2. The first article is titled “What Congress Does not Know about Enron and 9/11.”
3. The second article is titled “The Enron Pipeline Connection to 9/11.” Note the role in this situation of the late John O’Neill, and recall reflections made upon his career in earlier broadcasts.
4. Next, the program highlights ex-CIA officer Robert Baer’s allegations concerning the unwillingness of the authorities to move on Bin Laden’s organization. (See No Evil; by Robert Baer; Copyright 2002 [HC]; Crown Publishers; ISBN 0–609-60987–4.)
5. Baer alleges that Khaldi Shaykh Mohammed (believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks) could have been apprehended. It appears from Baer’s account that he had been tipped off. “When he [Baer] had been working as chief of police in his government, he had become aware that his government was harboring an Osama bin Laden cell. The two main members of the cell, he said, were Shawqi Islambuli, whose brother had assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981, and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, whose area of expertise was airplane hijackings. The prince went on to tell us that when the FBI attempted to arrest Muhammad and Islambuli, his government had equipped them with alias passports and spirited them out of the country; both eventually settled in Prague. Getting out of the spy business proved a lot harder than I thought it would be. As if I’d never left, I passed everything I had learned from the ex-police chief back to the CIA in early 1998. Not surprisingly, there was no follow-up. No response.” (Ibid.; p. 270)
6. Saudi Arabia’s culpability in the attacks is highlighted by Baer’s description of his attempts to warn about 9/11. “It wasn’t until three years later, in the early summer of 2001, that an associate of my prince, a military officer still working for his government, informed me he was aware of a spectacular operation about to occur. He also claimed to possess the name of Osama bin Laden operatives in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. He provided us with a computer record of hundreds of secret bin Laden operatives in the Gulf. In August 2001, at the military officer’s request, I met with an aide to the Saudi defense minister, Prince Sultan bin’Abd-al’Aziz. The aide refused to look at the list or to pass them on to Sultan.” (Ibid.; pp. 270–271)
7. A spate of recent articles report that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad is suspected of masterminding the 9/11 attacks. (“Key 9/11 Planner Is Named” by Josh Meyer; Los Angeles Times; 6/5/2002; p. A1.)
8. “ ‘It looks like he’s the man, quite honestly,’ one Bush administration official said of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key lieutenant to Osama bin Laden.” (Idem.)
9. In the context of the Loftus articles on Enron and 9/11, it is interesting to contemplate the timing of Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s decision to resign. It was on August 14, 2001. It was in August of 2001 that the Taliban negotiations collapsed. (“Greed and Fear Return;” by Andrew Hill; Financial Times; 6/8/2002; p. 8.)
Well that’s sort of perfect in an awful way: former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was released in February of this year. And he’s apparently not letting his past get in the way of a new future in oil and gas trading. So what does Skilling have in mind for his next act? Blockchain technology, the technology of choice for contemporary financial fraudsters.
Specifically, he has apparently already held meetings with former senior colleagues from Enron to generate support for a new blockchain-based venture that would be a “digital platform connecting investors to oil and gas projects”. Yep, Old Enron executives + blockchains + oil and gas trading. That’s the plan. What could possibly go wrong?:
“But according to the Wall Street Journal, who cite “people familiar with the matter”, former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling has not only been holding meetings with former senior colleagues at the collapsed energy company, but also “others”, to garner support for a new business venture: a “digital platform connecting investors to oil and gas projects”.”
So is anyone going to actually want to trade on a platform created by the crew behind one of the biggest financial frauds in history? We’ll see, but you have to be amused by this prediction: Enron was long ago no one is going to care:
And that is kind of a valid point: if there was any area of finance where someone with Skilling’s background might not have to worry about being negatively judged for his fraudulent past, it’s cryptocurrency. After all, most of the cryptocurrency industry at this point is built on some combination of fraud and/or facilitating criminality so Skilling’s will fit right in. Case in point: a new study found that almost all of the transactions on the largest unregulated Bitcoin exchanges are fake:
“An analysis published by Bitwise this week shows that 95 percent of bitcoin spot trading is faked by unregulated exchanges. The survey, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, echoes concerns by regulators that cryptocurrency markets are still ripe for manipulation.”
95 percent of bitcoin spot trading is fake. That’s based on an analysis of 81 different cryptocurrency exchanges. And for 71 of those 81 exchanges “substantially all of the volume” was just someone simultaneously buy and selling bitcoins that simply creates the appears of active trading. Surprise!
So are these exchanges aware that almost all of their trades are fake? Well, considering that people presumably have to pay the exchange a cut for these fake transactions it seems like a good bet that the exchanges are actively managing these fake trades themselves (in which case they would have to worry about the trading costs). And as the article notes, exchanges have a incentive to fake volume: the higher the volume, the more likely an exchange is to be selected for a potentially lucrative “initial coin offering” (ICO).
So that’s the kind of marketplace Jeffrey Skilling and his former Enron senior colleagues are getting into. The kind of market where almost everything is fake. In other words, the perfect market for former Enron executives:
“EES later went on to be an active part of the business, but former chairman Kenneth Lay and ex-president Jeffrey Skilling rehearsed staff in looking busy, in the hope of convincing investors that it was already a going concern in 1998.”
Yep, Jeffrey Skilling actually rehearsed with his employees the act of staging a busy energy trading room to impress investors and analysts:
And now he wants to create a blockchain-based oil and gas trading platform. So as we can see, Skilling clearly has the necessary skill sets for this market. The future is bright for Skilling. Maybe not so much for his eventual investors. Or anyone who actually uses his new trading platform.