Update on the German Connections to 9/11
Recorded September 24, 2006
REALAUDIO
Introduction: Further exploring 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta’s German associates in Florida, this interview with Daniel Hopsicker sheds more light on the mysterious and sinister Wolfgang Bohringer, one of the Germans who Atta referred to as his “brother.” (For more on Bohringer, see FTR#542. For more about Atta’s German associates in Florida, see FTR#477.) Having relocated to remote Fanning Island (one of the Kiribati Islands, formerly known as the Gilberts), Bohringer is reportedly planning on opening a flight school for trainikng people to fly DC3’s, an excellent aircraft for smuggling contraband. This is a continuation of a career of shadowy and ostensibly illegal activities in which Bohringer has been involved. Formerly working as a pilot for Czech criminal kingpin Victor Kozeny, Bohringer keeps large amounts of cash and weapons on his yacht moored at Fanning Island. Bohringer’s former employer Kozeny has allegedly been involved with Bush family associates in a decades-long scheme to launder money to help corrupt U.S. elections. Acquaintances on Fanning Island describe Bohringer as rabidly anti-Semitic, lending credibility to some of Mr. Emory’s previous speculation that Bohringer, and perhaps other German associates of Atta’s, may well be of Nazi persuasion.
Program Highlights Include: Bohringer’s involvement in an Atlanta computer company allegedly involved in massive fraud; the involvement of Bohringer’s boss Kozeny in a scheme to gain control over the state-run oil company of Azerbaijan; Kozeny’s alleged involvement in massive drug smuggling; the alleged involvement of Kozeny with an executive of insurance AIG; Bohringer’s close association with the Flying Club of Munich; the Flying Club of Munich’s reported Nazi associations; attempts by law enforcement to cover-up the German connections of Atta and the 9/11 hijackers’ links to a global criminal network.
1. Introducing the subject of the broadcast, the discussion begins by highlighting features of the career of Wolfgang Bohringer, one of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta’s closest friends–one of a number of Germans with whom Atta associated in Florida and a man with (as Mr. Emory likes to say) more connections than a switchboard. Currently operating out of a remote Pacific island, Bohringer appears to be part of the “global network” that Tony Blair identified as being behind the 9/11 attack. “One of Mohamed Atta’s closest associates in Florida before the 9/11 attack today carries a chest on his yacht filled with several million dollars in new bills, automatic weapons, passports from a half-dozen nations, and works for a major international mobster. Wolfgang Bohringer, a German pilot, identified by Atta’s one-time girlfriend Amanda Keller as one of Mohamed Atta’s closest associates in Florida during the run-up to the 9.11 attack, and one of the handful of people the terrorist ringleader called “my brother,” recently resurfaced on a tiny island in the South Pacific, in the Republic of Kiribati. There he announced his intention to set up a flight school on Fanning Island, almost a thousand miles south of Hawaii and one of the most remote places on Earth. Bohringer plans to teach pilots how to fly DC3’s, the 70-year old aviation workhorse frequently used in weapons and drug smuggling.”
(“ ‘Close Associate’ of Mohamed Atta Surfaces in South Pacific” by Daniel Hopsicker; Mad Cow Morning News; 9/15/2006.)
2. On Fanning Island, Bohringer is planning to open a flight school to teach pilots to fly DC3’s—an old but very serviceable aircraft that is ideal for the smuggling of contraband. Knowledgeable experts say the DC3 could also be adapted to aerial spraying. Biological warfare terrorism anyone? “The island has no electricity, and a population of barely one hundred souls. While it hardly seems an ideal place for a flight school, the remote location and lack of official scrutiny may make it ideal for something. Bohringer, accompanied by a woman he reportedly met over the Internet named Ana Maria Uhr, almost immediately aroused suspicion, after he announced plans for a flight school training what local citizens suspected would be an assortment of smugglers and mercenaries to fly DC3’s. Alarmed local residents contacted The MadCowMorningNews about the German pilot, offering new details which prompted us to take a closer look at him as a possible link to the elusive global network which British Prime Minister Tony Blair, two weeks after 9/11, said had assisted the terrorist hijackers.” (Idem.)
3. Bohringer is also associated with a major Czech organized figure named Victor Kozeny. One question that suggests itself is whether or not Mohamed Atta’s presence in Prague may have had something to do with the Bohringer/Kozeny relationship. Note that the milieu of Atta and the 9/11 hijackers also overlaps the milieu of the Alfa group (see FTR#530). As is the case with Kozeny, Alfa overlaps the milieux of drug smuggling and petroleum intrigue in the former Soviet Union. Are Kozeny’s activities in Azerbaijan related to the activities of Alfa? “During the same period Wolfgang Bohringer was hanging out with Mohamed Atta, Bohringer was the personal pilot of a notorious Czech Mobster named Victor Kozeny, who is known as the ‘Pirate of Prague.’ Kozeny owns a private island in the Bahamas, travels on an Irish passport, and is currently fighting extradition to the U.S. on charges of massive financial fraud and allegedly paying multi-million dollar bribes to government officials in the Republic of Azerbaijan in an effort to take-over that oil-rich country’s State Oil Company. After defrauding thousands of people around the world while traveling on an Irish passport, including the chairman of the Northern Ireland peace talks, Senator George Mitchell, Kozeny sought refuge in the Bahamas. Bohringer had opened a flight school in Naples, Florida in 1996, illegal for a foreigner. But he hadn’t gotten in any trouble with the FAA.” (Idem.)
4. “Perhaps his association as the personal pilot for a major Eastern European Mafia figure named Victor Kozeny had helped. Kozeny is the subject of investigations by the FBI and US Customs, and was recently charged in the U.S. with stealing $182 million dollars by the Manhattan District Attorney. Bohringer moved to Atlanta to began a position as corporate pilot in February 1, 2001, according to his online bio, for a software company called HBOC. No doubt it is just a coincidence, or dashed bad luck, but Bohringer’s new employer was involved in a major accounting scandal that cost shareholders $9 billion of lost value in a single day. ‘HBOC was found to be a mob bust-out,’ a financial analyst emailed us. Kozeny, we were shocked to discover, had at some point in the mid-90’s controlled one-third of the entire Czechoslovakian economy. ‘Kozeny bought factories and ‘rides’ on pipelines, meaning they crossed land he owned and paid big for the privilege.’” (Idem.)
5. Kozeny’s questionable activities may overlap an international money-laundering scandal involving associates of the Bush family and involving the illegal funding of U.S. elections. “With his ill-gotten gains, Kozeny tried to buy off top officials in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan to gain control of that country’s state-owned oil company. One man already convicted in the scheme, Hans Bodmer, belonged to a network of Russian oligarchs, one of whom, Pyotr Aven, has been accused by a Russian corruption task force of being engaged in drug trafficking. Kozeny’s partners in the Azeri scheme included a managing director of Hank Greenberg’s American Insurance Group (AIG). Greenberg was forced to step down amid the Eliot Spitzer probe, a scandal, it is rumored, which involved a major Bush family and associates’ international money-laundering operation that has spanned more than a generation and has been used to illegally fund US elections since the Nixon era.” (Idem.)
6. The fact that one of Kozeny’s alleged collaborators in the above conspiracy is an executive with AIG is interesting, and possibly significant. AIG has an interesting pedigree, overlapping both the intelligence community and the world of GOP rightwing politics. Note Atta’s movements in February of 2001. Was he visiting potential targets with Bohringer? (For more about the shady doings of AIG, see FTR#531.) “AIG was founded from Asia Life/CV Starr, a Shanghai-based international import/export and insurance firm founded in 1919 by Cornelius V. Starr, an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative in Southeast Asia during World War II. Clinton antagonist Kenneth Starr is his nephew. Currently, Kozeny is awaiting extradition to the U.S. from the Bahamas. A prosecutor there revealed in court that Kozeny possesses an astonishing number of passports, including six from Ireland alone. ‘He appears to be able to produce foreign passports at will,’ stated the prosecutor. Atta and Al Shehhi flew or drove to Atlanta on several occasions during the month of February 2001. To meet with Wolfgang? On two of those visits, Atta rented a plane, the first with a pilot, the second unescorted, and visited an area of Tennessee where he observed a dam, and several nuclear fuel production facilities.” (Idem.)
7. The cargo on Bohringer’s yacht is more than a little interesting: “On his yacht, the ‘Argos,’ Bohringer was carrying a chest filled with ‘stacks of brand new hundred dollar bills, more money that I have ever seen in my life,’ wrote one local resident. Like his former boss, Bohringer is no slouch in the passport department... Aboard Wolfgang’s yacht were passports from a half-dozen nations, and a cache of firearms, including a Glock. He claimed to be an arms dealer, and acknowledged his involvement with Eastern European Mobsters. Bohringer also reportedly admitted knowing Mohamed Atta, but stating to several islanders that another German pilot in Naples, Rex Gasteiger, was to blame for linking him to 9/11. Soon several residents quietly reported surprisingly deep suspicions to local authorities. ‘To me Wolfgang is carrying dirty money, lots of it,’ wrote one. ‘If he can gets a flight school going it does not take a stretch of the imagination to see he would sell it to some else who sells it to someone else and Honolulu gets vaporized. He seems to know the money tree and could be working to set things up for others to do so and so has been funded to do so.’” (Idem.)
8. Among his many endearing qualities, Bohringer is apparently viciously anti-Semitic. In the discussion with Daniel Hopsicker in the actual broadcast, Daniel mentions that the Flying Club of Munich, closely connected to Bohringer and his father, appears to have Nazi connections, as Mr. Emory had surmised in previous discussion in FTR#542. “Locals on Fanning Island sent us the pictures of Wolfgang in this story. ‘A month before Wolfgang left with his boat he met Ana on the internet. He sent tickets and credit card for her to meet him in Paris. He would take her as crew on a round the world trip. First stop Hawaii. But when they were a day out of Hawaii he informed her they were sailing to another island and not stopping at Hawaii.’ ‘My friend crewed with them to Samoa, and on the trip he found Wolfgang liked having his picture taken,’ one local resident wrote us. On the trip Ana confided she was really worried about Wolfgang. He seemed to running from something. So she told him what she’d read about him on the Internet about the 9/11 thing.’ ‘Wolfgang alleviated my concerns with simple explanations about an unhappy business partnership with the guy who bought his flight school,’ the resident wrote. ‘But, it was clear he hated Jews. He told some very bad jokes about ovens, Jews, bread, and blacks.’ We compared the new pictures with what Amanda Keller had told us about Wolfgang. She called Bohringer ‘The Iceman,’ she said, because of his resemblance to a character in the movie ‘Top Gun,’ the rival to Tom Cruise played by Val Kilmer. And indeed, the resemblance is remarkably close.” (Idem.)
9. Residents of Fanning Island heard Bohringer discussing having won his Green Card in a lottery, confirming what Atta’s girlfriend Amanda Keller had learned. “Keller also said Wolfgang won a lottery to get his green card. The locals on Fanning Island report that Bohringer told them that story too. So clearly Amanda Keller had known Bohringer. Her testimony has once again proven correct, as it also was when she told of helping Atta move from Deep Creek, part of the recently-incorporated town of North Port. Documents made public after the Moussaoui trial show Atta was sending faxes from a Postal Express in Deep Creek on March 11, 2001, at exactly the time Amanda Keller says he was there. The Moussaoui trial produced the largest trove of government documents about the hijackers’ South Florida movements. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press was instrumental in the release of many of those court documents. The FBI fought them every step of the way. Now we know why. The documents prove they’ve been lying. ‘Him (Atta ) and Wolfgang drove around in the red convertible a lot,’ she said. ‘Their favorite place to eat was Hooters in Sarasota. They got kicked out of Hooters for grabbing their boobs.’” (Idem.)
10. Wolfgang’s activities are definitely out of the ordinary. Note that he was one of the first of what Hopsicker calls “the German element” to arrive in Naples, Florida. “‘He spoke German with Wolfgang, who was in his thirties. Wolfgang was with Mohamed when he came by the nursing home to see me one time. Mohamed called certain people—Arabic people—‘my brother.’ And I was wondering how he had so many family members. Like gang members do, ‘this is my brother,’’ she said. ‘But not all Arabs. So it wasn’t like just anyone Muslim was his brother. He called Wolfgang and Juergen ‘my brother,’ too. He and Wolfgang were very tight, they went everywhere together. When he came into the picture they were together all the time.’ The story of Wolfgang’s life to date is studded, according to people we spoke with who knew him, with activities considerably out of the ordinary. While sailing around the world on a 47-foot yacht, for example, instead of crossing the Indian Ocean from the coast of Africa on a direct line, he took a ‘detour’ to Bombay, where he met his wife Sujita. He was one of the first of the ‘German element’ to arrive in Florida, in 1996, when he opened a flight school in Naples. Prior to arriving in Naples he was associated with an organization called ‘The Flying Club of Munich,’ in Augsburg, Germany. In Spring 2002, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.” (Idem.)
11. Note that Bohringer, like Rudi Dekkers (the head of Huffman Aviation, the flight school through which Atta and other 9/11 hijackers infiltrated the U.S.), appears to have been immune to arrest and prosecution by law enforcement authorities, despite enormous wrongdoing. “Like Rudi Dekkers, Wolfgang was notorious in aviation circles for bad behavior. We found records of his scrapes in the files of airport authorities in Florida, including a letter sent by a former employee soliciting to offer private flight instruction at his Wolf Aero, Bohringer’s flight school, without authority and in violation of FAA rules was in the airport records in Naples. ‘Wolfgang showed up from Munich in the mid-1990’s and immediately began operating a flight school illegally,’ stated Naples flight instructor Marcus Huber, a flight instructor in Naples. ‘He’s half Swiss, half German.’ Like Rudi Dekkers, Wolfgang also seems to have had a ‘hall pass’ from federal authorities, which embittered other foreign flight trainers not similarly well-connected. ‘When Wolfgang applied for an E‑2 Visa, he made up a fake company, a cleaning service,’ Huber told us. ‘Sometimes it makes me mad that a criminal gets preference.’ In the wake of the Sept 11 disaster, U.S. officials repeatedly promised explanations. But it was left to British Prime Minister Tony Blair to sketch out the Cliff notes version of the case against Bin Laden. He said, ‘Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization with ties to a global network.’” (Idem.)
12. In his article, Daniel Hopsicker links the network to which Bohringer, Dekkers and Atta belonged to a network identified by Sibel Edmonds, a relatively well-known whistle blower. “Almost five years after Tony Blair first told the world that a ‘global network’ provided assistance to the terrorist hijackers while they were in the U.S., what is happening on a tiny island in the South Pacific may point towards the international organization in question. ‘You have a network of people who obtain certain information and... sell it to whomever would be the highest bidder,’ explained Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator, who was muzzled by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who went to the Supreme Court to ensure her silence about... something. ‘There are certain points where you have your drug-related activities combined with money laundering and information laundering, converging with your terrorist activities... Post‑9/11 intelligence ‘failures’ include the willful quashing by the Government of investigations tracing these criminal networks.’ Atta’s German buddy Bohringer works for a global network. Did it assist Atta and the terrorist hijackers? Was there a connection between the larger organization, or network, behind gangster financier Victor Kozeny, and that of the terrorists in Florida plotting to kill Americans on the 11th of September in 2001?” (Idem.)
13. “Amanda Keller was not the only eyewitness quoted mentioning Atta’s German associates. Atta’s landlord for a brief week told reporters about a wild 3‑day weekend Amanda and Atta spent in Key West, along with another girl named Linda. ‘The two girls were introduced to two men from Germany that they said were Mohamed’s friends,’ Tony LaConca told the Charlotte Sun-Herald. When we first learned that all of Atta’s associates in Florida had not been Arab, we were understandably eager to learn more about the terrorist ringleaders’ two German friends. Sun-Herald reporter Elaine Allen-Emrich had apparently felt the same way... ‘The FBI in Tampa would neither confirm nor deny that any agents were interviewing people in the North Port area,’ she reported. ‘Asked for more information about Atta’s wild weekend, an FBI spokesperson identified only as ‘Pam’ said, ‘We recommend that you check in with CNN for current information. Any press statements can be found on televised stations like CNN.’ We went looking for ourselves. The results are in Welcome to TERRORLAND. We didn’t feel like ‘checking in with CNN.’” (Idem.)
14. Daniel also discussed the 9/11 B.S. movement, and the conscious attempt to deceive people about the events of 9/11—attributing the attacks to “controlled demolitions”, a “cruise missile” hitting the Pentagon or “the Mossad.” For more about this, see some of Daniel’s Mad Cow Morning News articles, including:
“Cointelpro 9/11: Peak Oil and the Level Above Saudi” By Daniel Hopsicker; Mad Cow Morning News; 9/28/2004;
“Cointelpro 9/11: John Gray and Saudi Genesis” By Daniel Hopsicker; Mad Cow Morning News; 10/6/2004;
“Khashoggi, Cults, Cover-Ups & Mars & Venus Doing Lunch” by Daniel Hopsicker; Mad Cow Morning News; 10/13/2004;
“The 9/11 Heroin Connection” By Daniel Hopsicker; Mad Cow Morning News; 9/6/2006.
Well look at that: one of the sons of Osama bin Laden, Hamza bin Laden, married the daughter of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. Hamza is also believed to be a member of al Qaeda and planning new terror attacks in part to avenge the death of his father. This is according to Osama’s half-brothers, who claim that they believe Hamza is possibly living in Afghanistan, but they aren’t sure.
Interestingly, Mohammed Atta wasn’t actually known to have a daughter before. As the article notes, his will made no mention of children and Atta was previously thought to have been a prude with no known marriages, or children, before the 9/11 attack. Some accounts of his adult life had portrayed him as an avowed virgin which, of course, ignores the extensive work Daniel Hopsicker did in exploring Atta’s time in Florida while he dated a stripper, Amanda Keller, drank heavily, snorted cocaine, and allegedly palled around with figures like Wolfgang Bohringer. And yes, Amanda Keller did eventual recant her claims of knowing Atta, but it was a recanting that was problematic on numerous levels and no explanation for all the other corroborating testimonies. So now we are learning that Mohammed Atta apparently had a daughter. A daughter who tragically appears to be following her father’s footsteps:
“The union was mentioned by Osama bin Laden’s half-brothers during an interview with the Guardian. Ahmad and Hassan al-Attas said they believed Hamza had taken a senior position within al-Qaida and was aiming to avenge the death of his father, shot dead during a US military raid in Pakistan seven years ago.”
So it wasn’t just any son that Atta’s daughter married. It was Hamza, the son who has apparently taken a senior position with al Qaeda and is aiming to get revenge for his father’s death:
It’s also interesting to note that Hamza bin Laden was apparently sheltered by the government of Iran, along with dozens of other family members of the 9/11 plotters. Considering that al Qaeda isn’t exactly a Shia-friendly organization that’s a pretty remarkable fun fact if true:
Also note that the claims that Iran was sheltering Hamza was made in March of this year by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of a larger claim that Iran is sheltering al Qaeda. The Iranian government no surprisingly denies this. It would be interesting to learn if there’s any truth to these claims or if it’s a Saudi-driven deflection for the extensive support the Saudi government has given to these groups over the years.
And, finally, we have to note that the discovery of a daughter isn’t in keeping with the official narrative that Atta was a prude religious zealot. It’s especially surprising since his will mentioned no dependents:
And, at this point, there’s no evidence that Atta’s daughter actually exists. It’s based on the word of Osama bin Laden’s half-brothers. But if it turns out to be true that’s just one more piece of evidence suggesting that the official narrative about Mohammed Atta leaves much to be desired.