Syrian Henchmen Financial Sanctuary in Moscow

2011: Hillary Clinton declared that Bashir al Assad was a reformer.

Primer:

Rami Makhlouf: Wealthy, powerful cousin of Syria’s president

Makhlouf, 45, is Syria’s richest man and a member of what was described during U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearings as a powerful “mafia” that also includes Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, Makhklouf’s cousin. Before his country plunged into civil war, Makhlouf was allegedly worth $5 billion thanks to his control of monopolies and semi-monopolies in the air travel, telecommunications, real estate, oil and construction sectors. Makhlouf is on U.S. sanctions lists and is a known beneficiary of corruption.

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Several Makhlouf family members, close cousins and accomplices of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, have purchased tens of millions of dollars’ worth of properties in Moscow’s prestigious skyscraper district.

Headed by al-Assad’s uncle, Mohammed Makhlouf, the Makhloufs are considered to be Syria’s richest and second most important family. Before 2011, they controlled 60 percent of the Syrian economy, ostensibly acquired through years of corruption and intimidation.

GlobalWitness:

Our exposé of the Makhloufs’ properties is rare supporting evidence that lends substance to rumours of regime money being funnelled out of Syria throughout the war. Information about the regime’s assets and finances is notoriously scarce due to the terror fostered by al-Assad’s apparatus at home and abroad.

Our investigation further shows that the loans secured against some of the properties could be for the purposes of laundering money from Syria into Moscow. This opens the possibility that the money could then be moved into other jurisdictions, such as the EU, where members of the family are sanctioned.

Of the newly-revealed Moscow property purchases, the largest amount was bought by Hafez Makhlouf, one of Bashar al-Assad’s first cousins.

Hafez is accused of overseeing the killings and torture of detainees and protestors. Most of Hafez’s purchases were arranged using an opaque Lebanese loan structure that bears several hallmarks of money laundering, possibly with the purpose of moving the money beyond Russia.

Russia has been a key ally of the al-Assad family over their almost 50-year rule. It intervened on their side of the war in Syria in 2015, turning it in their favour through airstrikes and land offensives on opposition-controlled territory.

Reports of Russian banks aiding the Syrian regime surfaced in 2012 and 2013, after Western sanctions hit and the more powerful family members were stripped of European visas and their EU and Swiss bank accounts were frozen. Now it seems that the Syrian regime has been using Moscow as an alternative safe haven, and possibly a potential gateway for its ill-gotten gains to enter the wider financial system.

Hafez Makhlouf, who purchased US$22.3 million worth of property in Moscow’s ‘City of Capitals’ towers, was head of the Damascus ‘Section 40’ of Syria’s infamous General Intelligence Directorate until late 2014. This is the Syrian agency charged with quelling internal dissent, formerly and popularly known as the State Security service. As Damascus is the capital, this was already an important role, but Hafez appears to have had a great deal more authority than this official title reflects.

Testimony collected by Syrian human rights groups about Hafez’s Section 40 and its command branch, the Al-Khatib Branch, as well as wider testimony collected by journalists about the systemic use of torture by Syria’s intelligence services, points to how Hafez would have potentially overseen the detention of  thousands of Syrians and their subsequent abuse, and, in some cases, even murder.

Moreover, multiple regime defectors have since testified, in a 2019 book by journalist Sam Dagher, that Hafez was a hard-line member of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle and one of his most influential advisers. According to the testimony, Hafez was one of two main advocates for crushing the demonstrations in 2011. Dagher’s book includes testimony from witnesses who saw Hafez shooting civilians in Douma and giving shoot-to-kill orders on hundreds of peaceful protestors in Daraa and Homs.

Makhlouf Family Tree Diagram english  When buying the Moscow office space in 2016, Hafez Makhlouf’s Russian-registered property companies took out loans using 11 of the properties as collateral. The complex structure of these loans disguises Hafez’s connection to the funds. This is characteristic of money laundering and could have been designed to establish money flows between Russia and Syria which would appear unconnected to Hafez, raising the possibility that the ultimate aim is to move the money out of Russia.

The loans were provided to Hafez’s Russian companies by a Lebanese company called Nylam SAL Offshore. The company is classified as ‘offshore’ in Lebanon; while Lebanese ‘offshore’ companies do not hide their owners like offshore companies in so-called secrecy jurisdictions like the British Virgin Islands, these companies do benefit from enhanced banking secrecy. The exact amount loaned by Nylam is unknown.

In 2018, two years after the property purchases, Hafez, the sole shareholder of his three Russian companies, passed his shares to Briana SAL Offshore, a Lebanese company with identical shareholders, directors and address as Nylam. Russian corporate records for the Russian property companies contain details about Briana because it is a shareholder. These records show that Briana states its country of business as Syria.

Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, provided banking services for at least one of the Russian property companies formerly owned by Hafez and now owned by Briana, a Russian corporate database shows.

As the loans from Nylam to Hafez’s Russian companies were international (coming into Russia from Lebanon), it is feasible that they were transacted in US dollars, which is the commonly used international currency. If that were the case, the money could have transited through Sberbank’s SWIFT payment system, which, according to anti-money laundering expert Graham Barrow, could risk breaching the terms of the US sanctions against Hafez Makhlouf.

The convoluted nature of the loans taken against the properties should have raised red flags with Sberbank, but it is unclear what due diligence was carried out on the loans.

Sberbank’s dealings with the Makhloufs are part of a broader pattern of major Russian banks helping the Syrian regime. In 2012 and 2013, both Reuters and Wall Street Journal reported that the al-Assad regime held accounts at Gazprombank and VTB, two of Russia’s largest banks, which, like Sberbank, have extensive international correspondent banking relationships. More here.

Will the Investigations Include the Unmasking Scandal?

2016: Primer

Could it be that the Obama White House called for a favor from the Washington Post to help on this? The Obama White House used media to an historic art form including selling the bad Iran nuclear deal. Anyway…

The operatives needed to have the list of names first and Trump shared some names that included Whalid Phares, Joe Schmitz and Carter Page. Remember the FISA application scandal listed Carter Page’s name. Further, Joe Schmitz, a former Defense official and lawyer was also a top executive at Blackwater. No wonder there was the festering story about Eric Prince and his alleged nefarious meeting in the Seychelles with Putin’s money-man, Kirill Dmitriev.

Dots connecting…

Moving forward to April of 2017…

Per Eli Lake at Bloomberg:

Facebook Rolling Out “Educational Tool” to Help Users Spot ...

White House lawyers discovered that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Lake further reports that Rice’s pattern of requesting unmasking was discovered by Trump National Security Council staffer Ezra Cohen-Watnick, whom The New York Times reported last week was one of Nunes’s sources. Cohen-Watnick informed the White House Counsel’s office, Lake reports.

Okay, then we heard that the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power also ordered unmaskings, of which she later denied.

Samantha Power testified in Gowdy’s committee last week, and Fox News reported weeks before her appearance that she was thought to have made as many as 260 requests to “unmask” Americans caught up in the surveillance of non-U.S. citizens.

But Tuesday evening, Gowdy told Fox News that Power told his committee that she was not the official requesting that unmasking in every case. More here.

Moving way ahead to February of 2017, enter Congressman Adam Schiff.

Donald Trump believes House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff is trying to hire White House employees to gain an edge in his investigation of foreign attempts to influence the president, people familiar with the matter said.

Schiff has hired one former career official at the National Security Council, Abigail Grace, who left the White House last year, the people said. She has a congressional email address and is listed in a directory as working for the Intelligence Committee’s Democratic majority.

A second career employee detailed to the Trump White House is also considering joining Schiff’s staff, according to people familiar with the matter. They didn’t identify the person. More here.

Abigail was a research associate with the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New America Security.

The Washington Examiner has reported that two ex-NSC staffers are now employed by Schiff. Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff’s committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint.

Eric Ciaramella, the alleged Ukraine whistleblower, was a guest of Vice President Joe Biden at a glitzy lunch in October 2016 to honor the prime minister of Italy.

Biden co-hosted the banquet with former Secretary of State John Kerry for then-Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Ciaramella, who is of Italian heritage, was among the U.S. officials who accepted an invitation. This week, the Washington Examiner reported that Ciaramella is now a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the National Intelligence Council, reporting to the director of national intelligence. More here.

Now remember during a hearing where AG William Barr asserted there were indications of the government spying on the Trump campaign? Barr has seen major indicators that such activity did occur and hence he hired U.S Attorney John Durham to track the records of the origins of the Russia investigation. The Democrats and media blew up about the term ‘spying’. Well then debates happened in the public square about spying versus surveillance. Okay, how about moles? How about using encrypted text messages between groups of operatives? How about all of it?

America is waiting and waiting and waiting for the IG report, for the Durham report, for the declassification of documents….waiting and waiting.

So when it comes to the list of witnesses that the Republicans are asking Congressman Schiff for permission to provide testimony, the list should be much larger. Others that should be included are: Lisa Monaco, Dennis McDonough, John Brennan, James Clapper, Samantha Power, Mike Morell, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, George Soros, Igor Sikorsky, Col. Andriy Ordynovych among others.

Waiting and waiting…

 

 

 

 

FBI in Joint Ukraine Corruption Investigation Since 2016

It is labeled to be the largest bank theft of the 21st Century. Did FBI Director Wray briefed President Trump on this prior to the contention phone call with Ukraine President Zalensky? You can bet members of Congress know this as well giving plenty of reasons to delay transfer of military assistance until a condition report was provided.

Read on…

Congressman Nunes issued a letter to Chairman Schiff seeking approval of the Republicans witness list  uring the impeachment inquiry. The list is pretty good and most interesting is Nellie Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr who worked with Fusion GPS using Ukraine as a channel.

Good, this list is a great start but hardly complete. There should be at least ten more on the list, yet Congressman Nunes may be holding back on additional names so as not to interfere or complicate John Durham’s work.
The matter of the impeachment operation managed by Speaker Pelosi has now centered on a quid pro quo scandal that bubbled to the surface as a result of at least three whistleblowers reporting on the President Trump phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky asking for a favor with regard to the Bidens and holding back military aid. Obama essentially held back requested military aid to Ukraine by not fulfilling the country’s request for military weapons, rather Obama only provided night vision goggles, radar equipment and MRE’s. President Trump allowed the real request to finally move to Ukraine which included Javelin missiles. So, ignore all that, because President Trump is NOT the first President or American politician to request foreign assistance for political purposes by far.
Further the matter of investigating the Bidens and Burisma was underway long before VP Joe Biden announced his candidacy for President. 
Two channels of concern are important here and they include the Obama administration infecting the US election process by using Ukrainian-American Alexandra Chalupa who was a contractor for the DNC. She visited the Obama White House 27 times according to visitor logs. At least one of her missions was the plot against Paul Manafort. Another channel is the matter of corruption in Ukraine. Beyond the matter of the Obama administration merging USAID with Burimsa to advance the energy business in Ukraine, which was later stopped due to corruption, there is a much larger scandal that has been in the works for many years and it regards billions stolen from Ukraine, You read that right, BILLIONS.
Beyond the mutual legal assistance cooperation agreement between the United States and Ukraine signed by President Clinton, there is the FBI cooperation agreement.
    Over the next two years the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (USA) (International Corruption Unit) will cooperate in investigations related to money laundering, international asset recovery and Ukrainian high-level officials’ bribery and corruption. This is stated in the Memorandum of Understanding between the NABU and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which was signed on June 29,2017, by the NABU Director Artem Sytnyk and the Head of the FBI Criminal Division Matthew Moon.
The abovementioned Memorandum was signed in continuation of cooperation launched last year when in June 2016, the Parties agreed to support each other. Thanks to the cooperation of the FBI and the NABU, the employees of the Special Operations Department of the NABU had the opportunity to train the skills of possession of weapons in conditions of physical and mental load, speed and accuracy of shooting, tactical training, identifying of the real goal and a potential threat, adopting competent tactical decisions in stressful situations.
Since February 2016, the representative of the FBI has a permanent Office in the NABU and jointly with the NABU Detectives works on the execution of international requests and controls their passage through the competent authorities of the United States of America.
Also, on June 19, 2017, the NABU Detectives in cooperation with the FBI detained 7 persons involved in demanding and receiving an improper advantage for the illegal lobbying of interests of a foreign company in amber mining in Ukraine.
As a part of a new Memorandum the NABU and the FBI will exchange the information, conduct trainings and joint investigations of the corruption offences. The Ambassador also informed Director Sytnyk that the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Section of the Embassy (INL) will provide U.S. Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers to train with NABU’s tactical officers on the execution of high-risk warrants and other tactical law enforcement operations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition, Director of NABU told US Ambassador about plans to create a criminal laboratory for electronic devices and data carriers, equipment for which will be provided by British partners in the nearest future. Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatt said that FBI employees have a unique experience in decoding, and data recovery, and expressed readiness to further support the Bureau in implementing new technologies in investigations.
 
It should be reminded that the FBI with the support of the US Embassy to Ukraine provided the NABU`s Department of analysis and data processing with the equipment for criminal proceedings documents digitalizing.
Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Schiff are essentially covering for Biden and Obama. Remember, Biden tells us he does not need nor has he asked for Obama’s endorsement. Consider, the plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a large mobilized operation that failed, the choreographed operation against candidate Trump failed with the Russia collusion operation as noted in the Mueller report. This impeachment plot against President Trump is actually a good thing for America while boring and tedious is soon to show how the nasty underbelly of Washington DC works against a duly elected President and against Republicans. This too will fail, so be patient, we will have a trifecta of failed plots against Republicans. Take notes and then vote accordingly.

The Lawyer’s Plot for the Coup Against Trump

Have you met Edward Luttwak? You can be sure the lawyer for the Whistleblower has. Luttwak published a book titled Coup D’ Etat, the practical handbook.

Coup d’État astonished readers when it first appeared in 1968 because it showed, step by step, how governments could be overthrown. Translated into sixteen languages, it has inspired anti-coup precautions by regimes around the world. In addition to these detailed instructions, Edward Luttwak’s revised handbook offers an altogether new way of looking at political power—one that considers, for example, the vulnerability to coups of even the most stable democracies in the event of prolonged economic distress.

So we have this cat, Mark Zaid. Within minutes of the inaugural event for President Trump, Zaid’s tweets began stating the coup has begun. Now the question is who in Washington DC was watching, considering and conspiring to join the coup army…plenty.

Mark Zaid: It’s troubling that Trump gave Jared Kushner security clearance

Zaid is a known quantity inside the Beltway.

Zaid is a recognized expert in Federal court especially in whistle-blower cases. These cases almost always include leaking or publishing classified material as such is/was the case of Edward Snowden. The Zaid law firm, where he is the managing partner includes at least 5 other lawyers handling cases of national security, diplomatic immunity, defamation cases and international transactions. Zaid is the founder of the James Madison Project, a non-profit organization that takes on government agencies for alleged wrong-doing, coverups and secrecy policies. Note however he never took on Hillary and Libya…or the email server scandal….

Mr. Zaid has testified before several committees in the House and the Senate all with the twist of meeting the ‘curiosity of this town’ as noted on the law firms website. With his early launch of the coup has started, you can bet some of this friendlies on The Hill followed his legal handbook and we are now enduring what Congressman Nunes calls a paper coup. Zaid has TS/SCI clearance and that add more bona fides to his power within the offices of the Democrats that include for sure Speaker Pelosi that is often providing all the permissions needed to Congressman Adam Schiff leading the impeachment inquiries.

Does anyone wonder how come Mr. Zaid never took any whistle-blower cases as they related to the Obama administration or even John Kerry with regard to the Iran deal? How about the IRS targeting operation or any of the other scandals in recent years….just sayin…

Okay, then there is also the other lawyer and law firm that has Andrew Bakaj with Compass Rose Legal Group.

 

 

An attorney who left the CIA in 2014 after facing professional retaliation for trying to work with intelligence community whistleblowers is now representing the U.S. official who reportedly filed a complaint alleging wrongdoing by President Trump.

Attorney Profiles – Compass Rose Legal Group, PLLC

Andrew Bakaj, a national security attorney working for Compass Rose Legal Group, a Washington national security law firm, has taken on the still unidentified whistleblower as his newest client, according to information first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by Yahoo News.

According to his Linkedin profile, Bakaj was an intern at the U.S. State Department from June 2002 to August 2002 at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. He, “Created the Embassy’s fraud database, performed various counter-fraud duties, interviewed visa candidates, translated official Ukrainian/Russian documents into English, and represented official U.S. interests at various events throughout Ukraine.

On September 24, Bakaj sent a ‘Notice of Intent to Contact Congressional Intelligence Committees’ letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who took over for Dan Coats directly with the complaint. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff, who was copied on Bakaj’s letter, responded the same day. Schiff, who represented California’s 28th congressional district, asked for the whistleblower to come in for “voluntary interview” after Maguire testifies in a rare, open session Thursday, September 26, in a “secure location.”

Bakaj made a $100 campaign contribution to former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign through ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. He made the contribution on April 26, 2019. ActBlue is a nonprofit that facilitates contributions to Democratic candidates.

Bakaj interned for Senator Chuck Schumer in the spring of 2001 and for then-Senator Hillary Clinton the fall of the same year. Hat tip.

Saudi Spies Inside Twitter?

The case actually began in 2013/2014. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a fund for educational scholarships in foreign countries. Social media being so full of international intersections along with having the whole political correct agenda of employing foreign citizens to enhance global integration, Twitter in this case brought on their own problem.

Twitter fired an engineer after the company was tipped off by intelligence officials that he may have been groomed by the Saudi government.

Saudi Arabia formally starts IPO of oil firm Saudi Aramco | The Seattle Times

The criminal complaint found here, has the details. Were these foreign operatives, moles, a troll army or really spies? Perhaps all of it seems. Many things can be determined by regular citizens performing full reviews of Twitter accounts including accounts that are bots, fake or where many accounts are owned by the same individual. This is in the public feed. There is also the matter of Direct Messages where more personal detail is found. All collected and analyzed a larger story is revealed. Such is the case here.

In reality, Saudi Arabia is not the only nation performing such activities, you can bet other rogue or friendly nations do the same within social media platforms. In fact our own government agencies do the very same thing to other nations and worst of all, our own government does the same on Americans and foreign nationals within the borders of the United States. Apply some critical thinking here and read on.

Flipboard: U.S. Charges Former Twitter Employees With ...

In part from Associated Press:

The accounts included those of a popular critic of the government with more than 1 million followers and a news personality. Neither was named.

The complaint also alleged that the employees — whose jobs did not require access to Twitter users’ private information — were rewarded with a designer watch and tens of thousands of dollars funneled into secret bank accounts. Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, and Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, were charged with acting as agents of Saudi Arabia without registering with the U.S. government.

The Saudi government had no immediate comment through its embassy in Washington. Its state-run media did not immediately acknowledge the charges.

The complaint marks the first time that the kingdom, long linked to the U.S. through its massive oil reserves and regional security arrangements, has been accused of spying in America.

The allegations against two former Twitter employees and a third man who ran a social media marketing company that did work for the Saudi royal family comes a little more than a year after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post columnist and prominent critic of the Saudi government was slain and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Saudi Arabia under King Salman and Prince Mohammed has aggressively silenced and detained government critics even as it allows women to drive and opens movie theaters in the conservative kingdom.

Prince Mohammed also has been implicated by U.S. officials and a United Nations investigative report in the assassination of Khashoggi. The prince has said he bears ultimate responsibility for what happens in the kingdom’s name, though he denies orchestrating the slaying.

The criminal allegations reveal the extent the Saudi government went to control the flow of information on Twitter, said Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher with Human Rights Watch.

The platform is the main place for Saudis to express their views, and about a third of the nation’s 30 million people are active users. But the free-wheeling nature of Twitter is a major source of concern for its authoritarian government, Coogle said.

The kingdom has used different tactics to control speech and keep reformers and others from organizing, including employing troll armies to harass and intimidate users online. It has even arrested and imprisoned Twitter users.

The crown prince’s former top adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, who also served as director of the cyber security federation, started the “Black List” hashtag to target critics of the government. He ominously tweeted in 2017 that the government had ways of unmasking anonymous Twitter users.

“If you combine that with what we know about at least these two individuals and what went on in 2014 and into 2015, it’s pretty chilling,” Coogle said.

Al-Qahtani has been sanctioned for his suspected role in orchestrating the brutal killing of Khashoggi. His Twitter account was suspended in September for violating the platform’s manipulation policy.

Twitter acknowledged that it cooperated in the criminal investigation and said in a statement that it restricts access to sensitive account information “to a limited group of trained and vetted employees.”

“We understand the incredible risks faced by many who use Twitter to share their perspectives with the world and to hold those in power accountable,” the statement said. “We have tools in place to protect their privacy and their ability to do their vital work.”

A critic said Twitter didn’t live up to its principle of restricting access to information about private individuals to the smallest possible number of employees.

“If Twitter had implemented this principle, this misappropriation of information would not have been possible,” said Mike Chapple, who teaches cybersecurity at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “Social media companies must understand the sensitivity of this information and restrict access to the smallest possible number of employees. Failing to do so puts the privacy, and even the physical safety, of social media users at risk.”

Abouammo was also charged with falsifying documents and making false statements to obstruct FBI investigators — offenses that carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison if convicted.

At his appearance in Seattle federal court Wednesday, Abouammo was ordered to remain in custody pending a detention hearing set for Friday.

His lawyer, Christopher Black, declined to comment, as did Abouammo’s wife, who did not give her name.

The complaint said Abouammo, a media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East region, and Alzabarah, a site reliability engineer at Twitter, worked with an unnamed Saudi official who leads a charitable organization belonging to a person named Royal Family Member 1.

Prosecutors said a third defendant, a Saudi named Ahmed Almutairi who worked as a social media adviser for the Saudi royal family, acted as an intermediary with the Twitter employees.

The complaint said Almutairi recruited Alzabarah and flew him to Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2015, when a Saudi delegation visited the White House. Based on the context and times mentioned in the complaint, including Alzabarah taking a selfie with the royal while in Washington, it appears Prince Mohammed is that royal. The crown prince had traveled there as part of the delegation when he served as deputy crown prince.

“Within one week of returning to San Francisco, Alzabarah began to access without authorization private data of Twitter users en masse,” the complaint said.

The effort included the user data of over 6,000 Twitter users, including at least 33 usernames for which Saudi Arabian law enforcement had submitted emergency disclosure requests to Twitter, investigators said.

After being confronted by his supervisors at Twitter, Alzabarah acknowledged accessing user data and said he did it out of curiosity, authorities said.

Alzabarah was placed on administrative leave, his work-owned laptop was seized, and he was escorted out of the office. The next day, he flew to Saudi Arabia with his wife and daughter and has not returned to the United States, investigators said.

A warrant for his and Almutairi’s arrests were issued as part of the complaint.