Flash crash and the Obama hoax

When a fake news bulletin was distributed after the Associated Press’s Twitter feed was hacked on April 23, the stock market instantly dropped a full 1 percent. 

On his Global Economic Warfare website, Kevin Freeman tackles the implications of the fake tweet on the market, and how market manipulation can be used as a financial warfare tactic.  Read his important posts here and here.  An excerpt follows:

A Single, Man-Made Stock Market Crash is a New-Concept Weapon

When the two PLA Colonels wrote Unrestricted Warfare in 1999, they listed “a single man-made stock market crash” as one of three specific new-concept weapons for the 21st Century. They called it financial warfare.

We have been warning about market manipulation for several years, first in our report for the Department of Defense and then in the New York Times Best-Seller, Secret Weapon. Yet, most in the intelligence and defense community know little about the financial markets. And, those who understand the markets generally know little about defense. Unfortunately, our enemies have studied both.

This week, we saw a hacked Twitter account used as a weapon resulting in a mini flash crash for stocks. Even as the market recovered in minutes, estimates are that there was something like $150 or $200 billion lost even if only briefly. We mentioned this in an earlier post.

While any human could clearly see that the White House was not bombed as the hacked tweets claimed, computer algorithms that monitor social media sites could not tell the difference. As a result, massive sell programs began and other high-frequency algorithms picked up on it.

The Syrian Electronic Army claims that they were the source of the false tweet…

Mr. Freeman also included this graphic which showed the plunge in trading.  The person or entity responsible for the planned Twitter forgery could have anticipated the miniature flash crash and hedged against it in order to profit from the hack:

Benghazi terrorists masquerade as charity

Ansar al-Sharia, the terror group widely believed to have played a leading role in the attack against the U.S. mission in Benghazi on Sept. 11 last year, now claims that it is carrying out humanitarian and charity work in Libya.

The militants were forced out of Benghazi following the murder of the U.S. ambassador, but they returned in February.  The Globe and Mail reported at the time that “Observers say Ansar al-Sharia is regaining ground in Benghazi by portraying itself as a humanitarian and security organization, protecting the city from external threats and hazardous goods,” in addition to providing “security” at Benghazi’s central hospital.

The Jamahiriya News Agency subsequently reported that Ansar al-Sharia was offering social services for free, suggesting a “hidden agenda” designed “to proactively win people’s trust,” according to a Benghazi resident.

More recently, the Washington Free Beacon reports that, “The group has downplayed its military activities and played up its social service work.  It opened a women’s clinic in late 2012 and has reported on its Facebook page that it delivered food to needy families in regions outside the city.”

Ansar al-Sharia’s philanthropic activities appear to be exaggerated; the Globe and Mail found that a box of allegedly expired medicine seized by Ansar al-Sharia in the interests of public safety actually had not expired yet.

But the charitable efforts and public relations campaign are an indication that Ansar al-Sharia is attempting to follow the example of other terrorist groups that provide social services such as Hamas, and may be trying to fulfill the dying wish of Osama Bin Laden to rebrand the global jihadist movement by implementing relief programs to gain supporters.

Drugs, Al Qaeda, FARC, and arming the rebels

Mounting evidence suggests that weapons given to Libyan militants in the rebellion against Qaddafi were subsequently leveraged to purchase cocaine from FARC for follow-on distribution to the same European countries that helped arm the rebels in the first place.  No lessons will be learned from this fiasco, as it’s full steam ahead with the same players arming Syrian rebels.

From the Mirror (h/t Aisha):

Al Qaeda’s £168million cocaine smugglers: terror group flooding Britain with drugs

28 Apr 2013

Profits are being used to fund terror plots in the UK and western Europe

Al Qaeda has teamed up with other terror groups to smuggle cocaine to Britain, the Sunday People has ­discovered. One plot involved a staggering four tons of the illegal drug with a street value of £168million.

Al Qaeda, led by 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden until his death in May 2011, is using profits to fund terror plots in the UK and western Europe.

And they have paid for the cocaine with weapons looted in Libya during the mayhem following the death of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

Spooks from MI6 and the UK’s criminal intelligence agency SOCA have joined forces to investigate al Qaeda’s links to drug cartels and terrorist groups in Africa and South America.

Two Colombians – one a member of left-wing terror movement FARC – were arrested after a probe by the US Drugs Enforcement Agency.

It is understood the South American group, now a major ­cocaine cartel, sold a large quantity of the drug to bin Laden’s North African branch, al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb.

They paid using cash and also weapons looted in Libya.

The drug was shipped to North Africa and moved across the Mediterranean into southern France where it is believed to have been distributed to other European ­countries, including the UK. A second operation carried out by secret intelligence groups led to the arrest of the former head of the navy in West Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, now classed as a “narco-state” because of its reliance on the cocaine trade.Admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto and six others have now been flown to New York and charged with drugs trafficking. Four also face terrorism charges.

They were caught in a sting ­operation in which they believed they were talking to members of FARC. They agreed to supply ground-to-air missiles and a quantity of AK-47 assault rifles and grenade launchers in exchange for four tons of cocaine with a street value of £168 million.

Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb has long been involved with cocaine traffickers, receiving large payments to ensure drug runners could safely cross the Algerian Sahara with multi-million-pound consignments.

But spies say this is the first time evidence has emerged suggesting the organisation are themselves trafficking cocaine into Europe.

A highly placed crime ­intelligence source in London said: “It is a very worrying development and both MI6 and SOCA will be working ­together to find out as much as they can.

“When there is an overlap between straightforward crime and security matters, the two agencies work together. There will be a lot of interaction with security forces from several countries.

“France will be particularly involved given the Algerian connection and the fact that France seems to be the main entry point for the al Qaeda shipments. There will also be strong American interest”…

Wildlife smugglers can’t deceive these dogs

The illicit trade in endangered species has been a growing source of terrorist revenues.  A new dog training program will help detect items illegally trafficked through the U.S.  Take a look at this video from the Fish & Wildlife Service and a related article by Russell McClendon of the Mother Nature Network (h/t CITES):

U.S. trains dogs to sniff out wildlife traffickers

The first graduating class of ‘wildlife detector dogs’ will soon be stationed at ports around the U.S., part of a growing effort to stem the illegal trade of flora and fauna.

If you’re a poacher hoping to smuggle rhino horns through a U.S. port, Uncle Sam wants you to know you’re barking up the wrong tree. And he has a new team of elite, hard-nosed cops to help him deliver that message: Butter, Viper, Lancer and Locket.

The first class of “wildlife inspector dogs” graduated this week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Detector Dog Training Center (NDDTC) in Newnan, Ga., where they spent 13 weeks learning to identify the scent of endangered species — whether it’s South American rosewood or African elephant ivory. The four graduates, along with their human handlers, will soon be stationed at key ports around the country, where they’ll join a nationwide effort to stem the illegal trade in plant and animal parts.

“The recent rapid growth in the global trade in protected wildlife is pushing some species perilously close to extinction,” says Ed Grace, deputy chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement, in a press release. “Elephant and rhino populations in particular are declining at alarming rates. The battle to stop wildlife smuggling is one we simply cannot afford to lose, and using dogs and their phenomenal sense of smell to catch smugglers will give us a real leg up in this effort.”

Dogs already have a long history in law enforcement, from hunting fugitives to helping police detect bombs and drugs. But while they’ve been man’s best friend for millennia, their high-powered noses are increasingly ingratiating them to Mother Nature, too. Florida wildlife officials train dogs to sniff out invasive pythons in the Everglades, for example, while conservationists at the University of Washington train them to track endangered native animals by smelling their scat. On a small island in Australia, sheepdogs have even been entrusted to protect a population of endangered penguins.

But the task facing Bullet, Viper, Lancer and Locket — as well as future NDDTC cadets — is much broader than patrolling a single ecosystem. They will soon accompany agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the front lines of an expanding battle, one that pits international crime syndicates against a wide array of rare wildlife.

This comes on the heels of an unusually fruitful wildlife-trade summit held in Bangkok last month, one that highlighted both the gravity of the problem and the emerging possibilities for containing it. Conservationists pulled off several victories during the 2013 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), including new trade protections for sharks, turtles, elephants and great apes. But as critical as such regulations are, they’re only as effective as their enforcers. The U.S. is a major market for illegally traded wildlife, and human officers can only inspect so many packages.

“On an average day, I as a human being can physically inspect, if I’m pushing myself hard, anywhere from 70 to 100 packages,” FWS wildlife inspector Denise Larison says in a video about the new dog program. “And as you can see, the dogs can do 70 to 100 packages in a matter of minutes”…

Related:  Stella the dog finds €3m in illicit cash

Somali bank resumes semi-annual, half-million dollar payments to al-Shabaab

An international Somali-based financial institution is reported to have resumed its recurring transfers of $500,000 twice a year to the al-Shabaab terrorist organization.  The longstanding transfers of money from Dahabshiil to al-Shabaab had allegedly stopped temporarily during a dispute between the bank and the jihadist group.

The allegation that payments have resumed is based on Somali radio and Internet sources, but the text of the news report appears to be available only on YouTube, which is one of the few web outlets that has escaped Dahabshiil’s history of attempts to eliminate negative Internet search.
 

Dahabshiil pays half a million dollar to Al Shabab as a tax- Report

Published on Apr 29, 2013

Spokesman of Al Shabab’s Somalia Mukhtar Robow faction told the media that the dispute they’ve had with Dahabshiil has now been resolved.

Al Shabab’s spokesman for operations Abdul aziz abu Musab said Al Shabab accepted the payment of the taxes they used to pay them which is $500,000 for every six months.

“Dahabshil renders services to the infidel government and Christian organizations, therefore we had an agreement five years ago which is basically for them to pay half a million dollars in every six months” said abu Musab.

Radio Al Andalus, the mouthpiece of Al Shabab said that the movement took necessary steps against Dahabshiil when the company refused to pay the tax as agreed.

Dahabshiil is facing a lawsuit pertaining to funding terrorist in the Netherlands. Abu Musab’s statement means a clear testimony that Dahabshiil finances terrorist organization.

Furthermore, Al Shabaab Somalia is facing an internal conflict within the leadership. With this regard, it is believed that Dahabshiil has sided with the Godane faction. The Indian Ocean News letter wrote about Dahabshiil’s setbacks with the headline “Series of hard blows for Dahabshiil”.

Dahabshiil has been the forefront of the money transfer business for a long time, but now the company is struggling with numerous difficulties, specially when Al Shabab closed its branches in Hiiraan, Galgaduud, Bay and Bakool regions. On top of that, Al Shabab has recently blasted the HQ of Dahabshiil in Mogadishu ,Somalia which killed head of the company’s security.

Experts say Dahabshiil is quite similar to sheikhs of Al-itisam or Al-itihad. Both organizations used to support Al Shabab but later on decided to revoke their support. Dahabshiil will be forced to pay the extortion money as long as Al Shabab is in Somalia. The credibility of the news of Dahabshiil’s payments to Al Shabab can be seen through Al Shabab’s internet portal somalimemo.netwhich has been writing stories favorable to Dahabshiil in the last couple of days. The website also posted Dahabshiil’s advertisement at the top of the homepage.

Sources: Kalshaale.com, Khaatumo State Of Somalia, Buhodle City Website.

A Minneapolis-based bank, U.S. Bancorp, established a new relationship with Dahabshiil in April to facilitate remittances from Somalis in Minnesota to Somalia.

SIMI hotbed gets Saudi support

Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in northern India, the birthplace of the militant group Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), receives support from Saudi Arabia, which also funds SIMI itself:

• In 2006, SIMI and Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out a pressure cooker bombing that killed 209 train passengers in Mumbai.  SIMI was involved with other smaller but still lethal bombings throughout the 2000s.  This February, three SIMI activists were detained for questioning in regards to explosions that killed 18 in Hyderabad.
• SIMI was founded at AMU, a public university in Uttar Pradesh, India, in 1977.
• AMU mostly makes the news today for “violent incidents in campus, arrest of its students and alumni for involvement in various terrorist attacks in India,” the possible presence of Al Qaeda on campus, and the financial improprieties of AMU vice chancellor P. K. Abdul Azis.
• Last year, Vice Chancellor Azis traveled to Riyadh and announced his intentions to obtain financial support from public and private Saudi entities for the expansion of an Arabic teaching and research facility at AMU.  Azis also indicated that a high-powered delegation from a Saudi university met with AMU officials the previous year to identify areas of joint cooperation within AMU’s engineering and technology college.
• The South Asia Terrorism Portal also reports that SIMI itself receives “generous financial assistance” from Saudi Arabia:

…SIMI reportedly secures generous financial assistance from the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), Riyadh, and also maintains close links with the International Islamic Federation of Students’ Organizations (IIFSO) in Kuwait.

It also receives generous funds from contacts in Pakistan. The Chicago-based Consultative Committee of Indian Muslims is also reported to have supported SIMI morally and financially…

• SIMI considers the United States as an “enemy of Islam” and held demonstrations across India in 1998 against American military presence in Saudi Arabia at the time, and adopted a “pro-Taliban stance” after 9/11.

One Algerian’s financial cyber-crime spree

Hacker Hamza Bendelladj’s malware infected personal computers in order to steal the financial credentials of unsuspecting users and sell the data to third parties.  If one man with a computer and an Internet connection can operate a scheme like this, just think of what an enemy state actor could accomplish.

This press release comes to us from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Atlanta Division of the FBI on May 3 (h/t Douglas McNabb):

Algerian National Extradited from Thailand to Face Federal Cyber Crime Charges in Atlanta for SpyEye Virus

ATLANTA—Hamza Bendelladj, an Algerian national also known as Bx1, will be arraigned on federal cyber crime charges for his role in developing, marketing, distributing, and operating the malicious computer virus SpyEye.

“No violence or coercion was used to accomplish this scheme, just a computer and an Internet connection,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. “Bendelladj’s alleged criminal reach extended across international borders, directly into victims’ homes. In a cyber netherworld, he allegedly commercialized the wholesale theft of financial and personal information through this virus which he sold to other cyber criminals. Cyber criminals, take note—we will find you. This arrest and extradition demonstrates our determination to bring you to justice.”

“Hamza Bendelladj has been extradited to the United States to face charges of controlling and selling a nefarious computer virus designed to pry into computers and extract personal financial information,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman. “The indictment charges Bendelladj and his co-conspirators with operating servers designed to control the personal computers of unsuspecting individuals and aggressively marketing their virus to other international cybercriminals intent on stealing sensitive information. The extradition of Bendelladj to face charges in the United States demonstrates our steadfast determination to bring cyber criminals to justice, no matter where they operate.”

“The FBI has expanded its international partnerships to allow for such extraditions of criminals who know no borders,” stated Mark F. Giuliano, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Atlanta Field Office. “The federal indictment and extradition of Bendelladj should send a very clear message to those international cyber criminals who feel safe behind their computers in foreign lands that they are, in fact, within reach.”

Bendelladj, 24, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta, Georgia on December 20, 2011. The 23-count indictment charges him with one count of conspiring to commit wire and bank fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and 11 counts of computer fraud. Bendelladj was apprehended at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, on January 5, 2013, while he was in transit from Malaysia to Egypt. The indictment was unsealed on May 1, 2013. Bendelladj was extradited from Thailand to the United States on May 2, 2013, and was arraigned in United States District Court before United States Magistrate Judge Janet F. King.

According to court documents, the SpyEye virus is malicious computer code, or malware, which is designed to automate the theft of confidential personal and financial information, such as online banking credentials, credit card information, usernames, passwords, PINs, and other personally identifying information. The SpyEye virus facilitates this theft of information by secretly infecting victims’ computers, enabling cyber criminals to remotely control the computers through command and control (C&C) servers. Once a computer is infected and under the cyber criminals’ control, a victim’s personal and financial information can be surreptitiously collected using techniques such as “web injects,” which allow cyber criminals to alter the display of webpages in the victim’s browser in order to trick them into divulging personal information related to their financial accounts. The financial data is then transmitted to the cyber criminals’ C&C servers, where criminals use it to steal money from the victims’ financial accounts.

The indictment alleges that from 2009 to 2011, Bendelladj and others developed, marketed, and sold various versions of the SpyEye virus and component parts on the Internet and allowed cyber criminals to customize their purchases to include tailor-made methods of obtaining victims’ personal and financial information. Bendelladj allegedly advertised the SpyEye virus on Internet forums devoted to cyber crime and other criminal activities. In addition, Bendelladj allegedly operated C&C servers, including a server located in the Northern District of Georgia, which controlled computers infected with the SpyEye virus. One of the files on Bendelladj’s C&C server in the Northern District of Georgia allegedly contained information from approximately 253 unique financial institutions.

If convicted, Bendelladj faces a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud; up to 20 years for each wire fraud count; up to five years for conspiracy to commit computer fraud; up to five or 10 years for each count of computer fraud; and fines of up to $14 million…