Bin Laden’s old bank signs £100m London deal

Osama Bin Laden used to send money to his operatives through Tadamon Islamic Bank, a sharia-compliant financial institution based in Yemen.  Hassan al-Turabi, the man largely responsible for the imposition of sharia law in the Sudan, also had free access to Tadamon in the 1990s.

Tadamon, now calling itself Tadhamon International Islamic Bank, maintains a “wholly owned subsidiary” investment bank called Tadhamon Capital in Bahrain.  Tadhamon Capital has just reached a £100 million (163 million USD) agreement to build a mixed-use student housing and commercial development on Paul Street in London.

From ArabianBusiness.com:

Bahrain investment firm inks $163m London deal

By Andy Sambidge

Saturday, 30 November 2013

Bahrain-based Sharia compliant investment firm Tadhamon Capital has announced the acquisition of its second Central London development in a deal worth more than £100m ($163m).

It said the Paul Street development was concluded in a joint venture with Apache Capital and McLaren Property following the full letting of its first prime London student development, Paris Gardens.

The Paul Street development will be comprised of three blocks, two of which will contain 456 student accommodation units with a 1,550 sq ft ground floor retail space, with the third block consisting of a stand-alone office building.

Tadhamon said in a statement that construction work is expected to commence in during the first quarter of 2014 with completion targeted by the end of Q3 2015.

It said the investment is expected to generate a minimum average annual net cash yield of 7.3 percent.

Paul Street is located on the northern fringe of the City, within proximity of the fashionable areas of Hoxton and Old Street.

Waleed Abdulla Rashdan, CEO of Tadhamon Capital, said: “Over the past four years we have taken a strategic decision to expand our investments within the UK and have since focused on building our social infrastructure platform.

“To date, we have successfully closed 10 transactions at a total value of £240m… We will continue exploring further opportunities within these sectors as part of our platform as they have proven their resilience to market changes, and continued their marked growth.”

He added “Over the past years we have established a solid real estate investment platform which will be used to replicate our success and experience within the UK to invest over the next 18 months in selected cities within the EU, US and Turkey.”

Sharia banks that fund terrorism

The relationship is simple.  Jihadists know they can trust sharia-compliant banks to maintain their anonymity, not ask too many questions, and facilitate high-dollar transactions on behalf of their terrorist groups.  Some Islamic financial institutions, such as National Commercial Bank and Islami Bank Bangladesh, have taken the relationship a step farther by donating a portion of their bank profits in the form of zakat as an act of corporate “charity” to terrorist organizations, or in the case of Al Rajhi, through private zakat donations of leading bankers.  Saudi Arabia and Iran are key bases for these activities, but this is a global phenomenon.  Here’s Money Jihad’s short list of the worst offenders:

Al Rajhi Bank:  The Saudi financial institution has served as the sharia bank of choice for the world’s jihadists, including East Africa embassy bomber Mamduh Mahmud Salim, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and organizations like Indonesian Kompak and Al-Haramain.  Bank co-founder Sulaiman Al-Rajhi appeared on the infamous Golden Chain document of Al Qaeda financiers.  These allegations were reinforced by the recent U.S. Senate investigation into HSBC’s correspondent relationships.

Al Shamal Islamic Bank:  Osama Bin Laden co-founded the Al Shamal in Sudan and invested $50 million there.  During the 1990s and early 2000s, Al Qaeda distributed money to its cells through Al Shamal.  Funds passed through Al Shamal were used in preparation for terrorist attacks.

National Commercial Bank:  Offering conventional and sharia banking services, Saudi Arabia’s self-described first, largest, and most prominent bank is NCB.  Among other misdeeds, a Saudi audit revealed that NCB transferred $74 million in the 1990s as zakat through its charitable front organizations to Al Qaeda (see here, here, and here).  Khalid bin Mahfouz, the head of the bank, exploited libel laws to sue author Rachel Ehrenfeld in an effort to silence accusations about his role in financing terrorism.

Arab Bank:  This conventional bank in Jordan maintains a wholly-owned subsidiary (Islamic International Arab Bank PLC) that offers full-range sharia services.  Arab Bank has transferred money on behalf of Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP), a notorious French charity, to a known financial subunit of Hamas.  The Jordanian bank has paid out insurance benefits to families of suicide bombers for the Saudi Committee—another charity that funds Hamas.  Arab Bank has handled transactions for the Holy Land Foundation, whose leaders now sit behind bars for financing terrorism.  It has been the subject of American investigations, but the bank has consistently refused to turn over related documents to the U.S.

Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited:  IBBL, Bangladesh’s biggest sharia bank, has handled Wahhabi accounts to propagate radical Islam since its inception.  In 2011, the Bangladeshi home ministry intelligence revealed that 8 percent of the bank’s profits were diverted as corporate zakat to support jihad in Bangladesh.  One of the men on IBBL’s board of sharia advisors was arrested in connection with a terrorist attack against Bangladeshi police officers.  The U.S. Senate slammed British bank giant HSBC for maintaining relationships with IBBL despite evidence that it served terrorists like Shaikh Abdur Rahman of Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh and terror-funding Islamic charities like IIRO.  The Senate’s report also implicated HSBC for disregarding evidence of terror financing at another Bangladeshi sharia bank with whom it worked:  Social Islami Bank.

Bank Melli:  The Iranian Islamic bank sent “at least $100 million to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard branch that supports Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups, the Quds Force” between 2002-06.

Bank Saderat:  Another major Iranian sharia finance house, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the rocket-funding Bank Saderat, stating that “The bank is used by the Government of Iran to transfer money to terrorist organizations, including Hizballah, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A notable example of this is a Hizballah-controlled organization that has received $50 million directly from Iran through Bank Saderat since 2001.”

Other culprits include Dubai Islamic Bank, which is active in both the U.A.E. and Pakistan, and Tadamon Islamic Bank.

So much for “ethical finance.”  For further developments, please continue reading Money Jihad, Shariah Finance Watch, and @moneyjihad on Twitter.

Tadamon deal marked by gold lust

Tadamon Islamic Bank, Yemen’s largest sharia financial institution, has struck a deal with Gold Arab Emirate DMCC, a web-based precious metal broker, according to the Saudi Gazette.  The agreement will allow Tadamon depositors to keep their savings in gold rather than cash.

Keep in mind as you read this that Osama Bin Laden used Tadamon Bank to distribute funds to Al Qaeda operatives in the 1990s.  This is a bank that caters to the deepest fears and suspicions of its customers.

GOLD AE signs landmark deal with Tadhamon Bank

GOLD Arab Emirate (GOLD AE) DMCC, the premier online trader in deliverable gold and silver, has recently signed a landmark gold allocated account partnership with Tadhamon International Islamic Bank, the biggest bank in Yemen, through its sister company SABAYEK24, in Sana’a.

The customers of Tadhamon International Islamic Bank will have the option of gold instead of cash in their saving accounts.

The deal underlines the growing awareness among investors in Yemen of the value of gold as a hedge against global inflation, hyperinflation and prolonged financial downturn.

Commenting on the partnership, Mohammad Abu-Alhaj, Charman of GOLD AE DMCC & SABAYEK24, said: “TIIB is a perfect partner for us. We remain committed to serving as a key player in the international bullion trading market and this deal is yet another exciting chapter the GOLD AE success story.”

He added: “Currency wars among different countries as well as uncontrolled printing of money by Central Banks around the world are putting the cash savings and purchasing power of millions of families at risk, considering the impact of the real possibility of their savings being completely wiped out with the unavoidable potential financial depression.”

He further said: “Gold is a stable investment that can also be used as a form of payment anywhere in the world. It is protected to the usual risk and limitations of other currencies. In fact, gold has been a preferred investment and a more stable form of currency for thousands of years…

Note how the article drips with animosity toward paper currencies, Western central banks, and harkens back to an alleged era of prosperity that lasted “for thousands of years.”  Must have missed that particular phantom golden age!

Although sharia law has never provided a sustainable recipe for economic prosperity, Islamists disdain the Western financial system for our concept of interest on savings and loans, for Jewish involvement in the international financial system, and for our system of “infidel” paper currency rather than using the gold dinar and silver dirham from the “good old days” of Muhammad.

Troubling links of Kuveyt Turk Bank

When German bank regulators allowed Kuveyt Turk Bank to launch sharia banking there last January, that was bad enough.

But now we learn from a write-up by Money Jihad’s friend, Puneet Madaan, that Kuveyt Turk’s shareholders include 1) the nefarious Islamic Development Bank and 2) the Kuwait Finance House, a shareholder of Tadamon Islamic Bank.  Osama Bin Laden has used Tadamon to help disburse terror funds.  For those of you with Facebook accounts, you can access Puneet’s full article here on “Puneet’s Notes.”

(Read previous coverage from Shariah Finance Watch on Islamic banking in Germany here.)