Dubai - a Rockin' Place!

[kstewart33]

From USNews and World Report:
12/5/05

From Egypt to Afghanistan, when terrorists and gangsters need a place to meet, to relax, maybe to invest, they head to Dubai, a bustling city-state on the Persian Gulf. The Middle East's unquestioned financial capital, Dubai is the showcase of the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich federation of sheikdoms. Forty years ago, Dubai was a backwater; today, it hosts dozens of banks and one of the world's busiest ports; its free-trade zones are crammed with thousands of companies. Construction is everywhere--skyscrapers, malls, hotels, and, soon, the world's tallest building.

But Dubai also serves as the region's criminal crossroads, a hub for smuggling, money laundering, and underground banking. There are Russian and Indian mobsters, Iranian arms traffickers, and Arab jihadists. Funds for the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy bombers were transferred through the city. It was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's black market in nuclear technology and other proliferation cases. Half of all applications to buy U.S. military equipment from Dubai are from bogus front companies, officials say. "Iran," adds one U.S. official, "is building a bomb through Dubai." Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents thwarted the shipment of 3,000 U.S. military night-vision goggles by an Iranian pair based in Dubai. Moving goods undetected is not hard. Dhows--rickety wooden boats that have plowed the Arabian Sea for centuries--move along the city center, uninspected, down the aptly named Smuggler's Creek.

U.A.E. rulers have taken terrorism seriously since 9/11, but Washington has a half-dozen extradition requests that they refuse to honor. The list includes people accused of rape, murder, and arms trafficking, and the last fugitive of the BCCI banking scandal. The country has put money laundering controls on the books but has made few cases. Interior Minister Sheik Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan told U.S. News the U.A.E. has made great strides in cracking down, but he insists that the real problems lie elsewhere. "We are a neutral country, like Switzerland," he says. "Give us the evidence, and we will do something about it. Don't blame others." Not everyone agrees. "All roads lead to Dubai," says former treasury agent John Cassara, author of Hide and Seek, a forthcoming book on terrorism finance. Cassara tried explaining U.S. concerns about Dubai to a local businessman but got only a puzzled look: "Mr. John, money laundering? But that's what we do. " -David E. Kaplan

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. And we Americans epitomize gluttony, greed and coruption?

:rofl: Okay we do, but I think we have a contender in Dubai. Just sayin'

[patrice]

2. Better or Worse than Kuwait?

[Mythsaje]

3. Okay,

so we're supposed to turn over our ports to a country known for performing money laundering services for terrorists? Thus, good ol' American funds can be used to help launder that money?

Something about this just doesn't sound quite right.

Just can't put my finger on it.

:sarcasm:

[medeak]

4. nominated

sounds like Michael Jackson found his enablers.

[upi402]

5. this part of your post is critical to American safety

on the UAE managing our ports issue;

"Funds for the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy bombers were transferred through the city. It was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's black market in nuclear technology and other proliferation cases."

If that don't swing the fundies, they are confirmed traitors -or at least authoritarians.

[tanyev]

6. Neutral, like Switzerland.

What then has emerged from these investigations so far? First a few facts. It is calculated that Germany began the war with reserves in the Reichsbank of around $208m, of which some $97m represented gold already stolen from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Danzig. The total amount of gold looted by the Nazis during the war itself, not only from the defeated nations, such as Belgium, Holland and Hungary, but from Jewish and other victims of the Nazis is now estimated at $580m. Of this about $400m (worth $4 billion today), according to US Under Secretary Eizenstat, "went to Switzerland either to the Swiss National Bank's own account, or to the account of other countries at the Swiss National Bank". The Swiss accepted some $280m ($2.8 billion today) on their own account.
http://www.bigeye.com/nazigold.htm