September 11 Commission Report - Gnostic Liberation Front

surely well connected to it. Lev Leviev is an extremely lucky man. He is also extremely
generous in his charitable contributions, and as a result, extremely well connected across
the globe.
Diamond laundering would have to be a bit more difficult than laundering gold, because
there are not a lot of places that can be described as sources of diamonds. The ‘deal’
would probably go like this: the stones stolen from Russia are laundered into the market
in exchange for contracts for legal raw materials (oil and wood). They surface on the
market as blood diamonds or conflict diamonds, supposedly mined in alluvial fields and
small mines throughout Africa – even though prior investigation by De Beers had found
these locations barren. Leviev’s supply chain is able to re-absorb the uncut stones into
any of Leviev’s twelve cutting factories, and sell them on the open market. This supply
chain completely bypasses the De Beers mechanisms and controls put in place which
would identify the sources of these illegal “conflict diamonds.” According to a UN
Security Report, this is the Israeli “fix:”
"In all three cases (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Sierre Leone), the pattern is the
same. Conflict diamonds are exchanged for money, weapons and military training. These diamonds
are then transported to Tel Aviv by former Israeli Air Force Pilots….In Israel, these diamonds are then
cut and sold at the Ramat Gan Diamond Centre…."[Liberian Orbit, 10/1/2001]
Feeding this Central African blood frenzy are numerous private military companies
(PMC’s- agents formerly referred to as mercenaries) and arms merchants. A majority of
these arms merchants and PMC’s involved in selling weapons, aircraft and military
training to both sides of third world civil wars and warlords are Russian/Israeli. On this
list are:
Victor Bout (Russian/Tajikistan born, started business in Afghanistan, became an Israeli
citizen), who had extensive dealings selling armaments and weapons to the Taliban. He is
reported to have partnered with Farhad Azima on at least one Russian air deal. He is
now running weapons into Iraq on behalf of the US government because of the dangers
associated with flying in. Nevertheless, there are outstanding warrants for his arrest in
multiple countries.
• Israeli Arcadi Gaydamak, whose key partner at one time was Alimjar Tokhtakhounov
– a leading member of the Russian mafia. His dealings with Angola are detailed in
Section 4.8. He has done business with Nazarbayev.
• former Mossad agents Danny Yatom and Avi Dagan, who created the PMC Strategic
Consulting Group;
• Moshe Levy, owner of the Lordan-Levdan, a PMC working in the Congo;
• Zeev Zachrin, former Brigadier general in Israel;
• Dan Gertler, owner of the Israeli firm International Diamond Industries, who has been
connected with diamond purchases in exchange for weapons and training in Liberia,
Sierre Leone and the Congo, working with Yair Klein
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 290