Crossfire War – Organized Criminal Syndicates Could Work with Tehran

Crossfire War – TEHRAN WATCH – Global Theatre: Tehran – New York – Moscow – Macau – Beijing/Rome – Washington; International Crime Terrorism Pentagram at Tehran’s Disposal – Target Europe – North America

Night Watch: NEW YORK – Tehran’s avenues and vehicles for attacking the West have increased. AP reports that a Contract Study for the Pentagon stated that the chances of organized crime families in New York and their working with Islamic terrorist groups have increased. The study said, “Although terrorism and organized crime are different phenomenon, the important fact is that terrorist and criminal networks overlap and cooperate in some enterprises. The phenomenon of the synergy of terrorism and organized crime is growing because similar conditions give rise to both and because terrorists and organized criminals use similar approaches to promote their operations.” [ASHARQALAWSAT]

Crime syndicates have highly sophisticated networks that have long been able to acquire goods and services and money all for a price. Matt Heron, head of New York’s FBI organized crime unit, said the reason for the Mafia’s possible willingness to help terrorists has nothing to do with sympathy or ideology but with greed. “They will deal with anybody if they can make a buck. They will sell to a terrorist just as easily as they would sell to an order of Franciscan monks. It’s a business relationship to them. If the mob has explosives and a terrorist wants them and they have the money they could become instant friends.”

Though there is no direct evidence of such syndicate-terrorism connections one indication did occur when the FBI prevented a man from selling military weapons to an informant posing as a middleman. The man who was arrested was an Armenian immigrant, Arthur Solomonyan, who claimed to be able to deliver shoulder fired missiles using his connections in Russian criminal circles, 17 others in New York, Florida and California have been charged in the case. Each state has important financial-industrial-military targets which can be heavily damaged or even destroyed by terrorist groups detonating weapons of mass destruction. The attack would also result in a massive loss of life much larger than the 9/11 attacks. “We are continuing to look for a nexus,” stated Joseph Billy Jr., FBI’s top counter-terrorism official, “We are looking at this very aggressively. We have developed an ability to look harder and broader in a pretty enhanced way to see if there is any crossover.”

There are a number criminal services Tehran has al-Qaeda employ, which crime syndicates are active in: facilitating money transfers or laundering, human smuggling, identification fraud or explosives and weapons acquisitions. In New York there are five established La Cosa Nostra crime families that have a century of criminal operations behind them, coupled with the legal and political connections that have protected them to the extent where only the most extreme, out of control, are arrested. But there are also Russian crime syndicates that reach from Brighton Beach Brooklyn to Moscow. There are also Asian crime networks which are active in Islamic countries where al-Qaeda has branches. Those networks can work with Beijing who has long been arming the Islamic world with advanced weaponry.

Pat D’Amuro, retired senior FBI official, now Chief Executive of Giuliani Security, said a major Mafia boss once acknowledged that the mob would help terrorists. “I am aware of a high-level Mafia figure, who was cooperating with authorities, being asked if the Mafia would assist terrorists in smuggling people into Europe through Italy. He said the Mafia will help whoever can pay.”

This network, now at Tehran’s disposal, would not be interested in any explosives or weaponry these criminal organizations have access to. Rather Tehran would be more interested in employing their smuggling services due to the considerable influence syndicates have in international shipping circles. The ability to have equipment and consignments pass through customs without inspection. The advanced weaponry, nuclear material, Beijing could have Asian syndicates obtain from Pyongyang, and shipped into either Europe or North America, which can be detonated by Islamic operatives trained in Iran-North Korea-China. The operatives could also have been smuggled into the country, using Mafia connections, supplied with false identity and all the money they require.

Money is no obstacle, in operations of this magnitude, funds from Tehran are practically unlimited. Profit however may not be the only motive for organized crime to work with Tehran. Syndicates could easily see their assistance as a way of weakening governments, in North America and Europe, who still occasionally investigate and arrest them. This diseased syndrome is the result of a sophisticated-corrupt-established mentality that is virtually identical to the engineering services headquarted in San Francisco that decided to construct military bases for Iran. CNN showed their London branch office the day after the Gulf War ended in 1991. Conncections on that level of society control the foreign policy of both the US/UK.

Perhaps the Mafia got their cue from them. Everyone knows the Jihad pays well. This is why sanctions are no threat whatsoever to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It of course means more business for their reconstruction contracts after the war. There will be a lot of pieces to pick up after this one. A U. S. statesman, George Kennan, once said the greatest threat to the West was within itself. There is obviously a lot of truth in that observation. That is why I have often written that corruption is Tehran’s greatest weapon. It’s a hell of a situation.

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Willard Payne is an international affairs analyst who specializes in International Relations. A graduate of Western Illinois University with a concentration in East-West Trade and East-West Industrial Cooperation, he has been providing incisive analysis to NewsBlaze. He is the author of Imagery: The Day Before.