OT.
Wonder how many N.American investor's unwittingly put money into the pockets of Bin Laden?
M.I.T.'s bin Laden-linked financier fails to file papers
B.C. Securities Commission *BCSC
Thu 18 Oct 2001 Street Wire
See MIT Ventures Corp (MVC) Street Wire
by Brent Mudry
Reputed Osama bin Laden financier Yasin Al-Qadi and a handful of other
Saudi businessmen took control of Global Diamond Resources in late 1998,
about 11 months after the Al-Qadi group got its feet wet in penny diamond
stocks with an initial $800,000 (Canadian) investment in M.I.T. Ventures, a
small Vancouver company that Mr. Al-Qadi's group also controls.
In December, 1998, two Arab companies invested $3-million (U.S.) each in
Global Diamond: New Diamond Holdings Ltd. and LIWA Diamond Co. Ltd., both
registered in the secretive offshore enclave of the British Virgin Islands.
New Diamond, based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is controlled by Mr. Al-Qadi,
while LIWA Diamond, based in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, is
controlled by the family of Mattar Abdulla Al Muhairy.
Another Arab company, International PCM Holdings, became a major
shareholder of Global Diamond sometime in the previous year. The Arab
investors, including Mr. Al-Qadi, own more than 46 per cent of Global
Diamond's shares, according to an April regulatory filing.
The latest spotlight on Mr. Al-Qadi came on Friday, when the Jeddah-based
businessman was named on a new list of 39 individuals and organizations
alleged by the Bush administration as having direct links with Mr. bin
Laden. Mr. Al-Qadi is also known as Yassin Al Kadi, Shaykh Yassin Abdullah
Kadi and Yasin Kahdi.
"He heads the Saudi-based Muwafaq Foundation. Muwafaq is an Al Qaeda front
that receives funding from wealth Saudi businessmen," states the U.S.
Treasury Department. (Al Qaeda is Mr. bin Laden's terrorist network.) The
U.S. government claims the Arab business community has funnelled millions
of dollars to Mr. bin Laden through Muwafaq. Mr. Al-Qadi, the deep pocketed
and misunderstood philanthropist, has denied being anything but a fine
upstanding Saudi businessman.
Reflecting their major investments in Global Diamond, Arab businessmen
currently hold six of the company's 10 board positions, according to the
company's Web-site.
The directors include Mr. Al-Qadi, using the name Yassin A. Al-Kadi, and
his close associate Ahmed A. Basodan, representing New Diamond, Gasem S.
Al-Shaikh and Said H. Ghachem, also both of Jeddah, nominees of
International PCM, and Mr. Al-Muhairy and Amin Koudsi, representing LIWA
Diamond.
Despite his prominence on the Treasury Department's bin Laden list, Mr.
Al-Qadi bears impressive-sounding credentials, according to regulatory
filings. He is the chairman of two Saudi companies: Saudi National
Consulting Center and Qordoba Real Estate Co., and of a Turkish company,
Caravan Co. (Mr. Basodan is the president of a Saudi company called Caravan
Group Co.) The busy Mr. Al-Qadi is also a director of a Pakistani firm,
Himont Chemical, and a bank in nearby Kazakhstan, Cariba Bank.
With all this business deals on the go, Mr. Al-Qadi and his fellow M.I.T.
backers have apparently been too busy to remain in regulatory compliance
with the folks at the British Columbia Securities Commission.
Although it might sound like mere paper-shuffling to important Saudi
businessman, Canadian and American securities regulations require all
holders of more than 10 per cent of a public company's shares to file an
initial insider report, and subsequent reports after any further
transactions.
Neither the bin Mahfouz's Al Murjan Minerals Techco, which invested
$800,000 in M.I.T. in early 1998, or Mr. Al-Qadi's New Diamond, which
invested a slightly smaller amount a year later, have ever bothered to make
the required insider filings with the securities commission. The two Saudi
investors held a combined 37-per-cent stake which has since fallen to about
28 per cent due to dilution when another Arab investment group arrived on
the M.I.T. scene last year.
Further review of Canadian regulatory filings shows that Abdullah Mohamad
Basodan was also the president of Al Murjan, the bin Mahfouz's company.
(Mr. Al-Qadi and one of the two bin Mahfouzes in M.I.T. were trustee of
Muwafaq.)
(In an unrelated document in the same time period, Ahmed M. Basodan signed
as a vice-president of New Diamond Corp Ltd. The document states that
Sheikh Yassin A. A. Kadi, one of Mr. Al-Qadi's many names, was the sole
shareholder of this offshore company. Mr. Kadi also signed this
declaration. While it is not clear whether Dr. Abdullah Basodan and Ahmed
M. Basodan are the same person, or close relatives, the chronology in the
M.I.T. investments suggests a strong link with Mr. Al-Qadi.)
Ironically, Mr. Basodan, who became an M.I.T. director, was the only Arab
insider to be in compliance with BCSC insider filing regulations. In
February, 1998, the Al-Qadi front-man exercised his full options for
180,000 shares at 47 cents (Canadian). Hopefully he can use the loss on his
income tax, as M.I.T. shares have since plunged to one cent (Canadian).
Mr. Basodan, meanwhile, has popped up in yet another North American penny
stock deal.
Securities filings show that Mr. Basodan, using the name Abdullah M.
Basodan, also had a modest stake in Intelispan, a small Atlanta-based OTC
Bulletin Board-listed telecommunications company taken over by McLeodUSA
Inc., listed on Nasdaq, in May.
Mr. Basodan was the biggest shareholder in a May, 2000, registration
statement filed to qualify the resale of 2.25 million Intelispan shares.
The filing indicates Mr. Basodan planned to sell his full stake of 750,000
shares, while another shareholder with an Arabic name, Maher Mohamed
Al-Nowaiser, filed to sell all his 250,000 shares. Any link between Mr.
Basodan and Mr. Al-Nowaiser is as yet unknown.
With the stock trading at $2.01 on May 1, 2000, the market valuation date
of the registration statement, Mr. Basodan's shares were worth more than
$1.5-million. Mr. Al-Nowaiser's shares were worth about $500,000. (In the
first registration statement for this distribution, in January, 2000, the
market valuation date share price was $3.)
The value of Mr. Basodan's shares fluctuated wildly, as Intelispan was
quite a volatile promotion. The stock debuted on the OTC-BB on Aug. 8,
1988, reached an all-time peak that day of $14.50, bottomed out at 44 cents
in August, 1999, and briefly rebounded to $6 in January, 2000.
Intelispan, unlike Global Diamond Resources, which was spawned in
Vancouver, and M.I.T. Ventures, which is a full-fledged Vancouver-based
promotion, does not appear to have been a Howe Street deal. However, one of
its former directors, Mitchell Eggers, is a close associate of
controversial Vancouver stock promoter Phil Garratt.
Mr. Eggers has served as chief operating officer and a key director of Mr.
Garratt's recent flagship Vancouver-based penny stock promotion, Shopping
Sherlock, renamed ASPi Europe.
Mr. Garratt is best known for his rubbishy Cycomm International, which
featured an offshore backer, Epsom, which used the same postbox address at
the Geneva airport as a key player in the Polly Peck debacle of Asil Nadir,
the British financier who fled from London to the untouchable offshore
haven of Cyprus.
(c) Copyright 2001 Canjex Publishing Ltd. stockwatch.com
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