|
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), with its permissive business environment,
has emerged as an important locus of criminal activity. It's also becoming
a more important transit avenue for drug shipments from Southwest Asia on
their way to Turkey, Europe, and Africa.
Drug traffickers, terrorist groups, and organized crime groups have
established their criminal and money-laundering networks in Dubai and
conduct major financial transactions. The UAE is also a major center for
underground banking hawala networks tied to India and Pakistan.
There is extensive smuggling of contraband through Dubai, into whose ports
more than half of the containers shipped to and through the UAE arrive.
According to the international shipping industry, UAE seaports are
handling nearly 5 million containers per year, 2.8 million in Dubai alone.
More than 70 percent of containers arriving in UAE ports are in transit
and are not inspected by customs officials, making them an attractive
shipping option for criminals trafficking contraband through the region.
Dubai is believed to have been one of the most important conduits for
Iran's nuclear technology acquisition program, according to U.S. court
cases and interviews with experts in the field.
According to sanctions experts and numerous U.S. court and regulatory
cases, Iranian front companies uses Dubai to evade U.S. economic sanctions
on Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. The UAE doesn't recognize
those sanctions.
Osama bin Laden's operatives still use
Dubai, United Arab Emirates as a logistical hub. The recent arrest of an
alleged top al-Qaeda combat coach is the latest sign that suspected
members of the terrorist organization are among those who take advantage
of travel rules that allow easy entry.
In 2004, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a Pakistani suspected of training
thousands of al-Qaida fighters, was arrested in the UAE and turned over to
officials in his homeland.
The father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has
acknowledged heading a clandestine group that, with the help of a Dubai
company, supplied Pakistani nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and
North Korea.
UN officials have accused Victor Bout (A Russian Smuggler Victor
Vassilyevich Bout) of using the United Arab Emirates as a permanent base
using many "flags of convenience" and sub-contracting arrangements for
his aircraft to facilitate illegal arms and diamond smuggling activities.
UAE has many ties to 9/11. About half the $250,000 spent on the Sept. 11
attacks was wired to al-Qaida terrorists in the United States from Dubai
banks, authorities said. Al-Qaida money in Dubai banks also has been
linked to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
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."
Although the UAE was aware that terrorists and other international
criminals had laundered money through the UAE, and that it was the center
for terrorist operations, it did little to address the problem despite,
providing material support to Al-Qaida, Hamas and other designated
terrorist organizations.
|
US News
reports in it's recent article, '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'. (An
Unlikely Criminal Crossroads) |
|
|
Main Page:10
Smart Reasons to STOP Port Deal! |
