Latest revision as of 18:49, 5 July 2012
There have been many reports of individuals or groups that supposedly had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, but one of the most often repeated concerns a groups of Israeli "art students". It's often suggested that these were actually intelligence operatives who were spying on the hijackers. This article is typical.
Of course if these really were intelligence agents then you might expect them to try and avoid the attention of local authorities. The reality was very different, as the DEA report quoted above states:
In January, 2001, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Office of Security Programs (IS), began to receive reports of Israeli art students attempting to penetrate several DEA Field Offices in the continental United States. Additionally, there have been reports of Israeli art students visiting the homes of numerous DEA employees. These incidents have occurred since at least the beginning of 2000, and have continued to the present. The number of reported incidents increased in November/December 2000, and has continued to date. These incidents have involved several other law enforcement and Department of Defense agencies, with contacts made at other agencies' facilities and the residences of their employees. Geographically, these incidents are very widespread, ranging from California to Florida. The majority of the incidents have occurred in the southern half of the continental U.S. with the most activity reported in the state of Florida. Since April 2001, the number of reported incidents has declined, however, the geographic spread of the incidents has increased to Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Los Angeles.
The activities of these Israeli art students raised the suspicion of IS and other field offices when attempts were made to circumvent the access control systems at DEA offices, and when these individuals began to solicit their paintings at the homes of DEA employees. The nature of the individuals' conduct, combined with intelligence information and historical information regarding past incidents involving Israeli Organized Crime, leads IS to believe the incidents may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity. It is believed by IS that these incidents should not be the basis for any immediate concern for the safety and security of DEA personnel, however, employees should continue to exercise due caution in safeguarding information relating to DEA investigations, or activities.
DEA Orlando has developed the first drug nexus to this group. Telephone numbers obtained from an Israel Art Student encountered at the Orlando D.O. have been linked to several ongoing DEA MDMA (Ecstasy) investigations in Florida, California, Texas, and New York. The Orlando D.O. has opened an investigation that is being coordinated with DEA HQs.
In general, these individuals appear to be organized in teams of 8 to 10 people, with one person described as the "Team Leader". They are usually encountered in pairs or individually carrying a makeshift art portfolio. Several times, they have, been seen or admitted to being dropped off in an area by the Team Leader, who returns later to pick them up. The females are usually described as very attractive, and all are generally in their early to mid-20s. Most admit to having served in the Israeli Military. This is not surprising given the mandatory military service require in Israel, however, a majority of those questioned has stated they served in military intelligence, electronic signal intercept, or explosive ordinance units. Some have been linked to high-ranking officials in the Israeli military. One was the son of a two-star general, one served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army, one served in a Patriot missile unit. That these people are now traveling in the U.S. selling art seems not to fit their background.
Their stories are remarkable only in their consistency. At first, they will state that they are art students, either from the University of Jerusalem, or the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem. Other times they will purport to be promoting a new art studio in the area. When pressed for details as to the location of the art studio or why they are selling the paintings, they become evasive. Some claim to be the artist who painted the artwork, others claim they promoting the work of others or of Israel. Information has been received which indicates the art is actually produced in China. When told that they cannot solicit on federal facilities, they will claim that the paintings are not for sale, but that they are soliciting interest in the paintings, either for an art studio or for a future art sale.
An incident report by DEA Tampa has revealed much information relating to these individuals. DEA Agents at the Tampa District Office questioned the Team Leader of a group of 9 individuals at length, The Team Leader stated he purchases the paintings for $8 to $10 dollars from an individual in the Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale, Florida area. The paintings are then sold for $50 to $80 dollars. (Other offices have reported the paintings selling for $150-$200 dollars.) The individuals come to the U. S. on tourist visas, and finance their stay here by selling the paintings. The Hollywood, Florida area seems to be a central point for these individuals with several having addresses in this area.
There have been incidents where criminal and/or suspicious activity has been associated with these individuals. Two were arrested by FPS in Plantation, FL with counterfeit Social Security Cards. Baton Rouge, LA discovered a small amount (personal use amount) of marijuana in the residence of one group, and some of the individuals interviewed by DEA/Tampa admitted to smoking marijuana. Criminal records checks have revealed some arrest history on persons associated with these groups. Passport irregularities have been reported. A review of their passports shows travel to several other countries, to include Thailand, Laos, India, Kenya, Central and South America, Australia, Germany, Amsterdam, and Canada. One individual presented a Canadian citizenship card along with his Israeli passport. A report from EPA/Denver involved a female art student going to the house of an EPA Special Agent to sell art, and returning later to photograph the house. There is a report of one of these individuals being seen diagramming the layout of a federal facility. This information has not been directly reported to DEA, and has not been confirmed by first-hand observation.
When encountered at residences, some of these individuals are persistent in trying to get inside the home. Some have asked to use the telephone when leaving. Some employees have reported that they came only to their house, while others have reported that the students approached the entire neighborhood.
http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm
Carrying drugs. Passport irregularities. Pestering DEA agents. Perhaps “diagramming the layout of a federal facility”. How does any of this relate to an attempt to monitor Al Qaeda agents? It makes little sense to us.
Still, let’s excuse that. Perhaps only some of the students were Mossad agents. Maybe they were performing several missions, which of course would make them even more important in intelligence terms: that would make sense.
Except there’s a problem with that idea, too. If this really were a major Israeli spying ring, then why would a former Israeli intelligence agent draw US attention to it? (Our emphasis):
We don’t just have the word of one man that such a scheme existed, either. A similar pattern of “art students” selling art for “wildly inflated” prices appeared in Canada, apparently starting in 2002, eventually resulting in arrests a couple of years later. But for “working illegally”, not espionage:
Similar incidents occurred in Australia in 2009:
Ex-soldier sounds alert over art scam
The Toowoomba Chronicle, August 22, 2009
WHEN Israeli art scammers knocked on Anthony Stevenson's door, they didn't expect to find an ex-soldier who studied art.
The Wilsonton man contacted The Chronicle to warn other Toowoomba residents about the scam.
A pair of young Israeli women knocked on Mr Stevenson's door at 7.40pm on Monday claiming they were art students.
The women said they were selling original oil paintings worth up to $800 for just $150 to $200 to support their studies.
"They were actually really nice paintings and my wife's birthday is coming up so I thought I might get one or two," Mr Stevenson said.
"I was busy at the time and invited them to come back the next morning so my wife could see the paintings."
However, after the women left, Mr Stevenson's curiosity got the better of him and he searched the paintings on the internet.
The exact same paintings can be bought in bulk for just $7 from China.
When the women arrived back at Mr Stevenson's house on Tuesday morning, he was prepared and confronted them with dozens of identical scam stories.
"Their reaction said it all," he said.
"One girl went completely silent and wouldn't look at me while the other just said 'oh'." They quickly left, taking 25 paintings with them.
Police say the fake artwork is part of a global fraud scam allegedly involving Israeli nationals, which has been operating in Europe, America and Australia for more than eight years...
http://www.thechronicle.com.au/story/2009/08/22/ex-soldier-sounds-alert-over-art-scam
And here's a New Zealand story from 2010:
Warnings out over art scam
Waikato Times, January 19, 2010
Waikato residents are being warned of smooth- talking art scammers who are flicking off what appear to be fraudulent art works.
The $180 a pop paintings are being sold by a group of men who say they're either just "trying to make some coin" or "raising money for charity".
Hamilton's Mark Sayer was visited by an Israeli man at his home recently.
"He came around with a big portfolio of artwork saying he'd actually done them himself. But you look closely at the artwork and it's been signed by an artist but it's not his name."
Mr Sayer said the man, who appeared to be in his early 20s, was travelling with a group of other men in a yellow Toyota Estima people mover which had a wire mesh cage on the top.
The man said he was an Israeli in the country on a tourist visa.
He questioned the man about the artwork's authenticity.
"He would always change the subject or say 'some of them are my own and some of them aren't'." One of the pictures was of the Tour de France cycle race. A Google search found the same print with a slightly different shade.
It was the fourth time Mr Sayer, a sales rep, had been approached by the same Israeli men in Hamilton over the last 18 months. Another family member was also approached on the same day.
Hamilton woman Lucy Corry was also visited by a "very good looking" Argentinian man this month.
"He was saying he was an art student representing a group of art students who were raising money for charity. It was unclear for what charity or whether (the paintings) were their own . . . he did this number on me and pulled out this portfolio of really awful paintings - like scenes of Tuscany and a bowl of fruit."
Miss Corry's story was similar to an incident in Wellington two months ago where a woman paid $600 for three paintings by so-called Israeli art students.
She later discovered they were worth about $3 each and were mass produced in Asia.
A Waikato police spokesman said while they were aware of the group they had not received any complaints.
"But people should be aware of the situation and if they believe the group may be misrepresenting their product, phone the police."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/3241358/Warnings-out-over-art-scam
Had Mossad simply recycled the same cover story that they’d used in the US, even though it had received so much attention? That would seem to be unwise. Perhaps the story could be reworked, accepting that some of the Israeli art students in the US were involved in an art fraud, but there were Mossad agents along as well, using them as cover...? It doesn’t seem like the best cover, to involve yourself with a group that could draw so much attention, however if we want to keep this story going then it’s the best explanation available.
And of course there’s also the ever-popular “too many coincidences” argument, which in this case points to the locations of the “art students”, and how closely they were located to the 9/11 hijackers:
One "art student" was a former Israeli military intelligence officer named Hanan Serfaty, who rented two Hollywood apartments close to the mail drop and apartment of
Mohammed Atta and four other hijackers. Serfaty was moving large amounts of cash: he carried bank slips showing more than $100,000 deposited from December 2000 through the first quarter of 2001; other bank slips showed withdrawals for about $80,000 during the same period. Serfaty's apartments, serving as crash pads for at least two other "art students", were located at 4220 Sheridan Street and 701 South 21st Avenue. Lead hijacker
Mohammed Atta's mail drop was at 3389 Sheridan Street--approximately 2,700 feet from Serfaty's Sheridan Street apartment. Both Atta and
Marwan al-Shehhi, the suicide pilot on
United Airlines Flight 175, which smashed into World Trade Center 2, lived in a rented apartment at 1818 Jackson Street, some 1,800 feet from Serfaty's South 21st Avenue apartment.
In fact, an improbable series of coincidences emerges from a close reading of the 2001 DEA memo, the 9/11 Commission's staff statements and final report, FBI and Justice Department watch lists, hijacker timelines compiled by major media and statements by local, state and federal law enforcement personnel. In at least six urban centers, suspected Israeli spies and 9/11 hijackers and/or al-Qaedaconnected suspects lived and operated near one another, in some cases less than half a mile apart, for various periods during 200001 in the run-up to the attacks. In addition to northern New Jersey and Hollywood, Florida, these centers included Arlington and Fredericksburg, Virginia; Atlanta; Oklahoma City; Los Angeles; and San Diego.
Israeli "art students" also lived close to terror suspects in and around Dallas, Texas. A 25-year-old "art student" named Michael Calmanovic, arrested and questioned by Texas-based DEA officers in April 2001, maintained a mail drop at 3575 North Beltline Road, less than a thousand feet from the 4045 North Beltline Road apartment of Ahmed Khalefa, an FBI terror suspect. Dallas and its environs, especially the town of Richardson, Texas, throbbed with "art student" activity. Richardson is notable as the home of the Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity designated as a terrorist funder by the European Union and U.S. government in December 2001. Sources in 2002 told The Forward, in a report unrelated to the question of the "art students", that "Israeli intelligence played a key role in helping the Bush administration to crack down on Islamic charities suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups, most notably the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, last December [2001]". It's plausible that the intelligence prompting the shutdown of the Holy Land Foundation came from "art student" spies in the Richardson area.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2007/080307Israel.htm
However, exactly how “improbable” these coincidences might be isn’t entirely clear.
The first problem is that the DEA report details many locations where the Israeli students lived, travelled to or had attempted to sell art. All these, in fact:
Albuquerque
Arlington, TX
Atlanta, GA (possible)
Baton Rouge
Birmingham, Alabama
Chatanooga
Chicago (possible)
Colorado Springs, CO
Columbia, Maryland
Columbus, Georgia
Dallas
Denver
Duarte, California
East Paolo Alto, CA
Edgewater, New Jersey
Encino, California
Euless, Texas
Flower Mound, Texas
Fort Myers
Fredericksburg, VA
Fresno, CA (possible)
Gainesville, FLA
Heathrow, FLA
Hollywood, FLA
Houston, TX
Irving, Texas
Jersey City, NJ
Kansas City, MO (possible)
La Jolla, CA (possible)
Lexington, Kentucky
Little Rock, Arizona
Los Angeles
Maitland, FLA
Memphis, Tennessee
Miami, FLA
Midwest City, OK
Montgomery, Alabama
National City, CA
New York City
New Orleans
Northeast Albuquerque, New Mexico
Phoenix, Arizona
Plantation, FLA
Richardson, Texas
Richmond, VA
Sacramento, CA (possible)
Salt Lake City, Utah
San Antonio, TX (possible)
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Southfield, Kentucky
Springfield, MO (possible)
Seattle, Washington (possible)
St Louis, MO (possible)
Studio City, CA
Tamarac, FLA
Tegucigalpa
Tempe, Arizona
Topeka, KS (possible)
Wisconsin
Witchita, KS (possible)
http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm
(“Possible” indicates the claim is based on statements from a suspect and may not necessarily be true. If you’re interested in particular locations then please, go read the original report.)
This isn’t surprising, as the DEA lists 125 potential suspects who had been travelling all over the country. So surely, if you correlate these addresses with 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers, and other potential suspects, who were also moving around the country, you’d expect the occasional overlap.
Here's a very relevant example:
Israeli "art students" also lived close to terror suspects in and around Dallas, Texas. A 25-year-old "art student" named Michael Calmanovic, arrested and questioned by Texas-based DEA officers in April 2001, maintained a mail drop at 3575 North Beltline Road, less than a thousand feet from the 4045 North Beltline Road apartment of Ahmed Khalefa, an FBI terror suspect.
But fails to point out the many other Calmanovic addresses:
106. CALMANOVIC, Michael, NADDIS - Negative. W/M, Israeli, DOB 09/06/1-975, POB: Israel, registered owner of TX: L44-CVD, add: 3575 N. Beltline Rd., Apt. 316, Irving, TX., alt. add: 312 Rochelle Rd., Irving, TX, alt. add: 1103 Hidden Ridge #3018, Irving, TX alt. Add: 1913 Estrada Parkway, Irving, TX 75061, alt. add: 11012 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604 Tel: (214)882-5196, alt, add: 319 S. 177 Place, 4201, Seattle, WA 98148 Tel: (206) 244-7705, Tel: (214) 882-5196 / (214) 837-3574 / (469)446-1248 (214) 837-5996 (214) 876-1235 (217) 837-2056 former Israeli electronic intercept officer. Arrested by I&NS on April 4th, 2001, Posted $50K bond, (Identified in paragraph 46)
And even if you believe that’s still “too much of a coincidence”, there’s another issue here that’s being carefully avoided. Consider this quote from earlier:
The DEA report (paragraph 76 onwards) explains how Serfaty was picked up and questioned by DEA agents on March 1st, 2001, at which point they discovered that he had these Hollywood addresses. And these are as documented above, but the problem is that Atta wouldn’t move into Jackson Street for another two months.
Clearly Serfaty wasn’t following Atta, then. What’s more, no evidence has been presented to show that Serfaty was still renting these apartments by the time Atta arrived. Other Israelis in the group left in a hurry after the DEA arrests, so it must at least be possible that he did the same:
There are similar timeline issues with claims relating to the other alleged hijackers. While others including Waleed and Wail al-Shehri did live in Hollywood, they all arrived after Serfaty’s March 1st arrest, showing that he wasn’t tracking them.
So was this really an intelligence operation? The Canadian reports of similar art students suggest not: they saw it as a simple scam. And a recent Australian report says "the fake artwork is part of a global fraud scam allegedly involving Israeli nationals, which has been operating in Europe, America and Australia for more than eight years..." The way the students managed to attract the attention of the authorities would hardly be wise for intelligence operatives, and the fact that an Israeli alerted the US about this in the first place also supports the idea that it was just a scam.
Authors pushing this story disagree, though, making heavy use of unsourced quotes like "the Israelis likely had a huge spy operation in the U.S. and that they had succeeded in identifying a number of the hijackers" (source, please go read in full to make sure you understand their case). But from what we've seen they fail to even mention the timeline problems. The DEA report says art student reports arose from "at least the beginning of 2000", months before Atta and al-Shehhi arrived in the US; the "students" who lived in Hollywood again did so before the hijackers arrived; and we've yet to see anything that places them in close proximity at the same time. If there's reason to believe otherwise, let's see it. Because right now there's not even circumstantial evidence to indicate that the art students may have been spying on the hijackers.