The Iranian Plot: Bank Transfers of Mass Destruction
\nPosted on October 11, 2011 by emptywheel<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry, but I\u2019m having a really difficult time taking this latest terrorist plot seriously. Not just because the story is so neat, tying together all the enemies\u2013the drug cartles and Iran\u2013we\u2019re currently supposed to hate, but because it elicited such comical lines from Eric Holder and NY US Attorney Preet Bharara about assassinating other government\u2019s officials (like, say, Qaddafi\u2019s son) and doing battle on other country\u2019s soil (like, say, the entire world) and not taking sufficient precautions to prevent civilian casualties.<\/p>\n
But just to unpack what the government claims it found, here\u2019s the amended complaint.<\/p>\n
The big action that, the government suggests, proves the case involves two bank transfers:<\/p>\n
On or about August 1, 2011, MANSSOR ARBABSIAR, a\/k\/a \u201cMansour Arbabsiar,\u201d the defendant, caused an overseas wire transfer of approximately $49,960 to be sent by a foreign entity from a bank located in a foreign country to an FBI undercover bank account (the \u201cUC Bank Account\u201d). Before reaching the UC Bank Account, the funds were transferred through a bank in Manhattan, New York.<\/p>\n
On or about August 9, 2011, ARBABSIAR caused an overseas wire transfer of approximately $49,960 to be sent by a foreign entity from a bank located in a foreign country to an FBI undercover bank account (the \u201cUC Bank Account\u201d). Before reaching the UC Bank Account, the funds were transferred through a bank in Manhattan, New York.<\/p>\n
And based on those transfers, one unsuccessful attempt to enter Mexico, and a lot of talk between an informant and one of the defendants, we\u2019ve got another terrorist plot.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, there\u2019s a backstory to how that $100,000 got transferred.<\/p>\n
As the FBI tells it, back in May, Manssor Arbabsiar traveled to Mexico to meet with a guy he thought was a member of Los Zetas but was instead a narcotics convict-turned-informant I\u2019ll call \u201cNarc.\u201d As always with these narratives, the FBI doesn\u2019t explain how Arbabsiar happened to choose Los Zetas for his hit squad, as implausible as that is. It says only that Arbabsiar\u2019s cousin told him that people \u201cin the narcotics business \u2026 are willing to undertake criminal activity in exchange for money.\u201d How plausible would a drug hit on the Saudi Ambassador be? Furthermore, don\u2019t Iranians have their own more subtle ways of working?<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, we\u2019re led to believe it is plausible and not at all overdetermined that the cousin of an Iranian spook would launder their assassination through a Mexican drug cartel. …more<\/a><\/p>\n