Osama’s double barrel? Also milks market collapse

WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 18: SAUDI dissident Osama bin Laden and those managing his multi-million-dollar fortune are sophisticated enough to have possibly profited in the markets from last week’s attacks, US experts said on Monday. Financial regulators around the world have indicated they are investigating whether organisers of the attacks sold short shares of companies they expected would lose value afterwards. Selling short is a way of profiting from falling share prices.

‘‘Based on what we know about how bin Laden handles his money through different organisations, he probably is sophisticated enough to do something like that,’’ said Kimberly McCloud, research associate at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.

Market watchdogs in Europe, Japan and the United States have indicated they are studying trading patterns possibly linked to the attacks in New York and the Washington area. Chairman Harvey Pitt of the US Securities and Exchange Commission told The Wall Street Journal on Monday: ‘‘We’ve heard those reports about terrorist involvement in our markets... Our enforcement division has been looking into a variety of market actions that could be linked to these terrible acts, including the subjects of the rumours.’’

US stocks plunged on Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average pushed to its biggest point drop ever as investors shrugged off a surprise interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve and focused on fears that the attacks on the world’s financial heart might stoke a recession.

In Germany, where market speculation centered on movements in insurance stocks, financial regulator BaWe said it was taking ‘‘a routine look at the share prices of various stocks.’’ Regulatory authorities in Britain, Italy and Switzerland made similar statements.
Japan’s securities watchdog said it was investigating trade in Tokyo and Osaka around the time of the attacks for any transactions linked to Islamic militant bin Laden, whom the United States considers its prime suspect in the attacks, for which no group has claimed responsibility.

Short selling involves borrowing securities, selling them at one price and buying them back at a cheaper price. The short-seller then returns the securities and pockets the difference between the sale and the purchase as profit. “His network is more than just crude, gun-toting terrorists. It includes some very sophisticated people,’’ said Steven Emerson, a counter-terrorism expert. (Reuters)