In the midst of the pile-on on Foley and company this weekend, one potentially extremely important story appears to have not hit the DailyKos radar.
The FBI has begun a preliminary investigation into possible ties between Osama Bin Laden and the NYC Mafia families:
Though there is no direct evidence yet of organized crime collaborating with terrorists, the first hints of a connection surfaced in a recent undercover FBI operation. Agents stopped a man with alleged mob ties from selling missiles to an informant posing as a terrorist middleman.
This was apparently simply a sting operation, and just the beginning of the investigation. Who knows where this could lead?
There are the five reputed La Cosa Nostra families in New York, Russian criminal enterprises from Brighton Beach in the New York borough of Brooklyn to Moscow, and the emerging Asian crime syndicates that operate in many Islamic countries with al-Qaeda offshoots.
...
"Although terrorism and organized crime are different phenomena, the important fact is that terrorist and criminal networks overlap and cooperate in some enterprises," the study said. "The phenomenon of the synergy of terrorism and organized crime is growing because similar conditions give rise to both and because terrorists and organized criminals use similar approaches to promote their operations."
Are they truly "different phenomena"? Selling missles to known terrorists is clearly 'aiding and abetting' terrorists - and according to Bu$hCo and his 'wid us or agin us' stance, this classifies the Mafia family involved as terrorists.
The traditional mafia has highly developed networks for acquiring goods and services and money, all for a price.
The mob's potential interest in helping a terrorist has nothing to do with ideology or sympathy but with greed, said Matt Heron, head of New York FBI's organized crime unit.
"They will deal with anybody, if they can make a buck," Heron said. "They will sell to a terrorist just as easily as they would sell to an order of Franciscan monks. It's a business relationship to them."
"If the mob has explosives and a terrorist wants them and they have the money, they could become instant friends," he said.
I have no idea what happened on 9/11. All I know is the two things that didn't happen - 'PT911', and The Official Version. One of the primary defenses used by the "reality-based community" against 9/11 CT's is the admittedly obvious fact that Bu$hCo clearly didn't have the competence to pull off an inside job. I agree completely. But who thinks the Mafia is that incompetent?
The full article makes clear that the Mafia is for sale, for whatever purpose, for the right price.
Please excuse the lengthy quotes above; it's hard to cull much info from an article in 3 paragraphs when most of the 'paragraphs' are one sentence long. I encourage you to read the full article; there's also a video link there.
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