The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars introduced the concept of IEDs and EFPs that seriously maim or kill. It appears that these bombs are still being made and utilized by terrorists overseas. Who is funding them? Could it possibly be a large global bank with a major branch in New York? Is a reverse money laundering scheme in place that allows money transactions to bypass Department of Justice sanctions? Farron Cousins is joined by Mike Papantonio, along with attorney Chris Paulos, to discuss Pap’s new book, “Suspicious Activity,” which is a continuation of his Law and Disorder series.
Click here to order a copy of Mike Papantonio’s new book, “Suspicious Activity.”
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Farron Cousins: I wanna touch back on something you said because you brought up the issue of IEDs. And when we’re dealing with these terrorism lawsuits, they’re very complicated and it’s very difficult because you’ve gotta be able to prove that the money that came from this bank that went to this individual was used to purchase the materials. And with the IEDs, we’re talking about improvised explosive devices. So they buy bits and pieces here, they buy a few more pieces here and a couple here, and they lay them out almost like landmines. We saw the disaster of landmines during the Vietnam War. And we’re almost back in that era and it’s much more difficult to track these things here is, isn’t it?
Mike Papantonio: Half to two thirds of all Americans that are killed or lose limbs in areas like Iraq or Afghanistan, half of them are from IEDs that were financed by organizations like this. Matter of fact, that’s something Chris has done as he’s put together this really sophisticated way to find out what the story is behind there.
Chris Paulos: Yeah. In terms of Iraq and Afghanistan, we have established that Iran was providing the militant groups in those areas with sophisticated IEDs, with the training to assemble them, with the component parts to assemble them. The sophistication far exceeds what one might think when they hear improvised explosive device. There are particular types of IEDs that are remote controlled, radio detonated, can be detonated from a thousand miles away from a cell phone, and they involve high, very expensive specific types of metal that will melt in the explosion and cause devastating injuries that can target armored vehicles and defeat the most armored vehicles, at least in the US militaries lineup and do so and cause catastrophic injuries. With the difference between a landmine and an IED is a landmine is something that’s passive, that’s laid in the ground and can essentially blow up when anything steps on it or triggers it.
These IEDs are put in a roadway or along a path or a, what we’ll call a choke point in traffic, and those who are using that IED can target specifically the vehicle in a convoy carrying a particular individual that they’re wanting to target. And they have the ability and the training to do that time and time again, and over and over and over, and then change their tactics, techniques, and procedures to address the countermeasures that are put in place. The level of sophistication, not only the individuals that are using those weapons, but the weapons themselves requires extensive infrastructure, which requires extensive money, and then also access to the materials to create it. And that is where these legitimate banks or semi-legitimate companies or front companies come into play in creating the supply chain for organizations like Hamas and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to, you know, and place these, have access to and place these, and use these, sadly so successfully against our troops.
Mike Papantonio: What happened in Vietnam is they understood that the use of landmines, and we’re coming up on Vietnam Veterans Day, for example, and the use of landmines were so effective. They just, they devastated, devastated American soldiers. So what they did is they took the whole concept of landmine, and they simply put it in, as Chris is talking about, into something that’s an IED. And what the book does, and I think the reason you’ll be interested in the book, is it has a character, he’s a Pararescueman. His name is Michael, and most people don’t even know what a, they’re called PJs. And the PJ is a specially trained special ops soldier. As a matter of fact, they try to find the special ops soldier that is best at independent operation. Started in Korea.
They would have these PJs drop in from 40,000 feet in a HALO dive, and then they’d move into the area to rescue pilots, rescue whoever had to be rescued. But these are independent operators. They’re not like a SEAL team. Most of the time they operate, one or two of them will go into an area and rescue these folks. So in the book, in the series of books, Michael works for Nicholas Deketomis, he works for that law firm. And so he speaks their language and he understands exactly what’s going on with the whole IED story. He understands what’s going on with the financing. He’s the guy who’s kind of the front man in this litigation. And it’s not just litigation. It’s not, we’re not in trial. We’re in a fight for the life of everybody in the law firm by the end of the book.
