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+How much is the PLO really worth? 
+
+The Samed, the economic arm of the PLO, may have become dormant since
+the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, but it is sitting on mountains of
+gold. At least, that is what appears from data obtained by hackers who got
+into the Samed's computers 
+
+
+By Ronen Bergman 
+Ha'aretz November 28, 1999
+
+Ahmed Qureia, also known as Abu Ala, the speaker of the
+Palestinian parliament, was and still is the head of the Samed (Sons of
+the Palestinian Martyrs - the economic arm of the PLO). Both Abu
+Ala and Muhammad Rashid, Arafat's senior economic adviser and
+confidant, refuse to disclose any information on the PLO's assets
+beyond the borders of the Palestinian Authority. The publication of
+these details would undoubtedly cause an uproar in the streets of
+    Palestinian towns. How can it be, many would ask, that we are
+suffering here from economic hardship while the PLO is sitting on
+massive sums of frozen assets abroad, and not using them?.In the
+middle of 1988 there was a breach of Samed's computer system,
+which connects the PLO's headquarters in Tunis with its economic
+representations abroad, and its financial records were revealed. These
+records showed enormous fiscal activity, which included many bank
+accounts in Europe, and a complex system of individuals and
+institutions involved in the transfer of funds. The bank accounts were
+spread out all over the world, including in Tunis and East Jerusalem,
+and were never registered officially in the name of the PLO, but were
+rather listed under the names of private individuals, including Abu Ala.
+Computer experts understood that they had not uncovered the whole
+picture. The accounts on the network documented only partial
+information on funds transfered under the heading "The chairman has
+transferred x thousand dollars to you."
+
+The hackers who had broken into the PLO's computers closely
+followed the activities of the network, and were able to uncover the
+whole process by which the funds were transfered - from their
+beginning as a mysterious grant from somewhere, through several
+couriers to their final destination. The hackers discovered, among
+other things, allocations to "martyrs", which were paid through bank
+accounts in East Jerusalem. The purpose of each bank account was
+apparently determined by the activities of its bearer or courier. If, for
+example, an account was registered to a person with known
+connections to terrorist activities, the funds transfered through it were
+used for such activities, if the person was involved in the PLO's
+welfare projects, the money went to help widows and orphans.
+
+The system carried records of the transfer of tens of millions of
+dollars, if not more. The experts who studied the data discovered that
+some of those employed in the transfer of funds made a habit of
+retaining a certain percentage of each transfer, and it is unclear
+whether this was done with or without permission. The breaching of
+the network did a lot to clear the deliberate smoke screen surrounding
+the PLO's financial apparatus. Apart from Arafat himself, only Abu
+Ala and Rashid know all of its secrets.
+
+A report compiled recently by qualified assessors in Israel, and which
+was handed over to government officials, found that Samed continues
+to hold vast sums of money and assets around the world, despite the
+fact that it is an inactive organization in the advanced stages of
+atrophy. The heads of Samed, said the report, systematically desist
+from selling off these assets and transfering them to the PA territories
+to improve the poor economic situation there.
+
+
+Shares in Mercedes 
+The establishment of the Palestinian Authority entailed the
+transformation of a secret underground terrorist organization into an
+autonomous authority which was supposed to be law-abiding and
+organized, on the verge of independent statehood. This transformation
+is not complete. Arafat never ordered all the branches of the PLO to
+internalize the character of this change. Samed was left as a white
+elephant, perhaps paralyzed and deteriorating, but with a very high
+monetary value. 
+
+The PLO was an organization with massive economic power. For
+years it received billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and from the
+sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf. Those states also deducted 5 percent
+from the wages of all Palestinians who were working under their
+jurisdiction, and transfered those funds to the PLO's bank accounts in
+Switzerland and Spain, for the "Palestinian Liberation Tax Fund." This
+levy alone brought in about $50 million per year.
+
+The economic branch of the research department in Israeli Military
+Intelligence estimates that throughout the 1970s and 1980s the PLO
+added some $5 million to its coffers every day. The organization had
+tremendous assets and many straw companies, which helped it
+acquire shares on European stock markets. The Kuwaitis, for
+example, aided the PLO in purchasing shares in companies such as
+Mercedes. The organization had great economic influence in France,
+Switzerland, Italy, Holland and Scandinavia.
+
+In order to control its vast assets, the PLO set up Samed, which
+made investments for it. Samed's administration was highly classified
+and under Arafat's direct command. Arafat himself signed all the
+checks. The PLO was willing to reveal only the socialist-inspired
+aspect of Samed's activities. The organization published a newspaper
+called Samed al Ectsadi (The Economic Samed), which showed
+photographs of Palestinian women weaving and Palestinian men
+plowing fields in agricultural farms in Africa and Lebanon.
+
+Samed had several administrative divisions, including offices for
+industry, trade and marketing, agriculture and agricultural produce, a
+research and publications department, and a department for the
+production of films and the dissemination of information. The latter
+initiated the production of several public relations films and
+propaganda films on the Palestinian struggle. At the end of the 1980s
+it invested millions of dollars to produce a feature-length film. The raw
+material was sent to a film lab in Rome for editing. One night, in July
+1989, unknown persons broke into the lab and disposed of
+everything relating to the film.
+
+
+Investments on Wall Street 
+It is hard to determine the real value and scope of the PLO's total
+assets. According to figures published in the world media, hundreds
+of millions of dollars of PLO money were transfered from Lebanon to
+Switzerland at the beginning of the Israel Defense Forces' siege of
+Beirut in 1982. As early as the 1970s, according to those reports,
+Arafat had already made huge investments on Wall Street, in London,
+and in several Arab banks, with the help of sources in the former
+Soviet Union, specifically the Moscow Narodny bank. The PLO had
+also made substantial investments in large industrial firms which traded
+on the stock exchanges of Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo, and had
+purchased real estate in the upmarket Mayfair district of London.
+
+These reports also say that the PLO is the controlling shareholder in
+the Monte Carlo radio station, and in other radio stations. He also
+owns, or did own, a string of newspapers, (one of which, Suat al
+Bilad, was edited by Muhammed Rashid during his revolutionary
+period). In addition, the PLO owns many buildings in Cyprus,
+Greece, France, Spain, Jerusalem and Lebanon, and has invested in a
+number of airlines in Africa.
+
+In a report published at the end of 1996 in the French newspaper Le
+Figaro, it was alleged that by the beginning of the Gulf War, the
+PLO's cash reserves had reached more than $7 billion - an enormous
+sum that Arafat disbursed in numbered accounts in Zurich, Geneva
+and New York. The Israeli Military Intelligence estimates that the
+figures quoted by Le Figaro are inflated, but they agree that in the
+1970s and 1980s the PLO was a very strong economic power.
+
+According to various intelligence sources, the PLO was a partner in
+several airline companies, which also functioned as a screen for its
+secret activities. The PLO was a partner in the establishment of the
+airline of the Maldives and was later the owner of the Guinea Bissau
+airline, then headed by Faiz Zaidan, who is now in charge of civil
+aviation for the Palestinian Authority. Samed acquired a duty-free
+shop in the international airport in Tanzania. The PLO's representative
+in Zimbabwe, Ali Halima, said that it was a purely economic
+investment, and that during the same period, Samed bought several
+other stores in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
+
+In 1991, when the Persian Gulf states stopped supporting the PLO
+and expelled all the Palestinian workers employed there following
+Arafat's alignment with Saddam Hussein, the PLO reached the brink
+of bankruptcy. It is well-known that some of Samed's assets were
+sold during that period to finance the general operations of the PLO,
+but it is unclear what portion of these assets was liquidated. Three
+years ago, the comptroller's committee of the American congress
+carried out a secret investigation of this matter, and even took
+testimony from experts in Israel. To this day the report of that
+investigation has not been published. It is known, however, that the
+investigators reached an unequivocal conclusion regarding everything
+connected with the extent of the PLO's assets abroad .