User:Tiamut/IAS

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Newer Article

The Israeli art student scam is a well-known

con in which Israelis, claiming to be travelling art students, approach people in their homes or on the street and attempt to sell them oil paintings and frames for excessive prices. The paintings are represented as original and valuable art by up-and-coming talents but are in fact cheap, mass-produced works bought wholesale from China. The scammers explain that they are directly approaching people with offers because properly exhibiting the work in a gallery would be prohibitively expensive. [1], Australia[2], Seattle [3]

The scam has been reported in Canada [1], Australia[2], New Zealand [4] and Seattle [3].

The Northern Territory police has released a warning about the scheme. [5]

2001–2002 Israeli art student spying scandal

During the 2001–2002 period in the United States there were official reports of hundreds of young Israelis posing as art students spying on federal buildings and employees.

In January 2001 Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) field offices around the country reported that the "art students" had been attempting to penetrate offices for over a year, as well as other law enforcement and Department of Defence agencies. They had also visited the homes of many DEA officers and senior federal officials and attempted to sell art. Suspicious agents observed that when the "art students" departed they did not approach their neighbours. DEA Agents reported on 130 incidents involving "art student". Some "art students" were caught diagramming the architecture of federal buildings. Some were found to have photographed federal officials. [6]

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive warning

In March 2001, the US

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) issued a warning about people identifying themselves as "Israeli art students" attempting to bypass security and gain entry to federal buildings, and even to the private residences of senior federal officials under the guise of selling art.[7] Subsequently to the NCIX bulletin, officials raised other red flags, including an Air Force alert, a Federal Protective Services alert, an Office of National Drug Control Policy security alert and a request that the Immigration and Naturalization Service investigate a specific case. The "art students" were subsequently treated with more caution by officials. [6]

Leaked Drug Enforcement Agency report

A leaked 60-page DEA report in 2002 revealed that up to 200 young Israelis had been arrested in America in the past year, of which about 140 were arrested before the

IDF in military intelligence, electronic signals interception and explosive ordnance units. One of the detainees was an Israeli general's son, another was a former bodyguard to the chief of the IDF, and another had operated Patriot missiles.[8][9] In 2002 several officials dismissed reports of a spy ring and said the allegations were made by a Drug Enforcement Agency who was angry his theories had been dismissed.[10]

Ha'aretz also published an article on the spying allegations, noting that most of the allegations were based upon an internal report from the DEA. [11]

September 11 allegations

It has been suggested that operatives in this "art student spy ring" were tracking the 9/11 hijackers and knew that the attacks were going to take place, although the DEA memo was primarily concerned with the students' efforts to foil investigations into unrelated Israeli organized crime.[12]

German weekly Die Zeit published two articles regarding the September 11 controversy, one of which, titled "Next Door to Mohammed Atta" concerned allegations that Israeli intelligence had been tailing the 911 hijackers before the attack. [13] [14]

Some of the Israeli "art students" lived for a period of time in

Mohammed Atta and fellow terrorists had lived before September 11. [6]

References

  1. ^ a b ""Israeli art scam" preying on people's kindness". Calgary Sun. 2009-08-19. |first=Renato |last=Gandia
  2. ^
    Border Mail
    . 2009-04-22.
  3. ^
    Komo News
    . 2006-08-30.
  4. ^ Coulter, Narelle (2006-01-18). "Door slammed on 'original' art scam". Star News Group.
  5. ^ "Police warn against art scam". Northern Territory police. 2006-11-22.
  6. ^ a b c Ketcham, Christopher (2002-05-07). "The Israeli "art student" mystery".
  7. ^ "Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive: Suspicious Visitors to Federal Facilities (archived at Internet Archive". Archived from the original on 2007-01-24.
  8. ^ "Telegraph.co.uk: US arrests 200 young Israelis in spying investigation".
  9. ^ "Sunday Herald (UK) via Internet Archive: Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA?". Archived from the original on 2006-04-23.
  10. Washington Post. Retrieved October 18, 2008. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help
    )
  11. ^ Guttman, Nathan (2002-05-07). "Spies, or students? Were the Israelis just trying to sell their paintings, or agents in a massive espionage ring?". Haaretz.
  12. ^ An Enigma: Vast Israeli Spy Network Dismantled in the US. Le Monde (Paris) March 5, 2002. Retrieved 2010-01-12.
  13. ^ "Deadly Mistakes". Die Zeit. 2002-10-02.
  14. ^ "Next Door to Mohammed Atta". Die Zeit. 2002-10-02.

Older Article

Israeli art students exist in fairly large

SoHo and Tribeca. These young Israeli artists have created paintings
and works of art and in order to raise some money for themselves, some have gone door to door in major American cities, such as in Manhattan, and have attempted to sell works of art to workers and people in offices and businesses.

During the first half of

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) described these individuals, and noted that there were possibly two different groups describing themselves as "Israeli art students", one with "an apparently legitimate money-making goal" and a "second, perhaps a non-Israeli group" which possibly had "ties to a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist group". ONCIX directed U.S. government employees to report these kinds of activities to security officials.[1]

Some of the government buildings at which these individuals appeared housed offices of the

Arab press and conspiracy theorists took up the stories, often linking them to various 9/11 conspiracy theories.[2]

On

urban myth." Immigration official Russell Bergeron
said the arrests of young Israelis were "routine, normal cases ... I have no knowledge of any espionage-related issues with these people." The narrative itself is posted online here http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm

Links claiming Israeli art student conspiracy

Skeptical links

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