Why was Kobi Alexander Allowed to Flee? The Israeli Fugitive, Odigo, and the Forewarning of 9/11
24 August 2006
Photo: Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, an Israeli military officer connected to the
Odigo instant messaging company whose employees and users received an early
warning of the 9/11 attacks, has recently become a fugitive from U.S. justice
and taken refuge in Israel along with other prime suspects of the terror
attacks.
The case of the Israeli criminal Kobi Alexander is like the proverbial "tip of
the iceberg." While Alexander's crimes, through which he became immensely
wealthy, are now evident, they are but a small piece of a much larger Zionist
criminal network – connected to the 9-11 terror attacks – which remains hidden
beneath the surface.
Alexander, former head of the Israel-based Comverse Technology, was, until his
crimes were discovered, one of the highest paid executives in the United
States. In the year 2000, for example, he reportedly earned some $102.5
million, with $93 million coming from the "exercise of options." We now know
that most of Alexander's money was made through the fraudulent "exercise of
options."
Comverse Technology, the U.S.-based "parent company" of an older and much bigger
Israel-based company with the same name, is the owner of the Verint, Ulticom,
Starhome, Mercom and Startel companies. The key positions in these companies are
all held by Israeli nationals.
Alexander, was recently allowed to flee the United States after he and two other
former Comverse executives were charged with securities, mail and wire fraud by
U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York. A warrant has been issued for his
arrest. While a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern
District of New York told me on August 15 that he "expected" that Alexander
would turn himself in, the New York Times was rather less optimistic. "It will
be a long time – if ever – before Alexander explains himself in a courtroom,"
the Times wrote on August 21. Alexander's lawyer, Robert Morvillo, said he
"believed" that Alexander and his family were on vacation in Israel. Alexander,
an Israeli citizen and a former military officer, wired $57 million to an
account in Israel at the end of July and was evidently allowed to flee the
United States.
"Given Alexander's stature and military service," the Times reported, quoting
unnamed law professors, "Israel might be reluctant to readily hand him over."
One might reasonably ask what the 54-year old Alexander's "military service" has
to do with Israel refusing to extradite him for crimes committed in the United
States? While Alexander is obviously connected with Israel's military
intelligence apparatus and George Soros through the mutually owned investment
fund ComSor, what is not widely reported is his company's close links with Odigo,
the Israeli-run instant messaging company that received – and conveyed – urgent
warning messages about the imminent terror attacks on the World Trade Center
several hours before the first plane hit.
The New York Times certainly must be well aware of the personal and business
connection between Alexander and Odigo since they did an extensive interview
with Avner and Maskit Ronen, the founders of Odigo, for their Sunday magazine in
September 2000. The magazine article about the Ronen's, titled "Immigrants with
an I.P.O." could have been titled "Immigrants on a Mission." The Ronens, both
with military backgrounds in computer science, "put down few roots," during
their first years in New York City, the Times reported. "They made no friends
outside the office and had no taste at all for networking at Silicon Alley
parties," the NYT magazine wrote. "They sought neither driver's licenses nor a
local physician." The bizarre photograph in the article showed two silhouetted
figures hidden in the dark. These were the Ronens, Israeli military officers on
a mission in New York.
ODIGO INSTANT MESSAGES
There is ample evidence that many Israelis were forewarned of the attacks
through an Israeli instant messaging service called Odigo. This story, which
presents the clearest evidence of Israeli prior knowledge of the attacks, was
reported only very briefly in the U.S. media – and then completely forgotten and
deleted. According to the news reports, at least two Israel-based employees of
Odigo reported having received warnings of an imminent attack in New York City
hours before the first plane hit the WTC. Odigo, an Israeli-owned company had
its U.S. headquarters only two blocks from the World Trade Center, yet Odigo
failed to pass the warning it had received on to the authorities in New York, a
move that would have saved thousands of lives.
"The messages said something big was going to happen in a certain amount of
time, and it did – almost to the minute," Alex Diamandis, Odigo's vice
president, said two weeks after 9-11. "It was possible that the attack warning
was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports
of other recipients of the message," he added.
Based on the Israeli government figure that some 4,000 Israelis were expected to
be in the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks, it seems evident that
many Israeli Odigo users got the message. Odigo, which offers real-time
messaging, has a feature called "People Finder" which allows a user to send an
instant message to a large group based on a common characteristic, such as
Israeli nationality. "People Finder" allows Odigo users to search for online
"buddies," with filters like Israeli nationality, while maintaining user privacy
at all times.
The Internet address of the sender of the warning was reportedly given to the
FBI. Two months later it was reported that the FBI was still investigating the
matter. Since then there have been no further media reports about the Odigo
warning of 9-11.
As I have previously reported, Odigo, like Comverse and other Israel-based
software companies, is really headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, the suburb of
Tel Aviv where Israeli military intelligence headquarters are located.
Typically, with these Israeli-intelligence linked outfits, the company's
research and development, and any manufacturing, such as the "black box"
computer surveillance equipment produced by Comverse, is all done in Israel. The
U.S. offices merely function as distribution, marketing, and financial centers.
In the case of Comverse, for example, the real parent company was Alexander's
Tel Aviv-based Efrat Future Technology Ltd., which carried out "all research,
development, and manufacturing," for Comverse, according to a 1992 article in
the Jerusalem Post.
Shortly after 9-11, Odigo was completely taken over by Comverse Technology,
which had been part owner of Odigo since early 2000, if not earlier. Shortly
after 9-11, five executives from Comverse were reported to have profited by more
than $267 million from "insider trading."
Avner Ronen, the "founder" of Odigo, was Vice President of Business Development
of Comverse Technology in October 2005. This indicates that Ronen and Alexander,
both Israeli military officers with computer backgrounds, have been close
business partners since early 2000.
"Comverse and Odigo have had a
long-standing partnership and together have developed instant communications
products and services that we have recently begun to offer to operators around
the world," Zeev Bregman, CEO of the Israel-based Comverse Ltd., told the
Jerusalem Post in May 2002.