FBI Arrests Bangladeshi Goldfinger in the Stupidest FBI Sting Yet
As you’ve no doubt heard, the FBI has arrested another pathetically feeble alleged terrorist in another one of its FBI concocted stings. The FBI says their latest mark’s name is Rezwanul Nafis, but I’m going to call him Goldfinger.
You see, along with all the normal reasons this guy is obviously either mentally disturbed or stupid–falling for the same “my buddy is a top Al Qaeda guy” line the FBI Narc uses every time–Goldfinger is even stupider.
He was going to bomb the Fed with 1,000 pounds of explosives (that would never have been enough explosives, but never mind).
And yet he had no plan to access the Fed’s gold vault. Best as I can tell, his plan was to bomb the Fed, and return to dirt poor Bangladesh and … Osama bin Laden!
Not only that, the FBI claims Goldfinger was reasonably informed about the Fed. He apparently targeted the Fed because it is so powerful.
I decided to attack the Federal Reserve bank of New York which is by far the largest (by assets), most active (by volume) and most influential of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks. New York Federal Reserve Bank implements monetary policy, supervises and regulates financial institutions and helps maintain the nation’s payment systems.
And yet this dude who knew–or repeated, for the FBI’s benefit–that the NY Fed was the most powerful of the Federal Reserve banks didn’t think to avail himself of the gold lying in a vault under the Fed.
Nevertheless, the FBI would like us to believe this was a credible plot.
Seriously, what kind of terrorist plots to attack the Fed, without making plans to take the gold?
Update: Oh wait, there’s more! Here’s what the FBI Acting Assistant Director in Charge Mary Galligan had to say about this latest, patently stupid FBI-made plot.
Attempting to destroy a landmark building and kill or maim untold numbers of innocent bystanders is about as serious as the imagination can conjure.
No! No it’s not!! If they leave the gold, the FBI hasn’t even begun using its collective imagination. Get to work, guys, you can do better!
The stupidity or naïveté of these terror-wanna-bes remind me in their gullibility of those home dwellers who always fell for the “land shark” trick in those very old Saturday Night Live episodes.
“Hey, are you FBI?”
“Uh, no, I’m a very high-up Al Qaeda guy.”
“Really?”
“Would I bullshit you?”
“I guess not.”
“Course not. Now do you want to be a martyr or not?”
“Seriously, what kind of terrorist plots to attack the Fed, without making plans to take the gold?”
I don’t know, Marcy. After Blankfein, Dimon, Pandit, et al. got through with FRBNY and its president, Tim Geithner, how do you know there was any gold left? Goldfinger could be sharper than you give him credit for.
Or . . .
Perhaps Goldfinger went after FRBNY precisely because the Wall Street terrorists went after it in 2008, kind of like the thief who steals someone’s old car stereo, then breaks in a month later once you’ve put in a brand new stereo that is actually worth stealing.
Or . . .
Goldfinger wanted to break in and blow stuff up, leaving the gold as a theological statement: “I despise the golden bull out on the sidewalk, the golden bullion in the basement, and the federally reserved bull spewed by the likes of Mr. Geithner and his lackeys.”
Or . . .
Wasn’t this the rejected plot script for Die Hard 3?
@Michael Sussmann: No, no, they take the gold, see, and put it in three Mini Coopers and… no, that’s been done. You’re right, it’s a Die Hard plot, those FBI guys are busy. In fact, didn’t we just see an announcement about a “new” government concern that sombody might try a cyberattack on the US power grid? They got that from Die Hard 4, right? Alrighty then.
@Jeffrey Kaye:
I like the reference to the S&L skit. Land shark redux indeed.
If this guy is Goldfinger, then Danny DeVito is James Bond.
“I’ll have a martini — shaken, not stirred. Oh, and a booster seat.”
OT: Don’t want to needlessly bring traffic to the following “nonpartisan” website, but this article (with today’s date) has me scratching my head about the timing.
Why now? Is anyone today talking about the illegal destruction of CIA torture tapes? Didn’t the CIA already win that one? Or is the Kiriakou defense team getting under someone’s skin? Emptywheel, read it if you must but while sitting down …and near a computer. It goes overboard trying to ignore everything you have unearthed about this chapter in US intelligence history.
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/the-cia-interrogation-tapes-remember-when-this-was-a-real-war/
Somehow this just feels right:
My reaction was that it was the usual FBI maneuver: they provide the plans, the money, the materials, and lots of encouragement, hoping their victim will agree to spy for them.
Also, I’d expect the Fed to be built like a fortress. (One of the few buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake was the US Mint. It still looks like a fortress, even though it’s no longer a mint.)
Okay, everyone. Now you know: if someone approaches you and claims to be “connected with al Qaida” you need to immediately shoot them dead.
Murder! You might say, but in fact you have EXACTLY as much legal justification as Obama had for killing Alawi.
Has the FBI ever caught any actual, real, terrorists?
@Snarki, child of Loki: Remember there was a case in W MI where a guy was being tracked by undercover FBI agents. He wasn’t supposed to know who they were, but when he rammed them with his car they charged him with assaulting federal officers.
@P J Evans: It is, as I understand it. Which is why the 1,000 pounds of explosives in a van sitting outside wouldn’t do the trick.
@KWillow: no
@emptywheel:
I don’t think that 1000 pounds of explosives inside the Fed would do much damage, either. Dropping it from a helicopter, maybe, simply from the mass of it.
I thought I’d run into this a while back. This page makes extensive use of google streetview and materials from the Avery Library at Columbia. I doubt there’s anything here that hasn’t been publicly available for a while.
http://cryptome.org/eyeball/gold-vault/gold-vault-frbny.htm
One of these days the FBI may facilitate real terrorists who know what they are doing and outwit the Feds.
@prostratedragon: Jeebus. So if this dude had just looked at Cryptome he’d have had a map to the gold?!?!
I, for one, feel much safer now that Goldfinger has been apprehended. Bump up the budget for Bloomberg’s army, I say! 35,000 police is not enough even though that force is larger than the police in several neighboring states and large cities combined. And there is not enough security for that fortress in lower Manhattan, so I think they should permanently close the streets around the Fed just like they did for the Stock Exchange and put more of these things in the middle of all the roads in the area.
See, this is just another reminder that the Obama admin. and the feds are tough on crime and terrorists and are keeping you safe. I’m glad that they chose to pop this sting just three weeks before an election so that everyone remembers that. Give them more powers! Give them more money! But most importantly (for another few weeks anyway), give them more votes!
I have to say that I am surprised that they haven’t connected him with Occupy yet though.
The most obvious sign of this being a fake, completely coordinated “attack” is that Arbabsiar plead guilty on the same day. It reminds me of a Hollywood franchise where we meet the villain for the sequel immediately after the hero saves the day and we think everything is going to be ok. The only thing that could possibly make this more movie-like if we were to find out that the Arbabsiar prosecutor, after finally deciding to give himself that much-needed vacation after a job well done, were to have found Goldfinger’s calling card on his windshield on his way to the airport.
@prostratedragon: Wow! thanks PD! From Avery, no less! The first drawing is the Sanborn map (fire insurance maps-lots of information). The other drawings are the real, old thing: linen sheets with wax, with etched lines. Classic!
@Jacob Muehlbauer: I did express some sadness that they’re in different districts (SDNY for Arbabsiar and EDNY for Goldfinger), so they couldn’t run into each other in a court room. But when I write my comedy based on all this, I’ll ignore that detail and put them in the same courtroom.
@emptywheel: That would be good as well, but I like to pretend that creating over-the-top/Hollywoodesque terror plots was part of both bombers master plan. Basically, they knew that they were dealing with FBI informants and planned on getting caught because they knew that a tiny segment of the population would assume that real terrorists don’t act like those from 24. They knew that you (and others) would blog about these events and slowly delegitimize the FBI. Then, when public trust eventually reaches an all-time low, Bin Laden’s protegee would emerge to finish off the West (and, of course, take the Fed’s gold). These terrorists play the long game!
Fortunately, in my movie, a plucky NGO worker stationed in Pakistan (played by Rachel Weisz) would somehow figure this out and save the world with help from a down-on-his-luck ex-Navy Seal and an up-and-coming prosecutor (college roomate?). Obviously, this would be a trilogy: the first movie would be about Arbabsiar; the second about this new guy; and the third would belong to the new Bin Laden.