CIA Crimes · Investigation · 1991–2010
The banker who was running the CIA on 9/11.
Buzzy Krongard built the brokerage through which the largest cluster of pre-9/11 airline puts was routed. That day, he was the CIA's #3. Both are documented. Neither proves the other.
SOME SMOKE
§2 · Thesis
The documented facts are striking; the sinister reading is unproven. We carry both — and refuse to turn a question into a verdict.
FACT spine: the anomaly, the bio, the routing, the secrecy, the Blackwater conflict. The insider-trading inference stays SOME SMOKE.
§5 · Graded Claim
The pre-9/11 put-option anomaly is real — and three peer-reviewed studies found it consistent with informed trading.
FACT
UAL puts jumped ~27→2,000 on Sept 6 (put/call ~105:1); AMR ~285x normal on Sept 10; Morgan Stanley and Merrill (both at/near the towers) spiked too. Poteshman (2006), Chesney/Crameri/Mancini (2015), and a third team independently flagged abnormal, informed-trading-consistent activity. Not fringe — peer-reviewed.
§5 · Graded Claim
Krongard went from chairman of Alex. Brown to Executive Director of the CIA — six months before the attacks.
FACT
CEO of Alex. Brown (1991), chairman (1994) while consulting for CIA directors; joined the agency full-time under Tenet (1998); promoted to Executive Director — the #3 job, effectively COO — on March 16, 2001. Documented in a public SEC proxy filing.
§5 · Graded Claim
The largest cluster of pre-9/11 United puts was routed through Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown — the firm Krongard built.
FACT
Alex. Brown → Bankers Trust (1997) → Deutsche Bank (1999). Contemporary reporting traced the biggest UAL put cluster to that brokerage. Krongard had left for the CIA years earlier; the link is that he built it. His successor Mayo Shattuck resigned Sept 12, 2001 — the day after — with no public explanation.
§5 · Graded Claim
The SEC found no advance-knowledge trading, traced the puts to a hedge fund — then classified the report and destroyed the files.
FACT
'We have not developed any evidence' of advance-knowledge trading; 95% of Sept 6 UAL puts traced to one US hedge fund's bearish bet. But the SEC redacted the name, classified the report, fought FOIA for 8 years (released 2010, still partly blacked out), and — its own IG found — destroyed the 'Matters Under Inquiry' files. The clearance is unverifiable by design.
§5 · Graded Claim
Krongard wired the CIA to Blackwater and joined its board — and his brother, the State Dept watchdog, lied under oath about it.
FACT
As CIA Executive Director he connected the agency to Blackwater (its first govt contract: $5.4M no-bid, Kabul, April 2002); joined Blackwater's advisory board after leaving in 2004. His brother Howard, State Dept Inspector General, denied the tie under oath (Nov 14, 2007), then corrected himself when shown Erik Prince's invitation letter. No inference needed.
▦ Still unknown
The SEC asked 'did al-Qaeda trade?' and answered no. The question it never put on the record: 'who else might have known?'
This line is still blank
'Was it al-Qaeda?' and 'did anyone with foreknowledge trade?' are not the same question. The broader one — and whether the finance/intelligence overlap around this brokerage was ever examined — doesn't appear in the public record. A question, not a verdict.
Help us fill it →§7 · Why it matters now
Secrecy is what turns a coincidence into a suspicion.
Name the cleared investor and publish the work, and this is a closed case with a strange footnote. Instead the SEC classified it, litigated for eight years, and destroyed the files — guaranteeing the coincidence would never die. The damage isn't always the crime; sometimes it's the refusal to let anyone check.
▸ CIA Crimes →
▦ Ledger gaps
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenWe assert NO foreknowledge or trading by Krongard — there is no evidence, and the SEC traced the biggest bet to an unrelated hedge fund.
- OpenCoincidence of position is not participation; anomalous trading is not criminal; Shattuck's resignation has no established 9/11 link.
Help fill these →