Dark secrets of Jordanian King Abdullah and his daughter Princess Iman

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Before we reveal untold secrets of Princess Iman, the daughter of Jordanian King Abdullah II, we need to tell our readers, this newspaper has been banned by and our online edition blocked by the Jordanian king as we began exposing corruption and loot of the Jordanian royal family. On July 21, 2019, we published an exclusive report titled ‘King Abdullah and the members of Jordanian royal family will flee’, which was read by 9,0765,127 people just within 24 hours. Following this, King Abdullah II had ordered his men to ban BLiTZ and block access to its online edition, fearing the report may result in mass-revolt in the country. This exclusive report, our Senior Reporter Vijaya Laxmi Tripura stated:

Ruler of Jordan, King Abdullah is modern day’s nefarious thug who has been silently selling all of the public wealth and properties to various individuals and smuggling out hundreds of millions of dollars to his secret bank accounts in the West as well as into his hidden offshore bank accounts.

Our Jordan correspondent said, King Abdullah, a ruthless dictator has sold the country’s phosphate company, the harbor of Aqaba, telecommunication company, etc., to private investors and smuggled out hundreds of millions of dollars.

Abdullah’s wife Rania Al Abdullah, who was born in Kuwait to a Palestinian family [Rania’s parents are also connected to Hamas and Palestinian terrorists], had moved to Jordan for work, where she met the then Prince Abdullah. Since marrying the now King of Jordan in 1993, she has become known for her luxurious lifestyle and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in shopping in the Western countries. Rania is also an avid user of social media and she maintains pages on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.

According to our correspondent in Jordan, sources inside the Jordanian Palace has revealed shocking information about Rania, who is totally indulged into numerous forms of corruptions, while there also are rumors of the Jordanian queen having business connections with notorious terrorist Dawood Ibrahim’s D Company.

Rania was connected to Dawood Ibrahim’s racket through an envoy of Palestine in Jordan.

It may be mentioned here that, Dawood Ibrahim, a mafia don, controls the underworld money laundering, trafficking in narcotics and counterfeit Indian rupees. Due to Queen Rania’s involvement with Dawood’s network, Jordanian diplomatic missions are used in transporting contraband items, including narcotics and counterfeit Indian currency from one country to another by “diplomatic pouch”.

The source said, while the people of Jordan are mostly suffering from unemployment as well as struggling economy, members of the Jordanian royal family, particularly Queen Rania is living extremely posh life and building their wealth in the Western nations, while has also been building huge deposit in the secret bank accounts in Switzerland as well as the British Virgin Island. Most of the Jordanians see Rania as another Grace Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Our correspondent in Jordan said King Abdullah, as well as other members of the royal family currently, are taking preparations of fleeing the country by stealing public wealth.

It said, Princess Haya most possibly has inherited these rogue practices of her family.

In the opinion section of this report, a reader named Mona Lisa wrote:

Because they have nothing to do with Real Royal Hashemite family ….The all members of Real Hashemites has been killed and wiped at earlier 90th obviously when the hole [Whole] world’s history has been changed in one time includes Russia, Turkey etc …. That’s how King Hussein become a King….he’s came from “unknown” side for some “reason”…..Nobody knew from where he’s arrived…

We only know that he’s father died from schizophrenia.

But that’s only to wipe the reality for us stupid crowd.

The history was totally ruined and the real heroes and genuine royalties had been replaced everywhere worldwide by bunch of bastards and gangsters like King Hussein, ata- Turk, Lenin etc ….. If you wanna know history ask me…

King Abdullah II, the thief of Amman

In a report titled ‘Jordanian King Abdullah steals millions od dollars of aid money’, quoting International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), BLiTZ report said:

King Abdullah II bought 14 properties in the UK and the US for more than $106 million total using offshore companies between 2003 and 2017.

Jordanian protesters took to the streets – again – demanding an end to corruption and poverty in the aid-dependent Middle Eastern monarchy.  Masked police broke up the demonstrations and jailed critics of the country’s leaders.

Still, the people chanted for change.

Finally, in a bid to defuse the crisis, Jordanian authorities in June 2020 trumpeted a crackdown on hidden wealth, designed to help stanch the flow of an estimated $800 million a year out of the country.

Then-Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz said the crackdown was especially needed to respond to COVID-19’s impact on the state’s finances. Jordan would track every last dinar that citizens had hidden in tax havens, the prime minister said; No offshore wealth was beyond scrutiny.

None, it seems, except the king’s.

A trove of leaked documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shows that the country’s long-ruling monarch, King Abdullah II, has secretly owned 14 luxury homes in the United Kingdom and the United States, purchased between 2003 and 2017 through front companies registered in tax havens.  Their value totals more than $106 million.

The homes include a house in Ascot, one of England’s most expensive towns; multimillion-dollar apartments in central London and three luxury apartments in a complex in Washington, D.C., with panoramic views of the Potomac River.

Also included are three adjoining beachfront homes under reconstruction at Point Dume, a posh enclave near Los Angeles. One, a seven-bedroom mansion on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was bought in 2014 through one of the king’s shell companies, Nabisco Holdings (no connection to the cookie company), for $33.5 million.

Advisers to the 59-year-old monarch, who awards an annual prize for transparency in his name, spared no effort to conceal his real estate holdings, the records show. Accountants and lawyers in Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands formed shell companies on the king’s behalf and concocted plans to shield his name from public and even confidential government registries.

On two documents, BVI corporate administrators at the firm Alemán, Cordero, Galindo & Lee, better known as Alcogal,  checked boxes to declare that no one connected to one of the king’s companies was involved in politics – even though the king has the  power to appoint governments, dissolve Parliament and approve legislation.

Writing to ICIJ on the king’s behalf, attorneys denied anything improper about owning homes through offshore companies. The king is not required to pay taxes under Jordanian law, the attorneys said.

Experts familiar with the region say the timing of the purchases, if made public, would likely have alienated many Jordanians and the tribal leaders who help keep Abdullah in power. Most of the U.S. and U.K. real estate deals – and six of those for more than $5 million – took place since 2011, after Arab Spring protests that toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and posed the first serious threat to the Jordanian monarchy in generations.

Jordan is one of the poorest countries in the region. It has almost no oil of its own and precious little water. The kingdom depends on foreign aid to support its own people and to house and care for millions of refugees. Last year alone, the United States gave Jordan more than $1.5 billion in aid and military funding, and the European Union agreed to provide the kingdom with more than $218 million to soften the blow of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Jordan doesn’t have the kind of money that other Middle Eastern monarchies, like Saudi Arabia, have to allow a king to flaunt his wealth,” Dr. Annelle Sheline, an expert on religious and political authority in the Middle East, said in an interview with ICIJ. Sheline, a research fellow with the Quincy Institute in Washington, D.C., added, “If the Jordanian monarch were to display his wealth more publicly, it wouldn’t only antagonize his people, it would piss off Western donors who have given him money.”

Experts say Abdullah, whose subjects mock the way he speaks Arabic with an English accent, has little room for error.

This year, Jordanian police detained 16 people, including a member of the royal family, over an alleged plot to oust Abdullah. Prince Hamzah, the king’s younger half-brother, was temporarily placed under house arrest for his alleged role in the coup attempt. In a furtive video issued after a visit from the country’s intelligence services, Hamzah denied being part of any conspiracy.

“I am not the person responsible for the breakdown in governance, for the corruption and for the incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years and has been getting worse by the year,” Prince Hamzah said. “A ruling system has decided that its personal interests, that its financial interests, that its corruption is more important than the lives and dignity and futures of the 10 million people that live here.”

Jordanian officials accused Hamzah of a conspiracy that threatened national security. Hamzah did not accuse Abdullah of wrongdoing.

U.K. attorneys for the king said Abdullah has crucial legitimate security and privacy reasons for holding property in offshore corporations that have nothing to do with tax evasion or any other improper purpose. The king has never misused public monies or foreign aid, the attorneys wrote, adding Abdullah’s wealth comes from personal sources. Abdullah cares deeply for Jordan and its people and acts with integrity and in the best interests of his country and its citizens at all times, the attorneys said.

The attorneys said that most of the offshore companies either no longer exist or are not related to the king and that some of the properties identified by ICIJ as belonging to him did not. Attorneys declined to explain what the king considers inaccurate due to alleged privacy and security concerns for him and his family.

Jordanian King Abdullah’s offshore men

For the first time, protesters directed their ire at King Abdullah himself.

People chanted in the streets: “Oh, Abdullah son of Hussien, where did the people’s money go?

There are those stealing millions and the rest eating plain bread.”

The Pandora Papers investigation reveals that Abdullah has owned at least 36 front companies in secretive tax havens.

Email exchanges found among the leaked files show that for Abdullah’s financial advisers, concealing the king’s links to the companies, and the properties they acquired, was Job One.

One of the king’s guides into the offshore world was Victoria Loraine, a British lawyer living on the shores of Lake Geneva, who owned a Swiss wealth-management company, Sansa Suisse SA. Sansa Suisse helped Abdullah form one of his earliest shell companies, Guinevere Enterprises Ltd., created in 1995 in the British Virgin Islands, according to records, which don’t say what it was for.

Another guide was Loraine’s business partner, Andrew Evans, a British accountant. Evans spent more than two decades with the branch office of accounting giant PwC in the United Arab Emirates, according to his LinkedIn profile, before launching two wealth-management firms in Switzerland, Khalij Fiduciaire SA and FidiGere SA. Loraine and Evans were president and secretary, respectively, of Khalij Fiduciaire SA, according to Swiss company records.

Through his companies, Evans acted as one of the king’s primary wealth managers and keeper of records, according to correspondence between him and Alcogal.

Names of a few of the king’s offshore companies appear to have geographic or religious references: Quba Ltd. to one of Islam’s oldest mosques and  Zayer Ltd. to a word for tourists who visit holy places.

While the leaked documents don’t list the king’s individual properties, their location, details and value can be found by matching shell company names to public property records. Reporters identified 12 of the king’s companies as owners of real estate, including a $6.5 million condominium in Washington’s chic Georgetown neighborhood purchased in 2012 by Zayer Ltd. In 2016, the king’s son, Crown Prince Hussein, graduated with a diploma in international history from Georgetown University, a 10-minute walk from the luxury apartments.

The documents don’t reveal the exact purpose or assets of other shell companies owned by the king. Some are described as owning unspecified investments in the U.S. and Europe.

Two of the king’s three Malibu mansions are undergoing major changes, according to California planning records. One will be demolished and rebuilt at twice the size. The other, on a lot next to a state beach, will soon have a new swimming pool, a steel pergola and an imposing outdoor barbecue.

On a recent visit by reporters, the houses appeared empty. “Building a garage for the owner,” one workman, on a break, shouted over the fence as six of them sat inside the wooden shell of a future carport.

To the sound of weed wackers and barking sea lions, surfers in wetsuits walked past the king’s western-most home on their way to Big Dume Beach. “This is an amazing street,” said one neighbor on a morning walk.

‘You know who’

Alcogal’s office took charge of the king’s affairs in Panama and the British Virgin Islands from as early as 2007, according to records. It was a natural choice for a sovereign seeking secrecy.

A cluster of more than 50 Caribbean islands and cays east of Puerto Rico, the BVI has grown rich thanks to its financial sector. Creating and administering hundreds of thousands of shell companies for foreigners employs huddles of lawyers, accountants and others. Strict privacy laws and a top-down commitment to the offshore industry draw not only celebrities and politicians but also criminals.

Since the 1990s, Alcogal’s BVI office has helped customers create and operate front companies, according to ICIJ’s analysis of the law firm’s records.  Founded by the son of a Panamanian ambassador to the U.S. and other elite lawyers, Alcogal has become a leading provider of offshore and legal services for multinationals and global elites of all stripes.

Alcogal employees and Evans, Abdullah’s adviser, understood the importance of discretion. Alcogal employees referred to the king as a “final beneficiary” living in Jordan.  Evans preferred “you know who.”

The laws of the BVI and many other jurisdictions, including the U.S., require professional services firms like Alcogal to identify the possibility of money-laundering and other violations by their customers. Politicians and government officials are deemed “politically exposed” and especially susceptible to bribery and related crimes. BVI law provides for fines of up to $75,000 for each failure to identify or disclose such risks.

Yet, in February 2017, Alcogal checked “NO” next to a question on an internal Alcogal risk-assessment document that asked if anyone connected to any of the king’s companies was a politically exposed person, in other words, a politician or related to one.  The same document listed the king’s full name, date of birth and his residence as Amman’s sprawling, marble-floored Raghadan Palace.

Evans went to great lengths to ensure the king’s ownership of the front companies remained a secret.

In a 2016 draft business agreement with Alcogal, Evans’s FidiGere questioned when, where and to whom the sovereign’s name and offshore activities would be disclosed, according to a review of tracked changes and comments on the document.

As written by Alcogal, the agreement required the offshore firm to share information about the king’s ownership with BVI authorities in the event that foreign countries requested such information as part of criminal investigations. Evans demurred, wanting to know exactly who in the BVI could be told the whole truth: “Please would you define who is covered by the ‘authorities,’” he asked.

Evans modified the agreement to require that Alcogal further shield his “unusually sensitive clients.” According to his modification, Alcogal must store information received about such clients in hard-copy form only, making it less vulnerable to data leaks or human error, and provide access “only on a need-to-know basis.” The leaked documents do not say whether Alcogal accepted the modifications; the law firm continued to work with Evans and FidiGere after the agreement was discussed.

“Currently we only have one client who fits this category” of unusually sensitive clients, Evans wrote in the 2016 draft document. While he did not name the king or his companies directly, other documents sent around the same time mention Abdullah.

Evans was particularly worried about what could happen to the king’s passport. Evans agreed to provide Alcogal with an electronic copy but asked the firm to restrict access and secure it with a password. Alcogal complied.

With document-handling issues resolved, Alcogal and Evans confronted a thorny question: whether to declare to BVI authorities that the companies’ owner was the king of Jordan.

The BVI stepped up disclosure requirements in the wake of bombshell exposés of offshore secrecy, including ICIJ’s 2016 Panama Papers investigation. Under new laws, firms that help clients create BVI companies must provide authorities with the names of the actual owners – known as “ultimate beneficial owners.” The information is recorded on a confidential BVI government registry. Under BVI law, Alcogal must record such information even for companies that are later transferred to other tax havens like Panama, as were a number of the king’s.

According to the leaked documents, Evans, in emails, asked Alcogal to list on the confidential register one of Evans’ firms — Khalij Fiduciaire or FidiGere – instead of the king.

Alcogal’s compliance officer in the BVI found that recording one of Evans’ companies as the beneficial owner of the king’s shell businesses was possible, according to an email from 2017. But the compliance officer also declared that doing so flouted at least the spirit of the new law, which sought to clean up the island’s reputation as a haven for dirty money. The law also required Alcogal to provide ownership information “without delay,” the compliance officer wrote, and listing Khalij or FidiGere “does not facilitate the ‘without delay’ part” of the law.

Hakim Creque, an attorney at prominent BVI law firm, Martin Kenney & Co., told ICIJ that a sovereign acting in a personal capacity “should be reported as the beneficial owner.”

Alcogal’s files do not record the final decision. In a response to ICIJ, Alcogal declined to comment on individual cases, but said it accurately recorded BVI company owners in line with applicable law. The firm said that it conducts enhanced background checks on all politically-connected individuals. Due diligence laws have changed over time in countries where Alcogal operates, it said.

Evans told ICIJ media partner in Switzerland, online and print publisher Tamedia, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he is retired and no longer works for the king. He did not answer questions. The king’s attorneys told ICIJ that professionals manage the king’s companies to ensure compliance with relevant legal and financial obligations.

In 2018, after the email exchange, Abdullah was still grappling with the anti-tax protests that had gripped the country, where the median yearly salary is $7,620. After appointing al-Razzaz as Jordan’s new prime minister, the king held a public meeting with palace-approved newspaper editors and journalists.

The king reassured the public that he understood their economic pain. “State institutions must adopt a method of action based on transparency and accountability,” he said.

On October 14, 2021, we published another opinion-editorial titled ‘Jordanian King Abdullah and looters within his circle’, which stated:

The details are an embarrassing blow to Jordanian king Abdullah, 59, whose government was engulfed in scandal this year when his half-brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah, accused the “ruling system” of corruption and incompetence….

How Jordanian royals are looting country’s wealth?

While uncle of Jordanian King Abdullah II was sentenced in abstention to 18 years of hard labor in jail and fined US$268 million on corruption charges, no one utters a word about massive corruption, loot of public wealth and money-laundering of King Abdullah II, his wife Queen Rania, their children and other members of the Jordanian royal family, including Princess Haya and her full-brother Prince Ali.

The charges against Walid Al-Kurdi, married to Jordan’s King Abdullah II’s aunt Princess Basma Bint Talal, relate to his work as head of the state-owned mining company Jordan Phosphate Mines (JPMC). As its former CEO and chairman for six years, Al-Kurdi abused his position and engaged in corruption in relation to six investment contracts in the Shidiya mine in southern Jordan.

Judicial authorities have been after Al-Kurdi since December 2012, when Jordan’s Anti-Corruption Commission froze his assets after suspecting corrupt practice in shipping deals made between JPMC and foreign companies.

A year later a Jordanian court convicted Al-Kurdi in absentia. He had fled to the UK shortly before his trial on the same charges of corruption and abuse of office. His assets were frozen, he was supposed to pay a fine and he was sentenced to over 37 years of hard labor.

In 2017, Jordanian authorities issued an Interpol red notice against him and appealed to the UK’s home secretary to have him extradited.

It may be mentioned here that, Jordanian King Abdullah II has provided shelter to FBI’s Most Wanted Notorious terrorist and a member of mega-terror outfit Hamas, Ahlam Tamimi.

Ahlam Ahmad Al-Tamimi has been charged with participating in an August 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two United States nationals.  Four other United States nationals were among approximately 122 others injured in the attack.  An affidavit in support of Al-Tamimi’s criminal complaint and a warrant for her arrest were sworn out under seal on July 15, 2013, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, DC, and were made public on March 14, 2017.

According to FBI, this Most Wanted Terrorist uses several aliases such as,

Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, Ahlam Arafat Mazin Al Tamimi, Ahlam Arif Ahmad Al Tamimi, Ahlam Aref Ahmad Altamimi, Ahlam Arif Ahmad Altamimi, Ahlam Araf Ahmad Tamimi, Ahlam Aref Ahmad Tamimi, Ahlam Aref Ahmed Tamimi, Ihlam Araf Ahmad Tamimi, Achlam Tamimmi, Ahlam Araf Ahmed Tmimi, “Halati”, and “Khalti”.

At frantic bids of Jordanian King Abdullah II and Qatari regime, Ahlam Tamimi, the Interpol Red Notice was erased and her name removed from INTERPOL’s ‘Most Wanted’ list.

In 2013, the US Justice Department filed criminal charges against Tamimi, but the country is refusing to extradite her to the US for trial.

Nizar Tamimi, also known as a convicted murder in Palestine and Ahlam Tamimi’s husband, wrote on Facebook, “Our struggle will continue until her file is completely closed, and we will meet after our prolonged separation and enjoy the free, stable life for which we have yearned”.

By providing shelter and even working on behalf of this nefarious Palestinian terrorist, Jordanian King Abdullah II has proved – he is a terror-patron and an individual who extends support to killers of Americans and Jews.

The corrupt Jordanian King Abdullah II has also provided shelter to Iraqi deposed ruler Saddam Hussein’s daughter Raghat Hussein, who has been continuing funding terrorist organizations, including Islamic State (ISIS), and it is also alleged that several members of the Jordanian royal family are having business partnership with Raghat Hussein, while there are also allegations of King Abdullah II and his wife and children buying properties in the Western countries on behalf of Raghat Hussein.

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