NUGAN HAND BANK -- WAS THERE CLOAK & DAGGER UNDER THE NOSE OF MAS (PART I)

No matter how strict the banking regulators, how incorruptible and well-qualified its personnel, and how good the legislation, no country is spared the occasional crisis of financial fraud, huge credit defaults, money-laundering, and bank failures.

Singapore has had its fair share. The worst on the patch was the 1995 failure of Barings Bank due to fraudulent options trading conducted by its Singapore branch. Much has been written and spoken about the affair but none has ever suggested attribution to regulatory failure. In my humble opinion, a policy meant to shield MAS personnel from influence buying takes some blame. During my time in the banking industry, MAS personnel were basically forbidden to accept even lunch invitations from the banking fraternity. Their absence from the drinking holes and other socialising functions meant they were like generals commanding from HQ, unwary of what's going on in the foxholes. They do not have their hands on the pulse, thus missing out on critical intel. For example, in the case of Barings, regulatory personnel had no idea what the market had long suspected was going on at their options trading desk. MAS was two or three steps behind.

More serious a matter is where a financial entity is being operated by foreign governments or agents for cloak and dagger operations. Has there been any in Singapore?

I blogged about Nugan Hand Bank last year in the article on "Truman shows".

"Back in 1978 when I was working in a bank, I had lunch with a friend one day. I shall conceal any trace to ID this friend. Just suffice to say I found him a very mysterious and mystical character given to access to some information that few have. He seems to have a knack for any subject matter that creeps up in idle conversation and acquainted either directly or indirectly with personalities referenced. I had long suspected him to be working for some Intelligence organisation. On his part, he enjoys my company because he said, unlike most ordinary folks, I could engage him in all sorts of unusual subject matter, a compliment I attribute to my scattered interests and I was widely read at the time, devouring magazines like Newsweek, The Economist, Time Magazine, Financial Times etc.

Over lunch that day, I brought up the matter of Nugan Hand Bank opening a branch in Singapore. He asked what I thought of the matter. I felt it strange that MAS should approve the licence for a bank that had hardly any history (it was incorporated in Australia in 1973), without any reciprocity which has been MAS policy, and owned by a couple of guys no one in the industry knew. He told me he knew one of the co-founders, Michael Hand, back in Vietnam War days. According to him, Hand was a decorated Green Beret, but was already dabbling in drugs during the war. Nugan Hand was set up as CIA banker, sourcing funds from drug operations. Today one can google and dive deep into the CIA-drugs-gun running-money laundering operations of Nugan Hand. But back in 1978 we had no access to any info. Of course I took my friend's claims with a pinch of salt. Then to my amazement, in 1980 Frank Nugan, the partner of Hand, was found dead in a car in Australia, execution style. The bank collapsed in 1980 under a cloud of massive fraud and criminal activities including drug trafficking. Hand disappeared, lots of international investigation and inquiries, but no one went to jail. Except one - the accountant Mr. Tan who ended up in Singapore jail on account of the fact he was the Local Principal of the branch. Innocent chap, the sacrificial goat to close the chapter in Singapore."

As to why MAS issued a banking licence to a practically unheard of entity which operated a branch in the Golden Triangle of Burma, let's just label it under "mystery".

To make sense of all these, we should take a look at how MAS handled another interesting foreign bank application. BCCI was founded by Pakistani private banker Agha Hasan Abedi. It was incorporated in Luxembourg in 1972 . It counted Middle Eastern royalties amongst its shareholders. At its height, BCCI was one of the largest private banking groups in the world with a presence in 69 countries.

BCCI desired to set up a branch in Singapore and submitted an application for an offshore banking licence in 1973. It was rejected as the bank had no track record. In following years, BCCI doggedly sent their executives to meet MAS managers. One such lobbyist was Van Oenen, head of BOA Singapore, who was one time a BCCI director when BOA was a shareholder. Van Oenen was well-known to MAS, having helped advise the setting up of the Asian Currency Unit. In 1980 BCCI re-applied unsuccessfully. MAS rejected BCCI again, this time on grounds of its poor international standing. Van Oenen met with Dy PM Goh Keng Swee and Finance Minister Hon Sui Sen to appeal for reconsideration. MAS re-studied the status of BCCI and denied the request. BCCI tried again in 1985 with a letter of recommendation from British PM Harold Wilson to Lee Kuan Yew. Once again, MAS did not approve the application.

MAS' decision had considered feedback from banks and regulators in the jurisdictions where BCCI operated, advices of other central bankers and international banks, and its own instincts when reviewing the bank. One key issue was BCCI used different auditors in different branches and there was a lack of consolidated supervision. MAS stressed their decisions were never "dazzled or intimidated by well-known names or high-powered connections", or majority opinion, but strictly disciplined on "principles of ensuring that any institution admitted to Singapore must have high prudential standards, a strong international reputation, and management with integrity."

MAS was proven right when BCCI collapsed in 1991 with US$15b missing from its balance sheet, making it the biggest bank fraud in world history. The bank moved dark and dirty money of mafias, human and drug traffickers, weapons' traders, corrupt money of dictators and despots. It loaned huge sums to shareholders.

In his memoir, Lee Kuan Yew mentioned this episode. He had concluded Harold Wilson's letter was merely a pro-forma he signed doing someone a favor. It was not a personal appeal to him. He had observed the endearment "Yours Sincerely" was type written. It should have been hand written in a personal letter. On that score he supported MAS' decision to reject the BCCI yet again. One wonders had the letter been personal, would Lee Kuan Yew have been 'dazzled' by Harold Wilson's recommendations and override MAS' decision?

MAS' disciplined approach to vet applicants is to be lauded. But the question no one asks is why did it not apply in the case of Nugan Hand Bank? In fact, Nugan Hand was not an isolated case. The same level of rigour in assessing applicants was also not applied in the case of Tat Lee Bank.


Coming up -  Part 2 (Moscow Narodny Bank)

This platform has withdrawn it's subscriber widget. If you like blogs like this and wish to know whenever there is a new post, click the button to my FB and follow me there. I usually intro my new blogs there. Thanks.

IS THE GOVERNMENT ALWAYS ON TOP OF EVENTS AND NEVER BLINDSIDED?

In 2018 ACRA refused the registration of OSEA Pte Ltd by Thum Ping Tjin and Kirsten Han. OSEA’s mission was to provide editorial services to New Narratif and organise fora, workshops and other events. New Narratif is an online news outfit based in Kuala Lumpur where Thum is managing director and Kirsten is editor-in-chief. ACRA’s justification was OSEA and NN have political agendas. NN is funded by foreign entities and foreign subscribers. More specifically, NN receives grants from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. Soros is the most evil man on planet Earth who enjoys creating chaos all over the world under the guise of philanthropy, and then swooping in to extract his pound of flesh. Ukraine is the hottest spot in the world today that is on the brink of nuclear war, and Soros’ OSF has it’s dirty finger prints all over the place.

Thum and Kirsten can play coy and innocent, but the duo ain’t Kenneth Jeyaratnam, Leong Mun Wai, Goh Meng Seng, Chris Kwan, Sudhir Vadaketh, Teo Soh Lung, Lim Tean,  and many others, this blogger included, who criticise and question the government where we dim fit. We are voices of the citizenry who meant well for the country we love. OSEA has bigger objectives for South East Asia. It was to be registered as a fully owned company of Observatory Southeast Asia UK. NN KL is fully owed by NN UK. Thum is on the board of both UK entities. Ownership of these UK companies are unknown. It is quite clear there are dark motives planned for OSEA.

Am I unforgivably harsh on Thum and Kirsten? Head down to newnarrative.com and what do we see – a dive into current hot societal changing topics that have done irreparable cultural damages to US and other western countries, namely transgenderism, ‘my body my life’ under the guise of re-productive health, binary non-binary nonsense. All right out off Sorros’ OSF playbook, how sweet. Rome didn’ t fall in one day. It will take thousands of newnarratifs to plant the seeds and generations to poison minds in our part of the world to plunge into the woke insanity of the West.

My point on OSEA incident is simply this. I applaud ACRA’s pre-emptive strike against OSEA. However, while Singapore government is well-informed and acts fast and tough, it does so only when one strays into it’s turf. In OSEA’s case, control over media and information dissemination. Yet in other areas which presents national risks, it has often offered concessions andperhaps late on the learning curve. A few examples will illustrate this.

Read my old blog on Nugan Hand

Nugan Hand Bank is a mystery. Surely MAS knew this was a CIA bank deeply involved in drug trafficking and money-laundering. Yet it was granted a banking licence.

Surely the government is aware WHO is a captured international institution. Philanthropy capitalism may be a recent economic term, but it has manifested itself far and wide in the last decade. Yet Singapore is so eager to cooperate and sign over our sovereignty with the new Pandemic Treaty. Minister Josephine Teo recently took a huge entourage to EU to take part in a workshop on how to control the citizenry in the next pandemic they know is coming.

Smart city is a term I am wary and sick of hearing. To show off our one-up progressiveness, we die die must be at the forefront of technology or what ever new market developments. So we jump start 5G gadgetry with absolutely zero study nor concern of dangerous health issues from radiation. Let’s not put impediments in the path of huge corporations waiting to cash in on IOT (internet of things). 5G radiation and graphene nanoparticles of the mRNA vaccines in our bodies might well be a perfect storm coming. No one is safe. Even if you are proudly un- vaccinated, you are likely to have the graphenes through shedding.

Read three years ago I blogged the retail electricity system is not sustainable.

We divested power generation plants to foreign entities on an ego-driven trip to build the first open market electricity system in Asean which has failed. I blogged some time back on why the retail electricity model is not sustainable and will collapse under certain circumstances. That has already come to pass.

Read three years ago I blogged why Singapore MRT model is inferior to HK MRT 

The Singapore MRT model condemns riders to perpetual cost-driven ticket price increases. This is because SMRT has only farebox revenue and lacks other sources of income to subsidise cost. And the reason is 'land value capture' in Singapore accrues to a renter class. Whereas HK MTR reaps the benefit of higher values of land around the station to provide a source of funds to socialise costs.

In January this year, Minister Josephine Teo cut the ribbon for SICPA’s new regional HQ in Asia. SICPA is the world leader in secure track and trace solutions for governments. It owns the patent for a special colour-shifting ink used in printing currency notes that prevents counterfeiting. It is also used to print excise duty stamps. Whilst we are so eager for technology plays, never mind it is just a HQ, I wonder if Teo is aware this low-key secretive Swiss company with world wide businesses has been consistently complained to buying their way into the market, often by corrupting politically connected persons as ‘local consultant. Example in Philippines during the Arroyo admin, they used the nephew of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. They were under investigation in 14 countries. Cozy Davos connection can do wonders. 14 countries dwindled down to 3. Investigations took almost 10 years and finally last month, Swiss authorities found them US$91m for bribery in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. Singapore likes to boast use of latest technology. Let’s see if we will use SICPA tax stamps. Kenya claimed SICPA tax stamps bumped up the prices of a range of consumer products.

Singapore likes to suck up to latest technology to be top of the class. What else can best explain the blind faith in an untested novel vaccine. Why do the best brains in the world rush to inject trade secret ingredients into our bodies, more or less by coercion, for a relatively low threat infection? When the world by now has realised the pandemic scam, the ineffectiveness of the vaccines, the irreparable harm to humanity of the mRNA spike proteins in our bodies, Singapore remains fixated on pushing for boosters and getting kidos to take the jabs.

Read almost two years ago I blogged about Duke-NUS collaboration in the Wuhan Covid research project

Victoria Nuland, US diplomat or under-secretary of one department or another, an evil American who has her hands dirtied in many corners of the world, had admitted to having 26 biolabs in Ukraine. The DOD (US Department of Defence) later upped the numbers to 46. Why am I talking about all this? It’s the irreverent question – does Singapore cooperate with the DOD in any medical research projects? One wonders in the first place what is ‘defence’ doing in biological research. I blogged previously that Duke-NUS had a role in the Wuhan-Fauci gain of function project on a DARPA grant. A local institution sponsored by a grant from a foreign DOD to engage in biological research work, and our authorities know nothing? Neither believable nor forgivable.

Why am I bitching about this? You see, by law, Americans cannot conduct a lot of dangerous biological research work in US. So the delinquent and lawless DOD outsourced to foreign lands. This is a big problem that has crept closer to home. There are several US military biological research labs in Indonesia and Philippines. US has conducted certain biological research work which irked our 2 Asean neighbours. With our prowess in science and technology, our coziness with US, and most importantly, our interest in life sciences, both as economy drivers and investment targets, easily makes a US-Singapore partnership a no-brainer. I am wondering if we are actively collaborating in any dangerous research.

For a list of US labs in low resource countries, click here. Of course they declare all those non-military research work carried out. It’s the dual function research that they do not declare which matters.

This platform has withdrawn it's subscriber widget. If you like blogs like this and wish to know whenever there is a new post, click the button to my FB and follow me there. I usually intro my new blogs there. Thanks.

SOVEREIGNTY OF SINGAPORE PART 2 - SECURE FRONT GATE, OPEN BACKDOOR

把老虎挡在前门，狼却从后门进来。

(While keeping a tiger from the front door, the wolf comes in at the back)

In Part 1 I wrote about the dangers of pacifism. Implied is my acceptance of budget spendings on top notch military hardware such as F-35's and submarines. An army constrained by manpower must of necessity build its capacity on the best array of military hardware that it can afford. I leave it to the small group of Singaporeans tasked with the macro and micro managing of the nation's security to employ our scarce resources optimally. In a few short years the government has achieved more that what it initially set out to do. A citizen's army is in place and the country has land, sea and air defence capabilities with enhanced tenacity from superb military hardware. All these done with constraints no other military in the world has to grapple with - the lack of space for training in all 3 spheres of land, sea and air. It requires the galvanising of diplomacy to obtain training facilities in far away friendly nations and massive logistical support capabilities. It is not an easy task. The creme de la creme is Singapore acquired technical capabilities to manufacture our own munitions, overhaul or modify weapons, even to build naval vessels.

A side track. I remember Singapore's first attempt to build a naval vessel so many years ago. A friend of mine went out with that first vessel on several sea trials. He described the instability when it picked up speed and listed slightly. By now, Singapore has advanced far right of the learning curve. 

Overall, Singapore has done well. The country's front gate is adequately secure.

Do not misinterpret my opener as out-of-character condescension to authority. Nothing is perfect. There will be leakages, human errors, policy misalignments etc. I take pride in doing my share of sacrifice of 3 years fulltime combat role in the army and 2 rounds of reservist training. Now I consider it a civic responsibility to remain engaged and speak out without fear or favour on perceived shortcomings, not to inveigh on the authorities but offer feedback from the ground and initiate useful discussions.

While the front gate is well secured, the backdoor is open to infiltration that threatens our sovereignty. Have we let in any wolves by the back door? Perchance we may have. Backdoor infiltration are of the covert type that is difficult to detect, full of deceit to ulterior motives, involves players with skin in the game planning chess moves over decades. Let me narrate the possibilities.

Klaus Schwab wants to be the emperor of the new world order. The NWO agenda is no longer a conspiracy theory. It is out in the open now although opinions differ as to who are the people behind it. My personal thinking is it is some old families with long traditions operating out of the City of London. Klaus Schwab is the public figure. Using his World Economic Forum platform, Schwab has galvanised filthy rich elites from big pharma, big tech, media, celebrities, transnational institutions and public officials to their plans for a new world of utopia for elites and dystopia for the masses.

Whether you are a believer or not, for our purpose here, let's just assume it is true. We should then ask the question. Are there any amongst us who insidiously work in furtherance of Schwab's agenda, whether with full knowledge of their ulterior objectives, or unknowingly carrying out instructions because WEF public initiatives seem enticing, what with saving the world from climate change, smart cities, smart people, etc. It is a fact the government supports many initiatives of WEF. I think our government sees consonance in our need for international open trade with the globalist agenda of WEF. The government of Singapore faithfully follows every WEF meeting, sending big contingents to Davos now and then, was very disappointed for the cancellation of the WEF meet in Singapore due to Covid.

The government was right to ban people like Zakir Naik, Ron Fuyushima and the 4 Roman Catholic priests (see my blog). I think Yuval Noah Harari should be added to the list. Harari, to whom technology is the new religion, is emblematic of WEF. On the surface, a provocative historian with interesting projections of the human species, but in reality, a Schwab inner circle propagating and normalising a 'brave New World' of biologically and cyborg-engineered part-inorganic homo sapiens in a dystopian future plugged into some central control AI gadgetry that makes them enjoy everlasting pleasure in a distorted reality. Schwab's infamous quote " You will own nothing but be happy".

Schwab has boasted publicly in an interview of WEF having infiltrated many governments, and in the recent Jakarta summit he basically said he wants to be the emperor of the NWO. Kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, titans of industries, are on board his ship. Do you really think Singapore is immune? Has Singapore been infiltrated?

The World Health Organisation  used to be a respected transnational body. No more. It has been captured by philanthropy capitalism.  Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, presides under a disquiet of the heavy influence of Bill Gates, an un-elected non-medical billionaire who can speak over the heads of the medical profession on matters of vaccine, treatment and handling of pandemic outbreaks. 

In the Covid pandemic, WHO seemed to bow to the dictates of the same narrative coming from EU and US. Singapore followed suit with quite similar practices and non-transparency in data dissemination. There was a lack of independent thinking, whether due to a beholden condescension to the West, or duty bound by some regulation. 

WHO, espousing same sentiments as Bill gates, want a single global approach to handling the next pandemic and sought to get this wrapped up in a new pandemic treaty. A treaty is a country contract. By international law, if WHO and Bill Gates have their way, all signatory countries will surrender sovereignty to them in the next pandemic. Several countries are enthusiastic about this, including Singapore which took part in the last WHO meeting to wrap up the draft treaty. Why does Singapore always want to be at the front of the class in all these international initiatives, but never seek townhall meeting with constituents to explain and seek input.   

Climate change is one of those front page issues the WEF wants to lead. A lot of the sciences aren't really settled, and a lot of new data from satellite observations contradict some narratives pushed down on us. Whilst I'm all for doing what we can, either individually or as a country, help not damage the environment, why should we believe a bunch of elites who come to meetings in their fossil fuel burning private jets, dictate what we should do? I'm all for getting rid of fossil fuel, but let's first work on the substitutes. Once again, Singapore wants to be the goody goody kid sitting at the front row in class who shoot his hand up to volunteer all the time. We want to be first in class. And whilst we work feverishly to achieve carbon zero and kill Singaporeans with punitive carbon tax, our carbon footprint is so tiny that it has basically zero impact in the world. Meanwhile, the 2 countries with the highest carbon footprint are coal pushers, the carbon levels in the atmosphere hasn't changed much, and coral beds all over the world are reviving.

It's a good thing that, unlike pandemic treaty, Paris Accord is voluntary. Yet we are eager beavers to extract citizen economic sacrifice as if in abeyance to an unseen sovereign.

Philiantrophy activism  in my opinion, is one of the most dangerous form of modern day infiltration to incubate sleeper cells of individuals who may not even realise they are being turned or manipulated for certain ends.  The vast wealth accumulated by some elites have turned them into powerful beings who realise they can enjoy tax benefits from philanthropy and at the same time, get to play sovereign on issues or politics of their choice. The most infamous of these players is of course George Soros. There are many others, such as Pierre Omidyar, Bill Gates. Soros has his Open Society and probably a hundred other NGOs camouflaged in names with the word 'Democrat' as pre-fix. Soros is a monster for chaos, from which he can extract unimaginable profit. A Jew who partnered Hitler in the slaughter of fellow Jews, because in his own words, if he doesn't do it, others will, might as well he benefits. Open Society was very much engaged in the demonstration that resulted in a regime change that brought  US-backed Petro Poroshenko to power in Ukraine. In Singapore, Open Society backed the proposed media New Narratif which the vigilant ACRA refused to approve. Not too long ago, AWARE president made some comments that seemed like canned woke talking points of the liberal left in the US. Was it it just accidental or is there something going on. We hope our public agencies are vigilant to many of these activist billionaires.  

Fauci and the vaccine cabal. It is a known fact Fauci and big pharma have been caught buying over medical professionals to control the vaccine narrative. By now, Western government narrative of vaccine is falling apart with whistle blowers, new data, excess death information, documents and revelation coming out of several important court cases. Yet Singapore is still sticking to the same old narrative. Is there a reason for this? Does Singapore have any covert role in this Fauci shenanigan. I suggested a relook at NUS-Duke University participation in my 25 Sep 2021 blog. The latest todate is Senator Kennedy revealing that Fauci is the one that executes the bioweapon programme of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Was NUS-Duke an unwitting participant?

Nugan Hand Bank which I blogged on 26 Nov 2022 is an obvious example of servile accomodation to US international intrigue. To deny otherwise is to believe in MAS malfeasance in approving a licence to an entity that had hardly any footprints in banking. Another incident which I heard a long time ago details of which I cannot publicise, involved the transportation of some captured Russian military hardware. Singapore provided the assistance of transportation to avoid detection. I have to say it was just hearsay. 

International Standards Organisation. I include this here to show how a wolf can easily get into the backdoor. ISO is an international body and Singapore is a member. Whatever ISO sets, we comply. Not too long ago, President Biden issued an Executive Order that demanded Amex and Mastercard include a special code for gun purchases. This was what media said. It will allow the Deep State to have tracking ability of gun sales which intrudes their Second Amendment rights. Both Amex and Mastercard complied but a week ago, for reasons unknown, they flipped. The truth of the matter is Biden issued no such orders to the credit card companies. It was ISO that Biden compelled to set a new code for the credit cards to follow. In other words, ISO an international organisation, took instructions from Biden. How can this be tolerated by members? Of course this code is irrelevant to Singapore but this incident illustrates how easy it is for the wolf to get in by the back door.

Monetary sovereignty. MAS is working on 2 CBDC (central bank digital currency) projects Ubin+ and Project Dunbar. These are for wholesale international settlements. The MAS has completed a study on retail CBDC and concluded it is not economically viable for the moment.

There is a real fear that western governments are preparing retail CBDC that will be a dystopian system of control. CBDC will lead to a social credit score. Every single individual's monetary transactions will be captured in a gigantic database and access to the system is a simple means for political control. Step out of line and your card will be denied access and you have no means of making any purchase. 

Is the current banking crisis an engineered one. Will they collapse all the regional banks and then roll out the CBDC? Personally I doubt so, for the simple reason CBDC is not ready any time soon. Nevertheless, people the world over ought to be vigilant over this development. If there is one weapon the dictators can exert absolute control over everyone, this is it.

Will MAS maintain its sovereignty or play second fiddle and eventually participate in a dystopian one world CBDC? That would be the biggest wolf of all.

Conclusion:

The government watches the front gate for the tigers. Singaporeans should watch the backdoor for the wolves. We can only do so with the courage to speak out, to question and to seek clarity.

This platform has withdrawn it's subscriber widget. If you like blogs like this and wish to know whenever there is a new post, click the button to my FB and follow me there. I usually intro my new blogs there. Thanks.

MAS-NUGAN HAND LICENCE, FTX, ELON MUSK-TWITTER ALL TRUMAN SHOWS?

A caveat : The events you are about to read are true. The evaluations are purely my imagination extended from my humble worldly knowledge.

The Truman Show was a movie about a world of simulated reality. The protagonist Truman Burbank was played by Jim Carey. Truman was raised and lived in a huge movie set that was his entire world. He never knew he was living in a created world and his daily life was streamed as a reality show. Everything around him was false.

Of course, not everything in our world is false. But internet has unmasked much concealment and we have glimpses of reality every now and then. Often when we let imagination run wild with our skepticalg minds, we enter the realm of conspiracy theories and see shadows lurking. Then again, many conspiracy theories are actually truths running ahead of breaking news.

Back in 1978 when I was working in a bank, I had lunch with a friend one day. I shall conceal any trace to ID this friend. Just suffice to say I found him a very mysterious and mystical character given to access to some information that few have. He seems to have a knack for any subject matter that creeps up in idle conversation and acquainted either directly or indirectly with personalities referenced. I had long suspected him to be working for some Intelligence organisation. On his part, he enjoys my company because he said, unlike most ordinary folks, I could engage him in all sorts of unusual subject matter, a compliment I attribute to my scattered interests and I was widely read at the time, devouring magazines like Newsweek, The Economist, Time Magazine, Financial Times etc. 

Over lunch that day, I brought up the matter of Nugan Hand Bank opening a branch in Singapore. He asked what I thought of the matter. I felt it strange that MAS should approve the licence for a bank that had hardly any history (it was incorporated in Australia in 1973), without any reciprocity which has been MAS policy, and owned by a couple of guys no one in the industry knew. He told me he knew one of the co-founders, Michael Hand, back in Vietnam War days. According to him, Hand was a decorated Green Beret, but was already dabbling in drugs during the war. Nugan Hand was set up as CIA banker, sourcing funds from drug operations. Today one can google and dive deep into the CIA-drugs-gun running-money laundering operations of Nugan Hand. But back in 1978 we had no access to any info. Of course I took my friend's claims with a pinch of salt. Then to my amazement, in 1980 Frank Nugan, the partner of Hand, was found dead in a car in Australia, execution style. The bank collapsed in 1980 under a cloud of massive fraud and criminal activities including drug trafficking. Hand disappeared, lots of international investigation and inquiries, but no one went to jail. Except one - the accountant Mr. Tan who ended up in Singapore jail on account of the fact he was the Local Principal of the branch. Innocent chap, the sacrificial goat to close the chapter in Singapore..

What is known today is Nugan Hand Bank was set up by US Deep State, principally CIA, to source illegal funds to pursue covert operations in SE Asia, never funded by, and thus concealed from, Congress.

What was MAS granting the banking licence all about. I mean Nugan Hand had a branch in Chiangmai in the Golden Triangle, in an office shared with the Drug Enforcement Office, company employees were basically CIA Alumni, including William Colby the future agency head, the predecessor of George Bush Snr. Surely these things don't get past the suits in MAS. Was Singapore doing the bidding of the US? Those were the years when Singapore felt the need for a strong defence umbrella of the US. More intriguing is the question begets a more important question -- what was the trade-off? Did some benefits accrue or some threats extinguished?

So what's with FTX? Similarly, the crypto exchange which has collapsed under a cloud of financial dust, is now unraveling much dark secrets. US Deep State has long learnt to master a funding source so that they can run covert activities without the need to go to Congress for funding and support their programmes. After Nugan Hand, came the Iran-Contra scandal. Ran by Oliver North, the US intelligence brought in drugs to fund the various covert anti-communists programmes in Latin Americas. Plan loads of drugs were brought in, landing on a small outlying airstrip in Kansas City, under the very nose of Governor Clinton. There was once a small incident of a group of kids who witnessed the illicit cargo shipment, and they were suicided off.

Times have changed. Perhaps drugs are now replaced by cryptos. Remember the Freudian slip of Joe Biden about them having the best plan to defraud at the polls? Is FTX the play? FTX was founded in May 2019 round about the time of Biden's comment. With its collapse, many details are coming to light. FTX is surrounded by all sorts of Democrat Party members or their operatives. In turn Sam Bankman-Fried donated generously to Democrats and some Trump-hating RINOs. SBF half joked about the possibility of a US$1b donation to Democrats for 2024. Round-tripping of cryptos between FTX and Ukraine seem to suggest some sliver of credibility to the claim of the massive US aid being round-tripped back to Democrat coffers to fund the mid-term campaigns. That would certainly explain the generosity of the Biden admin to pour in massive aid to Ukraine, with money they don't actually have. Using cryptos and bypassing central banking systems seem a perfect mechanism for these shenanigans. With it's fall, Congress opens an inquiry into FTX, headed by a Congresswoman Maxine Watters who received generous donations from SBF. You know next scene is a cover-up, but not if the new GOP Congress can help it. Sorry for a cliffhanger here.

The question comes back again to the smart suits in Temasek. Were they really so blind and reckless to throw US275m at a crazy outfit? Social media is chokeful of condemnation of Temsek due diligence quality. I for one refuse to believe that it was a case of bad quality control. If not, then it is ditto the same questions asked of the Nugan Hand case. But what could possibly be the pull factor for Singapore to align to a Democrat leadership? Globalism. Singapore is a big fan of trade globalisation. Democrats are all about WEF One World Order globalism under technocratic elites.

As for Twitter, is Elon Musk the white knight charging into the arena to protect Free Speech? Or is there something else? The business risk he is taking makes no sense. He already knew Twitter is in a financial mess. He knew Twitter lied about subscription base data, the false declaration of which to SEC is very serious, to the possibility of getting the company struck dead for breach of legislation. He knew bots bolstered Twitter numbers and sooner or later will face massive reparation demands by advertisers. Twitter share prices are already twittering. His takeover will see revolts by woke employees and advertisers. There will be massive layoffs of crazy liberal woke employees to the extent of crippling operations. Advertisers will flee. In short, Musk's actions face a risk of Twitter imploding. Does he have some macro business plan that incorporates Twitter into some eco-system he is building? He has never hinted anything.

My assessment is Musk is already a government's man. By the way, Trump does not trust him and I wonder why. To understand the role of Musk with the government, one has to dig hard into NASA activities. Obama killed NASA's space discovery Project Consternation, ostensibly because the US$3b bill he could not stomach. But space was identified by Trump admin as the new frontier of military challenges.

"Space is the world's newest war-fighting domain.  Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital. And we're leading, but we're not leading by enough. But very shortly we'll be leading by a lot." .... Donald Trump

Trump created Space Force, the US 6th military arm, and put substantial personnel and budget behind it. Democrat detractors laughed at him. Joe Biden undid every project that has a Trump signature on it, but left Space Force alone. That should tell us about how seriously the US takes the space challenge.

So why did Obama kill NASA? I believe it was a planned move to protect the secrecy of a lot of projects. We can go into the realms of conspiracy theories again. Of extra-terrestrial engagements, re-engineering of ET weapons systems, etc. ET is no longer a fiction of imagination. The Air-Force has made some acknowledgements of their existence. (I absolutely believe in this from personal experience of sighting an ET event about 15 years ago.) And possibly covert military space technology that's against their laws. NASA has taken to outsource their research and development, exploratory projects, and rocketry technologies for satellite management. The reason primarily being to avoid Freedom Of Information interference. FOI does not apply to commercial enterprises. In this way, top secrets are better protected.

I'm guessing you already know where this is leading to. Yes, Musk's rocketry technology company Space-X.  Musk is for all intents and purposes, the government's partner in space exploration. This calls into question why would Musk take a collision course with the Biden admin to champion Free Speech by taking over Twitter. Perhaps Musk is confident that his stranglehold over NASA is so strong the government will not move against him even when he goes anti-woke. But simple logic says no one is foolish enough to poison the pool from which he draws his water. Musk is an anomaly and this is where my big data app breaks down. It cannot process. For the time being I like what Musk is doing at Twitter. Time will tell.

Over at Temasek, US$51m was poured into an Indian rocketry venture in September. Skyroot Aerospace last week sent their first test flight Vikram-S up into the atmosphere. It was in the air for 5 minutes reaching a height of 81.5km before splashng down into the Bay of Bengal. It has not yet reached space which is 100km out. Straits Times called Skyroot the most funded aerospace company in India and US$51 million got Temasek a 25% stake. Most Singaporeans probably look at it as high risk investments with questionable very long term returns plus terrible currency loss potentials.

But what do Earthlings know. Not all Temasek investments are profit seeking. Temasek does national service sometimes and invest in ventures that are not commercially driven but for some state economic agenda. This entry into rocket technology with a country that is politically neutral with Singapore is possibly with a view to establish security and better control of our assets in space. As Trump puts it, there are grave threats out in space. Consider this. In the ongoing war, Ukraine would have been completely without communications if Musk had not stepped in and offered his satellite services. There are thousands of satellites up in space, with all sorts of technological capabilities, both military and commercial. If a country puts a satellite up there, it better have direct control over it. Singapore has 19 at last count.


Get your pop corns. Sit back and watch more Truman shows Cut your imagination loose.

This platform has withdrawn it's subscriber widget. If you like blogs like this and wish to know whenever there is a new post, click the button to my FB and follow me there. I usually intro my new blogs there. Thanks.