@ Clark October 3, 2019 at 00:50
This is not a reply to your comment above. I have read quite a few prior comments but not all, and one I noticed you claimed Silverstein was obliged to get insurance and to rebuild on the site. Let me clarify, it seems probable he was legally bound to insure the buildings, but the ‘Lucky’ part was he had two special clauses inserted into the insurance: that they be insured against terrorist attacks (and this was just weeks before 9/11!) and that he would have the right to rebuild on the site. He had those clauses specially inserted, they were far from obligatory.
Then he only paid one month’s mortgage payment; he was not liable to pay another penny after they were destroyed. So he got the Towers for peanuts. Very handy too, as the Towers were huge White Elephants, had never been profitable, much of their space was empty without renters, and they were virtually condemned, as they were chock full of asbestos.
The Port Authority had put out tenders to either get the asbestos removed, or to demolish the Towers; both had been prohibitively expensive. Silverstein must have known this, as he already owned WTC7, so why would he buy them? If the 9/11 destruction hadn’t occurred, ‘Lucky’ Larry Silverstein would have been in the merde. And if his wife hadn’t convinced him to go to the dentist (I think it was the dentist) he would have been in the Windows on the World and brown bread when 9/11 unfolded. Instead, he made a colossal killing (at least financially).
Regarding Gelatin and the ‘B-Thing’, here is a very good article which links Gelatin to the Israeli ‘Art Student’ spies, and also explains that one of the Gelatin group’…has been identified as Hanan Serfaty, an Israeli military intelligence officer and bomb expert.
And it turned out to be Serfaty who was found to have moved nearly $200,000 around during the first quarter of 2001 and explained it away as the proceeds from successful art sales.
I wonder what Sherlock Holmes (or even Inspector Clouseau) would make of all this?