Tuesday, March 11, 2014

MISSING JET INFORMATION - IRANI ASYLUM SEEKERS WERE SEEN BOARDING (lengthy)

Submitted by: Kathy Hawkins

Surprise , Surprise ... It Was Iranians That Boarded Missing Jet With Stolen Passports

by johngalt
" The two men traveling with stolen passports were Iranians with no apparent ties to terror groups, officials said Tuesday.
  Officials identified the men as 18-year-old Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad (left) and Delavar Syed Mohammad Reza, 29. Malaysian police believe Mehrdad was seeking asylum in Germany. Authorities do not believe either man is member of a terrorist group."
 

Two Suspect Iranian Passengers on Missing Malaysian Flight 370 Iden...

by sundance

The tickets were purchased by an Iranian middle man.  Apparently, the men were trying to flee Iran and illegally enter/immigrate to Europe.

(Via The Telegraph)  The two men travelling on stolen passports on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that mysteriously disappeared on Saturday have been identified as Iranian nationals.
Here's the video:   http://youtu.be/mJrNpmGNIcY
 
BBC Persian report quotes an Iranian friend of one of the men, who said he hosted the pair in Kuala Lumpur after they arrived from Tehran in the days preceding their flight to Beijing.
The friend, who knew one of the men from his school days in Iran, said the men had bought the fake passports because they wanted to migrate to Europe.  The pair were travelling on passports belonging to Christian Kozel, an 30-year-old Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi, a 37-year-old Italian.
They had bought the passports in Kuala Lumpur as well as tickets to Amsterdam, via Beijing.
One of the Iranian nationals’ intended final destination was Frankfurt, where his mother lives, while the other wanted to travel to Denmark.
The same source that spoke to BBC Persian also emailed CNN with a photograph of him posing with his two friends in the days before they embarked on their fateful trip.  (read more)
 
 
 
 

Malaysia Flt MH370: Iranian Source Booked Stolen Passport Tickets, Not Asian Men

 
by Maggie
Malaysia's Chief of Civil Aviation is quoted saying the two men holding the stolen passports "are not Asian looking men," and a Thai travel agency booked the men with the stolen passports through an "Iranian" source. Minutes ago, the oil slick was said NOT to be connected to Malaysia Flt. MH370, and an item thought to be a door from the aircraft, or possibly a life raft turned out to be "garbage." A Malaysian official described the two non-Asian-looking men as looking like Italian footballer Mario Balotelli. More as information is available.
 
Mario Balotelli, Italian Footballer
Mario Balotelli, Italian Footballer
 
Mario Balotelli, Italian Footballer wearing "Emirates" Shirt
Mario Balotelli, Italian Footballer wearing "Emirates" Shirt
Here is exactly what Rahman said about the appearance of the passengers on the stolen passports.
“It is confirmed now that they are not Asian looking men,” he said.
A reporter asked Rahman to say “roughly” what they looked like. He replied “Do you know a footballer by the name of Balotelli [using an approximate pronunciation of the name]”.
Reporters shouted the the name Balotelli, pronouncing the name footballer’s name correctly. Rahman corrected his initially pronunciation, and said: “Balotelli, yes”.
He added that the nationality of the men could not be confirmed. Source:
Authorities also said that from viewing footage of the boarding process inside the airport, all "security procedures were complied with," yet Interpol, which holds the official stolen passport database was NOT checked.
Benjaporn Krutnait, owner of the Grand Horizon travel agency in Pattaya, Thailand, said the Iranian, a long-term business contact who she knew only as “Mr Ali”, first asked her to book cheap tickets to Europe for the two men on March 1. Ms Benjaporn initially reserved one of the men on a Qatar Airways flight and the other on Etihad.
But the tickets expired when Ms Benjaporn did not hear back from Mr Ali. When he contacted her again on Thursday, she rebooked the men on the Malaysia Airlines flight through Beijing because it was the cheapest available. Ms Benjaporn booked the tickets through China Southern Airlines via a code share arrangement.
A friend of Mr Ali paid Ms Benjaporn cash for the tickets, she said, adding that it was quite common for people to book tickets in Pattaya through middle men such as Mr Ali, who then take a commission. Read more (all quotations from The Guardian)
Isn't it a bit odd that we have heard nothing about the two small children who were Americans? Nothing about family anywhere in the U.S. speaking out. Perhaps they hold dual passports and do not reside here. Missing American Phillip Wood's family was identified almost immediately.
Updates when available  URL: http://wp.me/p1cuXL-ejH
 

Conspiracy Theories Abound As Malaysia Flight 370 Disappeared Without A Trace

by NTEB News Desk
Details concerning the sudden, Saturday disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 continue to trickle in. Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the head of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Authority, said the missing Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers an "unprecedented mystery."
 
malaysia-flight-370-missing-no-trace-conspiracy-theory
In short: We have no idea where the plane is, where the passengers are, or if they're even alive.
Here's what we do know: The flight disappeared on Friday night/Saturday morning en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The plane was at cruising altitude (35,000 feet) and weather was more or less clear. Air traffic controllers in Vietnam say contact with the crew disappeared about 120 nautical miles east of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu, and radar signals suggest the plane may have turned around before losing contact.
And yet, nearly three whole days later, there are still no signs of the jet or its passengers. And an oil slick spotted in the South China sea originally thought to be a clue turned out to be a false lead.
Two Italian passengers said to be aboard the flight turned out to be safe on the ground, when they told authorities that their passports had, in fact, been stolen earlier. Someone aboard the flight was said to be using them, one of whom resembled a famous soccer player.
Adding another wrinkle to the case, the Wall Street Journal reports that airliners "such as the Malaysian jet also carry emergency beacons to transmit the aircraft's location in the event of a mishap so that rescue teams can reach the site."
These beacons, called emergency locator devices, are activated by impact on land or water, along with other emergency communications equipment. Malaysia's aviation regulator said no signals were received from flight MH370's beacon.
"There are many theories that have been said in the media," Rahman said during a press conference. "Many experts around the world have contributed their expertise and knowledge about what could happen, what happened....We are puzzled as well."
Naturally, conspiracy theories are already flying left and right on social media. One theory suggests the plane's sudden disappearance is a "false flag" operation intentionally planted by CNN. Another claims that some relatives of the passengers onboard have even reported hearing their phones ring--but no one is answeringsource - Fast CompanyURL: http://wp.me/p1kFP6-4sL
 
 
 

Your Passport Authenticity Means Nothing! 1B Unchecked International Fliers Annually


by Maggie
Interpol holds the granddaddy of stolen passport and stolen documents database but the world scarcely checks it to verify travelers. The, at least, two stolen passports used to board Malaysia Flt. MH370 were in the Interpol system. Over 40 million "travel documents, mostly passports" are in the Interpol database which originated in 2002. The U.S. checks the highest number of times, placed at 250 million annually, more than double the next two countries. Over 1 billion travelers boarded flights without their passports being checked in 2013, with four of 10 international fliers not checked. The stolen passports were Italian and Austrian.
 
Image of an Italian Passport
Image of an Italian Passport
Yet, "only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights,'' Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said Sunday.
Interpol said that no country checked the two passports used to board the Boeing 777 bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, even though they were reported stolen in Thailand -- an Austrian one in 2012 and an Italian one in 2013—and that it can't say how many other times they might have been used.
The U.S. uses Interpol's database more than any other nation to screen people entering the country. Its 250 million annual checks are followed by the United Kingdom's 120 million and the United Arab Emirates' 50 million.
Interpol said it makes its database available to all 190 member countries but cannot force them to integrate it into their own systems. Last year, passengers boarded planes more than a billion times without having their passports screened against its database.
Each year, based on its terrorist watchlist and Interpol data, the U.S. government issues thousands of "no-board recommendations" to airlines to keep suspected high-risk passengers from traveling to the United States. In fiscal year 2011 alone, it issued more than 3,600 such recommendations, according to 2012 U.S. House testimony by Kevin McAleenan of the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection. Source: USA Today
The article linked above says the U.S. system is better than the Interpol database, and had the flight been coming to the U.S., our watch list, checked against the passenger manifest, may have prevented stolen passport users from boarding.
In Thailand, where immigration police last year caught a Thai man with 5,000 fake passports, officials say international cooperation helps battle the plague — but passport forgers are now using advanced technology.
"It must take great skills and expertise by our officers to detect the fake passports and visa stamps because the system cannot detect them the whole time," said Maj. Gen. Warawuth Thaweechaikarn, commander of the Immigration Police's investigative division. Thai authorities also say some new techniques include finding a lookalike to match the passport, or altering the image on the passport to look like the holder. Source: Yahoo News

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