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I doubt that I am smart enough to find Arafat's money, but this 1999 report shows that he is out there, laughing at all those who are hunting it......

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Hackers uncover secret billions of
Arafat's PLO

London Sunday Telegraph, December 5, 1999
By Tom Gross in Jerusalem

Was Congress aware of the following London Sunday
Telegraph data, while appropriating $400 million foreign
aid to the PLO, in addition to the $500 million already
transferred to the PLO?! Should Congress tolerate the
transfer of the $400 million to the PLO before the GAO
establishes transparency of PLO accounts, including
Arafat's own bank accounts?!
Just like the most corrupt rulers in the Third World, so
does Arafat plunder his own people, while expanding his
own personal financial holdings. Shouldn't Congress
MANDATE that foreign aid to the PLO be withheld until the
GAO audit is concluded, including Arafat's personal bank
account?!!!

THE Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has salted away
billions of pounds for the Palestinian Liberation
Organisation in secret foreign bank accounts and
investments, including property in London.

The disclosure about the hidden wealth of his PLO comes
amid deepening economic hardship in his Gaza and West
Bank fiefdoms. It will also hamper his efforts to woo a
huge influx of European aid for his fledgling Palestinian
regime.

The timing of the disclosures could not have been more
embarrassing as Mr Arafat, seated before a stage built to
resemble a giant Christmas crib, yesterday opened
Millennium celebrations in Bethlehem. He hopes that the
year of festivities in Jesus's birthplace will showcase his
push for an independent Palestinian state.

New details of the vast PLO fortune he controls have come
to light following a series of computer break-ins at the
headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in
Tunis.
The hackers discovered that the PLO maintains about £5
billion in numbered bank accounts in Zurich, Geneva and
New York. It also holds accounts with smaller sums in
north Africa, Europe and Asia. They are not registered in
the PLO's name, but in the names of private individuals.
The records also showed that the PLO owns shares on the
Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo stock exchanges, including
stock in the German car giant Mercedes Benz, and
property in prestigious areas of European capitals,
including Mayfair in London.

The organisation, which once specialised in aircraft
hijackings, also has shares in several airlines, including the
national carriers of the Maldives and Guinea Bissau. The
computer security breach is believed on the West Bank to
have been carried out by PLO officials disgruntled with Mr
Arafat's leadership. "They wished to dispel the
smokescreen created around the PLO's finances," a
Palestinian official told The Telegraph.

Mr Arafat has always refused to comment on reports
about the foreign bank accounts. But the disclosures
caused anger in poverty-stricken Gaza. One embittered
Palestinian said:
"Why is he sitting on a mountain of gold, while there is a
desperate lack of jobs and medical supplies here?"

Mr Arafat is both president of the Palestinian Authority,
the semi-autonomous organisation that governs parts of
Gaza and the West Bank, and the chairman of the PLO,
which maintains its headquarters in Tunis, its base during
its terrorist heyday.
The creation of the Palestinian Authority, the embryonic
government for a future Palestinian state, was supposed to
lead to the winding-up of the PLO - and make the
Palestinian leadership accountable and law-abiding. But the
authority has in fact been repeatedly accused by domestic
opponents of rampant corruption and mismanagement.

The web of secret bank accounts and assets held around
the world is believed to be so complex that only Mr Arafat
himself and two of his most trusted aides know the overall
picture. Much of the money is the result of "taxes" levied
on Palestinians working in Kuwait and other Gulf states in
the Seventies and Eighties, and of donations from wealthy
states such as Saudi Arabia.
The assets are controlled by Mr Arafat himself and it is not
known what would happen to them if the 70-year-old, who
is said to be suffering from Parkinson's disease, should die.
An Israeli intelligence analyst said:
"These revelations are almost certainly not the whole
story. No one can know the full extent of the PLO's assets.
They are so well hidden."

The disclosures are also likely to prompt international
donors, including the European Union countries, to ask
why Mr Arafat is still demanding aid for his Palestinian
authority. Nor will they have been impressed by his
decision to invite Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia's
president, to Bethlehem.