What does a terrorist attack mean?
The devastating shock to the global economy, the tragic loss of life and the erratic sense of security are a word that makes people's scalps tingle and panic at the first hearing. But some people can see a huge business opportunity in the word terrorist attack.
911 incident
As we all know, in 2001, the shocking "911 Incident" occurred in the United States, causing serious psychological harm to the American people, and this terrorist attack has become a heart disease that will never be forgotten by Americans. This powerless sense of panic made the Americans "sanctify" almost all the technical means that can defend the United States in an instant, and the US Congress frantically threw money at the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the CIA, as long as it can eliminate the terrorist attack, how much money you spend, and the speed of spending money even exceeds the speed of printing money.
Panic brings helplessness, helplessness breeds blindness, and blindness creates new madness. The 18-year war on terror launched by the United States because of 911 seems to have stepped into an endless cycle of death: years of conquest, trillions of dollars have been smashed, and a "counter-terrorism interest group" has been raised: the army, arms dealers, and military contractors. I don't know how many terrorists have suppressed, but it is true that many people take the opportunity to get rich, just like the famous words of the bandit Zhang Mazi to Huang Laoye in "Let the Bullets Fly": "You pay for it, I suppress the bandits!" ”。
【Dennis Montgomery】
Just convince U.S. government officials that you can produce a way to predict, analyze, and stop terrorist attacks, and the pockets of congress's money will open for you. Against this chaotic backdrop, a crook named Dennis Montgomery firmly grasped the code of wealth.
Dennis Montgomery
Montgomery was born in Mina, Arkansas, and graduated from Grossmont College in 1971. He originally studied medical technology, because he was very interested in computers, and he was able to write some simple software after self-taught. After middle age, he became interested in gambling and often went to the local casino- the El Dorado Casino. Inside the casino, Montgomery presented himself as a brilliant software engineer, bragging to gamblers that he had developed a suite of computer software that could be used to calculate "blackjack games." In order to prove that he was true, he often experimented with his own calculation theory in gambling, and lost everything, and was later arrested and imprisoned in Las Vegas for owing $1 million to the casino.
People don't believe the lies that this gambler has created and woven, but some people believe his lies.
【Opportunity is coming】
After his release from prison, Montgomery is still in the Golden Fruit Casino, and soon meets a life-changing nobleman, Warren Tripp (a good name, which is really outrageous) unlike Montgomery, Warren is in the world's largest casino, Wall Street, making a fortune. Tripp is a treacherous and cunning person, once the chief trader of Michael Milken, the "junk bond king" who galloped on Wall Street in the 1980s, and later Milken was imprisoned for suspected insider trading, while Tripp resisted more than a decade of investigation and interrogation by the US government, and finally was exempted from punishment and took a large amount of money and retired. However, it was such a wise and fierce U.S. Bureau of Investigation that could not hide from Montgomery's schemes.
In 1997, Montgomery was still swindling around looking for patrons. Tripp, who had been whitewashed at the time, became a philanthropist, and under the introduction of the insiders of the El Dorado Casino, the two completed the encounter of fate. In conversations with Tripp, Montgomery, with his excellent eloquence and acting skills, managed to convince the local tycoon that he was a buried computer genius, and Montgomery claimed to have completed historical breakthroughs in the field of computing, which were worth millions of dollars. He boasted to Tripp that he had developed a "video compression software" that could suppress video more effectively, save more storage space and complete more conversions; the most powerful was an "AI object recognition software", which can identify objects and foreign objects in videos with unprecedented precision, and even find and identify objects that are invisible to the naked eye.
Under montgomery's pie, Tripp invested decisively, and the two formed Eripide to find a buyer for this magical software. Montgomery first set his sights on Hollywood, claiming that the software he developed could color old movies, quickly and effectively identify each frame of film, and thus determine where and how to color it, but this set of words did not impress Hollywood. Later, Montgomery turned to the casino, saying that this "AI object recognition software" can automatically identify the small actions of guests in order to help the casino catch the old man; "video compression software" can greatly save hard disk space, so that the casino does not have to delete the previous monitoring records frequently. His bragging also did not impress the casino owner, but unexpectedly caught a big fish: a U.S. Air Force colonel.
【Planning a scam】
In 2002, Warren bought off mgm's big casino in advance, ready to show off Montgomery's software in the casino. A U.S. Air Force colonel was invited to watch.
At that time, the U.S. Air Force and the CIA were engaged in a war on terror in Afghanistan, and a large number of drones were dropped, because the "Predator" drones sent back a lot of videos, often thousands of hours, all relying on manual identification, a lot of work. So the U.S. Air Force desperately needs a new technology to process these video recordings. The two software that Montgomery boasted were in the arms of the colonel, and he immediately decided to help Montgomery contact the U.S. Air Force. In order to win the trust of the military, Montgomery changed the word "object recognition" to "AI face recognition" on the tall, claiming: "My technology can completely change the way THE US military drones fight, even in the high altitude of the southern mountains of Afghanistan, you can also identify faces through the cameras of predator drones, and easily find terrorists."
To convince the U.S. military that his software was really as he said it was, Montgomer orchestrated a "field experiment." He brought a toy rocket into the field, then used another mobile phone to dial the phones of two of his employees, who located him according to the mobile phone signal, and then recognized the rocket and transmitted the image to the military officials present. So-called "long-range recognition" was achieved, but the seamless operation satisfied the military officials watching at the time, who were convinced that Montgomery's computer software was indeed as powerful as he claimed. So in the spring of 2003, Montgomery's Eripide Company officially became a defense contractor for the U.S. Air Force's Special Operations Forces, responsible for providing identification software for drones.
【Deception plus deception】
In order to get more government projects, Tripp began recruiting for Montgomery, and he hired Litishia White, a lobbyist with a special relationship with Republican Congressman Lewis of California. The Lewis, the chairman of the powerful House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, has the authority to approve billions of dollars to invest in any defense project. Not only that, but Tripp also persuaded another heavyweight investor, Wayne Prim, to invest in Eripide. The Prime was also acquainted with House member Jim Gibbons, and under Prime's bridge, Gibbons promised to help Eripide and immediately introduced Montgomery to Potter Gauss, then chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In less than 6 years, Montgomery transformed from a destitute gambler into an unborn computer genius.
At the end of 2003, two years after 9/11, the U.S. security apparatus was still full of concerns, and the CIA was fooled by the introduction of the above-mentioned helpers. Montgomery claimed at the time that he had developed a new software capable of deciphering al-Qaida's messages of activities transmitted through Al Jazeera. Officials such as Leg. Lewis, House Of Representatives Jim Gibbons, and Porter Gauss trumpeted and commented that Montgomery's code-breaking was the "most important and confidential" intelligence tool in the history of the CIA, and the treasured CIA was ecstatic for months.
Montgomery, who was awarded tens of millions of dollars in research contracts, boasted to the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security that his "patent" could decipher the flight numbers of al-Qaida's use of aircraft to plan terrorist activities, as well as the precise location of the longitude and latitude of terrorist activities.
[President Bush's last deception]
President Bush who heard the news of 9/11
In late December 2003, Montgomery issued a warning based on messages deciphered from Al Jazeera that flights to the United States from Britain, France and Mexico would be hijacked by terrorists. The CIA hurriedly reported to then-President Bush, who immediately ordered the planes to turn around and return or land in the United States. Former government officials who participated in the meeting recalled that the White House even discussed whether to shoot down the planes because of fear that terrorists might hijack flights and launch another 9/11 attack on the United States.
But it was this drama that exposed Montgomery's horse's feet. At that time, the French side did not know the inside story, but was greatly angry that its flight was ordered to land, and in desperation, the CIA disclosed the "deciphered information" to the French intelligence service. So the French side first conducted a reverse study of Montgomery's software, and soon found that Montgomery's so-called "technology patents" were a completely outright scam. But the CIA didn't want to believe it was true, that they would be fooled by this trick, and they chose to cooperate with Montgomery afterwards.
It wasn't until 2006 that the FBI conducted a secret investigation into Montgomery and found evidence that he was falsified. But the FBI didn't expose the liars either, because it was so humiliating and humiliating. The officials who vouched for Montgomery and provided counterterrorism information to the president did not assume any responsibility, but were promoted one by one.
【Exposing scams】
Incredibly, Montgomery continued to become popular after the scam, and he was able to get formal government projects through different companies after the scam was punctured. It turned out that the CIA and the FBI were ashamed and always kept Montgomery's affairs highly secret. So unsuspecting Defense Department officials continued to work with Montgomery.
At the end of 2008, the U.S. Air Force began to negotiate cooperation with Montgomery. In January 2009, Montgomery received a $3.39 million research contract from the Air Force. That month Montgomery issued another warning that Somali terrorists were trying to sabotage the inauguration of the Oba President Ma. On the second day of Obama's inauguration, the Air Force also thanked Montgomery and his company for their "early warning messages."
But the good times did not last long, and the US intelligence agencies publicly announced a few days later that the sabotage of the presidential inauguration ceremony "does not exist." In May 2009, the U.S. Air Force canceled its contract with Montgomery on the grounds that it had not achieved the desired results.
【Cover up the scandal】
According to US media reports, Montgomery has defrauded more than $20 million in contract funds from various departments of the US government in the past 8 years, and there is countless evidence of montgomery within the US government. But the U.S. government is reluctant to expose the scandal because the relevant information is a "state secret" and the initiation of judicial proceedings will damage the national interests of the United States. So to date, Montgomery has not been charged with any crime of deceiving the government department.
In the United States, government contract contractors play an important role, decomposing and taking on a large number of government functions and tasks, while also reaping significant benefits from them. In 2011, the Pentagon conducted an investigation in which, in the decade since 9/11, the Department of Defense has provided more than $400 billion to contractors who have been sanctioned in more than $1 million in fraud cases.
"We don't have the courage to suppress bandits, but we have the courage to amass wealth in the name of bandits, and we have a lot of it."