New information on the Israeli Colonel who almost bombed Mexico's Congress after 9/11
Summarizing a foiled false flag that was forgotten fast and providing an update from a decade later that hasn't been reported in the English language
An Auspicious Anniversary
Twenty-two years ago today, on October 10th, 2001 (less than a month after 9/11), Israelis Sar Ben-Zui and Salvador Gersson Smike (other spellings will appear in various sources) were arrested with guns and explosives in the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro in Mexico City, the “main seat of the legislative power of the Mexican government.” Incredibly, Smike was a retired official in the Israeli military. Below I will reproduce a translation of a news story published on October 12th in Mexico City’s Cronica de Hoy and posted by Narco News:
Mexico will investigate if Israelis were terrorists
-- They were armed with 9mm pistols, nine grenades, explosives, three detonators and 58 bullets
-- They were detained by sugar industry workers in the Legislative Palace
By Alejandro Páez and Francisco Mejía
From Crónica de Hoy, Mexico City, October 12, 2001
Unabridged Translation by The Narco News Bulletin
The Attorney General is investigating and interrogating two Israelis (one already a nationalized Mexican) who were detained in the House of Representatives Wednesday with two 9mm pistols, nine grenades, explosives, three detonators and 58 bullets, to determine if they belong to any group connected with terrorists or subversive groups.
Salvador Gersson Smike, 34, a retired Israeli military official and nationalized Mexican, and Sar Ben Zui, 27, of Israeli nationality, were held yesterday in the installations of the metropolitan offices of the Attorney General, headed by the assistant attorney general for criminal process Gilberto Higuera Bernal. They were interrogated to clarify the source of the arms that they carried and to determine if they are guilty of a crime.
Up until now the authorities have not declared about the status of investigation number PGR/11-15-01 and they will wait until tonight when the constitutional limit for determining the legal situation of the arrested parties expires.
Both subjects were detained in the installations of the legislative palace of San Lazaro when a group of sugar industry workers that had met with the Speaker of the House, Beatriz Paredes, left to discuss their issues in the lobby and the two arrested persons arrived and began photographing them.
This activity and the form in which they took the pictures (aiming their cameras below the belts of the workers) generated tension among the sugar workers who proceeded to demand their identification immediately.
The Israelis identified themselves as press photographers, but they were not believed and the workers overcame them and then discovered that they were armed with pistols and other high caliber arms.
The same day, the Attorney General of Mexico released the following statement (translated by Google):
Regarding the situation of the 2 subjects detained last Wednesday in the vicinity of the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro, the Attorney General's Office reports that the Israeli citizen Saer Ben-Zvi or Saar Noam Ben Zvi was placed at the disposal of the First Court of District "A" of Federal Criminal Proceedings in the Federal District, while the Mexican Salvador Gersson Smeck was issued a release order with the reservations of the law, because no elements were found for his consignment.
Because when Gersson Smeck was arrested he was carrying a 9 millimeter caliber weapon, he was released with reservations of the law and the Secretariat of National Defense was notified regarding the permit to carry a firearm that he has.
The Israeli Ben Zvi was interned in the North Men's Prison, pending a resolution of his legal situation, as a probable person responsible for the commission of crimes of violation of the General Population Law, provided for and punished by articles 123 and 143 of the General Population Law, all in accordance with the 6th. And 7th., fraction 1st, 8th. 9th and 13th, Section II of the Federal Penal Code, which initiates the corresponding criminal process.
Although the events went unreported in American media, an old blog post by Ken Layne, a journalist with access to various English language newspaper wire services, reported that these channels were circulating a very different picture of the story:
While I haven't heard about this before today -- there are just too many goddamned news stories to keep track of -- a quick search of the Dow Jones database shows five English-language wire reports on Oct. 11 (two from EFE News Service, and one each from Dow Jones, AP, and Notimex), one on Oct. 12 (BBC), and one today (Agence France-Presse).
It sounds pretty crazy, and it smells like some kind of terrorism, at least from the newspaper reports on NarcoNews.
But the seven wire stories make the whole thing seem pretty tame, and probably harmless -- I wasn't there, so all I can do is compare seven different wire reports to the newspaper article, and look for patterns.
The wire stories say the men work for a Mexican company called Private Security Systems Development; that the company's lawyer says the men (both former members of Israel's military; one a naturalized Mexican citizen) have permits for their pistols; that the men were outside the House of Representatives and on their way to a meeting to try to sell their company's security services (Mexico City is plagued by kidnappers who go after anybody worth a ransom payment); that the "nine grenades" was a novelty cigarette lighter; that the "sugar industry" workers were a bunch of farmers having a Sit-In outside the government building; that said sugar farmers were annoyed by the men taking photos of the area, which would be necessary if they were selling private security services to officials who worked there; and that the "bomb" consisted of some cables in a briefcase one of the men carried.
The most telling detail in this story comes from a BBC translation of a Notimex report: "The arrest of the two individuals, one who said he was Mexican and the other Israeli, provoked a huge police mobilization this Wednesday (10 October) at the Congressional headquarters, known as the San Lazaro Palace."
So, with government headquarters around the world on edge, and with Mexico's president firmly behind the U.S.-led war against the bin Laden terrorists, everybody freaked out. And they should. Security should be extremely tight. I don't think the U.S. media "censored" this story. They just didn't think it mattered. There are security scares every hour in every capital. You can't run every four-graf wire story about a freakout ... these days, newspapers would have to print 500 pages a day to print a fraction of the world's nervous response to the terrorism.
So, contrary to what you see on conspiracy blogs that discuss this case, the story did make it out of Mexico and into the hands of journalists in the United States and England through several wire services, but, intriguingly, they were provided with an extremely watered-down version of events. This probably explains why the story wasn’t actually picked up and reported in English.
Without more information, it’s hard to know what to make of the above. Was the initial Spanish-language reporting somehow just a case of misunderstanding? Or did the English-language wire services intentionally obfuscate the story to prevent it from entering American media and circulating more widely? The only contemporary English reports about the apparent foiled attack came from Russia’s Pravda newspaper and a tiny publication called La Voz de Aztlan, both of which might be considered weak sources for various reasons. That being noted, the Pravda report claimed that it had “been determined by the Procuradurнa (sic) General de la Repъblica (sic) (Mexican Department of Justice) that Guersson is a retired Colonel of the Israeli Defense Forces and that he may now be operating as a MOSSAD agent.” And, contrary to what was claimed in the wire reports surveyed by Ken Layne, La Voz de Aztlan’s October 15th report confirmed with a Mexican government official that the men were not affiliated with a private security firm:
Mexican Congressional Press Secretary Lic. Adriana Lopez informed La Voz de Aztlan in the telephone interview that Congressional Security then turned the terrorists Salvador Guersson Smecke, age 34, and Saur Ben Zvi, age 27, to the Procuraduría General de la República (Mexican Department of Justice) which is headed by Mexican Army General Rafael Marcial Macedo de la Concha. Initial reports by the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) were that both Israelis worked for a private security agency and that they both had gun permits. It turned out that there is no connection of either suspect to any private security agency.
New Information on Colonel Salvador
As far as I know, that’s the extent of the information that has been reported on Smike’s and Ben-Zvi’s entry into the Mexican Congress. However, last night I came across a very interesting update from 2012 in La Razón, a "regional daily newspaper in the state of Nuevo León.” I was directed to the story by a Twitter user who tweeted the link to me and then several minutes later deleted his tweet, blocked me, and locked his account. Strange, but whatever. Luckily I had already clicked on it. It turns out Israeli Colonel Salvador hadn’t finished with his antics in Mexico. Below, I reproduce Google’s translation of the full article, which as far as I know has never been reported on in English:
Man who attacked the Chamber of Deputies with explosives in 2001 falls again
LA RAZON
- 23/07/2012 19:09
Rapid police mobilization for his capture
Mexico.- Salvador Gerson Smeke, who in November 2001 was arrested and accused of attempting an attack with explosives in the Chamber of Deputies, was arrested again along with two people of Israeli origin by the Querétaro police.
And it was detected that these people were in a suspicious attitude and in possession of sophisticated communication equipment, presumably used to intervene in communication and computer systems.
According to what is recorded in the file PGR/QRO/PGRIV/581/2012, initiated in the PGR delegation in Querétaro, the events occurred on the afternoon of July 2 in the Centro Sur neighborhood of Querétaro.
At 2:15 p.m. that day, security personnel from the Juegos de la Frontera company detected the presence of three men in a suspicious attitude who were aboard a Grand Cherokee truck, plates MGY-9033.
According to the testimony of Rogelio Hermosillo, security guard of the aforementioned business, the subjects placed an antenna in the entire unit, type of mouse tail, and a satellite dish of no more than 10 centimeters, and both directed them towards a building, so they decided to notify the police.
And in the vicinity of that place are the offices of the state PAN, the Municipal Government Palace, as well as corporate offices of several companies. In minutes a police cordon was set up.
Elements of the M-232 patrol of the Municipal Guard, in the company of three units, inspected the truck and immediately requested the presence of the Crime Investigation Directorate of the Querétaro Attorney General's Office.
This is because it was discovered that he was Salvador Gerson Smeke, former colonel of the Israeli Defense Forces, who had been detained in November 2001 with explosives, cables and other devices, as well as two weapons, inside the Chamber of Deputies. Deputies.
Along with him were Alberto Shemaria León and Eli Sthark Ilan who identified himself with an Israeli pilot's license. And although the three were presented before the PGR, where the aforementioned file for alleged theft of information was initiated, they were released on bail.
To summarize, Israel’s Colonel Smike was arrested again in 2012 with two other Israelis, one of whom was a pilot. This time, Smike and his friends were setting up surveillance equipment —“an antenna in the entire unit, type of mouse tail, and a satellite dish of no more than 10 centimeters”— directed at the Municipal Government Palace and the offices of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in the Mexican state of Querétaro. In other words, more than a decade after he was captured sneaking into Mexico’s foremost legislative building with guns and explosives, Smike was again engaged in espionage-related activities against elements of the Mexican government. To me, this makes it a lot harder to write off the significance of that mysterious story from the tense weeks that followed 9/11. It seems very plausible that Colonel Smike’s relationship with Israel’s government didn’t end when he left the military. In which case—why the fuck was he trying to bomb Mexico’s congress? The already-cited La Voz De Aztlan article offers some plausible speculations:
What were the Israelis up to? We think we know. The Vicente Fox government has been very careful of involving Mexico in a war against Islam. The Mexican population as well as the two major opposition political parties, the PRI and the PRD will not allow it. President Bush and the U.S. Zionists want Mexico fully involved in the war principally because if things get tough in the middle east and the oil rich Arabs leave the coalition, the U.S. military machine is going to need alternative sources of oil and PEMEX is just across the border. We believe that the two Zionists terrorist were going to blow up the Mexican Congress. The second phase was to mobilize both the Mexican and US press to blame Osama bin Laden. Most likely then Mexico would declare war on Afghanistan as well, commit troops and all the oil it could spare to combat Islamic terrorism.
A paranoid interpretation, to be sure, but there are precedents for such things. If anyone knows of any further updates to this story, please feel free to send them along.
Further Reading
Just after sending this post out, I realized I could search a certain news database for information about this and I found one of the wire reports that blogger/journalist Ken Layne mentioned in the post cited above. As far as I know, this hasn’t been published in a publicly accessible place before, so I am stealing it and publishing it here since there is so little information about this case available online:
Mexico: Officials arrest armed Mexican, Israeli inside Congress building
October 12, 2001 | BBC Monitoring International Reports
Mexico, 10 October [local time]: The judicial authorities have detained two armed men. Both are presumed to be former military personnel; one of them is an Israeli citizen. These individuals attempted to get into Congress [the building], which is in the eastern part of Mexico City.
The arrest of the two individuals, one who said he was Mexican and the other Israeli, provoked a huge police mobilization this Wednesday [10 October] at the Congressional headquarters, known as the San Lazaro Palace.
Ignacio Cabrera, the social communications adviser for the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies' board of directors, said that the detainees are the Mexican Salvador Gerson Smike, and the Israeli Sar Ben Zui.
The source reported that both detainees said that they work for the Development of Private Security Systems company.
He explained that these individuals were found with a firearm and other instruments. For this reason, the Chamber's legal department handed them over to the proper authorities for allegedly intending to commit a crime.
The two individuals were also carrying a briefcase, which contained cables and a tube, "but we don't know anything else and the authorities are the ones that must decide what follows. We also do not know if they were carrying dynamite," he said.
Cabrera commented that both individuals said they wanted to enter the Chamber of Deputies and that this is all they had said. Obviously, they will have to make a sworn statement before the Office of the Public Prosecutor.
Cabrera said that Luis Alarcon, a security officer of the Chamber, had detained the two men. Luis Alarcon mentioned that the detainees were carrying an automatic 9-mm pistol with three clips and what was thought to be a grenade, which turned out to be a lighter, as well as tubes and cables.
The security officer explained that it has not yet been discovered how they had managed to enter the San Lazaro Legislative building but this matter and their motives for doing so are being investigated.
He was asked if the tubes and cables they were carrying could had been used to assemble an explosive device. He said that these materials could have been for making a grenade but this would have to be decided upon by the Office of the Public Prosecutor.
Luis Alarcon later said that one of the detainees does not speak English but that, through his partner, he said he is a colonel in the Israeli Special Forces. However, this could not be confirmed.
Former sugar refinery workers, who are conducting a sit-in inside San Lazaro, said that one of the individuals was posing as a photographer and taking pictures of everything around them. The sugar refinery workers said that both individuals were behaving in an odd manner, and upon taking a more thorough look at one of them, they could tell he was armed.
The alleged criminals were handed over to personnel from the Office of the Prosecutor General, who will be in charge of the corresponding investigations.
Acknowledgments: The now-defunct History Commons project compiled a lot of the early reporting on this event. Ditto for the ever-useful WikiSpooks. A special thanks to the Twitter guy that sent me the story from 2012 and then disappeared. Weirdo! And thank you to
for access to the news database that I used to get the BBC wire report.
Fascinating, and bizarre, story! Did you know that "The Caldwell Center" submitted a FOIA request to the CIA in late July 2007 that, among other things, asked for any records on Sar Ben-Zui and Salvador Gersson Smike? See https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001500711.pdf
A few months later, in Sept. 2007, the CIA replied that it could "neither confirm or deny" the existence of any such records. A so-called Glomar Response, which is suspicious in and of itself. In my experience, it means the CIA has chosen to hide something.
See https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001500712.pdf
As for The Caldwell Center, it appears defunct now, but I can't be certain of that.
excellent work indeed. very mysterious case. private israeli security firms do exist, and they may be involved in espionage, even against governments, but they can also serve as fronts for other purposes.