By Len Wicks,
On 24 April 1915, Ottoman Turks arrested and later murdered more than 250 Armenian leaders in Constantinople (Istanbul).
On 16 May 1915 an Ottoman law was enacted to allow the confiscation (theft) of ‘abandoned’ Armenian property of genocide victims.
On 24 July 1915, Ottoman policy: half the stolen Armenian money to go to the government’s Central Committee, and the other half to go to those killing Armenians – mainly criminals called chetti who had been released from prison and armed by the government.
1. Western Armenia: six million Turkish gold pounds plus physical property (20,545 buildings, 2,549 religious sites and 1,082 km2 of land), cash, bank deposits and jewellery were stolen from about 1.5 million unarmed Armenians murdered by Turks and Kurds.
2. Constantinople: during 1915-1916 all stolen Armenian money was transferred by order to the State Treasury at Constantinople.
3. Berlin: five million Turkish gold pounds of Armenian assets was funnelled to the Reichsbank in 1916 in exchange for promissory notes (in 2006, a lawsuit was filed against Deutsche and Dresdner banks, asserting profiteering from the atrocities). On 29 October 1918, Dr. Nazim Bey took 65,000 Turkish gold pounds and 600,000 Turkish gold pounds worth of jewellery, fleeing to Germany.
4. London/Paris: During the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the Armenian delegation assessed USD3.7 billion of losses (US$50 billion+ today, compared to Nazi bank theft of US$5.6 billion) just by the Armenian Church. Instead of returning the Armenian wealth, Britain and France sold it to the United States via J.P. Morgan Bank in Paris to New York, for U. S. Treasury Certificates.
5. New York: in 1918, the Turkish government attempted to get the money from 2,400 New York Life insurance policies of Armenians it had killed, arguing that there were no identifiable heirs to the policy holders, but did not succeed.
6. Incirlik: the United States spends billions supporting a US Air Force Base in SE Turkey, which Turkey threatens access to if the USA recognises the Armenian Genocide
(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/05/turkey-us-vote-armenian-genocide).
http://originsdiscovery.com