Global financial regulators are investigating claims that Osama bin Laden or his associates may have profited from their inside knowledge of the deadly US attacks by speculating on the world's markets.
Financial regulators in Japan, Hong Kong and Malaysia joined a high alert to spot any suspicious movement in the markets at the time of the terrorist onslaught in New York and Washington which could suggest traders wittingly benefited from the death and destruction.
The action forms part of a global effort to turn speculation into hard fact that bin Laden, believed to be at the centre of a network which organised the aerial strikes, made millions from temporarily shutting down Wall Street and sending the markets into a tailspin.
But so far alleged links between any financial activity and the Saudi dissident, living as a guest of the Taliban Islamic militia in Afghanistan, appear circumstantial.
"All I know is that there was evidence in Europe and the United States that somebody knew something and that they were actually trading on that," said ABN Amro strategist Darrel Whitten.
He said there was no evidence of such "funny business" in Tokyo, but "it might have been the authorities overseas that asked the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) to look into it."
Japan has launched an investigation into whether bin Laden traded stocks before and after the devastating attacks, said TSE president Masaaki Tsuchida.
AFP