Mafia didn't steal WTC steel

This has been posted before apparently, but it's very old news and the rumor it rebutts seems to have taken precedence here since the article's publication anyway.

This is just to clear up that the mafia wasn't stealing steel from the WTC site.

It's been reported that the WTC steel was hauled off in trucks tracked by GPS locators 24 hours a day, installed at $1000 a pop (1) . A lot of security, and in any other cirumstance (and probably even this one, too) this would be totally illegal, as the steel, evidence, was being hauled off to be destroyed. Teams assembled to examine in the steel in the scrap yards, where it was collected before being melted down, didn't even get to see as much as they would've liked, as noted by Prof. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, who was in charge of collecting "perishable data" (2).

The old rumor as to why the steel was being looked after so closely, despite being treated as garbage after arriving at a secure site to be melted down, has been shown to have been just -- a rumor. And this is actually very old news.

PHILADELPHIA -- Mafia members may steal many things, but they aren't getting much, if any, of the scrap metal from the rubble of New York's World Trade Center, scrap industry sources said.

Confusion among some truck drivers involved in hauling the debris from lower Manhattan in the first days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may be a more likely source for the rumor, said one veteran New York-area scrap executive.
[...]
About 250 tons of misplaced metal has now been reclaimed and hauled to Fresh Kills on Staten Island.

Source.

This was discovered to be only a rumor not too long after the events of 9/11 themselves. The article, as you'll notice, is from October 1st, 2001. That's less than a month afterwards. In fact, it's just a little over two weeks later. GPS tracking wasn't implemented until a few weeks after the clean up process began (as noted here), and truckloads were kept track of more manually before then.

Originally posted by bsbray11
A lot of security, and in any other cirumstance (and probably even this one, too) this would be totally illegal, as the steel, evidence, was being hauled off to be destroyed.

That is patently absurd. When there are several gallons of blood spilled at a multiple murder scene, is every single drop collected and saved?

Originally posted by bsbray11Teams assembled to examine in the steel in the scrap yards, where it was collected before being melted down, didn't even get to see as much as they would've liked, as noted by Prof. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, who was in charge of collecting "perishable data" (2).

Your own link does not support this claim you make here.

Thanks to cooperation of the HSNE recycling plant, I have been able to study the steel from the WTC before recycling. I have identified and saved some components of the structures that appear to have been subjected to intense fire or impact of fast moving objects. Figures 1 through 4 show examples of inspected structures. These critical pieces are saved as perishable data and can be used in future research.

Please describe the impediments that you encountered during the investigation of the collapse of the WTC buildings, such as the loss of material from the WTC site and any effects of such impediments on your work.

I wish I had more time to inspect steel structure and save more pieces before the steel was recycled. However, given the fact that other teams such as NIST, SEAONY and FEMA-BPAT have also done inspection and have collected the perishable data, it seems to me that collectively we may have been able to collect sufficient data. The main impediments to my work were and still are:
Not having a copy of the engineering drawings and design and construction documents.
Not having copies of the photographs and videotapes that various agencies might have taken during and immediately after the collapse.

If lack of time inspecting and/or access to the WTC steel was any real impediment to this man doing his job, then why didn't he include this in with his complaint concerning lack of engineering drawings and videos and photos when he was asked this question?

Also, I don't really see the point of this thread, other than to clear up a thing that was rumored, that is. After all, the conspiracy community pointed to the GPS tracking as some kind of an anomalous thing, perhaps indicating some nefarious misdeeds. Whether this high-tech tracking ocurred due to theft or due to trucks getting lost, it still appears to be less suspicious than was originally indicated.

Harte

Originally posted by Harte
That is patently absurd. When there are several gallons of blood spilled at a multiple murder scene, is every single drop collected and saved?

You can get the DNA or other info you need from a relatively small amount of blood. When you're looking to determine what caused a building to collapse to the ground, you're not just going to look at the first floor to collapse, or the last floor to collapse, or a couple in between, especially when you don't know which pieces of steel are from which floors. You're going to look at as much as you can to determine what happened. Have you not noticed how many samples were tested by NIST for exposure to fire?

There's one example with a problem, as when anyone tries to point out that NIST only found two pieces of steel showing heating to just 250 C, it has to also be mentioned that they only tested a couple hundred samples or so. So what's the problem? Not enough steel was available to be sampled. That would go back to events like this, where so much of the steel was immediately hauled off and melted down.

If lack of time inspecting and/or access to the WTC steel was any real impediment to this man doing his job, then why didn't he include this in with his complaint concerning lack of engineering drawings and videos and photos when he was asked this question?

You apparently missed this part, which you also happened to quote:

I wish I had more time to inspect steel structure and save more pieces before the steel was recycled.

You apparently ignored this to bolden the part that came after it. I don't trust NIST or FEMA, and neither do most others here. I regret to say that I haven't seen a report on the WTC issue from SEAONY, either.

Also, I don't really see the point of this thread, other than to clear up a thing that was rumored, that is.

Well there you go, because that's all it was meant for.

[edit on 19-6-2006 by bsbray11]

If I was the mafia...I would be pissed that someone planted a story fingering me for something I didn't do... I'd also like to know why...and who was behind it and what their motives were...

I wouldn't rest, because that's the kind of thing that could turn an entire country against an organisation...

I'd be pulling every string to get investigations.

AKA...

lefty: i thought vito was taking the body to the river?
sammy the squid: i thought it was enzo?
lefty: damn. da boss is goin' to be upset.
sammy the squid: badda bang, badda bing, fughetaboutit. da boys will set it all aright.
what a bunch of maroons dem suckas is. we'll feed 'em pablum, like any otha day ah duh week.

That is patently absurd. When there are several gallons of blood spilled at a multiple murder scene, is every single drop collected and saved?

well, when a plane crashes, do investigators only collect a few representative pieces, or do they try to get every single piece in order to reconstruct what happened?

That was mentioned years ago on a serious Channel 4 TV programme that was about the official investigation into how the WTCs fell, and it detailed how the fuel was supposed to have heated up to be able to melt the steel beams.

This was interviews and talking to the people actually conducting the investigations, it was not speculation by newsteams.

Anyway, they probably did take it and then used it to rebuild the Pentagon.

I heard that the WTC Steel was shipped out of the country too China