Posted on 10/26/2001 11:02:50 PM PDT by america76
According to the Jerusalem post article found at the above link, the five Israelis were illegally working for a moving company while on expired tourist visas.
INS is holding them pending deportation hearings expected soon.
Clearly the way Israelis are handled shows extreme discrimination against Arab/Muslims. And how do you know they weren't terrorists considering the evidence against them? The jewish mafia and Russian mafia are made up of terrorists and worse.
Five men detained as suspected conspirators
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
By PAULO LIMA Staff Writer
About eight hours after terrorists struck Manhattan's tallest skyscrapers, police in Bergen County detained five men who they said were found carrying maps linking them to the blasts.
The five men, who were in a van stopped on Route 3 in East Rutherford around 4:30 p.m., were being questioned by police but had not been charged with any crime late Tuesday. The Bergen County Police bomb squad X-rayed packages found inside the van but did not find any explosives, authorities said.
However, sources close to the investigation said they found other evidence linking the men to the bombing plot.
"There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted," the source said. "It looked like they're hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park."
Sources also said that bomb-sniffing dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives, although officers were unable to find anything. The FBI seized the van for further testing, authorities said.
Sources said the van was stopped as it headed east on Route 3, between the Hackensack River bridge and the Sheraton hotel. As a precaution, police shut down Route 3 traffic in both directions after the stop and evacuated a small roadside motel near the Sheraton.
Sources close to the investigation said the men said they were Israeli tourists, but police had not been able to confirm their identities. Authorities would not release their names.
East Rutherford officers stopped the van after the FBI's Newark Field Office broadcast an alert asking surrounding police departments to look for a white Chevrolet van, police said.
"We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side," said Bergen County Police Chief John Schmidig. "Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down."
The East Rutherford officers summoned the county police bomb squad, New Jersey state troopers, and FBI agents, who waited alongside the van as prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office tried to obtain a warrant to search the van late Tuesday, Schmidig said.
By 10 p.m., members of the bomb squad were picking through the van and X-raying packages found inside, Schmidig said.
Sources said the FBI alert, known as a BOLO or "Be On Lookout," was sent out at 3:31 p.m.
It read:
"Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration with 'Urban Moving Systems' sign on back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center.
"Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals."
FBI spokeswoman Sandra Carroll declined to comment on the incident late Tuesday.
State police Lt. Col. Barry W. Roberson confirmed the traffic stop at a late night news briefing at state police headquarters in Trenton. He would not elaborate, however.
Business records show an Urban Moving Systems with offices on West 50th Street in Manhattan and on West 18th Street in Weehawken. Telephone messages left at the businesses Tuesday evening were not immediately returned.
Business records show the owner as Dominik Suter of Fair Lawn. A woman answering the telephone at Suter's home acknowledged he owned the company but refused to comment further. She also declined to identify herself.
It was not clear Tuesday whether the van stopped by police is related to Suter's company.
A business traveler staying at the Homestead Studio Suites Hotel said she watched state troopers drive the suspects away in a procession of state police cars about 5 p.m.
The woman, who asked not to be identified, said the people detained appeared to be white men, but she could not give more details. About 5:30 p.m., police evacuated the hotel without offering guests an explanation.
"First, they told us we could hang out in the lobby, but then they told us we had to leave," the traveler said.
At 10 p.m., the hotel guest said she could see at least two police officers searching through the van while a crowd of other officers kept their distance. Except for police vehicles and a tow truck, the service road beside Route 3 was empty, she said.
2 found with video of Sears Tower
MICHELLE MOWAD, Special to The Mercury October 17, 2001
PLYMOUTH -- Two men whom police described as Middle Eastern were detained in the township by federal immigration authorities after being found with detailed video footage of the Sears Tower in Chicago. Plymouth Police encountered the men after an officer responded to Pizzeria Uno on the 1000 block of West Ridge Pike at 2:40 p.m. Thursday for a report of illegal dumping, according to reports.
A manager there advised the police officer that a tractor-trailer was observed backed up to the Dumpster at the rear of the restaurant. The manager noticed a freshly dumped pile of furniture adjacent to the Dumpster, according to police.
The manager confronted the vehicle's operator, a Middle Eastern man, police said.
The man, who later identified himself as Moshe Elmakias, 30, denied that he did anything and fled the scene, heading west on West Ridge Pike, according to police.
The manager was able to provide township police with the Florida registration number of the tractor-trailer and said that a sign posted on the side of the vehicle read "Moving Systems Incorporated" and included a phone number, police said.
The area was searched by township police, and the vehicle was spotted parked on the curb in front of John Kennedy Ford on Ridge Pike, just west of Industrial Way.
An officer proceeded to make contact with the occupants of the truck by knocking on the cab, according to reports.
A Middle Eastern man, later identified as Ron Katar, 23, exited the sleeper area of the cab and said that the operator was across the street as he pointed toward the Don Rosen Porsche dealer, reports said.
Elmakias and a white female, Ayelet Reisler, 23, were approaching the vehicle from the dealership, but the female then began walking in a different direction, acting as if she were not with Elmakias, according to reports.
Reisler was detained and checked for identification. She had a German passport in her name and medication in a different name, police said.
Plymouth Police Sgt. Thomas Longo was notified and responded to the incident.
Elmakias allegedly admitted to being behind Pizzeria Uno, although he said that he did not dump furniture, he was only turning around.
Elmakias said that his destination was New York and that he was also coming from New York. He said he was in Plymouth because he was supposed to make a pickup from a male in the morning and pointed toward the Storage USA facility on Belvoir Road and West Ridge Pike, police said.
Elmakias could not, however, provide a name or telephone number of the customer.
Township police dispatched a request for a Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program Inspector. Officer Gerald Schwartz of the Whitpain Police Department responded.
Schwartz discovered through his investigation that the operator's log had been falsified and put the truck out of service due to violations, police said. In addition, the vehicle reportedly had numerous equipment violations that rendered the truck unsafe.
Inspection of the tractor-trailer's contents revealed a load three-quarters full containing household items, including furniture and boxes.
Among the items in the truck was a Sony video camera.
Plymouth Police Officer David McCann reviewed the tape found inside the camera. The tape had video footage of Chicago with zoomed-in shots of the Sears Tower, according to police.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified of the incident and all three subjects were transported to the Plymouth Police station.
The subjects were then processed through the National Crime Information Center and placed into detention, according to the report.
FBI Agents James Sweeney and Richard Tofani arrived at the station and proceeded to investigate both the subjects and their belongings with the assistance of Immigration and Naturalization Services.
Elmakias and Katar were eventually detained by INS and transported to a federal facility, said police. Reisler was released.
All evidence collected by Plymouth and Whitpain officers was transferred to federal facilities with the exception of a VCR.
Special Agent Linda Vizi, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia FBI, could not be contacted for comment on further investigations.
I don't know why there was a lot of cash in the van, it might be because they were illegal.
They were not celebrating the attacks. The original news story said they were on a rooftop, with a videocamera, celebrating the attacks--but they were on a bridge, in a van! That's where and why the FBI arrested them, they could not have been on a rooftop. So that was just mistaken reporting.
"witnesses...saw them 'cheering' and 'jumping up and down' in Liberty State Park"
"teams of FBI agents searched a warehouse owned by Urban Moving Systems after neighbors spotted several employees jumping up and down in celebration"
1) Liberty State Park
As noted above and the following two stories. There is a discrepancy between 3 or 5 men involved:
"Three men who celebrated as the Twin Towers crumbled are facing deportation, The Post has learned.
The men, described as illegal immigrants from the Middle East, were arrested Tuesday afternoon in a white Chevy van near the Meadowlands based on a tip from witnesses who saw them 'cheering' and 'jumping up and down' in Liberty State Park after the attack, a source said.
Witnesses took the plate number and the FBI sent out an alert to area cops, reading:
'Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack . . . Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion.'
Port Authority cops nabbed the three as they drove along Route 3 in East Rutherford in the van, which had the words 'Urban Moving Systems' painted on it.
"In a separate action, FBI agents also searched a Weehawken warehouse owned by Urban Moving Systems, which employed several men who were stopped and detained by federal officials on Route 3 in East Rutherford hours after Tuesday's terrorist attacks.
New Jersey State Police Sgt. Al Della Fave said the van the men were driving, owned by the moving company, had become the subject of an FBI bulletin after witnesses reported men watching and celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center from the Hudson County waterfront.
The five men were turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Early the next morning, FBI agents went door-to-door inside the Doric apartment building in Union City, awakening residents and showing them photographs of five men to see if they could identify them, residents said.
The moving company warehouse where they worked was searched Thursday night and agents seized computer hard drives and other items.
Attorney John F. Hamill Jr., who represents the company, said he does not believe his client is a target of the FBI investigation and called accounts that the five men had been celebrating the attack 'not entirely accurate.'"
2) Urban Moving Systems
At their warehouse, where neighbors spotted them:
"Elsewhere, it was the incongruities that caught the attention of investigators. In Weehauken, N.J., authorities said teams of FBI agents searched a warehouse owned by Urban Moving Systems after neighbors spotted several employees jumping up and down in celebration soon after the World Trade Center attacks.
In Union City, N.J., FBI agents went door to door late Tuesday night and early Wednesday evening at the Doric, a high-rise apartment building, interviewing tenants and showing them photos of about a half dozen men who appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties and of Middle Eastern descent.
The agents arrived after a Doric resident saw five men in the area of the apartment building, which had a good view of the World Trade Center, either taking photos or videotaping scenes from across the river shortly after the attack.
Notice that in these reports the FBI was also trying to link Urban Moving Systems to a third incident of men taking pictures from the roof of the Doric Apartments.
I don't think they were arrested for just driving around in a van and looking Middle Eastern! This is a lot of "mistaken reporting" as you would have it.
When I add in the report from Pennsylvania above of an apparently bogus truckdriver who blithely and illegally dumps part of his load of furniture, has a faked logbook, doesn't know the phone number or name of his customer, and has a suspicious tape of the Sears Tower, who is also apparently an illegal Israeli and works for Moving Systems Incorporated (a firm I haven't been able to track down) I have to wonder what is going on.
Unless you are Mexican. Then you are a victim of the American racist society that should fill your pockets with taxpayer funded goodies.
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