Posted on 03/22/2002 6:19:12 PM PST by pttttt
Federal Agents Raid Herndon Businesses
By Christopher L. Moore
Observer Staff Writer
A U.S. Customs Service counter-terrorism task force raided four businesses on Grove Street in Herndon Wednesday afternoon, executing search warrants and carting away boxes of documents and material. Agents entered the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a Muslim think tank located on the second floor of 500 Grove St., that shares space with the All Dulles Area Muslim Society.
Jemel R. Buck, director of operations for ADAMS, said IIIT rents space to ADAMS, but maintains separate offices. ADAMS uses the space to operate a school and worship area.
Buck said ADAMS workers received a telephone call from the FBI earlier Wednesday requesting that someone go to the Grove Street office and open it up for investigators. Buck said he headed to the Herndon location, but when he arrived IRS investigators were already inside searching through the offices of IIIT.
Buck said he remained on the scene to protect ADAMS assets. Because the two businesses share the second floor of the building, Buck said, investigators had to go through the school to reach the IIIT offices.
Agents also raided an office space directly across the street at 555 Grove St. that contained three businesses: Marjac Investments, Inc., in suite 110, Reston Investments, Inc., in suite 114, and Sterling Management Group in suite 116.
Agents wearing U.S. Customs jackets were hauling boxes out of 555 Grove St. at about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday night and loading them up into a U-Haul truck, while television crews, reporters and photographers swirled around them. The raids were part of a series of actions taken in Northern Virginia and Georgia on Wednesday involving more than 150 agents and officers associated with a task force called Operation Green Quest. According to the U.S. Customs Service, search warrants were served on 14 business and residential locations in Northern Virginia and one warrant was served in Georgia.
The Customs Service released a statement Wednesday that said agents and officers conducted the searches without incident and are the processing evidence seized. No one was arrested in the raids, the report said, and the affidavits filed in support of the search warrant were under court seal.
Operation Green Quest was formed in October 2001 by the Treasury Department to bring the "full scope of the government’s financial expertise to bear against systems, individuals, and organizations that serve as sources of terrorist funding," according to the Office of Public Affairs of the Customs Service.
The group reported having more than 300 ongoing investigations into terrorist finances, and has operations around the world, including a dedicated field office in New York City.
Copyright © 2002 The Herndon Publishing Company
For education and discussion purposes only
Standard-issue Israeli army tank with suicide bomber's brains splattered across the side.
Could not have been anyone there.
Yes, they are allowed to think, but only of violent thoughts of killing non-muslims.
I gotta admit...when you're right, you're right!
Hey! It's serious intellectual business to determine what minimum age (if any) the Koran had in mind for the "beautiful boys" that men are promised, along with the virgins, when they get the Allah's Big Bathhouse in the sky.
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