Posted on 10/19/2001 3:43:39 PM PDT by grimalkin
The Customs Service has charged two men with smuggling U.S. cash aboard airlines in boxes containing honey destined for Yemen - a suspected base of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
Customs' criminal complaint against Ali Alfatimi and Basam Nahshal comes a week after the U.S. government identified three honey companies in Yemen as fronts for bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
The complaint does not directly link the men to bin Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The complaint, filed Wednesday, allows the Customs Service to hold the pair.
Alfatimi and Nahshal are in custody in New York.
Investigators found dlrs 140,763 with Nahshal when he attempted to pass through a security checkpoint at the Delta Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Tuesday. Nahshal was headed for a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight to Amman, Jordan.
Nahshal's luggage included seven cardboard boxes. A search discovered several jars of honey with dlrs 100,150 in cash stuffed around them.
While authorities were examining Nahshal, Alfatimi arrived and told customs inspectors that cash in three of the boxes belonged to him.
After he was taken into custody, Alfatimi told investigators that he had been smuggling cash to Yemen for 18 months as part of his travel agency business and used airplane passengers as couriers. He said he charged customers about 2 percent of the currency's value as his fee.
The U.S. Treasury Department last week identified three honey-related businesses in San'a, the Yemeni capital, as fronts to move money secretly for bin Laden and al-Qaida.
The Yemeni businesses apparently were part of a broader network of honey-related concerns, stretching to Sudan, that provided bin Laden with cover and funds for al-Qaida.
Next case.
One of my pet peeves right now is that we hear about people being picked up, but we almost never hear about any of them being arrested or deported. I flew off the handle without reading closely enough. My bad :(
I think it would be better to hold them in jail than in a honey boxes, don't ya think?
Isn't taking honey to Yemen like carrying coal to Newcastle?
Yemen is noted for its honey!
It sounds like a PART of a Bond-girl...if you know what I mean.
Put them in a jail cell with someone who'll call them "honey"!
It probably will not be a new experience for them.
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