The terrorist organization Hamas invested millions of dollars during the past decade in real-estate projects nationwide, including in suburban Maryland, as part of a scheme to raise cash to fund acts of terrorism, records show.
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The investments — involving the construction of hundreds of new homes, including many in Oxon Hill — were handled through BMI Inc., a defunct Secaucus, N.J., investment firm founded by Soliman S. Biheiri, an Egyptian and Hamas supporter, according to a newly released sentencing declaration by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
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One of the principle BMI investors in the Oxon Hill project, according to the Kane declaration, was Mousa Mohammad Abu Marzook, the self-proclaimed political leader of Hamas detained by U.S. authorities in 1995 on suspicion of being involved in terrorist activities. He later was expelled to Jordan, where he was deported to Syria for his ties to Hamas.
The U.S.-educated Marzook, who had lived in Falls Church, has been named by Israeli authorities on charges of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and conspiracy in truck and bus bombings in Israel that killed 14 and injured 56. He also is accused of ordering the killing of 37 others in Hamas attacks in Israel.
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The declaration said hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the projects was returned to investors or were re-invested in other real-estate developments, with much of the cash being routed through banks in Virginia and New Jersey to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It said significant amounts of cash obtained in the real-estate ventures were used "in furtherance of Hamas terrorist operations."
It was a U.S. investigation into Marzook's financial activities in this country that led to Biheiri, BMI and Ptech, a Boston-based computer software firm raided by customs agents in December 2002, authorities said. They said Biheiri and Yasin Qadi, a key BMI investor, were the primary Ptech financiers.
Qadi, a Saudi multimillionaire, was listed by the Treasury Department in 2002 as a terrorist and is thought by authorities to have diverted millions of dollars to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network through various charitable organizations.
Biheiri was a key figure in a scheme using private companies and interrelated Islamic charities operating out of business fronts in Herndon and Falls Church to divert millions of dollars to global terrorists, including Hamas and al Qaeda
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