Posted on 05/21/2004 8:54:13 AM PDT by knighthawk
A senior al-Qaeda operative who hid out in the city of Niigata for more than a year may have been laundering money while in Japan, police sources said Thursday. Lionel Dumont, 33, a French national of Algerian descent, allegedly opened a postal savings account about a month after he entered Japan in July 2002 with a forged passport.
According to the sources, the account maintained a balance of around 10 million yen, but it contained just several thousand yen when Dumont finally left Japan last September. Remittances of about 6 million yen each were often posted in the account to and from four or five other Muslim foreign nationals in Japan.
As some of the Muslims are Pakistani used-car dealers in Niigata, Nagano and Gunma prefectures, investigators suspect that Dumont was laundering money through the remittances, pretending they were related to used-car deals.
An investigation thus far shows that while Dumont was in Niigata, he was working as a used-car dealer.
Police suspect Dumont was also contacting Asian terrorist groups while he was in Japan. During the period in question, Dumont lived in the city of Niigata and traveled three times to Malaysia.
There is a branch of Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist group said to be linked to al-Qaeda, in Malaysia, they said. Jemaah Islamiyah has been blamed for a series of bombings, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly Western tourists.
Dumont, who was arrested in Germany in December, entered Japan from Singapore with a forged French passport -- bearing the name Tinet Gerald Camille Armand -- in July 2002. His last departure from Japan was Sept. 14, 2003.
Investigative sources said earlier that Dumont had lived in Niigata with his German wife while being hunted by Interpol in connection with incidents that included an attempted terrorist bombing related to the Group of Seven economic summit in Lyons, France, in June 1996.
But it is now believed Dumont visited Japan before 2002.
A 30-year-old acquaintance of Dumont who lives in Niigata told police that he met Dumont for the first time in Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, four years ago, but that Dumont was calling himself Samille (phonetic), the sources said.
Ping
Why is al-Qaeda using Germany, Singapore, and Japan as staging areas? I don't get the "Singapore" thing.
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