DC, And there was this:
Cloudcroft chief stops Israelis with suspicious cargo
By Michael Shinabery Staff Writer, Alamogordo Daily News
CLOUDCROFT, NM -- That they were speeding through the school zone first got his attention.
That they had Israeli driver's licenses and expired passports made him suspicious.
Cloudcroft Police Chief Gene Green stopped the 2-ton van on Thursday, for speeding. Initially, Green thought the truck was commercial because of exterior markings. But when he found it was out of Chicago, he asked for documentation such as logs books and manifests.
"They said this is a U-Haul truck and handed me a rental agreement (for) in-town delivery only in Illinois, (which) had expired two days before," Green said. He called for backup, and Otero County Sheriff's Deputy Billy Anders, who patrols the Sacramento Mountains, arrived, along with Capt. Norbert Sanchez and Det. Eddie Medrano.
"We got them out and started digging a little deeper," Green said, "got permission to search the truck. They claimed they were hauling furniture from Austin to Chicago." When officers advised the men they were not exactly en route from one town to another, Green said the two men claimed they were Deming bound. "But they couldn't give us an address in Deming they were going to," he said. "Once we got into the truck, they had some junk furniture I wouldn't have given to Goodwill."
Also inside the vehicle were, Green said, "50 boxes" they claimed was a "private" delivery, but the men insisted they had no "idea what was in them."
At that point, the officers called for drug-sniffing and bomb-sniffing dogs. The men were turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and U- Haul recovered the truck.
Contents of the boxes remain unknown, pending investigation.
And this:
On May 7, 2002, local police authorities pulled over a Budget rental truck in Oak Harbour, Washington near the Whitney Island Naval Air Station. The driver and his passenger were Israeli nationals, one of which had entered the country illegally. The other had an expired visa. Tests performed on the vehicle revealed that there were traces of TNT on the gearshift and RDX plastic explosives on the steering wheel. But no actual explosives were reported to have been found in the truck. [Fox News, 5/13/02]
A report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the following day reported that the FBI performed follow-up tests on the truck which turned-up negative. One source speculated that perhaps the original tests had actually detected just cigarette residue, and not explosives. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5/14/02, Jerusalem Post, 5/14/02].
And this:
On September 11, five employees of Jewish owned Urban Moving Company were detained as a result of witness accounts that they were taking pictures of the flaming ruins of the World Trade Center and celebrating!
Shortly after the collapse of the towers a witness called the police and reported that the 5 individuals were, “going to unusual lengths to photograph the World Trade Center ruins” and they were obviously and blatantly “making light of the situation.” The witness stated that these men were on the roof of the office of their employer, Urban Moving Company, and were posing, dancing, and laughing. [New York Times 10/8/01; Bergen Record 9/12/01; Ha'aretz 9/17/01; Gotham Gazette 11/2/01]
After their indiscreet celebration on the roof of the building, the five Israelis headed down to a nearby parking lot where they mounted the roof of their truck and resumed their photographing and celebrating. Another witness called the police and told them that the men were smiling, dancing, and giving each other high-fives while viewing the destruction of the symbol of Free Enterprise in America. [Gotham Gazette 11/2/01; ABC News, 6/21/02]
A few hours later, the five Israelis were stopped by police while driving their truck. One individual had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock, while another had two foreign passports. They were also found to be in the possession of a box- cutter, which they presumably had because of their job as professional movers. [New York Times 10/8/01; Gotham Gazette 11/2/01; ABC News, 6/21/02]
On September 14, Dominic Suter, the owner of the moving company, left the country very abruptly after FBI agents indicated that they wanted a second interview with him. According to ABC News’ 20/20 [ABC News 6/21/02], “Three months later 20/20's cameras photographed the inside of Urban Moving, and it looked as if the business had been shut down in a big hurry. Cell phones were lying around; office phones were still connected; and the property of dozens of clients remained in the warehouse. The owner had also cleared out of his New Jersey home, put it up for sale and returned with his family to Israel.” [New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, 12/13/01; Gotham Gazette 11/2/01; ABC News, 6/21/02; Forward, 3/15/02]
Shortly after the arrest of the men, FBI officials suspected that the Urban Moving company was an Israeli intelligence front. Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for counterterrorism, told ABC News that the FBI was concerned that the moving company had been “set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in the New Jersey-New York area.” [ABC News, 6/21/02]
The five employees that were taken into custody were all former members of the Israeli Army. After being transferred to jail, the FBI’s Criminal Division sent the case to the Counterintelligence Section on account of suspicions that they were Israeli spies. They were then detained for more that two months. Some of them spent 40 days in solitary confinement. [New York Times 11/21/01; ABC News, 6/21/02]
And this:
It seems that Urban Moving Company was not an isolated phenomenon.
According to a small local newspaper in Pennsylvania, The Mercury, three Israeli employees working for Moving Systems, Inc. were detained by police on October 11, 2001, after being caught illegally dumping garbage from their moving truck into the dumpster of a restaurant. The suspects had fled the seen after being confronted by the restaurant’s manager, who immediately reported the incident to the police. [The Mercury 10/17/01]
The Mercury reported: “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 [an Israeli according to Executive Intelligence Review 3/29/02] man, later identified as Ron Katar, 23, exited the sleeper area of the cab and said that the operator - Elmakias - 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. . . .
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.” [The Mercury 10/17/01
] A search of the truck turned up detailed video footage of the Sears Towers along with several other suspicious articles. It was also discovered that the driver of the truck had falsified his driver log.
As of this date, no ties to Israeli intelligence have been made. [The Mercury 10/17/01]
And this:
It seems that Israeli ‘art students’ - Israelis posing as ‘art students’ selling their art [actually made in China], - were suspected of spying for Israel. They were detained by the FBI and later deported to Israel on account of visa violations. The FBI first took notice of them in January of 2001
. A highly detailed DEA report that was acquired by French intelligence analysts documented 180 cases of Israeli art students infiltrating DEA facilities. It provided names, drivers' license numbers, addresses and phone numbers of the Israelis. [DEA report 6/01; Insight 3/11/02]
Despite official confirmations of the report, other U.S. officials denied its existence. In response, Intelligence Online released the document to CreativeLoafing.com who published it on the Internet for the public. [DEA report 6/01] The Associated Press also reported that it had a copy [AP 3/9/02] The report acknowledged that the art students “may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity.” [DEA report 6/01; AP 3/5/02; Sun Sentinel 3/7/02]
Bill Carter, a spokesman for the FBI, said, “After an agency reported suspicious activities by those so-called students, the FBI conducted an investigation and determined that there was no credence to the assumption that this was an Israeli spying operation. None of the Israelis were charged with espionage and they were all deported by the INS for visa violations.” [Forward 3/15/02]
Five of the Israeli "art students" had been living at 4220 Sheridan St in Hollywood, Florida.
Four of the five so-called 9/11 hijackers that were on AA Flight 11 [Mohammed Atta, Abdulaziz Al-Omari, Walid and Waïl Al- Shehri] and one of the five hijackers [Marwan Al-Shehhi] from UA Flight 175 had at one time or another also resided in Hollywood, Florida.
Compilation courtesy of
Cassiopaea.org