CBS) CHICAGO A stunning discovery inside a car involved in a deadly crash on the Stevenson Expressway Wednesday has sparked a federal investigation.
Two people were killed in the crash involving a number of cars and semi trucks.
Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports one of the people killed was carrying several suspicious items.
CBS 2 has learned that members of the FBI Terrorist Task Force are among those involved in the investigation originally thought just to be a huge traffic nightmare.
There were at least seven vehicles, including two semis, involved in the 1 p.m. crash that had the southbound Stevenson shutdown for more than six hours Wednesday and left two people dead.
"I heard a loud noise, looked in my mirror, saw a semi jackknife. Two seconds later, a Jeep rear ends me,” Omar Majdobah said. "It was mayhem. Four or five cars, two nearly totaled, two semis hugging each other."
But it is what authorities found in the wreckage, specifically in the car of the 45-year-old man who died in the crash, that has drawn top-level investigators.
Sources tell CBS 2 he was carrying a $1 million check, plus other checks, a large amount of cash and nearly a dozen unused credit cards. That’s prompted calling out members of the elite FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force.
A spokesman has confirmed "...we are at the scene assisting the Illinois State Police investigating things that came up in the accident."
Neither state police nor the medical examiners office are releasing details of the investigation or the identities of those who died.
Sources caution against reading too much into the presence of the terrorist task force, which has a number of financial crimes specialists. They hint that the investigation could just as likely lead to a major counterfeiting operation as it could terrorism or terrorist financing. A lot will depend on the identy of the victim, which they already know.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
The date on that report was 2/22/06
Did they release the identity of the person who died in the crash?
That's a pretty old report. Could you try to keep things current just now? Old news is not really that useful at the moment. Thanks.
So when does the "sweep" of terrorist suspects start in this country. So far they've just lucked into several arrests: one during a traffic stop, another when a Walmart clerk was suspicious because the customers were buying cell phones in lots of 3 (and ended up having a thousand in the car.)
Thanks, that's interesting. Would you have a date for that article?
Was his name Mohammed or Moustafa?
Hmm, nothing says "SWIFT program" like carrying a $1 million check.
so when do we go after the traitor who encouraged the NY Slimes to leak the details of SWIFT?
Prayers up!
Divine Intervention? It does seem a bit of a stretch to say the death of this particular nutjob was coincidental.