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More Middle Eastern men were caught buying large quantities of Tracphones:

From WNEM in Michigan:

Around 1:00am August 11th the three men purchased cell phones from the Wal-Mart store on M-81 near the corner of M-24 in Caro. Wal-Mart places a limit on the number of cell phones that can be purchased at once, that number is three. The three men allegedly bought 80 by purchasing them three at time so that an alert wouldn't be triggered by the cash register. They also paid cash.

The three men are described as being of Palestinian descent but live in Texas. Police say the three, ages 19, 22, and 23 appear to be naturalized citizens.

One man was driving while the other two were in the back opening the phone packages with box cutters throwing the phones in one box, batteries in another and the packaging and phone charger in another container. The suspects had 1000 other cell phones in the van. There was also a bag of receipts showing that someone was in Wisconsin the day before.

The phones were Nokia TracFones selling for $20 at Wal-Mart. For your twenty dollars you receive a phone charger and 40 minutes of airtime. The phones do not have to be registered with a name. Also discovered was a laptop with store addresses and store logos.

Tim Nausler with the Michigan State Police bomb squad says this has all the tell tale signs of using cell phones to detonate bombs. He says you need two phones to detonate a bomb one to be with the explosive and the other to make the call to that phone. In some instances he says you can detonate with one phone using the alarm clock function.

and

From WBOY in West Virginia:

Last week, the Grafton police pulled over 24-year-old Hashem Sayed for a routine traffic stop. But what they found in his car was far from routine. Patrolman Daniel Laymon recalls the scene, "There were multiple cell phones, roughly 150 to 200 cell phones from multiple retailers," he said.

Buying that many pre-paid phones is not a crime, but the police say it is unusual.

Less than a week later, the authorities in Marietta, Ohio, arrested 20-year-old Osma Sabhi Abulhassan and 20-year-old Ali Houssaiky. Washington County Sheriffs deputies seized several pre-paid cell phones and thousands of dollars in cash. Because of the incidents, Grafton police believe the events are connected.

"The department feels that there are a lot of similar circumstances and there are a lot of similarities between the activity there and the activity experienced here," said Patrolman Laymon.

The activity seems to be more than just a coincidence. All three men are from Dearborn, Michigan and all three gave similar reasons for buying the phones. Sayed said he was buying them to ship to California to sell for a profit. But Washington County's sheriff says that may not be the whole truth. "They are digital for detonating car bombs and they have a particular digital frequency and that's what they're using them for," said Sheriff Larry Mincks.

Mincks says the men also had instructions on how to obtain private flights and airplane passenger information.

"It also had some information concerning airport security and check points."

Interesting how they're going to small towns to make their purchases. Perhaps they think they're less likely to be caught, but in reality, they're more likely to stand out.

And if so, then what possible use, other than command detonating IEDs would anyone have for hundreds of these phones? Well I suppose another use is in bypassing the NSA surveillance techniques as printed in the NYT.
Yep ed, I think you are right. These guys were dumb enough to think the infidels at WalMart were dumb enough not to notice that they kept coming in over and over to buy three phones at a time.

So my guess is these guys would have been dumb enough to have used registered phones if there wasn’t such a big stink about it in the media.

And the lefties were cheering the NYTs on and are now clamoring to put them in charge of national security.

Posted by: Jumpinjoe at August 12, 2006 11:58 AM

And

Foreign man being held for feds
By Liz Zemba
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 7, 2006

A man from the Republic of Georgia is being held in the Westmoreland County Prison on a federal detainer after he and another foreigner were found in Murrysville with 15 prepaid cell phones and $4,200 in cash, police said.

Malkhaz Zakutashvili, 53, was held through the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Murrysville police Sgt. Charles Tappe said.

The federal agency told police not to hold the second man, Zurabi Maisuradze, 25, who is also of the Republic of Georgia, Tappe said.

Zakutashvili told police he was in the country illegally, Tappe said. Maisuradze claimed to have a visa, but he said he had forgotten to bring it with him.

The two men were questioned just before 8 p.m. Saturday because their van, which did not have a permanent registration plate, was stopped in a lane of traffic in the Franklin Plaza parking lot, near an Eckerd drugstore, Tappe said.

The white van had only a temporary cardboard tag displayed in a window.

The men said they were immigrants, but each displayed Michigan drivers' licenses, Tappe said.

The prepaid cell phones, which the men had recently purchased in Monroeville and Murrysville, were found inside the van. Also in the van were a laptop computer and global-positioning software.