Al-Qaeda Threat in Philadelphia?

ABC Channel 6 Action News - Philadelphia ^ | June 27, 2002 | David Henry

[all4one]

Al-Qaeda Threat in Philadelphia?

Philadelphia, PA June 27, 2002 — David Henry reports from the Action Newsroom.

An Action News investigation reveals that a chain of jewelry stores operating in the Delaware Valley is being investigated by the FBI for possible connections to the Al Qaeda terror network.

A series of raids were carried out yesterday in Philadelphia and across the state of Pennsylvania.

The stores are mostly kiosks in shopping malls operating under the name "Intrigue Jewelers." They are all owned by Pakistanis under franchise agreements with a company called Gold Concepts, based in Pennsacola, Florida.

Intrigue operates stores at malls in Philadelphia, Plymouth Meeting, Harrisburg, and Monroeville. Until recently, they also had a kiosk at the Lehigh Valley Mall near Allentown. Owners and employees of the Intrigue shops at the Gallery in Center City and at the Plymouth Meeting Mall were questioned yesterday by agents from the FBI and INS. An employee at the shops in the Monroeville Mall tells us he was detained for hours yesterday.

Tariq Hussain says his home was searched and his computer was taken. He says the FBI accused him of funneling money to Ossama bin Laden's terror network. He says they questioned him about a photo he took two years ago of the NASDAQ building in New York, but he doesn't know how they knew about the photo.

The man in the photos taken at the World Trade Center just days before the attacks also worked at the Intrigue Jewelry store at the Lehigh Valley Mall. Two days before the attacks Ashar Iqbal Butt came to a photo shop in the mall looking for the pictures. The clerk says Butt seemed anxious to get them.

He was picked up on September 12th and was later charged with entering the country on a false passport just a month before the attacks.

Action News has confirmed that yesterday's sweep is part of a nationwide investigation involving at least 60 jewelry outlets. The justice department confirms that a number of people have been detained for questioning, but no charges have been filed yet.

[kcvl]

35111634D 07/06/2001 QAZI ENTERPRISES, INC. 1009 WINNSBORO ROAD MONROE, LA 71202

Agent: KHURSHID AHMAD 1009 WINNSBORO ROAD MONROE, LA 71202

Officer: KHURSHID AHMAD, DIR 1009 WINNSBORO ROAD MONROE, LA 71202

[kcvl]

ASHAR IQBAL BUTT : a/k/a "Mobasser Mahmood" a/k/a "Max Hassan" :Ashar Iqbal Butt, a 22-year-old native of Pakistan

[kcvl]

Moeen Butt, 23, was supposed to begin managing Intrigue Jewelers around Sept. 17 because its previous manager was taken into federal custody for what the company's lawyer believed was a visa violation. The lawyer, Philip Calandrino of Orlando, Fla., said a manager named Hamza Mir left the business abruptly around Sept. 11 and was replaced by his brother, who was arrested by federal agents Sept. 12.

Calandrino did not know the brother's name. Contacted Tuesday, he said he did not know the name Ashar Butt.

Intrigue Jewelers closed the mall kiosk around Sept. 17.

[kcvl]

Al-Hadha Jewelry - Alhadha Factory for gold and Gold Ornament
was established in 1983. Specializing in Gold and precious metal business activities, covering import, wholesale and retail sales for Jewelry products. In 1988 this was expanded to include local manufacturing of gold and precious metal Jewelry. This led to the establishment of Alhadha Jewelry. The factory is at the following address:-

Al Hadha Factory for Gold and Gold ornament
Tel: 275516 Fax.: 810147 Sana’a Republic of Yemen
Person to contact: Hassan Hussein Al-Hadha

[Mo1]

Just checking the info collected so for ..

Spencer's is another one to look into???

[kcvl]

TANZANIA

Dar-es-Salaam

Lehmann (E.A) Ltd
P.O. Box 9163
Dar-es-Salaam
Tel (+255) 22 2122507-8
Fax (+255) 22 2114 263, 2116 733
Contact Arif Rajan

[kcvl]

Oncor International serves as real estate advisor to Anadarko. D. E. Harvey Builders is the construction company working on the new headquarters.



Anadarko is one of the world's largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies. Founded in 1959, its current reserves of 935 million energy equivalent barrels are equally split between crude oil and natural gas.



The company employs 1,500 employees, half of which are in Anadarko's Houston headquarters.

[kcvl]

Intrigue Fine Jewelers
1455 NW 107th Ave # 960
Miami, FL
305-500-9030

[kcvl]

www.militarycirclemall.com

INTRIGUE JEWELERS

Location A.
757/466-0044
Add store to shopping list
M-Sat: 10am-9pm
Sun: noon-6pm

[kcvl]

Man who took photos of Trade Center charged
Former Whitehall resident altered passport, used it, and altered visa papers, feds say.

By Christine Schiavo
Of The Morning Call

May 22, 2002


Federal charges were filed Tuesday against a Whitehall Township man arrested at the Lehigh Valley Mall after a clerk at a photo shop became suspicious of snapshots he had taken of the World Trade Center days before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ashar Iqbal Butt, a 22-year-old native of Pakistan, was charged in U.S. Eastern District Court in Philadelphia with altering a passport, using an altered passport and altering a visa document. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years. A hearing has not been set.

Also known as Mobasser Mahmood and Max Hassan, Butt was one of two employees at Intrigue Jewelers, a mall kiosk, arrested at the mall on Sept. 12 for allegedly carrying false passports. He lived in a one-bedroom basement unit at Parkview Apartments in Whitehall with at least one other man, a woman and a child.

The apartment was rented to Mohammed Mir, who moved out without notice in September, leaving clothing and furniture as well as a baby's picture. The Morning Call reported in December that federal agents searched the apartment on Sept. 13, a day after a clerk at a photo processing store in the mall called them about the suspicious snapshots.

According to a federal court affidavit:

Butt dropped off film for one-hour development on Sept. 8 and was told by a clerk that processing would take a few days. Butt returned for the film on Sept. 12, but the clerk couldn't find the pictures under his name. Butt asked him to try the name Hassan and then the name Max, but the pictures weren't under either of those.

Butt left the store anxious and in a hurry. The clerk then searched the photo packets more thoroughly and found one with the name Burt Asmar. He opened it to find Butt in the pictures, which were exclusively of the World Trade Center. There were 25 shots with panoramic views taken both inside and outside the complex during a six-hour period. The clerk immediately called police.

Special Agent Kenneth G. Vincent of the FBI found Ashar Butt at work at the mall that day. Butt told Vincent his name was Mobasser Mahmood, that he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and that he was in the United States for two weeks on a visitor's visa. He said his passport was with a friend in Jersey City, N.J., and that his roommate Moeen Islam Butt could get it for him. As the conversation continued, Vincent found Butt's statements inconsistent.

He was taken to the federal courthouse in Allentown for questioning that day. On Sept. 14, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., provided a passport application and photo of Mobasser Mahmood. Vincent could see that Butt was not the man in the picture.

On Sept. 17, Vincent contacted Moeen Butt at Intrigue Jewelers, who turned over a passport for Mobasser Mahmood. The photograph on the passport was Butt's, but a forensic examination done a week later detected that it had been substituted for the original.

Confronted with the information while being held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., Ashar Butt acknowledged that he had entered the United States illegally by using an altered passport of Mahmood.

He told Vincent that his father paid a smuggler in Pakistan $10,000 for fake Pakistani and United Kingdom passports. Butt was supposed to return the fake passports to the smuggling operation when he finished with them. He said he left Pakistan for Los Angeles on Aug. 5 and continued on to New York, then Whitehall. The affidavit does not say how long Butt lived in Whitehall.

Moeen Butt, also of Pakistan, was taken into custody Sept. 17 after admitting to Vincent that he bought a fake passport for $4,000. According to an affidavit filed Oct. 12, Moeen Butt also said he paid a woman he met in a bar $2,000 to marry him so that he could apply for immigration status. He told Vincent he had talked to the woman only once or twice since marrying her in Fort Lee, N.J., on April 24, 2001.

He pleaded guilty in April to altering a passport and marriage fraud, according to Rich Manieri, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia. Sentencing is scheduled for June 13.

It's not clear if Moeen Butt, whose address is the same basement apartment as Ashar's, is related to Ashar Butt.

Moeen Butt, 23, was supposed to begin managing Intrigue Jewelers around Sept. 17 because its previous manager was taken into federal custody for what the company's lawyer believed was a visa violation. The lawyer, Philip Calandrino of Orlando, Fla., said a manager named Hamza Mir left the business abruptly around Sept. 11 and was replaced by his brother, who was arrested by federal agents Sept. 12.

Calandrino did not know the brother's name. Contacted Tuesday, he said he did not know the name Ashar Butt.

[kcvl]

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Department of Computing and Mathematics was host to the 3rd Annual High School Programming Competition to recognize and reward Florida High School students who excel in computer programming.

The event was held on Saturday, February 24, 2001, from 10 - to 4 P.M. in the Student Center and the Lehman Engineering and Technology Center on the Daytona Beach Campus.

THIRD PLACE
Hamza Mir, Lake Highland Prep, Orlando --- Six problems solved
Laptop and $500.00 Scholarship

[kcvl]

The lawyer, Philip Calandrino of Orlando, Fla., said a manager named Hamza Mir left the business abruptly around Sept. 11 and was replaced by his brother, who was arrested by federal agents Sept. 12.

[kcvl]

Lawyer: Man With Trade Center Photos Was Hopeful Immigrant

(AP) (Philadelphia) Jun 8, 2002 7:00 am US/Eastern
A Pakistani man who spent hours photographing the World Trade Center days before it was destroyed was nothing but a "poor peasant" excited to be starting a new life in the United States, his lawyer said.

"This guy just went to the wrong place to take pictures," said attorney Louis A. Ortiz.

Ashar Iqbal Butt was detained and interrogated by the FBI on Sept. 12, a day after the attacks, when a photo developer in Whitehall became suspicious upon discovering 25 pictures Butt had taken of the twin towers at least a week earlier.

Butt has been jailed ever since, and on Thursday pleaded guilty to entering the country using an altered British passport. A federal judge delayed his sentencing until Sept. 12, 2002, however, saying prosecutors needed more time to investigate the photographs.

Ortiz said the delay is unnecessary.

"They have thoroughly investigated this, and all that they've uncovered is that he had a false passport," he said. "There is no one saying he is related to a terrorist group. There are no terrorist manifestos, no bomb making equipment ... He should be allowed to go home."

Prosecutors said Butt, 22, was born in Gujranwala, Pakistan, and arrived in the United States through Los Angeles on Aug. 5. He came to the United States to work and intended to send money home to his family, Ortiz said.

Butt told investigators he paid $10,000 for the doctored passport and had a job waiting for him at a jewelry store in the Whitehall Mall when he arrived. He was living in Whitehall, near Allentown, and had trained at the store for about 12 days when he was arrested.

"He was a poor peasant from Pakistan, whose parents paid for him to come here, as many immigrants do," Ortiz said.

While he has been imprisoned, Butt's mother died, Ortiz said. Butt has been kept in solitary confinement for most of his nine months behind bars. Until recently he has been denied access to a telephone to talk to his family, Ortiz said.

Prosecutors continue to be bothered about some aspects of Butt's story.

For weeks after his arrest, Butt insisted his name was Mobasser Mahmood and that he was a British citizen.

Prosecutors also said Butt wouldn't reveal the identity of a person he was with when the twin towers photos were taken, other than to say he was a distant relative who has since left for Canada.

Several of the photos show Butt standing at locations in and around the World Trade Center towers, which were destroyed Sept. 11 when terrorists flew two hijacked airplanes into the buildings. There were no photos of other New York City landmarks.

Ortiz declined to describe Butt's explanation for his interest in the towers, other to say that, "He has offered an explanation. They (the FBI) have chosen not to believe it."

A second Pakistani man who worked at the Whitehall jewelry store, Moeen Islam Butt, was also detained on immigration charges as the FBI investigated the photos.

Moeen Islam Butt pleaded guilty last month and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 13. His attorney, Anser Ahmad, said his client was inadvertently caught in the FBI dragnet and has no connection to terrorism.

[kcvl]

What is this?

Virtual University

This list is displayed as a notice only, errors and omissions excepted. The Admission Lists will be available at the respective Private Virtual Campuses on Monday, March 18, 2002.

[Grampa Dave]

The more I read your replies on this thread, the more I'm convinced that these jewelry stores are like an underground railway for these illegal and sometimes legal "Visitors".

They provide jobs and the ability to become invisible as just another Joe Camel working in the mall.

Then they have to be a tremendous money laundering machine with franchises to launder money all over the USA.

Incredible!

[Grampa Dave]

The FR babes and bucks are doing a great job of investigating all of these probable connections in this incredible story.

[browardchad]

From the Virtual University website: The launch of the Virtual University is a historical milestone for Pakistan not only in the field of Information Technology (IT) but also in the sector of science and technology education. It is expected to make a great impact on the socio-economic growth of Pakistan. The idea of the Virtual University is to extend the quality education to remote areas of Pakistan where qualified faculty is not available based on the excellent existing telecommunication infrastructure. This will combine television broadcast and Internet. The feasibility study of the project was carried out two years ago for a Virtual IT University (VITU) in Pakistan. The Ministry of Science & Technology and the Minister Prof. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, then took up the project with keen interest for its implementation. Present Government has put it as a high priority project in its current IT action policy. Now the project is in its implementation phase. In the following, I will highlight the working of the University and the inspiration behind the project.

The "virtual campuses" are organized according to Pakistani cities.

The list is a good reference tool for the (correct) spelling of Pakistani names. Interesting that all students are referenced to the father's name.

[browardchad]

And, of course, it makes perfect sense for a "poor peasant" to have $10,000 to fork over for a forged passport.

Avais Butt is listed as the registered agent for Royal Concept of Jewelry, Inc. (d/b/a Intrigue Fine Jewelers) in Naples, FL.

[Dixie Mom]

Excellent research, thanks!

The only currently active corporation registered to Munawar Iqbal is Unique Imports of Tampa, Inc., and Iqbal is listed at a Brandon, FL address.

Is it the same address as in your #167?

[antidisestablishment]

Great digging, browardchad! These interlocked, often ficticious and failed businesses offer a perfect cover for money laundering and smuggling. The multiple bankruptcies and sudden influx of cash in failed enterprises doesn't make a lot of sense. Tied in with the anecdotal evidence from mall patrons, I believe many of the kiosks are probably fronts and many of the related businesses are as well.

As far as the agents and owners go, it is actually very common for one foriegn national to act as an agent for numerous businesses. And let's not forget we are also dealing with a patriarchal culture. But all this should make it easier for even the FBI to find the links. This thread reminds me why I love FR. Excellent job all!