Replies

The December 27, 2001 article from the same author:

Newsday | December 27, 2001 | Rocco Parascandola

Shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the FBI launched a search for several men who had mysteriously vacated Fort Lee, N.J., office space and may have taken possession of an industrial food-processing machine that could be used to mix chemicals, law enforcement sources say.
The men - one who rented the space and a few others who visited, according to the landlord - and the machine have not been located. Investigators say the machine was shipped to a New Jersey address but are uncertain of the identity of the receiver.
Sources say the men, who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, apparently used aliases in Fort Lee and had arranged to pay $100,000 in cash for a fine-food particulate mixer, a sophisticated machine used commercially.
"The concern obviously is what are they going to do with this machine, what can they use it to make," said one law enforcement source. "These guys weren't using their real names, so obviously they're up to something."
A second law enforcement source, however, said that while the whereabouts of the machine are a concern, the FBI is more worried about who the men are.
Capt. Steve Hervey, head of the Fort Lee Police Department's detective bureau, said local officers assisted the FBI.
"We steered them there and they took over," Hervey said.
But Special Agent Sandra Carroll, spokeswoman for the FBI's Newark office, which is investigating the case, said she had no comment on federal agents' actions.
According to the landlord of the two-story building on Main Street in the northern New Jersey community at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, a man named Arthur Abas, who said he ran a company called Cards.com, rented the top floor in June for "about $1,050."
Abas, described by the landlord as a slight young man with a beard, paid two months' security and one month's rent.
"I assume the company had something to do with the Internet," the landlord said, speaking on condition his name not be used. "I saw two or three other men inside there, but they were ordinary."
On Aug. 1, however, when the landlord went to collect the rent he said he discovered that Abas - a name later determined to be an alias - had closed up shop and left.
The landlord said he received a call from a vendor inquiring about a machine someone from Cards.com had ordered but he did not recall the name of the vendor.
The landlord said none of what happened signaled possible trouble until after Sept. 11, when the FBI questioned him and searched the office space.
"We're shaken by the experience," he said.