Posted on 12/17/2002 9:34:35 AM PST by ganesha
Another Lackawanna arrest
-Businessman will be charged with sending at least $3 million to Yemen
By MICHAEL BEEBE and DAN HERBECK News Staff Reporters 12/17/2002
Federal authorities today are expected to arrest a Lackawanna businessman with ties to the Lackawanna Six on charges that he illegally sent at least $3 million to Yemen over the last several years. The investigation was conducted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force of Western New York, but sources said investigators have been unable to trace any of the money to terrorist activities.
"These transfers have been made illegally and (are) unreported," a law enforcement source said.
Local members of the Yemeni community say it's not unusual for family members to carry or send large amounts of cash back home to Yemen, because Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries lack more formal ways of transferring money.
U.S. law requires that money transfers of more than $10,000 be reported to the U.S. Treasury, and today's charges are said to involve violations of that requirement.
U.S. Attorney Michael A. Battle declined to comment Monday. "We continue our investigation into some of these matters," Battle said.
Agents from the Customs Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration began investigating the money trail to Yemen before six Lackawanna men were arrested in September and accused of being part of an al-Qaida sleeper cell.
They are charged with providing material support to al-Qaida by attending a military training camp in Afghanistan during the summer of 2001.
Although Yemen, one of the poorest Middle East countries, is now a partner with the United States in its war on terrorism, it is the birthplace of Osama bin Laden, an alleged stronghold of al-Qaida loyalists and the country where the USS Cole was damaged in a terrorist attack.
It was also in Yemen where a car believed to be carrying a half-dozen al-Qaida members, including Kamil Derwish, was obliterated by a CIA missile in November. Derwish, sources have said, is the alleged ringleader of the Lackawanna Six.
The Buffalo News reported in September that six agents from the IRS Criminal Investigations Unit had been in Buffalo trying to track money to al-Qaida several weeks before the Lackawanna arrests.
"We know they're out there, and we're concerned," Steven Pregozen, special agent in charge of the Buffalo IRS investigations, told The Buffalo News at the time about local money going to al-Qaida.
Pregozen declined to comment Monday on the investigation.
"It's happening, but how much, I don't know," Peter J. Smith, special agent in charge of the U.S. Customs Service's Office of Investigations in Buffalo, told The News at the time about local money going to al-Qaida.
Smith also declined to comment Monday.
Today's charges are believed to have grown out of the same investigation that, in October, led to the guilty plea of a Yemeni store clerk for transferring $10,405 in cash from Buffalo to Yemen without filing the necessary forms.
Hussein Mohamed-Ahmed Saeed, 28, of Buffalo, also had documents on him at the time of his arrest that showed he earlier had transported $96,000 from Yemen to the United States, authorities said.
As part of his plea deal approved by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara, Saeed was required to cooperate with the federal government on "any and all criminal activity" he might be aware of.
Saeed told the judge that he sometimes takes money to Yemen to support his wife and children, but investigators said they were suspicious that a poorly paid store clerk would have access to such large amounts of money.
The federal government broke up a cigarette smuggling scheme in 1999, in which several local Arab-Americans were accused of funneling more than $1 million to Yemen.
The Lackawanna Six remain jailed awaiting trial, but The News reported last week that all six now acknowledge that they attended the terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.
The men reportedly told federal agents they were unaware until they arrived that the camp's purpose was training participants for terrorist activities. They deny they were part of any al-Qaida sleeper cell.
e-mail: mbeebe@buffnews.com and dherbeck@buffnews.com
Of course they do...little dears.
GET A ROPE....I will find a tree for them!
And hang 'em high.
FOFL
Because they are terrorists?
>Saeed told the judge that he sometimes takes money to Yemen to support his wife and children, but investigators said they were suspicious that a poorly paid store clerk would have access to such large amounts of money.
Good catch Inspector Clouseau.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.