Posted on 06/15/2003 2:08:54 AM PDT by sarcasm
| WASHINGTON - The Bush administration, determined to shut off the cash flow to the terror group Hamas, is probing possible Hamas money laundering operations in several states including New York, sources told the Daily News. Hamas and its suicide bombings in Israel have become a major obstacle to President Bush's road map to Mideast peace and the White House has called on nations to block support for the group. In the U.S., federal prosecutors believe that money donated to Islamic charities at a Brooklyn mosque were siphoned off to terror groups. A key suspect in the case, Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad, is being held in Germany. The federal government has released few details in its case, but Attorney General John Ashcroft told Congress that Al-Moayad told an FBI informant that he supplied $20 million to terror groups, including Hamas, from funds collected at Brooklyn's Al-Farouq mosque. The mosque's officials have expressed surprise and disbelief that its donations could have been used to fund terrorism. Other investigations have focused on Michigan, California, Florida and Texas, government sources and terrorism experts told The News. The most promising development in the crackdown is on tap in Chicago, where a grand jury is expected to indict at least one suspect in Hamas' illegal financial pipeline. "Indictments are coming, but they're not necessarily going to be this week or next week," a federal official said. He said the grand jury could act this summer or early fall. The FBI believes the Chicago network hired couriers to carry suitcases stuffed with money to Hamas operatives overseas, sources said. Investigators also are looking into whether Hamas backers are getting their U.S. donations to the Mideast by using the cash donated in the U.S. to buy goods here and then selling the stuff abroad to convert it back to cash. The feds have centered the Chicago probe around Mohammed Abdul Hamid Khalil Salah, a Chicago-area resident jailed for five years in Israel in the early 1990s for transporting money earmarked for Hamas. Salah, who ran the Quranic Literacy Institute in Chicago, has been under investigation since at least 1998, when the feds seized about $100,000 from him and another $1 million from his organization. "The Chicago investigation is much broader than just Salah. It's all about money laundering," said Rita Katz, a terrorism expert who went undercover to write the book "Terrorist Hunter." It will take time and persistence to shut down the pipeline. "The traditional financial criminal investigation isn't necessarily going to work anymore because they're coming up with other avenues," said an FBI official. "We're not going find them by subpoenaing, or by looking at bank records." |
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