Posted on 07/24/2002 1:41:34 PM PDT by Shermy
Edited on 05/07/2004 7:12:34 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
DETROIT - A man arrested with $12 million in allegedly phony cashier's checks after arriving on a flight from Indonesia told government agents that he could provide them with information on terrorism, a U.S. attorney said Wednesday.
Omar Shishani also said the man the checks were made out to may belong to al-Qaida, assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Straus said.
(Excerpt) Read more at freep.com ...
Thanks for the follow-up ping. On Shep Smith's Fox Report earlier he also mentioned that when they searched his house they also found the a copy of the koran with an apocolyptic verse highlighted.
Presumably, they would be using them to somehow finance their U.S. operations. But how, exactly?
1. Surely they don't expect to pass the checks directly, for their own account. Would they?
2. So, they could sell them, at a counterfeiter's discount (i.e., for tens cents on the dollar?), to a criminal gang -- who would attempt to pass them. Like the Las Vegas group, perhaps. But at these denominations, what is the liklihood they're going to get cleared and cashed?
3. Or the checks could be "show money". As in, "Hassan, all you have to do to earn $200,000 is blow yourself up in the McDonald's. See, here is the check. It will belong to your family the instant you do the deed."
All things considered, I'm starting to lean toward the last explanation. Which leaves me wondering: What atrocity pays $5 mill?
Could deposit the checks with a complicit bank, or just use an insider. The fraud can be written off as a loss, but actually was an intended delivery. Lots of things they could do, just need the right cover story.
This guy's been living the high life for quite a while. He's a pro.
Shishani's attorney could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But Ayad told Fox News that Shishani was a courier for an Indonesian bank. The attorney said Shishani was to deliver the checks to an unidentified third party in California.
Ayad told Fox News the deal was associated with a loan that faltered and that Shishani has given the names of parties involved to federal investigators.
a 4th scenario could be that an attempt was made to use the bogus checks as collateral for the "loan that faltered"????
Here it is. It's in today's Detroit Free Press:
DEARBORN MAN HELD WITH LINK TO TERROR
Arrested with phony checks, he says he has Al Qaeda info July 25, 2002
BY CECIL ANGEL, JIM SCHAEFER AND DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
After his arrest at Metro Airport for allegedly carrying $12 million in bogus cashier's checks into the country, the Dearborn man sat down with federal agents and started talking.
'THEN WE DESTROY THEM'
Federal authorities say they found a piece of paper with ominous phrases, written in Arabic, when they arrested a Dearborn man July 17 at Metro Airport while he was carrying $12 million in phony cashier's checks. Prosecutors say the checks were made out to a man who may have ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
Following are excerpts from a translation filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
"When we decide to destroy a population, we (first) send a definite order to those among them who are given the good things of this life and yet transgress; so that the word is proved true against them: Then we destroy them utterly.
"There is not a population but we shall destroy it before the day of judgment or punish it with a dreadful penalty. That is written in the eternal record."
"Mighty indeed were the plots which they made, but their plots were (well) within sight of God, even though they were such as to shake the hills."
They say he told them that he was a spy in his home country of Jordan in the 1970s.
That his family was close to the Jordanian king and his army.
That his brother commanded special forces there.
And then, prosecutors say, there was this:
"If you want to know about terrorism, I can help you with that."
In recounting the statements in court documents, government prosecutors sought Wednesday to show that Omar Abdel-Fatah Al-Shishani is a mystery man who must remain jailed while investigators determine whether the checks were linked to Al Qaeda, the terrorist network blamed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
He lives in a modest home, yet agents who raided the house found a sheet claiming his net worth to be more than $30 million.
On Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Thomas Carlson agreed to the government's request and ordered the 47-year-old man, also known as Omar Shishani, held without bond, based in part on the government's account of the agents' interview with him after the arrest July 17.
Carlson said there is sufficient evidence to link Shishani to potential terrorist activity. Shishani was indicted Tuesday on charges of possession of counterfeit securities and smuggling merchandise into the United States.
After court, Shishani's lawyer, Nabih Ayad, said he would appeal today and hopes to have a hearing scheduled next week so Shishani can be released.
"For them to use this against him is just a way to blow a lot of smoke in the court and keep this person detained," he said. Shishani has pleaded not guilty.
The government side presented in court included an assertion that the man to whom the checks were written, Indonesian businessman Baharuddin Masse, may be a member of Al Qaeda.
Shishani allegedly told agents Baharuddin Masse has made statements favoring Al Qaeda and named his daughter Al Qaeda.
When arrested after a flight from Indonesia, Shishani was carrying a piece of paper with Arabic verses from the Koran that appeared, in translation, to refer to martyrs and apocalyptic events, the FBI said.
In a raid July 18 on Shishani's Dearborn home, agents said they found a document that claimed his personal worth in 2000 was more than $36 million.
Besides millions in cash, jewelry and property, the document claimed he owns art worth $27 million, including a jade tray from the Chinese Ming Dynasty. Court documents do not indicate whether agents believe the claims.
Nobody answered the door Wednesday at Shishani's two-story brick and white paneled house on Chovin Street.
In his argument for denying Shishani bond, assistant U.S. attorney Eric Straus said that Shishani is well traveled and not a U.S. native, and has access to large amounts of money.
He is "quite possibly a danger to the community," Straus said.
Of the items of evidence gathered since the arrest, Straus said, "What they suggest is somewhat alarming."
On the piece of paper Shishani was carrying with him from Indonesia was this in Arabic:
"When we decide to destroy a population, we (first) send a definite order to those among them who are given the good things of this life and yet transgress; so that the word is proved true against them: Then we destroy them utterly," according to an FBI translation.
In denying bond, Carlson said he was concerned about taking the terrorism suspicions at face value.
"Obviously since Sept. 11, a lot of things have changed," he said, adding that it was important that the courts ensure that there is not an "irrational or unjustified backlash against our Arabic brothers and sisters."
According to court records, when federal agents interviewed Shishani on July 17, he said he served with the Jordan Intelligence Service in 1974-76. He received instruction in spy craft and countersurveillance techniques, he claimed.
He also said his brother, Ahmed Ali El-Din, was commander of Jordanian Special Forces, the government said.
Abdallah Shishani, Omar Shishani's brother, said that before the arrest his brother had been in Indonesia drumming up cell phone business for an American telephone company.
Omar Shishani also had been acting as a mediator for a Texas company wanting to buy Libyan oil despite a U.S. embargo, Abdallah Shishani said.
Shiho Kusumoto, Omar Shishani's wife, was suspended from her job at Northwest Airlines following her husband's arrest, attorney Ayad said.
Northwest spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert confirmed that Kusumoto is an employee of the airline and works with ground operations. She couldn't comment on Kusumoto's employment because of company policy.
Omar Shishani came to the attention of federal officials during a routine customs inspection, according to court records.
According to the criminal complaint, Victoria Brown, an inspector with the U.S. Customs Service in Detroit, noticed nine checks purportedly issued by the Pomona, Calif., branch of West America Bank in Shishani's baggage. Two checks were for $500,000 each, two others were for $5 million each, and five were for $200,000 each. Six checks were posted for June 2002. The other three had September dates.
All the checks had "Cashier Check;" none said "Official Check." A fraud investigator at West America Bank confirmed the checks were bogus.
A Secret Service official in Washington said last week that the checks Shishani was carrying are similar to four checks totaling $800,000 that a group of men tried to pass in June at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Those four also were drawn on a fictitious, Pomona branch of West America Bank.
Las Vegas police said they were tipped off to the plan, arranged meetings with the alleged ringleaders, and on June 13 arrested 10 men of various nationalities when the men tried to pass the checks. Several of the men had fake identification.
Seven men in that case were charged in federal court with possession of a counterfeit security and are facing trial Aug. 20. One of the seven has disappeared. It's unclear what happened to the other three.
The FBI in Las Vegas said it's unclear whether any of the men had terror links. Five of the Sept. 11 hijackers had met with people in Las Vegas before the attacks.
"The Secret Service is examining the case for any links to terrorism," said Natalie Collins, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Vegas.
Ayad said Shishani doesn't have any terrorist links and didn't even know the checks were counterfeit until he was arrested.
It all started about two months ago when Shishani was contacted by an acquaintance in California who wanted him to help a Texas woman get financing for a business enterprise, Ayad said.
Shishani said Baharuddin Masse had connections to banks in Indonesia and could get the money, Ayad said. The California man traveled with Shishani several times to Indonesia to meet with Baharuddin Masse.
They were supposedly close to a deal and the California man sent checks to Baharuddin Masse, who was to deposit them in a bank account as a down payment for the loan. The deal fell through, Ayad said. The California man instructed Shishani, who was in Indonesia, to return to the United States with the checks.
By all means let's make sure everyone continues to uphold the code of P friggen C!!!!! We surely wouldn't want to upset any of our "peace" loving fiends, oops I mean friends. Must have been a Freudian slip. We'll all just sit back in the comfort of our homes knowing that the FBI, CIA and Homeland INsecurity are on the case. That's it, no worries mates. Bullsh*t. Nothing has changed since Sept. 11. If anything has changed it's that we've become even more PC . Don't say anything that might upset the towel heads or point fingers at the people who brought this terror to our shores. Why do that? It might offend someone. Tough Sh*t. I'm sick and tired of reading about how our gobment is just sitting back doing nothing about getting rid of these Aaaarabs. GET THEM OUT, NOW!!! I think we've all had just about enough. If they do strike again, allah help them all!
How's this for starters?
When we decide to destroy a population, we (first) send a definite order to those among them who are given the good things of this life and yet transgress; so that the word is proved true against them: Then we destroy them utterly.
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.