Posted on 07/31/2002 11:11:13 AM PDT by kattracks
PATERSON, N.J., Jul 31, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A man who authorities said sold fake identification to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers apparently left on a flight to Egypt hours before authorities raided his home and businesses Wednesday, officials said.
Mohamad El Atriss operated businesses in Paterson and Elizabeth where he sold the IDs, said Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale. Authorities raided his home and business Wednesday afternoon and were told Atriss had took a flight from Newark to Egypt earlier that morning, Speziale said.
Atriss sold a fake identification card to Khalid Almihdhar, who was on Flight 77 as it hit the Pentagon, and one to hijacker Abdul Aziz Alomari from Flight 11, which hit the World Trade Center, Speziale said.
Authorities said they had 75 fake IDs that Atriss generated and sold for as much as $800 each, though they believed he made many more. The IDs included international driver's licenses and New Jersey state ID cards, neither of which legally exist.
Wednesday's raids followed a four-month investigation by sheriffs in Passaic, Bergen and Essex counties, the Paterson police and the FBI, Speziale said.
The investigation, dubbed Operation Paper Trail, began after police in Bergen and Passaic counties starting finding similar fake ids, Speziale said.
Authorities were tipped to Atriss by a St. Paul, Minn., company after he contacted it about paying cash for a high-speed copier machine capable of embossing seals.
Atriss never bought the copier from Minnesota, but did contact a Paterson company about a similar purchase, Speziale said. That company also became suspicious when Atriss offered to pay cash for the machine and they called the FBI, Speziale said.
FBI agents posed as merchants at the store and sold Atriss the copier, Speziale said. Law enforcement authorities also purchased fake IDs at Atriss' stores, known as All Service Plus, Overseas Development and Trading Co. and Green Palm Investments.
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
Don't bet on it.
This is not impeachement, tax increase, or pension. We are talking life. Breathing. Living.
Don't people understand that another 9/11 is a given. It's a matter of when not if.
The only question is how many more 9/11s. There is a point where America will not exist anymore, if the terrorists are not taken out. Biometrics, increased security, strenghened Homeland security is not a debatable luxury.
Maybe alot of you who call yourselves libetarians would rather die, would rather see your family die, but you cannot be allowed to death sentence the rest of us and our wicked children.
also, PLEASE cut the crap, that poster sounded like Hillary Clinton or Sarah Brady... I can not see for the life of me how a political group that works at the grassroots level and only gets about 4% support nationwide can irk people like that so much that day or night they do nothing else but blame libertarians for all ills of society.
No doubt you want to feel safer, more secure, less vulnerable in the wake of Sept. 11. We all do. But will more government make that happen? Will national identification cards and federal workers at airport security checkpoints make your world a safer place?
Highly doubtful.
You hold the solution inside yourself. You should fear less. Trust in your own ability to protect yourself and the ones you love. Understand that by reacting (and overreacting), you give the enemy power. Terrorism, after all, only succeeds when its targets live in constant fear.
Either you have not seen the Daniel Pearl video, or else its been awhile and you need to view it again.
Could someone please give Rond the link to Pearl's death video?
Notice the terrible look on his face as his torturers force him to say he is Jewish. Then see his head severed and held up.
Don't you understand??! This is what the terrorists are planning to do to you, to your, dare I say the wicked word, children? To your parents? They want to savagely kill everyone who is Christian and Jewish. The terrorist speak for all of militant Islam, when they say on the Pearl video that terror is coming to us.
Your objection to more security seems vile and sinister to me.
Please watch the Pearl video before you respond to me.
I'm no libertarian, but in the immortal words of Patrick Henry: "Give Me Liberty or Give me Death."
"Give me liberty or give me death."
OK, then watch the Daniel Pearl death video (WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE PROVIDE THE LINK!!) Is this the kind of death you long for?
Pearl's cruel beheading is the kind of death militant Muslims are planning for you. It might be prevented if you libertarians will use common sense and support strong Homeland Security.
You are SO right.
And I am so glad that many American's fathers and grandfathers thought the same way. They gave their lives, and took lives, for that definition of freedom. It's a little bit of a shame that they died for people willing to piss away freedoms paid for in blood, but on the whole, I'm sure they are glad they did it, and I am extremely grateful to them.
Hopefully this is part of the FBI's plan to nab bigger fish. If they're smart they would have positioned agents to pick up his trail when he lands in Egypt. If the Al Queda are smart they will terminate this guy before he leads the FBI right to them. Then again, I may be giving the FBI too much credit.
American fathers, including my own, did not spill their precious blood so that senseless Americans would sit back, hold out their necks and allow American enemies to slit off our heads. SOMEONE PLEASE PROVIDE THE DANIEL PEARL DEATH VIDEO LINK!!
Ibbryn, this is exactly what is at stake. Supporting strong Homeland Security is not the same as surrending our freedom. In truth, strong security will protect our freedom. This is what our fathers expect of us.
Do you think, on your own, that you can protect yourself from an attack like 9/11??
What are you Superman, Batman, Luke Skywalker or what?
I hope you get your biometric tracking device implanted soon so you will have the illusion of safety and security. Sleep tight.
Joyful1,
What happened to Pearl was a tragedy. But, he was running around inside a war zone with little or no protection.
You are in no significant danger of experiencing anything similar in the US or any other country with a minimum amount of security. Stay out of the countries controlled or dominated by the Muslim extremists, and you don't have anything to fear.
As someone else has posted in much better words than I: get a grip on yourself and get on with your life. Get professional help if you need it. This irrational fear is consuming you and has reduced you to ranting against anyone that points out that a more oppressive federal government is not a reasonable solution to your perception of a problem.
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