Posted on 10/05/2005 3:32:03 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
An Ohio company gets credit from the FBI for putting an immigrant student, who raised suspicions when he tried to order thousands of dollars worth of pilot information, in federal custody.
What raised the red flag is the credit card he used was declined. It was then that federal agents began to investigate.
Mahmoud Maawad is an Egyptian-born citizen living in the U.S. illegally. According to an affidavit, Maawad "placed 11 orders by wire" to Sporty's Pilot Shop located near Cincinnati "for flight equipment."
FBI agents say the 29-year-old logged on to the website for Sporty's Pilot Shop and tried to buy $3,300 in merchandise, including pilot clothes, airline software, an airport map and a DVD entitled, "How An Airline Pilot Should Look."
There's nothing illegal about that, but when the credit card was rejected for lack of funds, the store called the authorities.
FBI agents later raided his apartment in Memphis and discovered a fake social security number that they say he used to open a credit card account and enroll at the University of Memphis. They also found flight simulation software and detailed information of the Memphis airport.
Agents say Maawad once attended Bergen Community College in Patterson, New Jersey, the same city where six of the of September 11th hijackers lived.
(Excerpt) Read more at 10tv.com ...
Not directly related to the OU Bombing, but thought it interesting. The post was followed by this note:
"Zacarias Moussaoui purchased flight deck videos from Sporty's."
And this mentioning Norman Oklahoma:
"Pursuant to my last email (below), this excerpt regarding the history of 9-11, with source:
"Then there are the disturbing similarities between Moussaoui and Mohamed Atta, federal sources say. Atta visited the same flight school in Norman, Okla., that Moussaoui attended, although Atta wound up taking flight training in Florida. Atta and Moussaoui both researched using crop dusters for what might have been a biochemical attack, and Atta and Moussaoui both bought "flight deck" instructional videos for the Boeing 747 from the same retailer, Sporty's Pilot Shop in Batavia, Ohio. Based on an interview with a woman who lived downstairs from Moussaoui in Norman, Okla., NEWSWEEK reported in mid-October that Moussaoui ordered videos on the 747-200 and 747-400-a finding now included in the indictment." [CNN/Newsweek, Sarah Downey, "Who Is Zacarias Moussaoui? http://www.msnbc.com/news/673068.asp#BODY] "
Very interesting.
Not even "The Washington Times" is covering this.
The result could have been much worse than what McVeigh did.
I don't get it.
Still quite don't know what to make of it all at this point, but there's a lot that doesn't seem to add up so far. This information adds another interesting piece to what is turning out to be a curious puzzle.
Golly gee, who'd a thunk it?
At this stage of the game, anybody who doesn't realize that "They" are amongst us has their head up the proverbial dark place.
There is no doubt that among US are still some who plot and plan to carry out their terror. Sadly the liberals have gone insane and think the enemy is President Bush.
Glad to hear CAS is still around. I migrated to here when the Lewinsky news broke, but it was a good resource back in the Dark Ages of the Clinton administration.
Note to self: pay credit card bill.
The Murrah bombing has the same methods used in the 1993 WTC attack (fertilizer bomb in a Ryder truck).
Oh great! So does this mean that if the card was legit, this 'patriotic' company would have sold a terroist lots of goodies he needed to perpetrate some 'incident'?
Egyptian-born citizen living in the U.S. illegally-----one way ticket home and don't bother to land the plane.
The terrorist are living among us. I am glad they caught him.
And the Bush administration still doesn't see an illegal immigration problem . . . . .
No, it means exactly what it said. If you have ever worked retail or managed it, you know that you process orders continually. Most of the time they are number coded, and your clerks don't even see the titles they are selling. This store markets info and the mere purchase of such items is not sufficient to "red flag" the guy. We are lucky that the guy was a dumbass. I personally would have hired a local black muslim to make the purchase for me, in person and in cash. He could scream "RACIST" if there were any questions and no one would have done anything.
The manager thought it was strange for them to rent so far from the flight school in Norman... there were plenty of motels closer. Odd thing... this is the same motel that McVeigh(and supposedly several Iraqi's) stayed in before the bombing in 1995.
History Channel ran an excellent piece on Ramzi Yousef last night.
Something I hadn't known before, after WTC 1993 he made it to Bangkok and built a huge fertilizer truck bomb which fortunately was prevented from attacking the US embassy there... only due to a minor traffic accident before they made it to the embassy gates.
They showed video of the truck and the disassembly of the bomb, which apparently was fairly sophisticated. There was also a dead guy in the bed of the truck, whom the BKK police ID'd as the guy who rented it to Yousef.
Yup. And after the '93 attack failed, AQ came along eight years later to finish the job -- in a manner startling similiar to Ramzi Yousef's Project Bojinka. But, as we all know, there's no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Nope, never has been. Isn't that what the Dims tell us?
Why is there even a market for a DVD like that?
What is even more amazing to me is the nimrods who continually howl about the Mexico border and scream for action when the talk goes to terror.
Any halfwit with three functioning synapses can see that the real risk is from young males from Islamic countries who are here on student or other types of visas or who have overstayed such visas.
The second critical risk is our completely porous border with CANADA where they harbor hordes of fanatical sheetheads (two of whom they have caught here in the country illegally planning to do us harm).
Despite this, we have tons of "conservatives" here on Free Republic who bray continuously about the "security risk" at the border with Mexico! And, they pound the table continuously that THIS should be our first priority in addressing illegal immigration!!!! Such slack jawed drooling stupidity defies any rational categories I can see. There may be problems (I believe there are severe problems!) with some poor Mexican family swimming across the Rio Grande to mow our yards, but to act as though THAT is the security risk on our borders requires a willing idiocy that is clearly fueled by something other than concern for our safety.
Oh, no. Did this guy swim the Rio Grande?
Maawad's visa expired five years ago. He's currently charged with using a fake social security card and wire fraud. The FBI says it has no evidence that he has any connection to a terrorist group.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where this was/is going. Maawad is here illegally, had fake social security and someone else’s visa card. If our liberal laws of protecting the criminal hinder the FBI, turn the terrorist over to ICE, brand him on the forehead and deport him ASAP!
Just another illegal doing a job Americans won't.
The pilot suit doesn't bother me so much as his visa expired 5 years ago and our government didn't care.
Yeah, I know. Damn government is useless when it comes to tracking down people. Ought to have a great big old database or something to track us, er them, er, well, you know what I mean.
Well said and deftly played. I suppose a police state is preferable to finding ways to solve our MESS with the borders that actually encourage the good guys to stay! I always thought "true conservatives" were against expansion of state powers. Silly me.
again, that was a very witty post.
ping
That's not the point, and I think you know it.
There was a time when foreigners in this country had to have visas for whatever reason they were here and they had to register each January with Immigration just to let them know where they were and what they were doing. When someone didn't register in January and there was no record of them leaving the country, the INS would track them down and deport them.
Somewhere along the line, the INS stopped doing its job and tracking the activity of foreigners in this country. This is partly what lead to 9/11 and the prevailing belief that another attack, possibly more deadly, is in our future.
The DHS isn't doing its job, the INS isn't doing its job and Americans are vulnerable to terrorist attack as a result.
That is why they will never do away with the IRS as we know it and go to a consumer tax. SSN are used everyday to track people, even though they are not supposed to be used for ID, try doing business with a bank without one.
>>>Ramzi Yosuf was in the Phillipines the same time as Terry Nichols.
Yes they were in Cebu. That is on FR. I remember reading it.
There are also human smuggling problems with networks using ports and airlines. This has been the priority of Operation ICE Storm. I post a lot of their press releases. See FR Keyword Search: ICE
They seem to have remembered what's in their job description long enough to deal with Elian, then forgot again.
Pardon for my denseness, but what is the specific link you are postulating (between iraq and Al Q)??
It actually IS the point, and you are still missing it. Fixing our HORRIBLE HORRIBLE immigrant situation is not a justification for turning the country into a police state. The same mechanisms the "close the border" people advocate to fix the problem will inevitably erode our freedoms. Sorry. Just the way it is, and Jim nailed it perfectly and wittily.
Surely you jest!
Cal, thanks for the ping, interesting way to learn to be a pilot........
Is that how you learned, Wings?
(said with a big smile, to fit the joke)....
"Damn government is useless when it comes to tracking down people. Ought to have a great big old database or something to track us, er them, er, well, you know what I mean."
LOL at that "thought exercise" Iim, just see how far even tracking public information got the Able Danger gang....
We're in a pickle here and this story illustrates it well. The CIA, DIA & FBI are not omni-present or infallible in spite of many who believe they can & should be. In this rapid fire world of hi-tech, does anyone believe they have the legal basis, resources, technology and pure dumb luck to connect every piece of every puzzle everytime in the WOT?
"There's nothing illegal about that, but when the credit card was rejected for lack of funds, the store called the authorities."
#5 - How to handle deadbeats
Who said anything about turning the country into a police state?
Put your coffe down and chill. Controlling the borders, controlling immigration doesn't mean turning the country into a police state, it means doing what every other country in the world EXCEPT this one does. That's how other countries provide security for their citizens and control immigration.
That's all I'm saying.
>>>>what every other country in the world EXCEPT this one does.
Really? You need to follow a few more human trafficking threads.
Just here to do the jobs Americans refuse to do?
The only thing that really worries me is that for every one we catch, is there another out there?
Michelle Malkin wrote a column about this earlier this year.
That statement is strange.
Credit cards hold credit, debit cards hold funds. Or is that just a Canadian thing?
Abu Sayyaf / PULO / ISI connection perhaps ...
I do know of some links i was just wondering to which he was referring.
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