U.S. Holds Suspected Al Qaeda Trainee

Washington Post ^ | 07/20/2002 | Douglas Farah and Allan Lengel

[Pokey78]

U.S. Customs agents have arrested a Jordanian-born man who was allegedly carrying $12 million in false cashier's checks, alarming counterterrorism officials who said the suspect may have been trained in al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials said the name of Omar Shishani, 47, who was detained Wednesday as he arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport from Indonesia, appears on a watch list of people trained in Afghanistan by al Qaeda. Shishani's name turned up in documents captured in Afghanistan, sources said.

[Pokey78]

Omar Shishani, 47, is shown in a U.S. Marshals Service mugshot taken in Detroit. (ho - AP)

[Skwidd]

How did they know he was a trainee? Did he wear a little paper hat or a lapel pin that said, "ask me about martyrdom"?

[Orion78]

"U.S. officials said the name of Omar Shishani, 47, who was detained Wednesday as he arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport from Indonesia, appears on a watch list of people trained in Afghanistan by al Qaeda. Shishani's name turned up in documents captured in Afghanistan, sources said."

[wimpycat]

ROFLMAO!

[Husker24]

Profiling wouldnt have worked on this guy.

[wimpycat]

He's a little old to be a foot soldier. He's more of a money man, if you ask me. Higher up the food chain than Moussaoui.

[timpad]

Good point. Probably the reason he was on the job...

[maranatha]

Ominous. Glad they had him on a watch list and actually caught him. I sure hope they catch the rest of them wherever they are.

[Shermy]

Follow up ping. Pegs him as a Chechen from Jordan and on Qaida check list.

Man arrested at airport with $12 million in phony checks, terrorism task force investigating

Michigan Man's Fake $12 Million Is a Mystery - Officials look for terror link (a Chechen?)

[Shermy]

Chechens in America ping.

Sure looks like a man from the North.

If you want on or off my Russia ping list, freepmail me.

[blam]

"He's a little old to be a foot soldier. He's more of a money man, if you ask me. Higher up the food chain than Moussaoui."

Yup. May be even the 'brains' of some operation.

[Fred Mertz]

He's no trainee. He's a financier or money man.

[timpad]

He's a little old to be a foot soldier. He's more of a money man, if you ask me

...and maybe the kind of rat that just might squeak if he's stepped on a little bit. Let's hope this turns out to be a well-connected rat.

[Dialup Llama]

Wow! There is nothing 'arab' in this guy's appearance at all.

[Shermy]

Is he one of the "wise men"?

Wonder if ther was any press follow-up to this July 13 story:

Feds Nab Seven In Wisconsin With illegal Visas From Qatar Embassy (3 knew 9/11 hijackers)

[Roy Tucker]

While I generally think that INS and Homeland Security are like sieves, this is a good catch. Follow the money trail, it should turn up some very interesting things,

[bandlength]

see post #10 (who's got this guy's nationality nailed)

[dennisw]

Agents of the U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force in Detroit executed a search warrant Thursday night at Shishani's home in Dearborn, Mich., where he lives with his wife.

----> DEARBORN!

[Rome2000]

Profiling wouldnt have worked on this guy.

They should be investigating everybody coming into the USA from any muslim country.

[HiTech RedNeck]

These big denomination checks would be, for all intents and purposes, useless. No bank is going to credit such a check until it clears.

[tomahawk]

Muslims out now. We don't need them here. It's a matter of national survival.

[varon]

........alarming counterterrorism officials who said the suspect may have been trained in al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan.

......alarming counterterrorism officials who said the suspect may have been trained in al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan Detroit.

[The Energizer]

Wow! Freepers had a lot of this info right on.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

"It has really alarmed a lot of people that al Qaeda may be trying to get that much money into the United States for operational purposes..."

By my count he brought exactly $0.00 dollars in the US. He brought phoney paper which he would have had trouble negotiating. Maybe he can use it to open a Nigerian bank account.

[habaes corpussel]

I do not think this guy is al Qaeda. He is Russian. My bet is that he a Russian Mob Banker for the Chechnyans. He may have Al Qaeda ties but I have doubts he is an Al Qaeda trainee. It just doesn't fit. Al Qaeda does not use banks and checks. They have there own style banking system and use cash.

[DoctorMichael]

Re: Feds Nab 7 in Wisc................

Thanks, I missed that article.

[Former Proud Canadian]

Profiling wouldnt have worked on this guy.

I hope you are being sarcastic. Does the name "Omar" fit any kind of profile?

[Catspaw]

Fred, I believe you're right. U.S. Holds Suspected Al Qaeda Trainee
$12 Million in Fake Checks Are Seized

 

Omar Shishani, 47, is shown in a U.S. Marshals Service mugshot taken in Detroit. (ho - AP)

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By Douglas Farah and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 20, 2002; Page A01

 

U.S. Customs agents have arrested a Jordanian-born man who was allegedly carrying $12 million in false cashier's checks, alarming counterterrorism officials who said the suspect may have been trained in al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan.

****Read on here*****

[flamefront]

These big denomination checks would be, for all intents and purposes, useless.

Right. Someone pointed out on a previous thread that he likely was being set up to get rid of him. Paid off for some deed with bad checks.

To make a big deal of this as a big win in the war on terrorism is silly. Keystone cops stuff.

[Husker24]

Yes the name does, but all im saying is that by just looking at him, he looks like any ole white guy.

[joyful1]

The Enrico Fermi Nuclear Power plant is in Monroe Michigan, about 20 to 30 miles from Detroit.

Lots of militant Muslims live nearby.

Any conclusions??

[Clovis_Skeptic]

I do not think this guy is al Qaeda.

see post #3, and or read the article.

[piasa]

Hey, Shermy, if you see any more threads on this guy put in the key word "Shishani" so we can just do a search on that and go right to all of the threads related to him.

[habaes corpussel]

"see post #3, and or read the article."

So? The picture is not that of an Arab or Jordanian. The article is not complete and written poorly. The picture is that of a Russian. Just because he has an Arab name and is "reportedly" on some kind of list doesn't mean everything to me. The article also states "he was born in Jordan and his family is from Chechnya." Where was he raised is the question? If he was raised in Chechnya then there is a major russian tie. The Russian Mob has a lot of influence in Chechnya.

This guy is a mule. Where the money or checks were heading still remains unseen.

[piasa]

They have their own system for raising money, and muslims in general use a sort of "honor system" manner of loaning money (called "hawala"). But they most certainly do use conventional banks- banks all over the world- that's how we froze some of their assets. They used banks for money transfers in the African embassy bombings. An associate of one of the hijackers had drawn money from a bogus account set up in the name of a woman who was supposedly involved in a charity in DC.

Around 9/11 they had been getting into gold. They had drawn cash out of regional banks and purchased lots of gold, and have been using couriers to move the gold from country to country. Al Qeada had also been involved in diamonds and the war in Sierra Leone.

Regular banks are involved with various "charity" which they had used to launder money. the "charities" would take cash and checks from assorted Muslim and non-muslim people here in the states, for example, and deposit those funds in regular banks, all legally, of course...using their not-for-profit status. The existance of the charity thus provided a means of accepting money legally, redistributing it semi-legally, and provided some prestige and 'legitimacy' for charity managers which enabled them to curry favor in the media and among politicians, as we have seen with the Benevolence International "charity." Before 9/11 and maybe even now, it was possible for a well known, apparently legitimate charity or business to get checks cashed no questions asked, or to get big loans simply because they had been established for a long time. If a big honking check was cashed, the company or charity simply folds and disappears with the cash before the bad check bounces back.

The Chechen war was a popular thing even for non-muslims, and there were many sympathizers who donated out of legitimate concern or dislike of the Russians, but who didn't really know who or what they were giving money to. Others might have known full well what they were donating to. People may have thought the funds were being used for food and blankets, but that doesn't mean that is where the money was going. It sometimes went for ammunition and guns. Or, real "aid goods" were bought, then shipped to a middle country, and were sold or traded there for cash or weapons.

I came across a reference to this very same bank- though not out of Pomona- being used in a scheme involving "charities" in the Ukraine, along with a bunch of other banks worldwide. The money went for less than charitable activities.

Such charities would draw the attention of the feds if they didn't use banks, like real charities do. So at least at some stage in their activities real banking systems were used. This would also be true in cases where businesses were used to cover their money movements. Bin Laden did this with his honey business. I'm sure it wasn't unusual for his company to transfer money in large sums, since he had a near monopoly on the honey trade in the Middle East and over there, honey is a BIG business, like sugar is over here. Businesses buy and ship things all the time. They also donate to charities. So money can be bled off to go into the underground loan system easily enough. For the really dirty stuff, funds used directly to buy explosives or such things for a specific operation, would probably come straight from their underground system.

what the deal was with this guy's unusually large checks I don't know.

[piasa]

I wouldn't think so either, but we don't know why the checks were considered 'bogus.' It may be because there was no such account... which would make a guy trying to cash them look pretty stupid... why travel out of the country and stop off in Indonesia to pick up no account checks which could be forged right here in the US? It may be because there is an account, but not enough money in it.

Or it may be that there is an account, and there is enough money in it to clear, but the account is a falsely set up account in the name of a fictitious person or a person whose identity has been stolen, or in the name of a business which does or does not exist.

The checks would be 'real' in the monetary sense, but bogus in that the account is itself fraudulent. None of the articles said the account was overdrawn- they just describe the checks as being bogus.

[timpad]

Omar Daal, a pitcher for the LA Dodgers, is Venezuelan.
Omar Vizquel, a shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, is Venezuelan.

Let's hope they don't detain everyone named 'Omar' or we're going to run out of room under the salary cap pretty quick.

I think what Husker was saying is that if this clown's name hadn't been a match for a watch list entry, he'd have been waved right through.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Profiling wouldnt have worked on this guy.

His rotten luck. The screeners made a mistake. By the numbers, they were supposed to search the 80 year old grandmother who was behind him in line.

[habaes corpussel]

Yes AQ and many of these fundamentalist organizations use the Hawala system. Hawala's operate in a simple manner; there is nothing complex about their operations or computation’s. The basic circulations of funds are achieved through money transfers, multiple deals, gold and diamonds. The estimates of Hawala monetary generations range between $1 Billion to $1.6 Billion.

The basic Hawala operations involve: a sender to a Hawala agent to a Hawala operator to a second Hawala agent and finally to a receiver. Banks are few and far between, though as you mentioned some have been used especially in Africa. Though the Hawala systems started in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan where the largest of the Hawala’s exists.

Hawala’s as established normally support and provide; financing, collect jihad funding, communications, safe houses and meeting places, relationship between fundamentalist groups, influence particular regions, and support terrorist groups and Islamic militias.

As far as running around with checks for millions of dollars that is something a Hawala tends not to do.

[timpad]

Right. Someone pointed out on a previous thread that he likely was being set up to get rid of him. Paid off for some deed with bad checks.

Where did it say the checks were bad? Those checks may have been drawn on accounts with plenty of cash in them. They may not have been his accounts, but valid nonetheless. Get the MICR numbers right and you're in the money laundering business.

[archy]

The Russian Mob has a lot of influence in Chechnya.

And more and more in Washington, as well.

-archy-/-

[archy]

Sure looks like a man from the North.

DampYankees! Shoulda known!

We'll be ready for 'em....

[Righty1]

How long until the rabid pro-muslim groups in AA, dearborn, and at UM start protesting to free this fly turd?

[Righty1]

Have you been paying any attention to anything that has been on this forum since 9/11? Himmler recruited a division of men that resembled this guy out of Bosnia to kill his enemies. Saudis have repeatedly scoured Checnya and Bosnia for white muslims (usually hiding behind charities). It still doesn't mean that we shouldn't take the gimmes!

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

How did they know he was a trainee?

I'm not sure, but it's possible that this guy's name and picture was cross-checked with seized rosters and photos from Afghanistan. al-Qaeda abandoned a lot of computers and paperwork when their positions were hit with airstrikes, and that stuff was found later by American troops.

[flamefront]

"false cashier's checks"

Where does it say they were fraudulent?

In the other article posted -
Man arrested at airport with $12 million in phony checks, terrorism task force investigating:

The checks, labeled "cashier check," were issued by the Pomona, Calif., branch of West America Bank, according to an affidavit. A fraud investigator said there was no Pomona branch and the checks were labeled incorrectly, Clarence T. Laster, a special agent for the U.S. Secret Service, said. Several people have been arrested in the Las Vegas area for passing similar checks, Laster said in the affidavit.

Whether the MICR looked passable or not, they did not say, good point.

Since the banks had initially accepted these type of checks, no prelimiary screening seems to have invalidated the checks when the MICR codes were read upon deposit. Wow.

From the Post article:

Financial investigators said criminals deposit bogus cashier's checks in a bank account, which could give the depositor immediate access to the money before the checks have formally cleared.

Well, well. A flaw in the banking system. Looks like cashier checks are going to get harder to cash.

[flamefront]

Another example today of the weak validation process at banks corroborates the conclusion I just drew in reply #46.

Banks are vulnerable since they do not initially validate cashier's checks on deposit.

In this news report of a diffferent case -

the man's bank failed to validate the check before the transaction.

As if the the U.S. markets did not have enough problems already.

[timpad]

As if the the U.S. markets did not have enough problems already.

Yep, another layer of security will not help the banking industry right now, or the markets as a whole. The bad guys are becoming very adept at using our economic systems against us.

I hope Evil made a mistake here and this guy leads to others. But I fear that is unlikely.

[piasa]

Yeah, the hawala system doesn't require much in the way of a paper trail, and it is an enormously useful tool for anyone who wants anonymity. There was an excellent articla on FR somewhere about these kinds of transactions in New Jersey. If I can find the thing I'll post a link.

[piasa]

The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates held an "International Hawala Conference" at which the U.S. FBI's Greg Bretzing reported that 4,000 suspicious reports relating to financial transactions have been filed since January 2002 by U.S. banks and financial institutions. The U.S. Customs Service's Michael Marzigliano said some $ 200 billion flows through the money transmitting industry in the U.S. annually with at least 160,000 U.S. entities involved in the business. At the conference's conclusion, the "Abu Dhabi Declaration on Hawala" was adopted, stating that "the international community should continue to work individually and collectively to regulate the hawala system for legitimate commerce and to prevent its exploitation or misuse by criminals and others." The U.S. officials stated that "many transfers were made through non-banking entities to the U.S. to the accounts of hijackers, the amounts ranging from $ 10,000 to $ 70,000 from July 2000 to September 2000."