MFR NARA- T4- FBI-CIA- Briefing on Plot Financing- 7-16-03- 00271

8/14/2019 MFR NARA- T4- FBI-CIA- Briefing on Plot Financing- 7-16-03- 00271

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~9/11 Closed St~tute.E'v.~.~t:FBI-CIA Briefing on Financing of September II PlotType\,(Event: InfonnaI BriefingDate:

\\ ...peCial Acc~s~.hsues: None\. ~t~pared by: DougGreenburg

Team Number: 4 -.-.Location: 9-11 Commission.pahicl~ - Non-tmmissio;'l: Briefing was Conducted by Adam .Drucker, FBI SSA,and) ~ _ _ lA; also 1l\..~ttendans;!r f ! I l ! I 1 S 1 m s ; n PiliQ'Brn, Mary Incontro,and J . M e u ire a nd C IA attorney~ , _.Participants-Commission: R. De, S. Dunne, D. Greenburg, J. Roth, S. Wille.

Thi\infonnal briefing addressed the financing of the September II plot. SSADru ck er , w h o ... .e ad ed th e fin an cia l in ve stig atio n fo r t he P en ttb om t eam , d id almost.theentire briefing.l !cIA added only a few remarks. The briefing lasted

Commission SensitiveMemorandum

-BECR.E ! fCommission Sensitive

a pp ro xim a te ly 1 Y 2h ou rs . . This m em oran dum prov ides a su mm ary of w ha t w e consid erth e m ost im po rta nt p oin ts c ov ered in th e b riefin g, b ut is n ot a v erb atim o r comp reh en siv eaccount. T he m em orandum is organ ized by subject and does not necessari1y follow theo rd er o f th e b rie fin g.

In a dd ressin g the to tal co st o f the S eptem ber 1 1 o peration , D ru cker sa id tha ta pp ro xim ately $ 28 5- 30 0,0 00 w as d ep osited in to th e h ija ck ers' d om estic a nd fo re ig na cco un ts d urin g w hat the F B I co nsiders the o peration al perio d. T his m oney fu nd ed th ep lot, w ith about $30,000 of it being sent back to accounts in the U AE just prior to

Sep tember II. In reach ing this figure, the FB I began w ith the February 5,2000 deposit


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II Closed by Statute :9/11 Classified Information.. .

\~.. of $9,900 by Khalid Al-Mihdhar ~:omh:E;::~:ca account in San Diego. Thus,any funding or expenses before this date, including the activities of the Hamburg cell in

, "q~nnany, are excluded from the total. For e~FPle, Drucker said that the FBI does not\ \.""""",iew.the funding the Hamburg cell recei ved i~\1999 from Al-Shehhi' s brother as

"'~perati


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Commission SensitiveJarrah or AI-Mihdhar traveled for other non-plot-related purposes and were funded inother ways, e.g., by Jarrah's girlfriend or family in Lebanon, that funding was notcounted as part of the plot's funding.

Drucker said the FBI feels very confident it knows all the immediate sources of.funding for the hijackers. He said the FBI also tried to reconstruct the hijackers'expenditures to determine if the expenditures matched the known funding. He said thisanalysis revealed no significant gaps. In other words, no hijackers appeared to be livingabove their means or spending more than it is known they received. According to'

Drucker, this analysis was not necessarily known or exact, but it was sufficient to satisfyhim that there were no significant gaps. In other words, he sees no reason to believe thehijackers received more funding than the FBI has identified.

When asked about any holes in the FBI's understanding of the hijackers fundingor expenses, Drucker cited withdrawals made by Atta and AI-Shehhi in January and April2001. He said they cashed an $8,000 check in January, a $4,000 check in February 2001, .

and another $8,000 check in April 2001. During this time frame, it is known Atta and AI-'Shehhi traveled to Atlanta and the Virginia Beach area, but FBI has not accounted for allof the money they withdrew. Their exact activities during this timeframe are also

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.unknown. Investigation has revealed they did not attend any of the flight schools orsimulators in the Atlanta area. Those activities the FBI is aware of do not account for the$20,000 of withdrawals, so what exactly Atta and Al-Shehhi did with the money isunknown. Drucker said this gap in knowledge is the only big hole in understanding thehijackers' expenditures and activities.

Commission Sensitive


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Commission Sensitivet\~to th e $ 9,9 00 d ep os ite d in F eb ru ary 2 00 0 b y A l-M ih d ha r, D ru c ke r b elie ve s

Mihdhar brought the funds into the U.S. and likely obtained them at his January meetingin Malaysia/Bangkok with Khallad bin Attask [aka Tawfiq bin Attash]. He pointed out

W e as ke d D ru cker a bou t any p ers on s o th er th an th e k nown f in an cie rs a nd

that it is known that Khallad received $36,000 from another Al-Qaeda operative [FahdAl-Quoso] purportedly for a new prosthetic leg, and the FBI suspects some of this moneywas given to AI-Mihdhar. In any event, the FBI believes Al-Mihdhar or Nawaf Al-Hazmi carried the money into the US and did not receive it from any person in the U.S.

facilitators who may have financially supported the hijackers. He said the FBI's stance isthat there is currently no evidence that anyone provided witting support. He talked about.a couple of examples. of potentially unwitting support. First, he said Omar AI-Bayoumihelped AI-Midhar and Al-Hazmi by fronting them the first month's rent and securitydeposit for their apartment, which they promptly reimbursed. He said he does not believeAI-Bayoumi ever paid their rent after the first month, despite some reports to thecontrary. When asked about 3025 to the contrary, he said he believes the reports of AI-Bayoumi occasionally paying the rent were erroneous. To the contrary, he said AI-Mihdhar's Bank of America records reveal he paid the rent himself. Further, he said Al-Mihdhar and AI-Hazmi did not need help with the rent, as they had sufficient funds on

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hand. He also said they had access to other funds from AI-Qaeda, as became clear inApril 2000, when they received a $5,000 wire transfer from Abdul Aziz Ali. In sum,Drucker said AI-Mihdhar and AI-Hazmi did not need anyone else's money. That said, hestated the FBI is hoping to speak to Al-Bayoumi in the near future in Saudi Arabia, andmay have that opportunity as relations with Saudi law enforcement have improved .



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--sECRETCommission Sensitive

The other person Drucker identified who may have aided the hijacker is Yazid Al-Sami, who purchased traveler's checks in Saudi Arabia in July 2000, $1,900 of which

were later deposited in the account of Nawaf AI-Hazmi. The FBI does not know who AI-Sami is or what his intent was. It is believed he was a student and currently is in SaudiArabia.

Drucker said that while the FBI knows how the hijackers were funded, it does notknow the actual source of the funding.

9/11 Classified Information

detainee comments on financing to date have not necessarily been truthful.


Drucker said one possibility for the financing of the plot is that Shayk Sa'id, theknown Al-Qaeda financier, may have provided the funding.


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~9/11 Class fied Information

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...

\.~rucker walked through a chart of~iIt~~ known wire transfers to the hijackersfr~~ Ali A~ul Aziz. He also explained how the F B l l. . . . . . .

u nraveled the a liases u sed b y A bdu l A ziz . H e had the d ocu ments

with hi~.~ copies ...fwhiCh were to be made available to us the following day.He said Abdul\~~.~iz made the first transfer in April of2000 from the Wall StreetExchange C~nter, U AE . T he W all S treet E xchange C enter required ID , and m ade

a~~k~~~~ ..------------------~which helped ~B I identify him and his later aliases. Drucker said the FBI interviewedp er so nn el a t a ll of'the p laces from w hich m oney w as w ired to the hijack ers.

Drucker said1~e first wire transfer was made to a person in U.S., Adel Rafeea,who was used as an unwitting dupe of Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi, Rafeea came forwardshortly after to tell the FBI he had done a favor for people he met at his mosque, andhe realized only after 9-11 m ay have unw ittingly aided the hijackers.

T h ere w as n oth in g ne~ ..or n ota ble in D ru ck er's d iscu ssio n o f th e o th er w iretransfers by Abdul Aziz, other that they were all made from the UAE ExchangeCenter, in Burr Dubai, UAE, which did not require 10, thereby facilitating Abdul Aziz'suse of a liases. A pparently, he aband9,~ed th e W a ll S tr eet E x ch an ge C en tre b eca use it

required IDs. Drucker also pointed 0 ~ 1 1 - . .





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CommissionSensitive. . . . . . . h e wire transfers from exchange centers in the UAE to

SunTrust in the U.S. went through a correspondent account at Citibank.Drucker stated that Hani Hanjour was largely self-funded in that he deposited

$10,000 in his Saudi British Bank account in Saudi Arabia and $5,000 in his CitibankAccount in Dubai (into which Abdul Aziz also deposited $3,000). Drucker saidinvestigation has revealed this $18,000 was sufficient to fund Hanjour's activities, and toalso supplement the funding ofN. Al-Hazmi, with whom he traveled. Later, Hanjourlinked up with "muscle" hijackers 1 , who brought additional funding.

Drucker discussed Binalshibh's role in withdrawing money and sending it to AI-Shehhi in the U.S., as well as Binalshibh's opening his own Citibank account in NewJersey in August 2000 in anticipation of his coming to the U.S. to attend flight school.He also discussed the funding role of Fayez Banihammad and his interaction with Al-Hawsawi in the UAE. He said the power of attorney given to AI-Hawasi was likelyforged, since Banihammad had already left the UAE. He said Banihammad providedadditional funding for the plot, using his Visa card, which Al-Hawsawi apparently mailedhim, to access about $30,000, which was used to pay for some of the 9-11 flights, wellas other expenses.l

9 /1 1 C la ss if ie d I nf or ma ti on

Drucker said that the "muscle" hijackers generally brought additional funding in

the form of traveler's checks, which they purchase abroad and carried into the U.S. Uponarrival, these funds were deposited into U.S. bank accounts. He said that the FB I has

[Drucker d id define th e term "mu sc le" h ijackers du ring th is b u t it is universally u sed referto th e 1 3 non-p ilots w ho first arrived in the U .S . in 2001,all of whom are believed to have broughta dd itiona l fu nd in g w ith th em .]

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traced some of the deposits of specific hijackers to specific traveler's check purchases (asreflected on his chart). In other cases, the FBI has assumed traveler's checks werepurchased by the other muscle hijackers, based on the same pattern of cash deposits bythem shortly after their U.S. arrival. Noting that the UAE Central Bank was only willingto do so much, Drucker said the FBI has not been able to identify every traveler's checkpurchase that it assumes took place. Drucker said AI-Mihdhar also brought in traveler'schecks when he returned to the U.S. in July 2001.

Drucker discussed generally the hijackers' opening of accounts at U.S. banks. Hesaid there is no evidence the hijackers' ever used false SSANs, either through false cardsor stating a false number. In some cases, a bank representative completed.the SSAN fieldon an application with a hijacker's date of birth or visa control number. Interviews with

the bank personnel revealed that the banks did so on their own tocomplete the form .

Drucker said he did not know if doing so violated bank policy. 3025 of the bankpersonnel at each bank exist.

All of the bank accounts were opened in the hijackers' own names, usinglegitimate passports and other 10 documents. Drucker said no CTRs or eMIRs werefiled or required. Drucker said one hijacker, Waleel Al-Sherri, brought $14,000 intraveler's checks into the U.S. and did not declare the funds to Customs. He said severalother hij ackers brought in exactly $I0,000; some of these hijackers declared the fundswhile others did not.

Drucker said that, contrary to many media reports, no SARs were filed before9/11 with respect to any financial transaction of the hijackers. After 9/11, some SARswere filed relating to pre 9/11 activity, however.


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Commission SensitiveDrucker said he had no knowledge of why the hijackers' chose the bank branches

they did, or why in a couple cases in the N.J. area, hijackers opened and closed accounts,or opened two accounts at different banks. He also said he has no understanding of whyAI-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour opened an account at First Union Bank in New Jersey,shortly before they moved to Maryland.

Drucker discussed the return of funds to Al-Hawsawi, noting that Al-Hawsawi didhave to show ID to pick up the funds. AI-Hawsawi put the money into an account atStandard Chartered. This account was only accessed by KSM, who used an ATM card in.Karachi to make 6 withdrawals totaling about $900 in September 2001. Ultimately, SCBfroze the funds in the account.

Drucker said that other than Adel Rafeea, discussed above, the FB I is unaware ofanyone used as an unwitting dupe by the hijackers to facilitate transactions, although heacknowledged some might exist.

Drucker acknowledged that Nawaf AI-Hazmi worked part-time for a coupleweeks at a gas station in San Diego, earning a very small amount of money. He said thatthe FBI is unaware of any other hijacker earning any money during the operationalperiod.

When asked if there were any other financial question marks, Drucker said onlythat Atta withdrew 1,700 Swiss francs at the Zurich airport while en route to Madrid inJuly 2001. He said this is puzzling because Atta seemingly had no use for Swiss francs.

It is unknown whether Atta gave the money to someone, or did something else with themoney .

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D rucker said that there is no reason to believe A I-Shehhi brought any cash backw ith h im after m eetin g w ith Atta's fa th e r i n April 2001 , pu rp or te dly fo r t he p u rp os e o fp ic kin g up A tt a's international driver's licens~.:.I.. ..

[The documentl provided by the FBI in support of this briefin~.c{)~~istedof Req5-1, 5-2 , 5 -3



Documents

MFR NARA- T4- FBI-CIA- Briefing on Plot Financing- 7-16-03- 00271