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Print Article: Locals funding al-Qaeda: FBI Page 1 of 2

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Locals funding al-Qaeda:FBIBy Greg RobertsMay 21 2003

I Jemaah Islamiah an d al-Qaeda have enough fu nd s to continue terrorist activities despite successes in reducing cash flows to Ial-Qaeda, an authority on terrorist financing said yesterday. ^JDennis Lormel, the terrorist finances operations section chief with the United States FBI, said Jemaah Islamiah was probablygetting significant funding from supporters in Australia.Mr Lormel said it had been f irmly established that Jemaah Islamiah had been funded by the al-Qaeda network, which hadproved astute at switching to alternative funding sources.Funding to al-Qaeda had been reduced because people from Saudi Arabia and other countries were less inclined to supportOsama bin Laden, and through crackdowns on international money laundering schemes.

_ _ _ _ . . .

'-""In a sense, it's a chess game."Mr Lormel said al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah needed large sums to run training camps, safe houses and the like, but not toconduct terrorist attacks.

| "It doesn't take much ... to support the operations they are perpetrating. They are capable of raising ample fu nd s to beableto/I conduct business, even if it has become more difficult fo r them."

H e said one way in which th e terrorists raised f u n d s was to siphon money of f government contracts, while charities wereoften used as fronts for fund-raising.Mr Lormel said he would be surprised if Jemaah Islamiah was not obtaining substantial f u n d s from Australian backers."That would be consistent. You see in the United States the incredible amounts of money that different organisations like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah generate through different means."Mr Lormel said although al-Qaeda had suffered setbacks, the bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco indicated the networkhad been able to reconstitute itself.Th e Federal Government last night reissued travel warnings for Indonesia and Singapore amid continued reports of increasedterrorist threats in those countries.The FBI's international operations director, Roderick Beverly, rejected suggestions that Australia's involvement in the Iraqconflict made Australia more of a terrorist target."You see these terrorist attacks taking place in obscure places, for want a better word," he said. "They are not necessarilytaking place in New York or wherever."More than 400 delegates from 13 countries are attending the FBI National Academy Asia-Pacific Training Conference in

http://www.smh.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2003/05/20/10... 5/27/03


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12 of 25 DOCUMENTSCopyright 2002 The New York Times CompanyThe New York Times

July 10, 2002, Wednesday, Late Edition - FinalSECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 3; National DeskLENGTH: 969 wordsHEADLINE: SEPT.11 HIJACKERS SAID TO FAKE DATA ON BANK ACCOUNTSBYLINE: By JAMES RISENDATELINE: WASHINGTON, July 9BODY:

The Sept. 11 hijackers were able to open 35 American bank accounts withouthaving legitimate Social Security numbers and opened some of the accounts withfabricated Social Security numbers that were never checked or questioned by bankofficials, a senior F.B.I, official said today.

The banks involved approved several account applications in which thehijackers simply filled in random numbers in spaces reserved for applicants'Social Security numbers, said the official, Dennis Lormel, the chief of theFederal Bureau of Investigation's unit conducting the financial inquiry of theSept. 11 plot.

With no scrutiny from the financial institutions or government regulators,the hijackers were able to move hundreds of thousands of dollars from the MiddleEast into the United States through a maze of bank accounts beginning more thana year before their attacks.

"That is one of the lessons learned from Sept. 11," Mr. Lormel said, notingthat banks are now more diligent in checking on and reporting falsifiedapplications.

The hijackers relied most heavily on 14 accounts at SunTrust Banks, moving$325,000 through accounts opened in Florida and taken out in the names of manyof the hijackers, Mr. Lormel said today in an interview.A spokesman for SunTrust, which is based in Atlanta, said the bank had been

cooperating with the F.B.I.'s investigation. The spokesman said it was possiblefor foreigners without Social Security numbers to open bank accounts in thiscountry, but he could not provide details of what forms of identification thehijackers used to open the SunTrust accounts.The SunTrust accounts and the financial transactions made through them

provide strong evidence of links between hijackers from different groups, headded. In fact, Mr. Lormel said the bureau of investigation had discovereddirect financial connections between members of the four hijacking groupsinvolved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,providing some of the most concrete evidence yet uncovered that the 19 meninvolved closely coordinated their actions.

Since the attacks, American investigators have found relatively few directlinks among the four groups who each hijacked a different airliner, andofficials have said they have been impressed by the strict security proceduresthat the hijackers seem to have practiced to avoid detection. Telephone, traveland e-mail records strongly indicate that Mohamed Atta played a central


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55 of 295 DOCUMEN TSCopyright 2003 F inancial Times Information

All rights reservedGlobal News WireCopyright 2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bh dThe Star (Malaysia)

March 17, 2003

LENGTH: 1428 wordsHEADLINE: GLOBAL EFFORT TO CURB MONEY LAUNDERINGBODY:

THREE D AYS before Sept 11, 2001, Mohamed Atta, the man who piloted American Airlines flight 11 into theNorth Tower of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York, wired out a total of US $ 7,860 from tw o grocery storesin Maryland. On Sept 10, Marwan al-Shehri sent US $ 5,400 from a Greyhound bus terminal in Boston before hecommandeered United Airlines flight 175 the next day, crashing it into the WTC South Tower. In both cases, therecipient of the funds was a terrorist support network based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).The events of Sept 11 are well known. And compared with the sheer tragedy of that fateful day, these transfers of afew thousand dollars wo uld appear unremarkable and seemingly unrelated.To the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), however, these money transfers form crucial pieces of a wideweb of evidence around the globe which suggests that the world's financial markets and banking systems have been, are,and will continue to be used as staging points for such acts of atrocities.If one were to draw parallels between the operations of terrorist organisations and those of large internationalcorporations (both having clear objectives, layered structures and multinational locations), it is not too much of a stretchto imagine that one of the most crucial operational aspects of both types of organisations would be in their fundingcapabilities.According to the FBI, finance has always been recognised as an important function in the most effective terroristgroups. Like hands-on CE Os and senior managers, "Al-Qaeda leadership directly guided and funded major terroristattacks and operations."Following Sept 11, the FBI traced numerous money transfers totalling over US $ 100,000 from the UAE toSunTrust Bank in Gulf Coast, Florida via Citibank New York, credited in favour of Atta and al-Shehri. These transfers

happened one year before the attacks, and the funds were believed to have been used as working capital for Al-Qaedaoperations in the US. The FBI estimated that the entire Sept 11 operation cost the group approximately US $ 600,000.It was clear that had these funds been detected early, it is possible the attacks on Sept 11 may not have succeeded.The ability to trace, investigate and disrupt terrorist-related financial activity thus took on a new urgency and ledthe FBI to establish a unit within its counterterrorism division looking specifically at money flows.So how mu ch more was being harboured by terrorists? Thousands? M illions? O r perhaps, even billions of dollars?Senior FB I officer Dennis M Lormel, who heads the bureau's Terrorist Financing Operations Section (Mission:Develop terrorist identification mechanisms to disrupt and dismantle terrorist organisations and their fundingmechanisms) was unable ; or perhaps, understandably, unwilling ; to pin down an exact num ber.


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FBI Press Room - Congressional Statement - 2002 - Prepared Statement of Dennis Lorme... Page 1 of 6

CongressionalStatementBureauof investigationOctober 9, 2002

Statement for the Record ofDennis LormelChief, Terrorist Financing Operations Section, Counterterrorism DivisionFederal Bureau of Investigationon

USA PATRIOTACT/Terrorism Financing Operations SectionBefore theSenate Judiciary CommitteeSubcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information

IntroductionGood morning, Madam Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee onTechnology, Terrorism, and Government Information. On behalf of the FederalBureau of Investigation (FBI), I would like to express my gratitude to theSubcommittee for affording us the opportunity to participate in this forum and toupdate the Subcommittee on our use of the tools established within the frameworkofthe USA PATRIOT Act and the work being conducted by our Terrorism FinancingOperations Section.As this Subcommittee is well aware, the FBI, in conjunction with law enforcement andintelligence agencies throughout the United States and the world, is engaged in thelargest, most complex and perhaps the most critical criminal and terrorisminvestigation in our history. The FBI continues to dedicate considerable resources tothis investigation and remains committed to determining the full scope of theseterrorist acts, identifying all those involved in planning, executing and/or assisting inany manner the commission of these acts and others, and bringing those responsibleto justice. The FBI will continue to exercise its leadership role in the global war onterrorism by taking all possible steps to prevent any further acts of terrorism.The war on terrorism will be a long-term battle. It will not be won overnight nor will itbe won without the highest levels of cooperation and coordination among lawenforcement and intelligence agencies around the globe. Terrorism knows no bordersor boundaries. The threat is not limited to any one region of the world. Lawenforcement and intelligence agencies throughout the world possess tremendousresources and expertise. Allying these resources against the common enerny ofterrorism is the key to dismantling these organizations and eliminating the threat theypose. Make no mistake about it, even with the combined resources and expertisepossessed by law enforcement, the threat posed by terrorism is grave. Terrorists donot play by the rules of a civilized society, nor do they respect human decency. Theywill stop at nothing to commit acts of terror. ''From a law enforcement perspective, success in the war on terrorism must bemeasured in our ability to prevent future acts of terrorism. Whether it be throughprosecution, disruption, blocking/freezing of funds, or allowing a funding mechanismto remain in place in order to further an investigation, prevention remains theoverarching focus. In this regard, fighting the war on terrorism requires powerful tools.

http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/lormell00902.htm 5/27/03


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-UNITED

H. KeanC H A I R

Ben-Veniste

F. FieldingS. GorelickGorton

Thompson

D. Zelikow

FBI DOCUMENT REQUEST NO. 5The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the"Commission") requests that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI or the"respondent") provide the Commission with copies of the following documents nolater than July 2, 2003 (the "production date"):1. Latest an d most comprehensive versions of documents summarizing, identifying,

or analyzing the financial transactions (including expenditure and receipt offunds) of the September 11,2001 hijackers and each co-conspirator including:a. Comprehensive timelines or spreadsheets of the financial transactions of the

September 11 plot;b. Individual timelines or spreadsheets reflecting the financial transactions of

each of the September 11 hijackers and any other co-conspirator;c. Documents describing or summarizing an y funds expended on behalf of the

September 11 hijackers by any person and any reimbursement of any suchexpenditures; and - ^

d. Documents estimating or analyzing the total cost of the September 11 attacks(and explaining the methodology of any such estimates).2. Documents summarizing, identifying, or analyzing the source of any funds

received by the September 11 hijackers or any co-conspirator.3. To supplement request numbers 1 and 2, we request access, in a mutually

acceptable manner, to underlying documents supporting the documents identifiedin request numbers one and two. Specifically, w e request the ability to requestan d timely review specific identified financial documents (e.g., accountstatements, checks ATM receipts, credit card receipts, rent receipts, purchasereceipts, wire transfer records), investigative materials (e.g., FD-302s,investigative inserts, Electronic Communications) an d materials gathered fromforeign law enforcement agencies or governments (with translations). W eanticipate making such specific requests as necessary to support our investigationan d will work with the FBI to develop the most efficient method fo r accessingsuch materials.

T E L (202) 331-4060F A X (202) 296-5545www.9-1 lcommission.gov


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F.B.I, s Reach Into Records Is Set to Grow Page 1 of 2

, X c U i J J o r k (TimesSM t sSCSEO B*

Novem ber 12, 2003

F.B.I/s Re ach Into Re cords Is Se t to GrowB y E R IC L I C H T BL A UW ASHINGTON, Nov. 11 A little-noticed measure approved by both the House and Senatewould significantly expand the F.B.I.'s power to demand financial records, without a judge'sapproval, from car dealers, travel agents, paw nbrokers and ma ny other businesses, officials said onTuesday.Traditional financial institutions like banks and credit unions are frequently subject to administrativesubpoenas from the Federal B ureau of Investigation to produce financial records in terrorism andespionage investigations. Such subpoenas, which are known as national security letters, do not requirethe bureau to seek a judge 's approval before issuing them.The measure no w awaiting final approval in Congress would significantly broaden the law to includesecurities dealers, currency exchanges, car dealers, travel agencies, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokersand any other institution doing cash transactions w ith "a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax orregulatory matters."Officials said the measure, which is tucked aw ay in the intelligence community's authorization bill for2004, gives agents greater flexibility and speed in seeking to trace the financial assets of peoplesuspected of terrorism and espionage. It mirrors a proposal that President Bush outlined in a speech twomonths ago to expand the use o f administrative subpoenas in terrorism cases.Critics said the m easure w ould give the federal government greater power to pry into people's privatelives."This dram atically expands the g overnm ent's authority to get private business records," said Timothy H.Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "You buy a ring for yourgrandmother from a pawnbroker, and the record on that will now be considered a financial record thatthe government can get."The provision is in the au thorization b ills passed by both houses o f Congress. Some Democrats havebegun to question whether the measure goes too far and have hinted that they may try to have it pulledwhen the bill comes before a House-Senate conference committee. Other officials predicted that themeasure wou ld probab ly survive any challenges in conference and be signed into law by PresidentBush, in part because the provisions already approved in the House and the Senate are identical.The intelligence com mittees considered the proposal at the request of George J. Tenet, the director ofcentral intelligence, officials said. Officials at the C.I.A. and the Justice Department declined tocomment on Tuesday about the measure.A senior Congressional official who supports theprovision said that "this is meant to provide agents

http://www .nytimes.eom/2003/l l/12/politics/12REC O.html?pagewanted=print&position= 11/12/2003