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Locals funding al-Qaeda: FBI

By Greg Roberts
May 21 2003

I Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qaeda have enough funds to continue terrorist activities despite successes in reducing cash flows to I
al-Qaeda, an authority on terrorist financing said yesterday. ^J

Dennis Lormel, the terrorist finances operations section chief with the United States FBI, said Jemaah Islamiah was probably
getting significant funding from supporters in Australia.

Mr Lormel said it had been firmly established that Jemaah Islamiah had been funded by the al-Qaeda network, which had
proved 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 support
Osama 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 to
conduct terrorist attacks.

| "It doesn't take much . . . to support the operations they are perpetrating. They are capable of raising ample funds to be able to
I conduct business, even if it has become more difficult for them."
««/
He said one way in which the terrorists raised funds was to siphon money off government contracts, while charities were
often used as fronts for fund-raising.

Mr Lormel said he would be surprised if Jemaah Islamiah was not obtaining substantial funds 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 network
had been able to reconstitute itself.

The Federal Government last night reissued travel warnings for Indonesia and Singapore amid continued reports of increased
terrorist threats in those countries.

The FBI's international operations director, Roderick Beverly, rejected suggestions that Australia's involvement in the Iraq
conflict 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 necessarily
taking place in New York or wherever."

More than 400 delegates from 13 countries are attending the FBI National Academy Asia-Pacific Training Conference in

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 12 of 25 DOCUMENTS

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

The New York Times

July 10, 2002, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 3; National Desk

LENGTH: 969 words

HEADLINE: SEPT.11 HIJACKERS SAID TO FAKE DATA ON BANK ACCOUNTS

BYLINE: By JAMES RISEN

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, July 9

BODY:
The Sept. 11 hijackers were able to open 35 American bank accounts without
having legitimate Social Security numbers and opened some of the accounts with
fabricated Social Security numbers that were never checked or questioned by bank
officials, a senior F.B.I, official said today.
The banks involved approved several account applications in which the
hijackers simply filled in random numbers in spaces reserved for applicants'
Social Security numbers, said the official, Dennis Lormel, the chief of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation's unit conducting the financial inquiry of the
Sept. 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 Middle
East into the United States through a maze of bank accounts beginning more than
a year before their attacks.
"That is one of the lessons learned from Sept. 11," Mr. Lormel said, noting
that banks are now more diligent in checking on and reporting falsified
applications.
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 many
of 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 possible
for foreigners without Social Security numbers to open bank accounts in this
country, but he could not provide details of what forms of identification the
hijackers 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, he
added. In fact, Mr. Lormel said the bureau of investigation had discovered
direct financial connections between members of the four hijacking groups
involved 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 men
involved closely coordinated their actions.
Since the attacks, American investigators have found relatively few direct
links among the four groups who each hijacked a different airliner, and
officials have said they have been impressed by the strict security procedures
that the hijackers seem to have practiced to avoid detection. Telephone, travel
and e-mail records strongly indicate that Mohamed Atta played a central
 55 of 295 DOCUMENTS

Copyright 2003 Financial Times Information

All rights reserved
Global News Wire
Copyright 2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd
The Star (Malaysia)

March 17, 2003

LENGTH: 1428 words

HEADLINE: GLOBAL EFFORT TO CURB MONEY LAUNDERING

BODY:

THREE DAYS before Sept 11, 2001, Mohamed Atta, the man who piloted American Airlines flight 11 into the
North Tower of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York, wired out a total of US $ 7,860 from two grocery stores
in Maryland. On Sept 10, Marwan al-Shehri sent US $ 5,400 from a Greyhound bus terminal in Boston before he
commandeered United Airlines flight 175 the next day, crashing it into the WTC South Tower. In both cases, the
recipient 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 a
few thousand dollars would appear unremarkable and seemingly unrelated.
To the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), however, these money transfers form crucial pieces of a wide
web 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 international
corporations (both having clear objectives, layered structures and multinational locations), it is not too much of a stretch
to imagine that one of the most crucial operational aspects of both types of organisations would be in their funding
capabilities.
According to the FBI, finance has always been recognised as an important function in the most effective terrorist
groups. Like hands-on CEOs and senior managers, "Al-Qaeda leadership directly guided and funded major terrorist
attacks and operations."
Following Sept 11, the FBI traced numerous money transfers totalling over US $ 100,000 from the UAE to
SunTrust 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-Qaeda
operations 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 led
the FBI to establish a unit within its counterterrorism division looking specifically at money flows.
So how much more was being harboured by terrorists? Thousands? Millions? Or perhaps, even billions of dollars?
Senior FBI 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 funding
mechanisms) was unable ; or perhaps, understandably, unwilling ; to pin down an exact number.
FBI Press Room - Congressional Statement - 2002 - Prepared Statement of Dennis Lorme... Page 1 of 6

Congressional Statement
Bureau of investigation

October 9, 2002

Statement for the Record of

Dennis Lormel
Chief, Terrorist Financing Operations Section, Counterterrorism Division
Federal Bureau of Investigation

on
USA PATRIOT ACT/Terrorism Financing Operations Section

Before the
Senate Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information

Introduction

Good morning, Madam Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee on

Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information. On behalf of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), I would like to express my gratitude to the
Subcommittee for affording us the opportunity to participate in this forum and to
update the Subcommittee on our use of the tools established within the framework of
the USA PATRIOT Act and the work being conducted by our Terrorism Financing
Operations Section.

As this Subcommittee is well aware, the FBI, in conjunction with law enforcement and
intelligence agencies throughout the United States and the world, is engaged in the
largest, most complex and perhaps the most critical criminal and terrorism
investigation in our history. The FBI continues to dedicate considerable resources to
this investigation and remains committed to determining the full scope of these
terrorist acts, identifying all those involved in planning, executing and/or assisting in
any manner the commission of these acts and others, and bringing those responsible
to justice. The FBI will continue to exercise its leadership role in the global war on
terrorism 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 it
be won without the highest levels of cooperation and coordination among law
enforcement and intelligence agencies around the globe. Terrorism knows no borders
or boundaries. The threat is not limited to any one region of the world. Law
enforcement and intelligence agencies throughout the world possess tremendous
resources and expertise. Allying these resources against the common enerny of
terrorism is the key to dismantling these organizations and eliminating the threat they
pose. Make no mistake about it, even with the combined resources and expertise
possessed by law enforcement, the threat posed by terrorism is grave. Terrorists do
not play by the rules of a civilized society, nor do they respect human decency. They
will stop at nothing to commit acts of terror. ''

From a law enforcement perspective, success in the war on terrorism must be

measured in our ability to prevent future acts of terrorism. Whether it be through
prosecution, disruption, blocking/freezing of funds, or allowing a funding mechanism
to remain in place in order to further an investigation, prevention remains the
overarching focus. In this regard, fighting the war on terrorism requires powerful tools.

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

Thomas H. Kean FBI DOCUMENT REQUEST NO. 5

CHAIR

Lee H. Hamilton
VICE CHAIR The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the
"Commission") requests that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI or the
Richard Ben-Veniste
"respondent") provide the Commission with copies of the following documents no
Max Cleland later than July 2, 2003 (the "production date"):
Fred F. Fielding
1. Latest and most comprehensive versions of documents summarizing, identifying,
Jamie S. Gorelick or analyzing the financial transactions (including expenditure and receipt of
Slade Gorton funds) of the September 11,2001 hijackers and each co-conspirator including:
John Lehman a. Comprehensive timelines or spreadsheets of the financial transactions of the
Timothy J. Roemer September 11 plot;
James R. Thompson
b. Individual timelines or spreadsheets reflecting the financial transactions of
each of the September 11 hijackers and any other co-conspirator;
Philip D. Zelikow
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
c. Documents describing or summarizing any funds expended on behalf of the
September 11 hijackers by any person and any reimbursement of any such
expenditures; 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 identified
in request numbers one and two. Specifically, we request the ability to request
and timely review specific identified financial documents (e.g., account
statements, checks ATM receipts, credit card receipts, rent receipts, purchase
receipts, wire transfer records), investigative materials (e.g., FD-302s,
investigative inserts, Electronic Communications) and materials gathered from
foreign law enforcement agencies or governments (with translations). We
anticipate making such specific requests as necessary to support our investigation
and will work with the FBI to develop the most efficient method for accessing
such materials.

TEL (202) 331-4060

FAX (202) 296-5545
www.9-1 lcommission.gov
F.B.I, 's Reach Into Records Is Set to Grow Page 1 of 2

,XcUi JJork (Times

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November 12, 2003

F.B.I/s Reach Into Records Is Set to Grow

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

W ASHINGTON, Nov. 11 — A little-noticed measure approved by both the House and Senate
would significantly expand the F.B.I.'s power to demand financial records, without a judge's
approval, from car dealers, travel agents, pawnbrokers and many other businesses, officials said on
Tuesday.

Traditional financial institutions like banks and credit unions are frequently subject to administrative
subpoenas from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to produce financial records in terrorism and
espionage investigations. Such subpoenas, which are known as national security letters, do not require
the bureau to seek a judge's approval before issuing them.

The measure now awaiting final approval in Congress would significantly broaden the law to include
securities dealers, currency exchanges, car dealers, travel agencies, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokers
and any other institution doing cash transactions with "a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or
regulatory matters."

Officials said the measure, which is tucked away in the intelligence community's authorization bill for
2004, gives agents greater flexibility and speed in seeking to trace the financial assets of people
suspected of terrorism and espionage. It mirrors a proposal that President Bush outlined in a speech two
months ago to expand the use of administrative subpoenas in terrorism cases.

Critics said the measure would give the federal government greater power to pry into people's private
lives.

"This dramatically expands the government's authority to get private business records," said Timothy H.
Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "You buy a ring for your
grandmother from a pawnbroker, and the record on that will now be considered a financial record that
the government can get."

The provision is in the authorization bills passed by both houses of Congress. Some Democrats have
begun to question whether the measure goes too far and have hinted that they may try to have it pulled
when the bill comes before a House-Senate conference committee. Other officials predicted that the
measure would probably survive any challenges in conference and be signed into law by President
Bush, in part because the provisions already approved in the House and the Senate are identical.

The intelligence committees considered the proposal at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of
central intelligence, officials said. Officials at the C.I.A. and the Justice Department declined to
comment on Tuesday about the measure.

A senior Congressional official who supports the provision said that "this is meant to provide agents

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