-Caveat Lector-
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/341/metro/FBI_reportedly_didn_t
_act_on_Ptech_tips+.shtml
FBI reportedly didn't act on Ptech tips
By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff, 12/7/2002
The Boston FBI office received two reports that a Quincy software
company had financial ties to a suspected terrorist financier but
acted on neither, according to law enforcement and government
officials and a televised report.
A whistle-blower from Ptech Inc. told the Boston FBI in October
2001 that the company was being financially backed by Yasin al-
Qadi, a Saudi businessman whose US assets were frozen after the
Sept. 11 attacks amid allegations that he has funded terrorist
groups, including Al Qaeda and Hamas, a Bush administration
official and a former Clinton administration official involved in the
case said yesterday.
WBZ-TV reported last night that a second whistle-blower went to the
Boston FBI office this past June with allegations that the company
had financial ties to the suspected terrorist financier.
A spokeswoman from the FBI's Boston office denied that it had
failed to follow up on leads about Ptech's financial backing.
''That is not accurate,'' spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said. ''This
investigation has been going on for quite some time, and it was
jointly decided by the FBI and Customs that Customs would take the
lead.''
WBZ reported that a former Ptech consultant named Indira Singh
came forward this past June.
Singh said last night in an interview on WBZ that she told the FBI ''in
no uncertain terms'' about the connection between Ptech and Qadi.
She said that weeks after talking to the Boston FBI, she was
''shocked'' and ''frustrated'' to learn that the FBI still had not alerted
any of the government agencies using Ptech software that there
were questions about the company's ties to suspected terrorist fund-
raisers.
Ptech has sold information management software to a range of
government agencies, including the Army, Air Force, Congress, the
White House, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the FBI.
The FBI, the officials said, didn't aggressively pursue the initial
October 2001 tip, prompting that whistle-blower to go to other
government officials this past summer. The US Customs Service
ended up leading the investigation, and the search Thursday night
and yesterday of Ptech's headquarters.
News that the FBI may have ignored the tips comes after a recent
scathing memo from top FBI officials to the bureau's field offices
complaining that not enough is being done to combat terrorism.
The New York Times reported last month that Bruce Gebhardt, the
FBI's deputy director, sent a memo to the FBI's 56 field offices,
saying he was ''amazed and astounded'' that field supervisors were
not committing essential resources to fighting terrorism.
The allegation is the latest in a series of embarrassments for the
Boston FBI office, including a failure to follow up on bank robber
Gary Sampson's offer to surrender before he went on a killing spree,
and the scandal over the agency's coddling of murderous organized
crime informants.
Documents provided to the Globe by The Investigative Project, a
Washington, D.C.-based terrorism research organization, show that
two of Ptech's founding directors were former employees of BMI, a
now-defunct collection of Islamic finance companies that was
targeted in an investigation by the FBI's Chicago office.
''BMI was an Islamic financial institution that would loan money in an
Islamically permissible manner,'' said Matthew Epstein, director of
research for The Investigative Project.
''According to the FBI, they were involved in Hamas financing
activities and potentially involved in the 1998 US Embassy
bombings in Africa,'' he said.
BMI was targeted by the FBI's Chicago office in a probe of alleged
money laundering and funnelling of funds to terrorist groups like
Hamas.
BMI also shared office space in Secaucus, N.J. with Qadi
International, an organization controlled by Qadi.
According to state records, two of Ptech's founding directors were
former officials with BMI. One of the directors, Soliman Biheiri, was
quoted in Management Review magazine as the ''president of BMI
Leasing'' in an article about financial institutions that adhered to
Islamic law.
Another director, Hussein Ibrahim, is currently listed as Ptech's vice
president and chief scientist.
Ibrahim's resume, filed with the US General Services Administration
as part of the company's application to do business with the US
government, lists his prior employment from 1989 to 1995 as a vice
president of BMI.
Michael Kranish of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.Ralph
Ranalli can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 12/7/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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