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>From http://www.msnbc.com/news/725385.asp?cp1=1
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Terror�s Cash Flow
Is Al Taqwa, a shadowy financial network, a secret money machine for Osama bin
Laden?
By Mark Hosenball
NEWSWEEK
March 25 issue � In neo-Nazi circles, 74-year-old Albert Huber is something of a
celebrity. The retired Swiss journalist gives talks to far-right groups around the
world,
condemning Zionists and arguing that the Holocaust was exaggerated. Over the past
two decades he made regular trips to the United States, lecturing at Aryan youth and
Nation of Islam meetings. Huber�s rants are especially popular among radical
Muslims. Born a Christian, the blue-eyed, silver-haired Huber converted to Islam in
the 1960s. He now calls himself Ahmad, and preaches that neo-Nazis and Muslims
should join ranks to defeat Israel. �The United States is now controlled by a small
Jewish faction,� he says. �We are making a link between Islamic movements and the
New Right in Europe.� The late Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khomeini was so impressed
with his theories that Huber was once invited to sit at his feet at a gathering in
Tehran. More recently, Huber says he has been approached at Islamic conferences
by people introduced as representatives of Osama bin Laden.
GARRULOUS AND SURPRISINGLY friendly, Huber is unapologetic about the
attention bin Laden�s supporters give him. But despite his extreme beliefs�he
described the September 11 attacks as �counterterror against American- Israeli
terror��he claims he has no personal ties to terrorists. International investigators
think otherwise. Late last year the United States put him on a list of people suspected
of financing terrorism. Huber served on the board of Al Taqwa, a shadowy financial
network that, they say, hid money for bin Laden and other international terrorists and
helped to fund their operations.
What are hawalas?
Hawalas are informal networks of dealers who transfer money from one person to
another without the documentation kept by more established banks and money
transfer systems. These networks are common throughout the Middle East,
Southeast Asia and Africa.
Because dealers operate primarily on trust and hawalas are often non-financial
businesses that also conduct other transactions with each other, it's difficult for
authorities to determine how much money is transfered and where it goes.
Source: U.S. Treasury, Washington Post.
Printable version
Investigators on bin Laden�s trail had known of Al Taqwa�s existence for years. But
the group�s mazelike structure made it hard to track, and the Feds considered it a
low priority. Not anymore. Within hours of the September 11 attacks, a senior official
told NEWSWEEK, President George W. Bush ordered his national-security team to
seize bin Laden�s cash. �I want their money,� the president demanded. �I want it now.
I want to hurt them.� In November the Treasury Department froze the assets of Al
Taqwa, Huber and most of the network�s other leaders. Shortly thereafter, it went into
liquidation.
Taqwa officials strongly deny that they have any connection with terrorists. But
after months of probing, the Feds say they have evidence that Al Taqwa provided
support to bin Laden both before and after September 11. A NEWSWEEK
investigation�including interviews with U.S. and European law-enforcement agents
and top Taqwa officials�reveals how bin Laden�s suspected bankers kept the cash
flowing, and how they managed to stay for so long beneath the radar.
Al Taqwa, which means �Fear of God,� was launched in the late 1980s by leaders
of the Muslim Brotherhood, a secret society devoted to the creation of a worldwide
Islamic government. The Brotherhood wanted to create a financial institution in which
devout Muslims could invest their money. It would operate under strict Islamic law,
which prohibits banks from charging interest. But investigators believe the convoluted
structure of Al Taqwa made it easy to use as a money-laundering mechanism. Al
Taqwa had no offices. The entire operation consisted of four men working at
computers in a small apartment in Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano, which sits near the
Italian border, is a kind of Alpine Tijuana, well known as a haven for tax evaders and
money launderers.
Al Taqwa�s founders made other suspicious moves� registering the network as
an offshore bank in the Bahamas, where secrecy laws would protect transactions
from prying investi-gators. Back in Switzerland, the Bahamian license allowed Taqwa
bosses to open commercial �correspondent� accounts with established European
banks�paying the larger institutions fees to make cash transfers around the world
for them, without calling attention to themselves. All are classic money-laundering
techniques, investigators say.
Intelligence sources say they weren�t aware of Al Taqwa�s activities until the mid-
�90s, when the Egyptians began investigating possible terrorist links to one of
Taqwa�s founders and shareholders, a wealthy Swiss resident named Ahmed Idris
Nasreddin. Born in Eritrea, the 73-year-old Nasreddin claims to be a descendant of
African royalty. In the early �90s he helped create and finance the Islamic Cultural
Institute of Milan, a mosque located just over the Italian border from Lugano.
European intelligence agencies had begun to suspect that the Cultural Institute was
a recruiting and supply center for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The center�s
late imam Anwar Shaban was a follower of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian
cleric now in a U.S. prison for his role in plotting to blow up New York landmarks.
Qaeda terrorists involved in both the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa and
the failed millennium bombing plot hung out at the Milan center, law-enforcement
officials say. The U.S. Treasury Department describes the mosque as �the main Al
Qaeda station house in Europe. It is used to facilitate the movement of weapons,
men and money across the world.� Nasreddin could not be reached. His lawyer, P. F.
Barchi, says that Egyptian Secret Service agents warned Nasreddin in the mid-�90s
about possible terrorist �problems� with the center. Al Taqwa�s longtime chairman, an
Egyptian expat and Muslim Brotherhood member named Youssef Nada, told
NEWSWEEK that Nasreddin would never get involved with terrorists. Still, he says
he warned Nasreddin to �be more cautious.� Barchi says his client only made
�charity� donations to support the center�s worshipers�paying rent and utilities�and
has nothing to do with terrorism.
Nasreddin�s links to the Milan center made investigators curious about the
network�s other potential ties to terrorists. By the late �90s, intelligence agencies
on
both sides of the Atlantic were probing Al Taqwa. When Swiss regulators began
questioning its leaders, Al Taqwa unsuccessfully attempted to placate them by
appointing Huber, a Swiss native, to its Swiss board of directors.
Investigators
began to take a harder look at Al Taqwa after the embassy bombings. Sources say
U.S. intelligence tracked telephone contacts between Al Taqwa and members of bin
Laden�s inner circle. Qaeda operatives would call Taqwa representatives in the
Bahamas as they moved around the world. Still, the network�s complex structure
made it difficult to prove how money changed hands, and the investigation stalled.
Under U.S. pressure, the Bahamian government revoked Al Taqwa�s license last
spring. Treasury officials say the network continued to do business anyway.
But after Bush�s order to roll up bin Laden�s money network, European
investigators swept in on Al Taqwa, searching Huber�s and Nada�s homes and
freezing their assets. (Nasreddin�s money was not frozen.) The Swiss, ever
protective of their renowned status as an anonymous banking haven, at first seemed
reluctant to go after Al Taqwa. But after a private meeting with Attorney General John
Ashcroft in Washington earlier this month, Switzerland�s chief prosecutor, Valentin
Rohrshacher, told NEWSWEEK his government is now conducting a vigorous
criminal investigation.
U.S. officials have been much more blunt about their suspicions. Testifying before
Congress in February, Jaime Zarate, a senior Treasury official, said Al Taqwa�s
connections to terrorists go back at least five years. Zarate told lawmakers that the
United States learned in 1997 that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas had
transferred $60 million into Al Taqwa accounts. Zarate also testified that intelligence
agencies now have evidence that �as of late September 2001��after the
attacks��bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization received financial assistance
from [Al Taqwa�s] chairman��though he gave no details about what that money
might have been used for.
Nasreddin, Huber and Nada all deny laundering money and any involvement of
any kind with terrorists�and prosecutors don�t have enough evidence to make a
criminal case against them. At least not yet. Prosecutors say they are now piecing
together thousands of pages of documents seized in raids on the bank and its
leaders, searching for a paper trail between the bankers and bin Laden. Prosecutors
concede that Al Taqwa may have been just one of Al Qaeda�s many sources of
clandestine funds. If so, closing its doors could be an important step in slowing bin
Laden�s river of cash to a trickle.
With Kevin Peraino and Catharine Skipp
� 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
End<{{{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
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