U.S. authorities are quietly investigating over 500 Muslim and Arab small businesses across the United States to determine whether they are dispatching money raised through criminal activity in the United States to terrorist groups overseas.
The investigation into Arab businesses, many of them convenience stores, is part of an extensive inquiry launched after Sept. 11, when law enforcement agents stepped up scrutiny of small-scale scams that they think are generating tens of millions of dollars a year for terror groups, federal officials said.
According to The Washington Post, the criminal activity includes skimming the profits of drug sales, stealing and reselling baby formula, illegally redeeming huge quantities of grocery coupons, collecting fraudulent welfare payments, swiping credit card numbers and hawking unlicensed T-shirts.
A number of law enforcement task forces involved in the crackdown are searching for similarities in the convenience stores' financial practices and money transfer methods to determine whether their activities are centrally directed.
As part of the overall effort, a U.S. Customs Service supercomputer program has been diverted from analyzing the flow of drug money to tracking terror funds. That effort has led to raids on Pakistani operators of jewelry kiosks in seven states, authorities said, according to the newspaper. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
