U.S. officials have arrested a Jordanian-born man alleged to have $12 million in fake cashier's checks and said they suspected he trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
"It has really alarmed a lot of people that al Qaeda may be trying to get that much money into the United States for operational purposes," one official told the newspaper. "We don't know what he was up to, but he was coming from Indonesia, he had $12 million in bogus checks ... he was born in Jordan and his family is from Chechnya. There is a lot of smoke there to investigate," the official added.
Officials said 47-year-old Omar Shishani was detained on Wednesday when he arrived at Detroit's Metropolitan Airport, according to the report. It said Shishani's Dearborn, Michigan, home, where he lives with his wife, was searched on Thursday.
Shishani told officials he was a naturalized U.S. citizen, and was carrying a passport, the U.S. daily said. Officials said Shishani's name appeared on a watch list of people trained in Afghanistan by al Qaeda and also in documents found in Afghanistan, the paper said. Officials said they did not know how the checks would have been used, but that they were "extremely well made," according to the report.
Shishani was in custody until his detention hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, The Washington Post added. (Albawaba.com)
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