Black Market Billions: How Organized Retail Crime Funds Global Terrorists (Gal Zentner's Library) (4 page)

Given the political state of the Somali government, it’s understandable how anti-American sentiment could rise quickly. In a Bertelsmann Transformation Index report conducted by Bertelsmann Stifung over two years ending in 2010, Somalia experienced escalating violence and a deteriorating level of security. This has led to massive population displacements and the worst humanitarian crisis in the country since 1991–1992. Not only did the Transitional Federal Government fail to establish national unity, but it also has been involved in a war against insurgent groups, including Islamists and clan-based militias, such as al Shabaab.
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Speaking to several of Chris’s colleagues confirmed the anti-American sentiment. One man I spoke to (we’ll call him “Edward”) told me that after years of economic and social oppression by the government, America was seen as “The Promised Land” where upon arrival, success, security and most importantly monetary gain would happen almost instantly. And while Edward acknowledged his situation was much better once he arrived to New York, it’s not up to the standards he had dreamed of. “I thought my big house came the minute I walked off the plane,” said Edward laughing slightly. “It wasn’t like that to say the least. I have problems here too. It’s almost as if the American Dream is just that—a dream.”

The country was also significantly affected by the global economic crisis. As many Arab nations felt the sting of sinking oil prices, local stock markets cut in half the value of investments in the global marketplace, with Somalia catching the brunt of it. While most of the population lived in poverty, the crisis catapulted them into extreme poverty, living lives of shocking insecurity.
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Somalia’s labor force of nearly 3.5 million contains few skilled laborers, and its GDP is $2.731 billion. Given these factors, the country has had to sustain itself on an
informal economy that is based on livestock, remittance/money transfer companies, and telecommunications.
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Somalia isn’t the only country brewing with instability and anti-American feeling. We saw this same sentiment expressed by Faisal Shahzad during his initial indictment hearing in June 2010. Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, devised a plot to detonate a bomb in Times Square—a plan that took two years for him to come up with. It involved multiple trips back to Pakistan, covert ways of obtaining funding for the plot, and, most importantly, a deep disdain for the country of which he was a citizen.

“I want to plead guilty, and I’m going to plead guilty a hundred times forward, because until the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking the U.S., and I plead guilty to that,”
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said Shahzad as he pled guilty to ten counts of attempted bombing and engaging in terrorist training.

His statements weren’t altogether surprising. Hating America had become the driving force and justification for extremist organizations to plan attacks. But what was shocking was that this hatred was brewing on American soil and sprouting seeds of domestic terrorism.

Made in America: Homegrown Terrorism

Suspected New Jersey terrorists Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte also felt the need to wage a domestic attack on the U.S. They traveled to Somalia by way of Egypt to train with al Shabaab. According to a friend who belonged to the same mosque, as well as an informant who tipped off the FBI, these troubled young men were talking about “waging a violent jihad.” They kept saying that all Americans are their enemies, that everyone other than their
Islamic followers are their enemies, and they all must be killed.
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Both suspected terrorists were funded by money raised from the sale of merchandise stolen from retailers.
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Muslim extremists do not think of themselves as members of separate countries. Rather, they belong to a greater organization whose sole purpose is to create a world free of non-Islamists. This sentiment was expressed by a senior Taliban commander, Mullah Minbullah, in Nuristan in an interview with a pro-Islamist web site. “First of all, Muslims are one,” says Minibullah. “Among us there are no foreign and inlanders. We are all Muslims, and I can gladly tell you that nobody can match Afghans in fighting. No Iranians, Arabs, or anyone can fight like we do. But the important fact is that we are, thanks to Allah, Muslims. And for us Muslims, it doesn’t matter if you are Afghan, Arab, Pakistani, Tajik, or whatever... and in every household in every corner weapons are present. And the expenses of these weapons are not so expensive to prevent us from financing them ourselves. We get financial aid from people...Muslims from all around the world.”
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To engage in a full-out jihad, you need weapons, and weapons cost money. As funds are raised by illicit means (such as by selling counterfeit handbags, contraband merchandise, or stolen product), the money made from these illegal sales is being sent back by sympathizers. Taliban groups, such as al Shabaab and Tehreek-e-Taliban, used the funds to train people such as Shahzad in explosives training while he was in Pakistan. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, widely known as a safe haven for al Qaeda fugitives and a staging area for Taliban forces, is largely financed by smuggling goods and persons across the border.
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Likewise, two compounds were located within the U.S.—one known as “Islamberg,” in Hancock, New York, and the other, a commune called “Red House,” in Virginia. Both have ties to the Jamaat al Fuqra, the terrorist group known for kidnapping and killing journalist Daniel Pearl, and both were known to have their own ORC rings
involved in the sale of stolen and counterfeit products. According to sources, members of the Islamberg community supplied Shahzad with explosives for his failed attempt to detonate a bomb in Times Square.
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Members of the Red House compound (an alleged Muslim 50-acre compound in Charlotte County, Virginia) were recently involved in a $7 million fraud scheme. Under the name Talib’s Sportswear, they sold counterfeit-label clothing to retail merchants throughout the country. The probe into the Talib firm led to the arrests of Ronald Gerald “Talib” Roundtree and his wives Berna Robbin, Terri Lynn Singleton, and Keisha Janelle Simms, who reside on “Fatima Lane” in Red House.
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“American-based operatives of terrorist groups have increasingly turned to criminal endeavors to finance their murderous actions,”
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Stephen I. Landsman, director of National Security Law and Policy on the Investigative Project on Terrorism, told me. Whether through drug trafficking, ORC and black-market smuggling, the production and sale of counterfeit name-brand goods, or car theft rings, terrorists have demonstrated that they are willing and able to resort to the types of activities normally reserved for street gangs for financial support. U.S. law enforcement has stopped and should continue to stop these activities with the same proven techniques it has always relied on to combat illicit financial activity. Those efforts, however, must be accompanied by measures aimed at preventing the actual flow of money supporting terrorism—and thwarting the means used to recruit potential ORC ring members.
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Recruiting from the Inside

On a hot day in the Santa Ana California State prison, a group of men congregate in the prison’s parole yard area. Although they look like typical prison inmates in orange jumpsuits, what they are talking
about is anything but ordinary. They are part of a group called the Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS), which translates as “the Assembly for Authentic Islam.”
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The group was started by Kevin Lamar James, a wiry African-American who sports cornrows, oval-shaped glasses, and an untrimmed goatee. James has what is known in Muslim circles as a “raisin” in the middle of his forehead—a symbol of a pious man who grinds his forehead to the ground during prayer.
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A California native and 32 years old at the time, James was sentenced for plotting attacks on military recruitment centers, synagogues, the Israeli consulate, and Jewish facilities in 2005. While imprisoned in Folsom in 1997 for gang-related armed robbery, he recruited Levar Washington and Gregory Patterson, who were also sentenced to jail time for assisting James in these attacks. According to an FBI press release, James recruited Washington into the organization by making him swear an oath of loyalty to him and the JIS. A couple weeks after he took the oath, Washington was released from prison and subsequently recruited Patterson and a fourth accomplice, Hammad Samana (a Pakistani native), to form a cell. The three would rob gas stations (because of oil and its political symbolism). They took everything from money to personal care items and over-the-counter medicine for the purpose of reselling it and raising money for the organization. The men stole upwards of $50,000 within ten months. And that’s just three people.

“Prisons literally provide a captive audience of disaffected young men easily influenced by charismatic extremist leaders,” explained FBI Deputy Assistant Director Donald Van Duyn in a statement before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Related Agencies. “These inmates, mostly minorities, feel that the United States has discriminated against them or against minorities and Muslims overseas. This perceived oppression, combined with a limited knowledge of Islam, makes this population vulnerable for extremists looking to radicalize and recruit.”
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Anti-American sentiment has been historically prevalent in immigrant communities—especially Latin American communities—dating as far back as the early 19
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century. A poll done by UNESCO and USIA provided statistical confirmation that U.S. values had great appeal for much of the world’s population.
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Data from the 1958 National Intelligence Estimate found that Latin American attitudes “expressed envy by disparaging U.S. materialism, yet wanted our consumer goods and capital; they espoused pan-Americanism, but engaged in petty nationalism; they chafed at our military power but wanted our protection.”
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Clearly anti-American sentiment has been long-standing and was deep-rooted. (9/11 only accelerated this sentiment worldwide. In a survey done by the Pew Trust in 2001, opinion leaders in many countries stated that U.S. policies were a principal cause of the 9/11 attacks. 58% of the Latin Americans who responded in the survey agreed.
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James wasn’t the only inmate to recruit or be recruited out of a California prison. Jose Padilla, a native Puerto Rican who was also a U.S. citizen, converted to a radical form of Islam while in jail. He had been involved in many crimes connected to gang activities in Chicago. Padilla (aka Abdullah al Muhajir) admitted he had ties to the Maniac Latin Disciples, the largest Latin street gang in Chicago. He was arrested at Chicago O’Hare airport for plotting a terrorist attack with a dirty bomb.
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According to Chicago authorities, Padilla was tagged as a potential al Qaeda terrorist and trained with the network.
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From Prison to Gangs to the World’s Most Notorious Terrorist Group

The MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) gang’s
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connection to al Qaeda was facilitated after 9/11 when the terrorist group realized the gang could help smuggle operatives and weapons into the U.S. over the
Mexican border. According to Steven McCraw, the former assistant director of the FBI’s Office of Intelligence and current director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, a
matricula
consular
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provides an opportunity for terrorists to move freely within the U.S. without triggering name-based watch lists.
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The cross-border gangs, known as the Maras, came about in the early 1980s when conflict-ridden zones in Central America, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, caused hundreds of thousands of people to migrate north to the U.S.—especially into California, Arizona, and New Mexico—as illegal aliens. Once in America, these immigrants (mostly men) encountered difficult work and social situations in terms of integrating into other ethnic-based gangs such as the Crips, Bloods, and Mexican Mafia. Some joined the M-18 (also known as the 18th Street gang, named after a street in Los Angeles), and others created their own gang, the MS-13. The number 13 also refers to a street in Los Angeles. Trained and very familiar with military combat and guns due to the insurgency in their countries, the MS-13 would wage war in the streets of Los Angeles, involving themselves in violent crimes, theft, and drug dealing. When they were arrested and put in jail, MS-13 members would use their time to recruit more members, hone gang identities and criminal skills, and make their cells stronger.
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As soon as the peace process ended the strife in El Salvador in 1992, many of the Maras members (who were now M-18 and MS-13 members) were deported and sent back to their homeland. While in their war-torn cities of Guatemala City, San Pedro Sula, and San Salvador, they reestablished themselves and have been expanding their cells all over the world ever since.
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Today the MS-13 has more than 11,000 active members (compared to the 8,000 members of M-18), with a regional total of 69,145 members in 920 groups.
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