On Apr 7, 2006, at 5:53 PM, raghu wrote:
From Max's and Barkley's reports, it appears that the men did what
they did simply because they wanted to help Kurdish immigrants send
money to relatives back home, not for any nefarious purposes like
money laundering for drugs or terrorism.
How can you be certain? Call me cynical, but I can't think of a reason
why anyone would transfer $3M without documentation if it is merely
meant for charity.
--raghu.
I'm not certain at all (all I got was Max's and Barkley's reports and
the FBI press releases linked to Max's comments). But the law
enforcement agencies have been quick since 9/11 to slap charges of
(conspiracy to commit, to provide material support for, etc.)
terrorism even when evidence was weak. Since the four men in
question haven't been charged with anything related to terrorism or
drugs, I tend to believe that the law enforcement agencies didn't
have anything on them except what they actually did, which is
transmit money without license.
$3 million over six years isn't a small sum, but it isn't exactly an
extravagant sum of money -- if several hundreds of Kurds sent home
$1-3,000 each per year through these men, such remittances would
amount to that kind of money over six years.
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
