Holiday Bank Robber Lacking in Christmas Cheer

The FBI Bank Robbery Task Force needs your help to identify a holiday bank robber who brandished a black semi-automatic handgun during the armed robbery of a Houston bank earlier this evening. Bank surveillance photographs of the robber are below.
The bank robbery happened at the Chase Bank located at 1351 West 43rd Street in Houston, Texas shortly after 5:00 this evening. The bank robber walked up to the counter, grabbed a deposit slip, and wrote a threatening note on it demanding cash. He then walked up to a teller, showed her the note, and pulled out a black semi-automatic handgun from his waistband. The teller gave the man some cash. He was last seen walking away from the bank on foot. No one was physically hurt during the robbery.
The armed bank robber was described as a white male in his mid-30s, about 5’8” to 5’9” tall, 200 pounds, with a medium build. He was clean-shaven and possibly had acne scars on his face. He had light brown short to medium-length hair with thin, light brown eyebrows. He wore a dark jacket and a black ball cap with a 1st Calvary Division logo on the front. He carried a black semi-automatic handgun during the robbery.

Crime Stoppers is offering up to $5,000 for information leading to the charging and arrest of this robber. If you have information about this case, please call the Crime Stoppers tip line at 713-222-TIPS (8477), or the Houston office of the FBI at 713-693-5000.

New York Man Convicted of Hacking AT&T’s Servers

NEWARK—A federal jury today convicted the head of a self-described “security research” hacking group of breaching AT&T’s servers, stealing e-mail addresses and other personal information belonging to approximately 120,000 Apple iPad users, and disclosing that information to an Internet magazine, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Andrew Auernheimer, 27, of New York, was convicted of both counts of a superseding indictment: conspiracy to access AT&T’s servers without authorization and disclose that information to a reporter at Gawker magazine and possession and transfer of means of identification for more than 120,000 iPad users. Auernheimer was tried before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton in Newark federal court. His co-conspirator, Daniel Spitler, 27, of San Francisco, California, previously pleaded guilty to the same charges and is awaiting sentencing.
According to documents filed in this case and the evidence at trial:
The iPad is a touch-screen tablet computer, developed and marketed by Apple Computers Inc., that allows users to, among other things, access the Internet and send and receive electronic mail. Since its introduction in January 2010, AT&T has provided iPad users with Internet connectivity via AT&T’s 3G wireless network. During the registration process for subscribing to the network, a user is required to provide an e-mail address, billing address, and password.
Prior to mid-June 2010, AT&T automatically linked an iPad 3G user’s e-mail address to the Integrated Circuit Card Identifier (ICC-ID), a number unique to the user’s iPad, when he or she registered. Every time a user accessed the AT&T website, the ICC-ID was recognized and the e-mail address was automatically populated for faster, user-friendly access to the site. AT&T kept the ICC-IDs and associated e-mail addresses confidential.
At that time, when an iPad 3G communicated with AT&T’s website, its ICC-ID was automatically displayed in the Universal Resource Locator, or URL, of the AT&T website in plain text. Seeing this, and discovering that each ICC-ID was connected to an iPad 3G user e-mail address, hackers wrote a script termed the “iPad 3G Account Slurper” and deployed it against AT&T’s servers.
The Account Slurper attacked AT&T’s servers for several days in early June 2010 and was designed to harvest as many ICC-ID/e-mail address pairings as possible. It worked by mimicking the behavior of an iPad 3G so that AT&T’s servers would be deceived into granting the Account Slurper access. Once deployed, the Account Slurper used a process known as a “brute force” against the servers, randomly guessing at ranges of ICC-IDs. An incorrect guess was met with no additional information, while a correct guess was rewarded with an ICC-ID/e-mail pairing for a specific, identifiable iPad 3G user.
From June 5, 2010 through June 9, 2010, the Account Slurper stole for its hacker-authors approximately 120,000 ICC-ID/e-mail address pairings for iPad 3G customers.
Immediately following the theft, the hacker-authors of the Account Slurper provided the stolen e-mail addresses and ICC-IDs to the website Gawker, which published the stolen information in redacted form, along with an article concerning the breach. The article indicated that the breach “exposed the most exclusive e-mail list on the planet” and named a number of famous individuals whose e-mails had been compromised, including Diane Sawyer, Harvey Weinstein, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The article also stated that iPad users could be vulnerable to spam marketing and malicious hacking. A group calling itself “Goatse Security” was identified as obtaining the subscriber data.
Goatse Security is a so-called “security research” group, composed of Internet hackers, to which both Spitler and Auernheimer belonged.
During the data breach, Spitler and Auernheimer communicated with one another using Internet Relay Chat, an Internet instant messaging program. Those chats not only demonstrated that Spitler and Auernheimer were responsible for the data breach, but also that they conducted the breach to simultaneously damage AT&T and promote themselves and Goatse Security. As the data breach continued, so too did the discussions between Spitler, Auernheimer, and other Goatse Security members about the best way to take advantage of the breach and associated theft. On June 10, 2010, immediately after going public with the breach, Spitler and Auernheimer discussed destroying evidence of their crime.
Each count on which Auernheimer was convicted is punishable by a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward in Newark, with the investigation leading to the charges. He also thanked special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Valerie Parlave in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Arkansas, under the direction of U.S. Attorney William Conner Eldridge.
The government is represented by Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Martinez and Assistant U.S. Attorney Zach Intrater of the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Economic Crimes Unit.

Konawa Man Sentenced for Attempting to Destroy or Damage Property Using an Explosive

MUSKOGEE, OK—The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Daniel Wells Herriman, age 41, of Konawa, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 63 months’ imprisonment, followed by 36 months of supervised release, for attempting to destroy or damage property by means of an explosive, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 844(i); and illegal making of a destructive device, in violation of Title 26, United States Code, Sections 5861(f), 5822 and 5871.
Herriman was indicted in September 2011 and was found guilty by a federal jury in May, 2012.
The charges arose from an investigation by the Okfuskee County Sheriff’s Department, Seminole County Sheriff’s Department, Creek Nation Lighthorse Police, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The evidence presented at the trial established that in July and August 2011 the defendant, without lawful authority, made an improvised explosive device or IED. The defendant maliciously attempted to damage and destroy a natural gas pipeline near Okemah, Oklahoma, when he placed the device under the pipeline and set the timer on the device. The device was discovered by a pipeline employee and was disrupted by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Bomb Squad.
The defense claimed Herriman was legally insane at the time of the crime.
The Honorable James H. Payne, District Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the trial and sentencing.
Herriman will remain in the custody of the United States Marshals Service pending transportation to the designated federal prison at which he will serve his non-parolable sentence.
Assistant United States Chris Wilson represented the United States.

Grand Island Man Sentenced to 70 Months' Imprisonment for Selling a Rifle to a Felon

United States Attorney Deborah R. Gilg announced that Luis Cruz, 32 years old, from Grand Island, Nebraska, was sentenced on Wednesday, November 14, 2012, to a term of 70 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release upon completion of his prison sentence, and a $100 special assessment by the Honorable U.S. District Court Senior Judge Richard Kopf. Cruz pled guilty to transferring a firearm to someone he had reason to believe was a convicted felon on July 13, 2012.
Cruz was among several people arrested in the Grand Island area in November of 2010 as the result of an investigation into criminal street gang activity. This case was investigated by the Central Nebraska Drug and Safe Streets Task Force, an organization comprised of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, Hall County Sheriff’s Department, Grand Island Police Department, Nebraska State Patrol, Adams County Sheriff’s Department, Hastings Police Department, and the Kearney Police Department.

Robbery of SunTrust Bank Branch in Washington, D.C.

At approximately 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, December 26, 2012, an unknown male entered the SunTrust Bank at 624 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The subject passed a note demanding money and threatened the bank teller. The teller complied with the demand, and the subject left with a sum of money.
The subject is described as a black male, 5’8”-5’9” tall, 28-35 years old, and weighing approximately 140-160 pounds. He wore large, brown sunglasses with gold frames; a brown ski mask with openings for the eyes; and a hoodless, black rain jacket. The subject left on foot towards the Metro at 7th Street NW and H Street NW.
The subject, pictured below, should be considered armed and dangerous.
The FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force is investigating this bank robbery with the Metropolitan Police Department and requests that anyone with information call the FBI at 202-278-2000 or MPD at 202-727-9099. Anonymous information may be submitted to tips.fbi.gov or to MPD by texting 50411.

Fifteen Members of Alleged Drug Ring Arrested

NEWARK, NJ—Two members of an alleged drug trafficking ring based in Elizabeth, New Jersey and operating throughout the Northeast and Puerto Rico made their initial court appearances today, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Nelson Yordan, a/k/a Carlos, 27, of Waterbury, Connecticut, and Michael Rosario, 28, of Hagerstown, Maryland, were both charged by complaint with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. They made their initial appearances today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk in Newark federal court.
Yordan and Rosario are among 15 people arrested over the past three weeks by FBI agents and local police in connection with a drug trafficking organization responsible for distributing cocaine and heroin in the Elizabeth, New Jersey; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Hartford, Connecticut; and Hagersville, Maryland areas.
Also charged by complaint in connection with the alleged drug operation are: Roberto Rentas Negron, a/k/a El Duro; Kelmit Velazquez; Antonio Vazquez, a/k/a Panta; Fernando Duarte Castro; Julio Martinez Jr., 43, of Elizabeth; Lorenzo Carballo, 28, of Elizabeth; Hector Espinoza, a/k/a Will, 27, of Elizabeth; William Crespo, a/k/a Negro, 33, of Allentown, Pennsylvania; Melvin Gerena, a/k/a Flaco, 29, of Elizabeth; Marco Rodriguez, 26, of Elizabeth; Jerel Evans, a/k/a Gigante, 25, of Elizabeth; Robert Evans, a/k/a Gigante’s Brother; and Christian Reyes, a/k/a Enano. Each defendant is charged with one count of conspiring to distribute controlled substances.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
Three of the defendants—Negron, Velazquez, and Vazquez—were arrested November 30, 2012, after FBI agents learned that Negron and Velazquez were plotting to murder a rival drug dealer who had reportedly stolen one kilogram of heroin from the organization. They made their initial court appearances before Judge Falk on December 3, 2012 and were ordered detained pending trial. After their arrests, many of their co-conspirators reportedly took measures to evade law enforcement, including changing cell phones and fleeing to other states.
As part of a coordinated operation, federal, and local law enforcement authorities subsequently located and arrested: Duarte Castro on December 3, 2012 in Newark; Carballo and Espinoza on December 13, 2012 in Elizabeth; Crespo in Allentown; Yordan in Hartford; and Rosario in Hagersville; on December 14, 2012. After fleeing to Puerto Rico, Rodriguez turned himself in to the FBI in San Juan on December 19, 2012.
Martinez and Gerena were previously arrested by the Elizabeth Police Department on unrelated charges and remain in state custody pending their transfer to face the federal charge. The other three defendants remain at large.
Between November 2011 and November 30, 2012, law enforcement was involved in an investigation into a drug trafficking organization (DTO) operating in the Elizabeth and Newark areas. The organization had people in Puerto Rico and elsewhere coordinating shipments of cocaine and heroin through the U.S. mails to New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The narcotics would be concealed in items such as candles and children’s toys. Individuals in New Jersey would coordinate these shipments, process or “cut” the narcotics, and distribute the narcotics to locations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, and other locations.
Law enforcement in New Jersey identified Rentas Negron as the person who coordinated the acquisition of the drugs, the processing and packaging of the cocaine and heroin, the resale of the narcotics, and the distribution of the proceeds from drug sales. Vazquez frequently supplied narcotics to Rentas Negron. Reyes coordinated shipments of narcotics from Puerto Rico. The other members of the DTO cut, processed, packaged, stored, and distributed the narcotics and occasionally traveled to Florida, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, and other states in order to obtain cocaine to distribute in the Elizabeth area.
The counts with which Yordan, Rosario, Negron, Velazquez, Martinez, Carballo, Espinoza, Crespo, Jerel Evans, Robert Evans, Gerena, and Rodriguez are charged carry a minimum potential penalty of five years in prison and a maximum of 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine. The counts with which Vazquez and Reyes are charged carry a minimum potential penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison and a $10 million fine. The count with which Duarte Castro is charged carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in charge Michael B. Ward; U.S. Postal Inspectors, under the direction of Phillip R. Bartlett; law enforcement officers from the New Jersey National Guard Counter Drug Task Force, under the direction of the Adjutant General, Brig. Gen. Michael L. Cunniff; the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Prosecutor Theodore J. Romanko; and the Elizabeth Police Department, under the direction of Police Director James Cosgrove, with the investigation leading to the charges.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam N. Subervi and David Eskew of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Newark.
The charges and allegations contained in the complaints are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Eco-Terrorist Surrenders

After a decade as an international fugitive, Canadian citizen Rebecca Rubin gave up life on the run last week when she turned herself over to the FBI at the international border in Washington state.
The 39-year-old alleged member of the domestic terrorist cell called “The Family” will face federal arson charges for her role in the largest eco-terrorism case in U.S. history, known as Operation Backfire. With Rubin in custody, only two Family members remain at large.
Along with a dozen other conspirators, Rubin is charged with multiple crimes from 1996 through 2001 in the West and Pacific Northwest, including in Oregon, Colorado, and California. The Family committed an estimated $48 million worth of arson and vandalism under the names of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front.
The cell’s most notorious crime was the 1998 arson of a Vail, Colorado ski resort that caused more than $24 million in damages and drew international attention to eco-terrorists—those who break the law in the misguided attempt to protect the environment and animal rights. The FBI took the lead in the Vail investigation, working closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners, and in 2004, multiple eco-terrorism investigations were condensed into Operation Backfire.
In July 2011, one of Rubin’s conspirators, Justin Solondz, was turned over to U.S. authorities by the Chinese government. Solondz had been imprisoned in China on drug charges. That leaves two Operation Backfire fugitives still at large, and there is a reward for information leading to their arrest.
“Two years ago we had four fugitives. Now we have two—so we are halfway there,” said Special Agent Tim Suttles, who works in our Portland Division and has been investigating the eco-terrorist group since 2005.
Although Suttles said it is “very satisfying” to see Rubin surrender and submit herself to the judicial process, the Operation Backfire investigation will not be closed until the last two fugitives—Joseph Dibee and Josephine Overaker—are in custody.

Counterintelligence Awareness

The FBI vigilantly investigates cases of industrial espionage and theft of intellectual property, but the Bureau also places great emphasis on preventing such crimes by educating industry on ways to keep trade secrets safe. One such innovative program in North Carolina’s Research Triangle is a collaborative effort with other federal partners called RED DART.

	Learn More - Collaborative Approach Yields Intelligence Sharing- The Insider Threat: Two Cases

The threat to America’s trade secrets—and to our national security—is real, whether it comes in the form of international spies, hackers probing online security systems, or disgruntled employees out for revenge. RED DART seeks to mitigate the threat by raising counterintelligence awareness.
Through briefings to cleared defense contractors and others in technology-rich North Carolina, RED DART makes executives and employees aware of how counterintelligence works and how they can spot suspicious activity both inside and outside their companies.

	Protecting Your Business from Espionage Here are a few precautions business executives and employees can take to protect trade secrets: -  Recognize there is an insider and outsider threat to your company. -  Identify trade secrets and implement a plan for safeguarding them. -  Secure physical and electronic versions of your trade secrets. -  Confine intellectual knowledge to a need-to-know basis. -  Provide training to employees about your company’s intellectual property plan and security. -  Do not store private information vital to your company on any device that connects to the Internet. -  Use up-to-date software security tools. Many firewalls stop incoming threats but do not restrict outbound data. -  Educate employees on e-mail tactics such as spear phishing. Establish protocols for quarantining suspicious e-mail. -  Remind employees of security policies on a regular basis through active training and seminars. Use signs and computer banners to reinforce security policies. - Ask the FBI or other security professionals to provide additional awareness training.

“Everybody wants to emulate U.S. technology,” said Brent Underwood, a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who helped create RED DART. “If countries can shortcut 10 or 20 years’ worth of research and development by stealing our technology, that puts them at an obvious advantage.”
Despite the occasional high-profile case where a spy accesses highly classified documents, the majority of stolen technology is unclassified, said FBI Special Agent Lou Velasco, who manages the program out of our Charlotte Division. “With the right amount of information,” he explained, “state actors can reverse-engineer our products or build them from scratch.”
When that happens, our adversaries can be more competitive on the battlefield as well as in the global marketplace. “A big part of our program is putting information out there about the threat so that people understand just how serious it is,” Velasco said. “When a company’s trade secrets are compromised, it can threaten national security, but it can also hurt that company’s bottom line and its ability to keep people employed.”
The threat from inside a company may be employees secretly sent by foreign countries to steal secrets. RED DART briefings help employees spot suspicious behavior, such as a staffer working odd hours, asking inappropriate questions, or making frequent trips overseas. Externally, foreign agents may pose as potential investors or customers to gain access to technical information that could compromise a company’s trade secrets. And weak online security is always an invitation to hackers.
Griff Kundahl, executive director of the Center of Innovation for Nanobiotechnology in North Carolina, a state-funded organization that fosters new technology in the region, has worked closely with the RED DART program to help educate the center’s members.
“Our core constituents are early-stage companies,” Kundahl said. “They developed a product that might treat cancer, for example. They are trying to raise money and get their product to market. They don’t have much time or the resources to consider security risks. If RED DART can get them to understand these risks, it helps everybody. When they realize that all their efforts could be for naught if their technology is stolen or compromised, it can be eye-opening for them.”
“Our challenge is to show how real the threat is,” Velasco said. “We arm people with tools so that they can make appropriate business decisions.”
Michelle Brody, a special agent with the Defense Security Service and a founding member of RED DART, added, “When RED DART helps a company protect itself a little better, it not only helps them, it helps our national security.”

Stopping a Would-Be Terrorist

The 20-year-old Saudi Arabian man living in Lubbock, Texas was intent on waging jihad against Americans—possibly even a former U.S. president—and he was one ingredient away from being able to build a powerful bomb.
But Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari’s deadly plans began to unravel when a shipping company’s suspicions were raised—illustrating once again how the FBI relies on private industry and the general public in the fight against terror.

	Setting Tripwires The FBI depends on private industry and the general public to help fight terrorism. Weapons of mass destruction coordinators in each of the 56 FBI field offices, along with other agents, regularly meet with representatives from industry and academic institutions, public health officials, local law enforcement, and first responders to raise awareness about threats to our national security. These efforts are known as setting tripwires, and the intent is to establish an early-warning network where those closest to an emerging situation—such as the Lubbock shipping company in the Aldawsari case—are aware of potential risks and are prepared to inform the FBI when suspicions are raised. “If not for those established tripwires and the liaison with the local police department—and them making the right decision to notify the FBI—I shudder to think what might have happened in the Aldawsari case,” said Special Agent Frazier Thompson. “If Aldawsari was able to get the phenol, there is no doubt in my mind he would have manufactured a very potent explosive device.” Thompson added, “Establishing and maintaining tripwires is critical to our national security, and the cooperation we received across the board on the Aldawsari case proved it.”

In early February 2011, a Lubbock shipping firm received a package from a North Carolina chemical company containing 10 bottles of phenol intended for Aldawsari. Combined with just two other chemicals, phenol can be used to make a potent explosive. Delivering such poisonous chemicals to an individual’s home is not common, so the shipping company contacted the North Carolina firm. Both decided that the phenol should not be delivered and that local law enforcement should be alerted. A Lubbock Police Department officer was called to the scene.
“That officer and his supervisor—because of their relationship with the FBI (see sidebar)—decided that this was something we needed to know about,” said Special Agent Frazier Thompson, who works in our Dallas Division. “Our initial focus was to identify Aldawsari to see if he had a legitimate reason for purchasing phenol.”
In a matter of days, members of our North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force learned that although Aldawsari had once been a chemical engineering student at Texas Tech, he was no longer enrolled there and had no affiliation with the university.
“He was trying to pass himself off as a Texas Tech student doing research on cleaning products,” said Special Agent Mike Orndorff, who worked the investigation. “Those credentials, if legitimate, would have allowed him to buy the phenol.”
Most alarming was that Aldawsari had already purchased the two other chemicals needed to make his bomb, along with test tubes, beakers, and protective gear. Through covert operations, investigators learned he had disassembled clocks and cell phones and stripped the wires off Christmas lights in apparent attempts to fashion timers and initiating devices.

Evidence of Aldawsari’s attempts to fashion timers and initiating devices.

“His apartment bedroom was basically a storage room where he kept his chemicals and equipment,” Thompson said. “He was sleeping in the living room on the couch or the floor.”
The investigation revealed troubling things about Aldawsari, who had come to the U.S. legally in 2008 on a student visa. “Based on evidence from the Internet and his journal entries,” Thompson said, “Aldawsari was radicalized before he ever came to the U.S. It appears he started planning this attack when he was a teenager and sought a scholarship to study specifically in America.”
By this point, surveillance teams were monitoring Aldawsari around the clock. “He was searching online for large targets such as dams and electrical plants,” Thompson said. He also searched for ways to conceal explosives in baby dolls and carriages and even sought the Texas address of former President George W. Bush.
On February 23, 2011, after agents were certain that Aldawsari was working alone, he was arrested and charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. In November, after being convicted by a jury, he was sentenced to life in prison.
“Aldawsari wanted to take out a lot of people,” Thompson said. “It scares me to think what might have happened if we hadn’t stopped him.”

Preying on the Weak

It was a despicable scheme—stealing identities of terminally ill individuals to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars from insurance companies and bond issuers.
Attorney Joseph Caramadre, president and CEO of his own estate planning company in Rhode Island—along with Raymour Radhakrishnan, an employee—pled guilty earlier this month in federal court to conspiracy to commit identity theft and wire fraud.
Caramadre’s investment strategies depended on lying to terminally ill individuals and their loved ones to obtain identity information. He abused two financial instruments—variable annuities and death put bonds (see sidebar)—to carry out these strategies. In addition to buying annuities from insurance companies listing terminally ill individuals as annuitants, he also purchased bonds of distressed companies for significantly below face value listing terminally ill individuals as “co-owners.” When the terminally ill person died days or weeks later, he would exercise the death benefits associated with the investments.
Caramadre recruited investors by falsely telling them he found a loophole which permitted the use of terminally ill patients as annuitants on annuities and co-owners on brokerage accounts used to purchase death put bonds. He then entered into profit-sharing agreements with them, but received a significant percentage of the profits himself.

	Financial Instruments Misused in the Scam - Variable annuities: Investments akin to mutual funds with death benefits. These death benefits include a guaranteed return of all money invested plus a guaranteed profit—even if the market went down—and various other bonuses and enhancements upon the death of the person named as the annuitant. - Death put bonds: Corporate bonds with survivor options purchased through a brokerage account. Under the terms of these bonds, the owner of a bond is able to redeem it at face value years or even decades prior to the bond’s maturity date upon the death of the bond’s co-owner. The financial success of Caramadre’s schemes depended entirely on the imminent death of the person named as the annuitant or co-owner.

In recruiting terminally ill individuals for his scheme, Caramadre was only interested in those with a life expectancy of six months or less. He looked for victims in several ways: visiting AIDS facilities, putting ads in a local religious newspaper offering cash to terminally ill individuals, and even looking through his own company files.
The ads purchased by Caramadre were especially fruitful…in them, he claimed to be a philanthropist and offered the terminally ill a few thousand dollars to assist with their funeral expenses. The ads also got him access to hospice care facilities, nurses, and social workers who could spread the word about his offer.
Radhakrishnan would visit patients and their families to supposedly determine whether they qualified for the donation, but he was actually assessing their life expectancies…the shorter the time, the better for the scheme.
Patients who accepted Caramadre’s cash offer were asked to sign a document, ostensibly because the philanthropist needed it for tax records, but in reality it was so their signatures could be forged later on. Sometimes, they were asked to sign signature pages from actual annuity and brokerage account applications that were disguised as something else. Sometimes, they were told that actual accounts would be open, but that all profits would go to other terminally ill people. And they were always asked for personal information, like Social Security number, birthdates, driver’s license numbers, etc.
Once armed with the fraudulently obtained identity information, Caramadre purchased annuities and death put bonds. And both he and Radhakrishnan took numerous steps to deceive the insurance companies and brokerage houses to hide Caramadre’s true ownership interest.
Caramadre’s scheme went on for about 15 years—from 1995 to 2010—until some of the insurance companies and brokerage houses he defrauded filed complaints, and investigators with the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service, and U.S. Attorney’s Office began looking into the matter.
Lesson to be learned. If you or a family member is suffering, physically or financially, don’t make quick business decisions….you still need to do your due diligence.

North to Alaska Part 4: The Shot that Pierced the Alaska Pipeline

Located less than 200 miles from the Arctic Circle, our resident agency in Fairbanks is one of the FBI’s most remote offices—but its three investigators cover an expansive amount of territory and help safeguard some of the country’s most valuable infrastructure.
Within the office’s area of responsibility is the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, an 800-mile engineering marvel that has carried billions of gallons of crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez since it began pumping in 1977.
“For as long and as exposed as the pipeline is, it is definitely not a soft target on the ground or in the air,” said Special Agent Bruce Milne. That’s because the pipeline’s owner, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, provides extensive security and maintains strong ties with local and federal law enforcement.

	FBI Agent and Dog Musher Special Agent Bruce Milne has spent 25 years in the FBI, and most of that time has been in Fairbanks—Alaska’s second largest city with about 32,000 residents. “Inside the city limits it’s like any other small town,” he said, “but go 10 minutes out of town and it’s just about complete wilderness.” Even though winter temperatures can plummet to 60-below zero and highway signs caution drivers to beware of moose, Milne is happy to be in Fairbanks because he has a passion for training and racing sled dogs. Alaskans call it “mushing,” and Milne has done more than his share. In 2007, the Boston native competed in the famous Iditarod—known as “the last great race”—and he has also raced multiple times in the equally grueling Yukon Quest. The Iditarod begins in Anchorage each year on the first day of March and ends more than 1,000 miles away in Nome. It is an extreme test of skill and endurance, pitting man and his dog team against the elements and the clock. “Being known in dog mushing circles has helped me as an FBI agent,” Milne said. “The residents here appreciate the fact that I am a member of their community, not just somebody who will leave after a few years.”

“We all take the security of the pipeline very seriously,” said Milne, a 25-year FBI veteran who was drawn to Alaska in part because of his interest in dog sledding (see sidebar). “Our Joint Terrorism Task Force coordinates closely with Alyeska and Alaska State Troopers to protect the pipeline,” he added.
One case that stands out for Milne occurred in October 2001, when a resident of Livengood—a town of less than two dozen people about 50 miles north of Fairbanks—shot a hole in the pipeline with a high-powered rifle.
A bullet would not ordinarily breach the pipeline’s exterior, which is constructed of thick steel and lined inside with several inches of high-density insulation. But the single shot from Daniel Lewis’ rifle somehow did penetrate the pipeline, and oil began streaming out with tremendous force. “If you would have put your hand in front of the leak,” Milne said, “the pressure would have taken it off.”
Lewis, described later in court as a career criminal, had been released from jail only weeks before the shooting incident. He was detained by troopers after he and his brother were spotted near the spill.
Milne and his colleague, Special Agent Mark Terra, were called in to investigate. They recovered the rifle—the scope had blood on it where it had recoiled against Lewis’ face—made plaster foot casts at the crime scene, and began interviewing people who knew the Lewis brothers. “Alyeska security and local troopers did a tremendous amount of work on this case as well,” Milne said.
Meanwhile, oil spewed from the pipeline for days before engineers could stop it. More than 285,000 gallons of crude were spilled as a result of that small bullet hole and—according to press reports at the time—the cleanup took many months and cost $13 million.

A stretch of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

Lewis was charged with a range of federal and state crimes, from weapons offenses to oil pollution, criminal mischief, and driving while intoxicated. In 2002 he received a 10-year federal sentence; the following year in state court, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison. His sentences are running concurrently.
Coming less than a month after the 9/11 terror attacks, the pipeline shooting served as a reminder that protecting the country—whether from terrorists or other criminals—requires constant vigilance. “Everyone here recognizes that the stakes are as high in Alaska as anywhere else,” Milne said. “That’s why we work so closely with our partners to maintain the highest level of security.”

North to Alaska Part 3: A Domestic Terrorist With a Deadly Plan

By the time he moved to Alaska in 2006, Paul Rockwood, Jr. was an ardent follower of the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who he met at a Virginia mosque in late 2001.
Shortly after he settled with his family in the small fishing village of King Salmon to work for the National Weather Service, our agents in Anchorage were aware that Rockwood had begun compiling a list of targets in the U.S. military he might assassinate in the name of jihad.
“If you were wearing a U.S. military uniform,” said Special Agent Doug Klein, who worked the case from Anchorage, “as far as Rockwood was concerned, you were a target.”
A military veteran himself, Rockwood believed it was his religious duty to kill those who desecrated Islam. In 2009, he began sharing his deadly plans with an individual he thought held similar views. But that person was actually an undercover operative employed by our Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Anchorage.
For a time, JTTF personnel wondered how determined Rockwood was about his plans. “But one day when he was with our undercover in Anchorage he identified the building of a cleared defense contractor and said, ‘This is the kind of building I want to blow up,’ ” Klein said. “That’s when we knew he was a serious threat.”
Keeping track of Rockwood was difficult, however, because King Salmon is some 300 miles from Anchorage and only accessible by airplane. And with only a few hundred residents, outsiders would be immediately spotted, so attempts at surveillance were impractical. “We couldn’t use 90 percent of the traditional investigative techniques we use in the Lower 48,” Klein explained.
In addition, small, regional airlines in Alaska are not regulated by the Transportation Security Administration, so anyone can fly with weapons. On Rockwood’s frequent trips from King Salmon to Anchorage, Klein said, “he could have had a gun or a bomb and we never would have known.”
During those Anchorage visits, Rockwood met the undercover operative and discussed buying electronics and downloading schematics of cell phones to make bomb detonators. At one meeting, he said he was getting ready to relocate to the mainland and had plans to steal a cache of explosives in Boston—where he grew up—that would help him go operational.
By early 2010, Rockwood had formalized his hit list to include 15 specific targets—all outside Alaska—and he gave the list to his wife, Nadia, who was aware of his intentions.
Even with no overt acts of terrorism to charge him with, it was decided that for the sake of public safety, Rockwood and his wife could not be allowed to leave Alaska. In May 2010, JTTF agents questioned Rockwood and his wife as they attempted to fly out of Anchorage. Both denied any involvement with a hit list or terrorist plot.
The couple was charged with making false statements to the FBI in a domestic terrorism investigation, and in July, Rockwood was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison—the maximum sentence under the law. His wife was also found guilty and received five years of probation.
“We can never be sure if he would have acted,” Klein said, “but Rockwood was clearly a threat, not only to the individuals on his list but to the entire community.”

North to Alaska Part 2: An Explosive Situation in the Dead of Winter

The call came in to the Anchorage Field Office early on a Sunday morning in January 2010. An explosion had taken place at a Fairbanks residence, and a 21-year-old man had been seriously injured.
After consulting with local authorities on the scene, our weapons of mass destruction (WMD) coordinator and other FBI personnel were not sure if the explosion was related to a drug manufacturing operation or linked to a terrorism threat. But everyone understood that our assistance was required, because the house contained a variety of hazardous, unstable materials.
Members of our Evidence Response Team (ERT), the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), and others from the Anchorage office gathered their equipment and prepared to drive to Fairbanks—365 miles to the north—in the middle of a violent winter storm.
“It was 58 degrees below zero, with high winds, blizzard conditions, and black ice on the highway,” said Special Agent Derek Espeland, the WMD coordinator who is also one of Anchorage’s two special agent bomb technicians.
Based on the description of materials in the house, agents initially thought the man was making methamphetamine—meth labs are an unfortunate reality in many rural communities. The victim, who walked to a nearby fire station despite the sub-zero temperature, was burned and bleeding. He claimed he was building a rocket when it blew up. Before he could be questioned further, he was flown to a burn unit in Seattle for treatment.
After a harrowing drive from Anchorage that took more than seven hours, FBI personnel arrived on scene along with bomb techs from the Air Force and local law enforcement. The meth lab theory was ruled out, “but then you almost had to conclude that the guy could be a terrorist,” Espeland said. “Everything we saw in the house we had seen being used by terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
As it turns out, the 21-year-old was neither a drug maker nor a terrorist. He was just fascinated with explosives and blowing things up. He had legally purchased all his ingredients—of course, our agents didn’t know that at the time. And because the house was a public safety threat, Espeland said, “we couldn’t just walk away.”
To neutralize the threat, it was decided to employ several render-safe techniques using specialized equipment. But that was easier said than done. Robots and other battery-powered equipment were inoperable in the nearly 60-below temperature because the batteries were frozen. Espeland’s evidence camera froze to his face when he tried to take a picture—inside the house. Vehicles had to be kept running for fear they would freeze if turned off, even with warming blankets and engine block heaters. An extension cord designed for extreme cold snapped and disintegrated.
“The cold was drier than anything I ever felt before,” said Vicky Grimes, an ERT member. “It almost took your breath away.”
A command post was established at the nearby fire station, and after a joint effort, the house was finally rendered safe. “Responding to this incident reinforced our understanding that we have to rely on our state and local partners for assistance, just as they rely on us,” said Special Agent Sandra Klein, Anchorage’s JTTF supervisor.
The 21-year-old recovered from his injuries, and—since he had committed no federal crimes—was not charged. “This was a public safety threat that could have been something far more serious,” Espeland said. “That’s why we responded, despite the conditions. That’s what we’re here for.”

Remembering Lou Peters Selfless Actions Brought Down Mob Boss

In 1977, things were going well for Lou Peters—he was living the American dream with his wife and three daughters, running a successful Cadillac dealership in Lodi, California. And in June of that year, he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.
A man approached Peters expressing interest in buying the dealership. When told it wasn’t for sale, the man was insistent, telling Peters to “name any price.” Finally, Peters said he would sell it for $2 million—nearly twice what the business was worth. The man accepted—then told Peters that the buyer was none other than Joseph Bonnano, Sr., head of the Bonnano organized crime family, who wanted the dealership to launder the family’s illegal funds.

	Lou Peters, left, receives an award from FBI Director William Webster in 1980.

Initially taken aback upon learning of mafia involvement, Peters eventually agreed to the sale, recounting, “I didn’t understand why these people wanted to come into our county. And I wanted to find out.” He then went to a local police chief and told him what had happened. When the chief asked what he was going to do next, Peters replied, “Well, I’m going to the FBI.”
And to the FBI he went, telling all. The FBI saw an opportunity to take down Bonnano and asked Peters for help. He was on board. “I felt it was the right thing to do, and I just did it,” he said.
Over the next nearly two years, Peters played the part of a corrupt businessman, gaining remarkable access to the Bonnano family and even becoming a close companion of Joseph Bonnano, Sr. To gain his confidence, Peters recalled saying something to “the old man” along the lines of, “Well, this should really bring me into the family”—to which Bonnano replied, “Lou, you’re already in the family.”
Through it all, Peters never took his eye off the ball—gathering evidence, secretly recording conversations, and debriefing agents on what he had learned. And his efforts weren’t without personal sacrifice…besides the risk to his life, he had to obtain a (temporary) legal separation from his wife not only to protect his family but also to have a credible reason to move out of his house—and into an apartment that was being monitored by the FBI.

	“There’s a time, I believe, when you have to stand up and be counted for—and I agree that I probably went the extreme, but that’s my way of life. When I tackle something, I believe in going at it 100 percent.”
	- Lou Peters

In the end, Peters got what we needed. When he told Bonnano—during a recorded call—that he had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury regarding his dealings with the family, the old man directed him to destroy any records that could be linked back to him and his associates. Peters took the tape to the FBI agent on the case. While listening to it, the agent jumped up and said, “You got him!”
Thanks to Lou Peters, Joseph Bonnano, Sr. was found guilty of obstructing justice and sentenced to five years in prison—the first felony conviction in the mob boss’ long life of crime.
To show its appreciation, in October 1980 the FBI presented Peters with an award for his selfless and valiant actions…an award that has been granted annually for the past 30 years as the Louis E. Peters Memorial Service Award, bestowed upon the citizen who best exemplifies the standards set by Peters in providing service to the FBI and the nation.
Shortly before his death in 1981, Peters said, “I was very proud of what I did for my country.” The country is very proud of him, too. Thanks, Lou Peters.

A Byte Out of History Murder and the Dixie Mafia

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the murder of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife, Margaret, whose deaths at the hands of the so-called Dixie Mafia exposed the lawlessness and corruption that had overtaken Mississippi’s Gulf Coast in the 1980s.
“It was out of control,” said retired Special Agent Keith Bell, referring to the level of corruption in Biloxi and Harrison County—so much so that in 1983 federal authorities would designate the entire Harrison County Sheriff’s Office as a criminal enterprise. Special Agent Royce Hignight initiated the investigation of the sheriff and was soon joined by Bell.

	The ‘Lonely Hearts’ Scam Dixie Mafia inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were behind a scam that brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ringleader Kirksey McCord Nix—a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without parole—believed that if he raised enough money he could buy his way out of jail. Here’s how the scam worked: Inmates paid guards to use prison telephones. Then they placed bogus ads in homosexual publications claiming they were gay and looking for a new partner to move in with. The men who replied to the return post office box address got additional correspondence and racy pictures. But there was a catch—the scammers told their victims a variety of lies about why they needed money before they could leave where they were. “A lot of money came flowing in,” said retired Special Agent Keith Bell. “There were hundreds of victims.” Men from all walks of life—professors, mail carriers, politicians—fell victim to the scam. “One guy in Kansas mortgaged his house and sent $30,000 to the scammers over a period of months,” Bell recalled. To add insult to injury, some of the inmates writing letters eventually confessed the scam to their victims—and then extorted even more money by threatening to “out” the men if their demands were not met.

“They were doing anything and everything illegal down here,” said Bell, who grew up on the Gulf Coast. “For money, the sheriff and officers loyal to him would release prisoners from the county jail, safeguard drug shipments, and hide fugitives. Anything you can think of, they were involved in.”
Bell is quick to point out that there were plenty of honest officers on the force, and some would later help the FBI put an end to the culture of corruption in Biloxi. But for a long time, Sheriff Leroy Hobbs and his Dixie Mafia associates held sway.
The Dixie Mafia had no ties to La Cosa Nostra. They were a loose confederation of thugs and crooks who conducted their criminal activity in the Southeastern United States. When word got out that Biloxi—with its history of strip clubs and illicit gambling—was a safe haven, the criminals settled in.
At the same time, members of the organization incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were running a “lonely hearts” extortion scam with associates on the street. The scam (see sidebar) targeted homosexuals and brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars—money they entrusted to their lawyer, Pete Halat.
But Halat, who would later become mayor of Biloxi, spent the money. When it came time to hand it over to the crooks, he said the cash had been taken by his former law partner, Vincent Sherry. So the mob ordered a hit on Sherry, a sitting state circuit judge who had no direct ties to the criminals. On September 14, 1987, Sherry and his wife were murdered in their home.
“Gulf Coast residents were shocked by the murders,” Bell said. Local authorities worked the case unsuccessfully for two years. The FBI opened an investigation in 1989, and Bell was assisted in the investigation by Capt. Randy Cook of the revamped sheriff’s office—Leroy Hobbs was convicted of racketeering in 1984 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The federal investigation into the Sherry murders lasted eight years. In the final trial in 1997, Pete Halat was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Kirksey McCord Nix—the Dixie Mafia kingpin at Angola who ordered the hits—as well as the hit man who killed the Sherrys each received life sentences.
As a result of the cases, Bell said, “Gulf Coast citizens started demanding more professional law enforcement and better government.” Bell—who wanted to be an FBI agent since he first watched The FBI television series as a child—added, “It meant a lot to me to return to my home and do something about the corruption that had worked its way into government and law enforcement there.” He added, “The majority of citizens realized that if the FBI had not stepped in, the lawlessness and corruption would likely have continued unabated.”

Living a Lie Identity Theft That Lasted Decades

When Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Richard Blanco—a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Jacksonville—interviewed an individual suspected of driver’s license fraud in 2011, he wasn’t initially sure if the man was the victim or the perpetrator of identity theft.
That’s because the man—now imprisoned and officially known as John Doe—had a stack of government-issued identification acquired during the 22 years he had been using a living victim’s identity. That included a passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, and identification allowing him unescorted access to a port and military installation.

	Podcast: John Doe Sentenced

“He was extremely convincing that he was the victim,” said Blanco, a veteran trooper with more than 30 years on the force. “When you have 20 forms of identification and it’s in your possession,” Blanco explained, “it’s hard to not believe you are the person you say you are.”
But John Doe was indeed an imposter, and while he was living under another man’s name, the real victim was living a nightmare. It all started in 1989 when the victim’s car was broken into and his wallet was stolen. His identity had been compromised.
John Doe began using the victim’s name, even when he went to prison for aggravated battery. As a result, Blanco said, “if you run John Doe’s fingerprints, even today, they will come back with the victim’s name.”
When the victim, a Miami resident, applied to become a corrections officer, he had to explain why his records showed a felony conviction. He urged officials to compare his fingerprints to those of John Doe’s. When the victim applied for a passport, he was denied because the passport office claimed he already had one—the one that John Doe had applied for and received.
When Blanco was able to talk with the real victim, he heard two decades worth of frustration. The victim had filed a police report years before, but John Doe had never been caught or stopped. Blanco remembers the victim telling him, “This guy has been living my identity. He’s gotten my license suspended and he’s had kids in my name.”
When Blanco realized that he was dealing with a massive and long-running case of identity fraud, John Doe was arrested. The JTTF opened an investigation, and John Doe was eventually indicted federally on numerous counts of aggravated identity theft and fraud.
JTTF investigators had to rule out any threat to national security, because John Doe had access to the Mayport Naval Station as well as JaxPort, the Jacksonville Port Authority. Although he was just working at those locations, Special Agent Paxton Stelly, who supervises Jacksonville’s JTTF, pointed out that John Doe had passed the background checks required to gain access there. “He appears to have manipulated the system with ease,” Stelly said.
Last month a jury convicted John Doe—who continues to insist he is the real victim in the case—and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Despite DNA testing and a thorough investigation, his real identity remains a mystery.
“It will continue to be a mystery unless he makes an admission to us,” Blanco said, adding, “I don’t know what he’s going to do when he gets out of prison, because the man doesn’t have an identity.”

North to Alaska Part 1: Smallest FBI Office Takes on Big Job

The FBI recently investigated a white powder letter incident in Alaska with the help of a partner law enforcement agency. “It took our partners two days to get to the place where the white powder letter was,” said Mary Frances Rook, special agent in charge of our Anchorage Field Office, “because they had to take a ferry and a plane and an all-terrain vehicle to get to the school where the letter had been sent.”
Welcome to the Anchorage Division—the FBI’s smallest field office—whose agents are responsible for covering the most territory of any office in the Bureau. That’s an area of more than 600,000 square miles, twice the size of Texas and packed with natural beauty and hard-to-reach places.

	An Opportunity for New Agents Of the FBI’s 56 field offices, Anchorage has the fewest personnel—but that turns out to be an opportunity for new agents assigned there fresh out of the FBI Academy. “It’s a huge benefit for a first-office agent to come to a place like Anchorage because you get to do so many things,” said Special Agent in Charge Mary Frances Rook. “You aren’t pigeonholed here. Some of our biggest cases have been made by first-office agents. That’s not an experience you are going to find in a larger office because those cases usually go to the more senior agents,” she explained. “Here everybody has the opportunity to develop a case and run with it and be successful.” Rick Sutherland, a former North Carolina police officer, joined the FBI in 2009 and his first office was Fairbanks, in our three-man resident agency. Shortly after his arrival, he was assigned a domestic terrorism case that recently ended with the subject’s lengthy trial and conviction. “Getting this case and this kind of experience so early in my FBI career was a great opportunity,” Sutherland said, “and it might not have happened had I been sent to a large office.”

Although the Anchorage Division investigates the same types of violent crime, public corruption, and national security matters as FBI offices in the Lower 48, “there is so much that is different here,” said Rook—and she’s not just referring to the bears and moose occasionally spotted on downtown Anchorage streets.
“If you’re in Anchorage, there are roads to Fairbanks and to the Kenai Peninsula, but other than that there are no roads,” Rook said. Getting to remote villages and towns requires a plane or a boat. Combine the geographical difficulties with extreme weather and one begins to understand how the 49th state can pose considerable challenges for the agents and support staff in Anchorage and our satellite locations in Fairbanks and Juneau.
Few FBI offices require snowmobiles to respond to crime scenes, but Anchorage keeps two on hand. The harsh Alaskan winters, where temperatures can plummet to more than 50 degrees below zero and the sun rises above the horizon for only a few hours each day, can make being outdoors seem almost otherworldly.
“It can be a challenging place to work,” Rook acknowledged. “But the flip side is that everybody knows it. So everybody works together. We work great with each other and with our local and federal law enforcement partners. Everybody’s got each other’s back, because you just can’t survive up here alone.”
Not surprisingly, it takes a certain kind of person to work for the FBI in Alaska. “The most successful Bureau people here are the ones who come with an idea that this is going to be a great adventure,” said Rook, whose assignment in Anchorage began in January 2011.
Special Agent Catherine Ruiz, who transferred to Anchorage with her husband last year from Chicago, agreed. “Every few days you will be driving home and you look up at the snowcapped mountains and say, ‘Wow, this is a beautiful place.’ ”
Bureau personnel who come to Alaska tend to be multi-talented as well. “We don’t have a lot of resources,” Rook said, “so everyone has to do a little bit of everything.” One of the office’s three pilots, for example, is also the polygraph examiner and a full-time counterintelligence agent. “That’s not unusual,” Rook noted.
“I originally thought I would come to Alaska for a few years,” said Special Agent Eric Gonzalez. That was 15 years ago. Gonzalez liked the place and the people—and so did his family. He added, “Most of the Bureau folks I know who worked here and left wished they would have stayed.”

Help Us Catch a Terrorist U.S. Citizen Wanted for Supporting Al Qaeda

The FBI today announced a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of Ahmad Abousamra, a U.S. citizen from Massachusetts charged with traveling to Pakistan and Yemen to seek military training so he could kill American soldiers.
“Knowing that the public is the FBI’s best ally in finding fugitives, today we’re requesting your assistance to locate Abousamra,” said Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of our Boston office.

	Listen - Ahmad Abousamra Voice Clip - Podcast: Investigator Discusses Case

Abousamra is charged with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to al Qaeda. He was indicted in 2009 for taking multiple trips to Pakistan and Yemen in 2002 and 2004 to seek jihad training. He also traveled to Iraq with the hope of joining forces fighting against Americans overseas. Abousamra left the U.S. in 2006 and may be living in living in Aleppo, Syria with his wife, at least one daughter, and extended family.
Abousamra’s co-conspirator, Tarek Mehanna, was convicted of terrorism charges by a federal jury in December 2011 and sentenced last April to 17.5 years in prison.
“Both men were self-radicalized and used the Internet to educate themselves,” said Special Agent Heidi Williams, a member of our Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Boston who has been working the case since 2006. “They came to it independently, but once they found each other, they encouraged each other’s beliefs,” Williams said, adding that both Abousamra and Mehanna were inspired by the 9/11 terror attacks. “They celebrated it,” she said.
Abousamra is of Syrian descent and has dual U.S. and Syrian citizenship. He is 31 years old, 5’11” tall, and at the time of his disappearance weighed about 170 pounds. He has dark brown hair and brown eyes. He is fluent in English and Arabic, has a college degree related to computer technology, and was previously employed at a telecommunications company. Abousamra last lived in the U.S. in a prosperous Boston suburb and has family members in the Detroit, Michigan area.
One of his distinguishing characteristics is his higher-pitched voice, which can be heard on our website.
Today’s announcement is part of a publicity campaign employing traditional and social media to seek the public’s assistance. We are using social media to reach an overseas audience—information about Abousamra such as photos and audio clips can be found on the website and our Facebook, You Tube, and Twitter pages.
“Combining the reach and power of multiple media platforms is a powerful way to inform the public about our search,” DesLauriers said. “We believe publicizing Abousamra’s photo and characteristics will lead to a tip about his whereabouts and, ultimately, to his arrest.”
Thomas Daly, a sergeant with the Lowell Police Department in Massachusetts and a task force officer on the Boston JTTF since 2002, said catching Abousamra “will close the chapter on this story. We had two people who were planning to harm U.S. soldiers overseas,” Daly said, referring to Abousamra and Mehanna. “These two were actively radicalizing others. We can only assume Abousamra is still on the same path and remains a threat to our soldiers overseas.”
We need your help. If you have any information regarding Ahmad Abousamra, please contact your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate. You can also submit a tip electronically on our website.