Foreigner Found With Prepaids, Cash In Murrysville Is Held By Feds


GREENSBURG, Pa. -- A man from the Republic of Georgia is being held in the Westmoreland County Prison after he and another man from that country were found with 15 prepaid cell phones and $4,200 in cash, police said.

The Tribune-Review reported that Malkhaz Zakutashvili, 53, was held through the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Murrysville police said the federal agency told police not to hold the second man, Zurabi Maisuradze, 25.


Police said the men were questioned just before 8 p.m. Saturday because their van, which did not have a permanent registration plate, was stopped in a lane of traffic in the Franklin Plaza parking lot.

The men said they were immigrants, but each displayed Michigan driver's licenses, police said.

Zakutashvili told police he was in the country illegally, Tappe said. Maisuradze claimed to have a visa, but he said he had forgotten to bring it with him.

The prepaid cell phones, which the men had recently purchased in Monroeville and Murrysville, were found inside the van. Also in the van were a laptop computer and global-positioning software....

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Lattes, IPods Among Air Security Fears

By MATT CRENSON
AP National Writer


Expert: Liquid Bomb Effective, Easy to Make



NEW YORK (AP) -- Shampoo, iPods and Starbucks lattes have suddenly become security threats. Terrorists could easily slip a few apparently innocuous items past airport security and assemble them into a lethal explosive once aloft, security experts said.

Some envision a group of two or three terrorists mixing up explosives in an airplane bathroom, perhaps even using commonplace materials such as hydrogen peroxide and detonating their bomb with the battery from a cellphone or some other small electronic device.

"In mid-flight you could go into the toilet, attach the mobile phone to the explosives and, as the plane makes a final approach over a densely populated urban area, you detonate it," said Irish security analyst Tom Clonan.

To puncture an aircraft's fuselage would require an explosive charge "half the size of a cigarette packet," he said.....


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Men held in Michigan suspected of plan to attack Mackinac Bridge
Click here to play video

Amy Fox

Created: 8/13/2006 9:50:08 PM
Updated: 8/14/2006 8:50:00 AM

Federal authorities helped with the investigation into a possible terror threat to the Mackinac Bridge. The FBI office in Detroit worked with local law enforcement authorities before the police arrested three men in Caro on Friday. Officers found about 1,000 pre-paid cell phones in their van. Police in Caro arrested the three Palestinian-American men after they allegedly bought 80 of the phones at a Wal-Mart store in Caro.

A pre-paid cell phone can be economical and convenient. But, 22 year old Adham Othman, 23 year old Louai Othman, and 19 year old Maruwan Muhareb aroused suspicion when they allegedly bought 80 phones at the same time. Caro Police Chief Ben Page said they thought “something was wrong here."

When police pulled the men over, they found about 1,000 phones in the van. Many were separated from their battery packs and the chargers were discarded. Michigan State Police Trooper Patrick Sharkey says, “We didn't know exactly what was going on. You hear on the news about these phones being used to detonate IED's."

Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene says, “There were a thousand cell phones that were inside one motor vehicle. There's a laptop computer. There's a camera and there are things that are still being investigated at this point in time. Based on information received from a variety of agencies, we're developing how the actual headphones were sold, revenue was passed from one location to the next. Obviously, it's fairly complex." He thinks the men had a complex plan to attack the Mackinac Bridge.

However, the men, who are from Texas, say they simply purchase the cell phones, and resell them for more money. Louai Othman's wife Lina Odeh says he was simply trying to support her and their two-month old daughter. Odeh says, “Their goal in Michigan was to buy as many phones as they could so they could make a profit over here."

The men allegedly traveled to several states to buy pre-paid cell phones, despite policies at many stores limiting purchases to two or three phones at a time. Police in Wisconsin say these three men also bought phones in their state. A clerk who helped them says she suspected something fishy. Barb Bessert, a clerk at a Dollar General store, says, “When they buy more than a couple. Because they are 20 dollars apiece. So, that's like 80 bucks. But, they don't buy the minutes for it. Just the phone."

But, Othman's wife says this is a common business, and her husband is only being targeted because of his nationality. Odeh says, “There's nothing wrong with it. I don't know why they're making a big deal out of it. Are ya'll making a big deal out of this because all the Arabs are doing it?"

Two of the men are brothers, and the third is their cousin.

The three are scheduled to appear in court again on Friday. They are accused of "providing material support for terrorism and obtaining information of a vulnerable target for the purposes of terrorism."


http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=59411

Top Stories: US : Islamic Terrorists Love of Untraceable Cell Phones as IED Detonators
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/mod...php?storyid=499

The Federal people found no connection between the buying of those cell phones to the use of bomb detonation devices. What do y'all think that those aliens were going to do with those phones? "Hey Pedro! Go this way over the border and you can get free!" It might be that they were trying to buy all of them from the market so there would be no cell phones to use to detonate bombs.

The more we try to win this war on terrorism, the more we lose. Who's death are y'all afraid of? There is a time to live and a time to die.

Let's see. . . Tracfone Wireless . . . I have a couple of those, but the time ran out. . . I used to use those to text my girlfriend and I was just so happy when I got a return message. Wow, I thought, this is neat.
The good thing about it is, the only thing you have to do is buy a card, scratch off some numbers, type the numbers in the phone, and wala! You can text all day until the time runs out. She got tired of scratching off numbers and wanted to get a real phone. You know, everybody wants to look like a cop with the radio dangling on the side. It is money making deal and all of the immigrunts wanna fit in!

What is funny to me is that on the day this story broke, a man had approached me at a truck stop in Nevada with a hard luck story of needing money, and selling me a cheap, pre-paid cell phone. To help him out, I bought the phone, though I already have a cell phone. He said he had 4 or 5 others to sell. At the time, I found it strange he had all those cell phones, wondering where they came from? Then I heard the story on the news, with the speculation of what they were to be used for.

What if they were to plant explosive devises in cheap cell phones, and then use similiar means of distribution nationwide to the one I just described. Then, on a set day and time, someone were to set them off? I got rid of the one I had after hearing that just to be on the safe side.

http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/mod...php?storyid=531

24 August 2006: The recent series of arrests of Middle Eastern men involved in the purchase of prepaid cellular telephones is the apparent subject of debate. There are those who are insulting the sensibilities of the American public by desperately trying to explain the issue as nothing more than young men who are embracing the entrepreneurial American spirit – the very spirit that made this country great – by purchasing large quantities of cell phones and reselling them for a profit. Although there might well be an extremely small percentage of those engaged in that activity, this is NOT what has been and continues to be currently taking place across the country. By the US government’s own admission and based on our extensive collective research and investigation of this matter, cellular telephones that are purchased in bulk are generally used for two primary purposes:

1. The phones and their components are used to construct detonators for improvised explosive devices. One prime example of this can be found in the evidence collected at the scene of the bombings in London.

2. The phones are also used as “throw-aways” for untraceable communication between terrorist operatives.

The most insidious of the two purposes is obviously the first. Ample evidence has been found in Afghanistan and Iraq where the cellular telephones and their components have been used as detonation devices for improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In addition to the devices used for detonation of the London bombings, circuitry components were also found in the remains of the backpack worn by would-be Oklahoma University homicide bomber Joel Henry HINRICHS III, as were detailed instructions on his computer.

To be sure, the bulk cell phone purchases made by individuals who are intentionally caught circumventing the checks put in place to keep these situations from taking place happen to be Muslim men fitting a certain profile – in most cases, the same profile of those who killed 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001. Some say that we permitted ourselves to be sucker-punched on 9/11. Are we now allowing ourselves to be once again set up to take another hit simply to avoid allegations by such organizations as the ADC and CAIR that we are engaged in religious and racial profiling? It is important that such allegations are nothing more than a smokescreen and that this has nothing to do with religious or ethnic profiling, but it has EVERYTHING to do with CRIMINAL profiling.

When interviewed today on a cable news television station about his cell phone purchasing activities, a suspect recently arrested for terrorism related charges that were ultimately dropped, the suspect attempted to explain that he was involved in a legitimate business enterprise. The $10,000 in cash found in his vehicle was apparently his working capital. Perhaps his outspoken group of supporters, including his co-defendants, family, friends, and defense attorneys who are representing him on behalf of the ADC can and will produce evidence to support the legitimacy of their business at the appropriate time during a trial – if there is one. Perhaps they will produce the proper business licenses, including items such as Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs) or articles of incorporation or LLC documents, and a legitimate set of financial ledgers to illustrate the lucrative nature of traveling across the country and purchasing prepaid telephones.

Meanwhile, the Northeast Intelligence Network can offer police departments and prosecuting agencies specific documents written by Arabic terrorists that have been posted to terrorist forums within the last 12 months. These Arabic language documents are detailed instructions describing the methods of using cellular telephones as timers and detonators for improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Note, however, that NONE of the documents explain how to purchase and resell the phones at a profit.

Wow. My brain tried to calculate that.
Cell phones set to go off on a certain day/time.
100 cell phones in 100 major cities go off at the same time......
1 might be at the local shopping mall....Kaboom......
1 at the local football stadium....Kaboom...
1 at the local pizza parlor......Kaboom....
1 at the local laundrymat......Kaboom...
1 at City Hall (paying his bill)......Kaboom
1 at the local Wal-Mart.......Kaboom...
1 at the local grocery store....Kaboom....
1 on the local highway....Kaboom...
1 at the local dance hall.....Kaboom...
1 at the local bingo hall....Kaboom...
and Im sure those under 18 would like to buy these off the street(mom and dad don't want them to have 'em)
1-2 might be at the local skating rink.....Kaboom..
1-2 at the local theater.....Kaboom....


well you get the picture....
each one would kill more than just one person...
100 cell phones X 100 cities X 100 persons killed
does that add to 1 million people.........MUCH MUCH larger than 9/11

While we are watching for a person of middle eastern..........it will be someone in your own hometown with the leathal weapon.
Non traceable.
Who was actually holding that cell phone that blew up?
Who sold it him/her?
Who would be held accountable for such a crime?

"Hello, Mom. . . I hope yo....' BOOM!

ut...oh