Terrorist Financing Staff Monograph

Chapter 5

Al-Barakaat Case Study
The Somali Community and al-Barakaat
In about 1991, the East African country of Somalia became embroiled in turbulent civil
unrest that wreaked devastation on its people and institutions. Already destitute, the
government collapsed and basic services withered. Famine and violence in the country
were the norm, and a diaspora of Somalis began. Many arrived in the United States. In
one of those strange flukes sometimes found in patterns of migration, cold and snowy
Minneapolis has the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the United States.
Somali immigrants, like individuals in immigrant communities throughout the United
States, sought a safe, quick, and effective way to move money earned in the United States
back to their families and homes. The need was even more dire for Somalia, as this was
one of the only sources of hard currency available to the country. Many foreign workers
in the United States have a number of different options to move money internationally.
The most formal and obvious way is to use the established backbone of the international
wire transfer system to shift funds between a bank account in the United States and one in
the destination country. This method has several significant advantages. It is safe and
convenient, particularly when large amounts of money are being sent between
commercial customers. There are drawbacks to wiring money, however: it can be
expensive; banks can hold the money for extended periods before sending it; it requires a
bank account in the United States; and the banks are required to use the official exchange
rate and in some countries levy a tax on foreign exchange, which often makes the
effective rate of exchange punitively high. Indeed, other countries often restrict the export
of foreign currency and foreign exchange.
However, for Somalis living in the United States, the question was moot. Somalia simply
had no banking system and no central bank by which foreign exchange could be made.
Thus, a different way had to be found to get money to Somalia. The al-Barakaat network
of money remitters was set up to address this need. Founded by Ahmed Nur Ali Jumale
in 1985, al-Barakaat at the time of 9/11 had more than 180 offices in 40 countries, all
existing primarily to transfer money to Somalia. The financial headquarters for alBarakaat was in the United Arab Emirates, where Jumale had opened a number of
accounts at the Emirates Bank International (EBI) to facilitate the transmission of money.
At the time of the terrorist attacks, al-Barakaat was considered the largest money
remittance system operating in Somalia; in addition to being used by a significant number
of Somalis who had fled the anarchy in their home country, it was the primary means that
the United Nations used to transmit money in support of its relief operations there.
A money remitter, described most simply, collects money from an individual at one point
and pays it to another in another location, charging a fee for the service. The money itself
does not actually move; rather, the originating office simply sends a message to the
destination office, informing it of the amount of money and the identity of the sender and
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of the recipient. The destination office then pays the ultimate recipient. To settle, money
is periodically wired in aggregate amounts from the originating office’s bank account
either to a central clearing account owned by the money-remitting company or through
correspondent bank accounts. The central office, in turn, settles with the destination
office. Each office is typically an agent or licensee of the main office, and its
relationships are usually arm’s-length and governed by a written contract. The main
office is responsible for keeping track of the settling transactions with all of the other
offices. Most money remitters in the United States belong to large franchise, such as
Western Union or MoneyGram. They effectively operate along the same principles as alBarakaat, albeit more formally. Additionally, the absence of any agents for large,
Western-based money remitters in Somalia forced Somalis to use smaller, ethnically
based ones.
Al-Barakaat has been commonly called a hawala, but it is not one.61 There are similarities
between the two systems. In both, there is a need to compensate the agent who has paid
out money pursuant to a money transfer. In both, the money is not sent for each
individual transaction; rather, there is a larger settling transaction conducted periodically
to adjust for the differences in what each office took in and what it had to pay out.
The key difference is in how the money or value moves between the office obtaining the
money from the customer and the office paying the money out to the ultimate
beneficiary. In transferring value between the sending and the receiving offices, a money
remitter uses the formal financial system, typically relying on wire transfers or a
correspondent banking relationship. A hawala, at least in its “pure” form, does not use a
negotiable instrument or other commonly recognized method for the exchange of money.
Hawaladars instead employ a variety of means, often in combination, to settle with each
other: they can settle preexisting debt, pay to or receive from the accounts of third parties
within the same country, import or export goods (both legal goods, with false invoicing,
or illegal commerce, such as drug trafficking) to satisfy the accounts, or physically move
currency or precious metal or stones.
There are other distinguishing characteristics of a hawala. Many hawalas operate between
specific areas of the world, or even specific areas within a specific country. An individual
wanting to send money from Canada to one area in Pakistan, for example, might use one
hawaladar; to move money to a different part of Pakistan, it may be necessary to use a
different one. Hawalas typically do not maintain a large central control office for settling
transactions. Instead, a loose association of hawaladars conduct business with each other,
typically without any formal or legally binding agreements. Hawaladars often keep few
formal records; those that do exist are usually handwritten in idiosyncratic shorthand and
are typically destroyed once the transaction is completed.
As noted in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and al Qaeda made significant use of hawalas to
move money in the Middle East—particularly in Pakistan, the UAE, and Afghanistan—in
61

The following discussion is aided by two reports, both produced by FinCEN: A Report to Congress in
Accordance with Section 359 of the USA PATRIOT Act, (2002) and Hawala: the Hawala Alternate
Remittance System and its Role in Money Laundering, (undated, probably 1996)

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the period before 9/11. This does not make the use of hawalas inherently criminal,
although it has been recognized that some of their characteristics allow criminal activity
to flourish: little formal record keeping, lack of government controls, and settling
transactions that do not go through formal financial channels.
The Somali money remitters in Minneapolis had attracted official attention for some
time. There were three primary remitters in Minneapolis in the late 1990s: al-Barakaat,
Dahb Shiil, and Shirkadda Xawilada Amal. Al-Barakaat had by far attracted the most
attention. A local bank had filed Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)62 as early as the
summer of 1996 with the Treasury Department regarding what they believed to be
suspicious financial activity: large amounts of cash and other instruments were being
deposited and then immediately wire transferred to a single account in the UAE the next
day. The SARs did not describe what the bank thought the nature of the activity was, just
that it seemed inconsistent with normal banking activity. By 9/11, these reports numbered
in the hundreds.
The FBI, which received a regular summary of these reports, opened a criminal moneylaundering case file on al-Barakaat in May 1997.63 In a typical money-laundering
investigation, an investigative agent tries to develop evidence that the money was derived
from a crime that was statutorily described as a “specified unlawful activity” (SUA), and
that the purpose of the transaction was either to disguise the nature, source, ownership, or
control of the money or to further the criminal activities. The difficulty here, which
would plague both the intelligence and criminal investigators for the rest of the
investigation into al-Barakaat, was that the transactions themselves revealed neither who
the recipient of the money was nor what happened to the money once it arrived in the
UAE. The source of the money or purpose behind the transaction could be legitimate or
nefarious: in the absence of further information, it was impossible to know which. After a
preliminary investigation, the FBI closed its criminal investigation of al-Barakaat in
August 1998, unable to find an SUA or gain an understanding of the purpose of the
transactions. More SARs continued to pour in, however, and U.S. Customs and Internal
Revenue Service agents in Minneapolis, who had opened a separate investigation into alBarakaat, continued to investigate.

62

Suspicious Activity Reports and their role in the overall scheme of anti-money laundering regulation of
banks and other financial institutions are discussed in chapter 4.
63
The description of the FBI intelligence and multi-agency law enforcement investigation against alBarakaat was derived from a review of FBI case reports and source reporting, as well as face to face
interviews with the agents and FBI officials involved. The description of the government’s understanding
of al-Barakaat prior to 9/11 was derived from a review of intelligence agency reporting. The description of
the foreign government participation in the al-Barakaat action is derived from State Department cables and
Treasury memoranda. The discussion of OFAC is derived from review of internal Treasury documents and
from interviews of Treasury and OFAC officials.

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The Early Intelligence Case
The primary domestic investigation of potential Somali-based terrorist activities occurred
in Minneapolis.64 The lead case agent was able to develop intelligence both from his own
investigative efforts and from his review of the materials in the possession of the CIA. In
December 1998, a case agent in the intelligence squad in Minneapolis developed a source
of information on the activities of the Somali community. The source indicated that the
terrorist group Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya (AIAI) had a cell in Minneapolis, and that it
supported radical Islamic activities against the United States. The investigation focused
on a specific individual within the United States, who was alleged to have plotted to
bomb U.S. embassies in Uganda and Ethiopia and to have been engaged in fund-raising
in Minneapolis to support AIAI activities overseas. Additionally, the source provided
information regarding about 15 Somali immigrants. After further inquiry, including
searches and an interview, the investigations were closed when it was found that the
FBI’s original source lacked credibility regarding this specific threat and that other
reliable sources had no knowledge of the suspected plotter.
While the original source did not pan out, the agent was able to learn from his contacts in
the intelligence community, particularly the CIA, a great deal about AIAI. The agent
learned that AIAI operated primarily in East Africa and was considered a loose affiliation
of Islamists. AIAI was considered a significant threat by the Defense Intelligence
Agency, which had experience in Somalia during the early 1990s, and intelligence
suggested that AIAI had links to Usama Bin Ladin. For example, there were indications
that Usama Bin Ladin had visited Somalia and visited an AIAI stronghold in southern
Somalia to look for a new base of operations when his stay in Sudan ended. Bin Ladin
purportedly met with the leaders of AIAI as well, and was said to have given AIAI
$400,000 in 1997 to support attacks on Ethiopia. Some of this intelligence was reinforced
after 9/11, when it was reported that AIAI discussed hiding Bin Ladin in the event he
needed to leave Afghanistan.
Despite these troubling links, the State Department thought AIAI did not meet the
standard for designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), which would have
the effect, among other things, of criminalizing support of it. Additionally, there was a
concern on the part of the State Department that some of the reporting involving AIAI
was simply not credible. State said that multiple reports from the CIA discredited its
earlier sources.
In the late 1990s, the intelligence community also began to draw links between AIAI, alBarakaat (particularly its founder, Ahmed Nur Ali Jumale) and Usama Bin Ladin. The
reporting centered on a few key facts. First, it alleged that Usama Bin Ladin not only
assisted Jumale in establishing al-Barakaat in about 1992 but was in fact a silent partner,
and that Jumale managed Bin Ladin’s finances as well. This was consistent with other
information that indicated a prior relationship between Jumale and Bin Ladin. Second,
64

The first FBI investigation on AIAI and al-Barakaat was started in San Diego in October 1996, on an
individual investigated as a result of his connection with HAMAS.

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the reporting indicated that al-Barakaat was associated with AIAI, in that al-Barakaat
managed the finances of AIAI, and AIAI used al-Barakaat to send money to operatives.
Variations of that reporting stated that the head of al-Barakaat, Jumale, was part of the
AIAI leadership, or that Usama Bin Ladin used al-Barakaat to fund AIAI. Third, there
were allegations that al-Barakaat actually assisted in procuring weapons for AIAI or sold
weapons to AIAI. There were specific reports, for example, of al-Barakaat’s supplying
Somalia’s Sharia court with 175 “technicals” and 33 machine guns between January and
mid-July 2000, and AIAI with 780 machine guns, which it had procured from sources in
China and Chechnya. Other reporting indicated that al-Barakaat was founded by
members of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to facilitate the transfer of money to
terrorist organizations, including Hamas and AIAI.
Lastly, there was fairly detailed information from a U.S. embassy in Africa in July 1999.
Two sources known to the embassy claimed that Usama Bin Ladin was a silent partner
and frequent customer of al-Barakaat. One of the sources further related that Bin Ladin
gave Jumale $1 million of venture capital to start al-Barakaat, and that terrorist funds
were intermingled with the funds sent by NGOs. A third source told the embassy that alBarakaat did not practice any kind of due diligence in making financial transactions. Both
sources claimed that al-Barakaat security forces supported Usama Bin Ladin by
providing protection for Bin Ladin operatives when they visited Mogadishu. The
embassy cautioned that the allegations could not be confirmed and noted the risk that the
sources may simply be spreading negative information about their rivals.
The Minneapolis FBI intelligence agent continued to develop sources and investigate the
activities of the Somali community. By July 1999, he was able to open a “full field
investigation” (FFI) into AIAI as a group. All FBI FFIs require predication: that is, some
evidence must already exist to give the FBI reason to believe that an individual is
involved in activities on behalf of a foreign government or terrorist organization, which
would justify further surveillance or intelligence collection. This requirement, which
prevents the FBI from undertaking random domestic intelligence collection on
individuals, was introduced as a way to protect civil liberties. An FFI can be instituted
after a preliminary investigation (PI), which is opened to determine whether an FFI is
justified. A PI can be opened only for a limited time, and agents in a PI are restricted in
their methods of collecting intelligence.
When they opened the AIAI investigation, the Minneapolis agents saw it as “purely
intelligence gathering.” They simply wanted to learn whether AIAI was operating in the
United States and, if so, determine the nature of its activities (such as fund-raising,
logistics, or operations). There was no attempt to build a criminal case in the traditional
sense, nor was any effort given to developing probable cause, the standard that criminal
case agents typically work toward. They were interested in developing probable cause
that specific individuals were agents of a foreign power or the particular communications
were to be used in the furtherance of terrorist activities, the standard used to obtain a
FISA warrant.

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Considering a Criminal Case
The intelligence agent knew of the SARs and knew that al-Barakaat was closely tied into
the Somali network in Minneapolis. Moreover, the intelligence agent knew what the
federal criminal agents investigating the money-laundering claims did not: intelligence
reports tied the al-Barakaat network to AIAI and Usama Bin Ladin. As a result, the
intelligence agent thought that it would be useful to open a criminal case on al-Barakaat.
This was a matter of some controversy, as there was a fairly rigid rule within the FBI and
Department of Justice against mingling intelligence cases and law enforcement cases. In
the jargon of the day, this prohibition was known as “the wall,” and it was the source of
considerable confusion among agents in the field. Working-level agents understood that
headquarters frowned on having simultaneous criminal and intelligence cases, although it
was hard for them to articulate why.
Opening a criminal case to complement the intelligence case would have several
advantages, however, if the agent could get the approvals. First, criminal charges could
be threatened against subjects, providing motivation for them to cooperate in furthering
the intelligence investigations. Equally important, a criminal case would give the
intelligence agent far better tools to investigate al-Barakaat and the suspected AIAI
members in Minneapolis. These tools included grand jury subpoenas to obtain bank
records. Grand jury subpoenas were far preferable to National Security Letters (NSLs),
the method for obtaining documents in intelligence investigations, because the FBI could
obtain subpoenas almost instantly, whereas NSLs took 6 to 12 months to be issued.65
Outside of the New York Field Office, which had its own procedures, NSLs could be
approved only at FBI headquarters and had to be signed by a supervisor.
Additionally, the intelligence agent wanted to brief the Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA),
the local federal prosecutor in Minneapolis, on the intelligence investigation. He thought
that it would be useful for the prosecutor to obtain an understanding of the context and
motivation for the criminal case. From past experience the agent believed that the U.S.
Attorney’s Office would not get involved in a criminal spin-off of an intelligence case
unless FBI headquarters approved the transfer. And he also knew from past experience
that because the potential criminal charges evident at that time were relatively minor, the
U.S. Attorney’s Office would not be interested unless the prosecutors were briefed on alBarakaat’s terrorist connections.66 As a result, the agent applied for permission to brief
the AUSA on the case. He did not receive this approval for 13 months—many months
after the FBI Director himself took a personal interest in the case.
The FBI Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) at headquarters, responsible for approving
this briefing, initially opposed it. The RFU did not see it as necessary and questioned
whether the evidence was strong enough to justify breaching the wall between criminal
65

According to the intelligence agent doing these types of investigations, this delay no longer exists, and
NSLs can be obtained just as fast as grand jury subpoenas.
66
The most obvious crime was “structuring financial transactions.” The crime consists of breaking apart
cash bank deposits into increments of less than $10,000, so that the bank does not file a form identifying
such depositors to the Department of the Treasury.

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and intelligence cases. At the time, FBI headquarters required greater evidence to brief
the U.S. Attorney’s Office on an intelligence case than it did to open an intelligence full
field investigation, and headquarters did not think the evidence regarding the AIAI case
had reached the requisite level. In the Minneapolis intelligence agent’s view,
headquarters viewed Minneapolis as excessively aggressive in pushing the limits of the
wall and may have been more cautious in this case as a result.
According to the Minneapolis intelligence agent, the RFU thought the case was not
strong for a number of reasons. First, the RFU supervisor did not believe AIAI was a
threat to the United States and questioned whether AIAI, with its decentralized command
structure, was really a group at all. Moreover, AIAI had not been designated a foreign
terrorist organization by the Secretary of State. This was a significant point because
without that designation, it was not a crime to give AIAI material support (absent
evidence that the support went to carrying out a specific terrorist attack). As for alBarakaat, the RFU thought that the information about connections with al Qaeda was
dated; also, it pointed out, there was no evidence that any of the Somalis who used alBarakaat to remit funds did so with the intention of supporting terrorism. The agent
agreed that all of these allegations remained unproven and required further investigation,
but he wanted to brief the AUSA to obtain better tools to find out the truth.
While waiting for the approval to brief the AUSA, the Minneapolis intelligence agent
came to learn of the IRS and U.S. Customs investigation, and in October 1999 he met
with those involved. The FBI opened a criminal investigation in November 1999. The
agents agreed to work together, along with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to
see whether they could make a criminal case. Multiagency cooperation has become
common in large criminal investigations, as each agency brings its unique skills to bear:
the FBI provides resources and investigative experience, the IRS has a reputation for very
well trained and skilled financial investigators, Customs has the ability to control the
borders, and INS brings to bear its authorities to enforce the immigration laws (critical to
developing witnesses in investigations of this type). Moreover, a joint case makes
possible information sharing, as each agent can search his or her own agency’s database
and communicate the results to the group.
Ultimately, following several meetings by officials in Washington, the Minneapolis FBI
received approval to brief the AUSA in December 2000 on the connections between the
criminal violations and the larger intelligence issues, which it did. It thereafter enjoyed an
excellent relationship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis.
The strategy in the criminal case was to try to gather evidence and gain an understanding
of where the money was going once al-Barakaat sent it, and thus to determine whether it
was being used to support terrorism. The focus was on the employees and owners of the
three al-Barakaat outlets in Minneapolis. Part of the mission of the criminal case would
be to support the intelligence case. At the time, the investigators were “still trying to find
out what we had.” The criminal FBI agent (the criminal case had to have a separate
investigator because of “wall” issues, although both agents worked in the same

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intelligence squad) was looking more toward a “nickel-and-dime fraud case.” There did
not seem to be enough evidence to make a pure terrorist-financing case.67
One difficulty was that it was almost impossible to follow the money once it left the
United States. All of the transfers went to the UAE, and there the investigators lost the
trail. To pick it up again, they would have to get records from the bank the money was
being wired to—the Emirates Bank International in Dubai. But U.S. law enforcement
could not simply ask the EBI for the records. Rather, the agents would have to ask the
government of the UAE to ask the EBI for the records. Then, the UAE could turn the
records over to the United States. Obtaining records from a foreign government is a long
and cumbersome process, filled with potential pitfalls. To begin with, there is no
guarantee that the foreign country will even consider the request, particularly in the
absence of a treaty requiring such cooperation. Each country has its own notions about
bank secrecy and many jurisdictions resist opening up their records to another country.
Even if the foreign jurisdiction agrees in principle to the request, it must be persuaded
that the United States has a legitimate need for the records and is not merely undertaking
a fishing expedition. This showing may require the disclosure of sensitive information to
a foreign government, and the United States may not necessarily be able to trust that
government or have confidence in its control over the further dissemination of the
information. Thus, an agent conducting such an investigation has to balance the need for
the records against the possibility of disclosure.
Al-Barakaat was moving significant amounts of money overseas, and to the Minneapolis
criminal case agent, it seemed improbable that the relatively low-skilled Somali
community in Minneapolis, although large, could have amassed so much money through
legitimate wages. In early 2001, al-Barakaat was transferring as much as $1,000,000
through its Minneapolis facilities. The agent believed that some of that money must have
been derived from fraud.

The Other Field Offices Pick Up the Investigation
In the meantime, other FBI field offices were finding similar al-Barakaat activity. By the
summer of 1999, the FBI knew that there were al-Barakaat offices in San Diego,
Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis, and Minneapolis was actively polling other cities to
determine the links. Seattle opened a case in December 1999, and by February 2001 had
developed a source who reported that “apparently” al-Barakaat fees were used to fund
AIAI.68 The FBI field offices coordinated with each other, and ultimately held
67

The central terrorist financing crime is called “material support,” in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2339B. This
requires the knowing contribution of something of value (it need not be money) to an organization that has
been listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the Secretary of State. It is an extraordinarily broad
statue, in that prosecutors need not trace specific money to a terrorist act.
68
A review of the FBI files in the case revealed a substantial amount of secondary reporting. The most
valuable intelligence is from first hand witnesses: individuals who can report something based on personal
experience. There were few sources who could do this regarding al-Barakaat. Rather, most of what was
collected was information that others had heard. The line between intelligence and rumor mongering can be
quite thin, and great care needed to be taken to evaluate that information for what it was.

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multidistrict meetings in April 2000 and May and June 2001. Unlike in other cases,
however, there was very little to coordinate: each al-Barakaat office appeared to be
operating independently, with the EBI account in the UAE serving as the only link
between them. By 9/11, there were FBI investigations in Charlotte, Cincinnati, New
York, Seattle, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.
Al-Barakaat also had attracted the attention of the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network (FinCEN), the Treasury agency established to review and disseminate
suspicious activity reports submitted by banks and other financial institutions. In
December 1999 (about four months after the FBI was reporting that al-Barakaat had ties
to Bin Ladin and offices in at least three U.S. cities), a FinCEN analyst reviewing
intelligence community cables noted a reference to al-Barakaat along with the
identification of a specific account in the UAE. The analyst recalled that a co-worker the
previous month had noted an anomaly in reviewing al-Barakaat SARs. FinCEN analyzed
the al-Barakaat SARs and, in February 2000, briefed FBI headquarters concerning the
results. By March 2000, FinCEN had prepared a report and link-analysis chart
highlighting the connections between the al-Barakaat entities and the UAE accounts.
Still, no one knew the purpose behind the money transfers, the source of the money, or
the ultimate destination. To get to the source, the agents would have to locate informants
in the community who could tell them; to understand the ultimate destination of the
money, they would need access to the records within the UAE.
The FBI had a number of informants who could tell them about al-Barakaat. The criminal
case agent, in the course of the criminal investigation, had found two confidential sources
who were reporting that al-Barakaat was siphoning money to AIAI. The sources also
indicated that to be an al-Barakaat representative, one also had to be a member of AIAI.
But the criminal case agent’s sources had no direct knowledge of these claims; they were
simply repeating what was purportedly common knowledge within the Somali
community.
In conjunction with members of the intelligence community, the intelligence agent also
worked two sources who could speak out of personal knowledge. These sources were
able to travel and provide intelligence on AIAI and the situation in East Africa. His
sources claimed direct contact with senior al-Barakaat management. Much of the
reporting, however, concerned AIAI in Somalia; there was less on the local AIAI cells
within the United States, or on the relationship of al-Barakaat to either AIAI or Usama
Bin Ladin.
Nevertheless, the statements of these two sources did corroborate information regarding
the relationship between al-Barakaat, al Qaeda, and AIAI. The sources contended that at
the direction of senior management, al-Barakaat funneled a percentage of its profits to
terrorist groups and that UBL had provided venture capital to al-Barakaat founder Ahmed
Jumale to start the company. The agent believed these sources, because they had been
vetted and the information they were providing was consistent with intelligence he had
previously received. Moreover, the intelligence agent believed that relationship of these

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sources to al-Barakaat management was such that the sources would have firsthand
knowledge of al-Barakaat’s activities.

The September 11 attacks
After the attacks, “all bets were off.” The al-Barakaat criminal team—the FBI, U.S.
Customs, and the IRS—which had been working in separate offices received space to
work together. More agents were assigned. Moreover, they contemplated bringing
criminal charges, and considered getting criminal search warrants on the al-Barakaat
businesses. The headquarters of both FBI and Customs, too, started to take a special
interest in the case. FBI headquarters had set up a “financial review group” to sift through
the financial transactions of the 9/11 hijackers. It started to look at the al-Barakaat case,
as did “Operation Green Quest,” a newly formed Treasury task force with essentially the
same mission as the FBI’s group.
Moreover, within the upper levels of the National Security Council (NSC) and State,
attention turned to al-Barakaat, and specifically to the EBI as a facilitator of terrorist
finance. According to State Department cables at the time, the U.S. government had
“strong evidence” that the EBI was used as a facilitator of terrorist financing. An obvious
option would be to designate the bank as a supporter of terrorism and block its assets
from coming into the country, a move that would send a message to the world financial
community. The UAE agreed to act against al-Barakaat and allowed a U.S. law
enforcement team to take a look at the EBI records—something none of the agents in
either the intelligence or the law enforcement investigations had been able to access
previously.69

Designation by the Office of Foreign Asset Control
On September 23, 2001, the President signed Executive Order 13224, which expanded
the list of terrorist organizations subject to freezing and blocking.

Pre-9/11 designation efforts
The mission and authorities of the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) deserve a
brief discussion here. In implementing sanctions programs aimed at combating global
terrorism, OFAC derives its authority from delegations under the President’s powers
pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and other
Presidential authorities. IEEPA grants the President broad powers to deal with any
unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, or the economy
of the United States if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such
threat. The source of the threat must be in whole or substantial part outside the United
69

As we note in chapter 3, the UAE had been a source of concern before 9/11 for their largely unregulated
financial system.

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States. The President may also designate specific entities or individuals who pose or
contribute to the threat and set forth the standards for identifying more such entities and
individuals. The President delegates to the Executive Branch, generally the Department
of Treasury or State, the task of finding those who meet that criteria and “designating”
them as subject to the Executive order.
President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12947 in January 1995, blocking the assets
in the United States of specific terrorists and terrorist groups who threatened to use force
to disrupt the Middle East peace process and prohibiting U.S. persons from engaging in
transactions with these groups. The groups were named as a result of a presidential
judgment that they stood in the way of peace in the Middle East and, because peace in the
Middle East is deemed to be vital to our own national security, posed a national security
threat to the United States. The authority was not limited to those named in the executive
order; those supporting or associated with those named could also be listed by an
administrative designation authorized by the director of OFAC (a “secondary
designation”). Usama Bin Ladin was not named on this 1995 list. However, beginning in
approximately 1995 until the East Africa embassy bombings in the summer of 1998,
OFAC attempted to discover a link between Usama Bin Ladin and those named on the
list. This effort was not successful, both because the links between Usama Bin Ladin and
such groups were tenuous and because OFAC did not have the ability to undertake any
significant classified research or analysis.70 In the late 1990s, there was no thought given
to issuing a new executive order naming Bin Ladin, because of what one participant in
the process described as “sanctions fatigue” and a general reluctance by Treasury
policymakers to impose additional sanctions.
The NSC had a long and deep interest in trying to provide OFAC with sufficient
resources to conduct classified all-source analysis on terrorist financing. At the direction
of Richard Clarke, the Office of Management and Budget requested, and Congress
appropriated, $6.4 million dollars for a center to conduct such analysis, dubbed the
Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTATC), beginning in fiscal year 2001
(nominally October 2000). By November 2000, Clarke had suggested a two-week pilot
program, which would use CIA facilities to test if the FTATC concept was workable. On
the eve of 9/11, FTATC was little more than a plan on paper and an unspent budget
authorization.
After the East Africa bombings, President Clinton amended E.O. 12947 to name Usama
Bin Ladin and his key aides, thereby prohibiting any U.S. persons from financial dealings
with any of them. But the OFAC’s success in blocking terrorist assets under this order
was limited, for it covers only property or interests in of U.S. persons or within the
United States. Moreover, because it named individuals, not groups, OFAC could not
build on it with secondary designations—a listing by the head of OFAC of individuals
70

This was a significant problem both before and after the September 11 attacks. OFAC line level analysts
were nearly universal in their frustration in not being able to engage in the type of all source analysis that
would be required to understand the financial links involved. One analyst with a background in intelligence
described the process by which OFAC obtained classified documents as 20 years behind the procedure used
by the CIA.

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supporting the group named in the executive order. In addition, there was little
intelligence on assets to block. These limitations were sources of frustration for the NSC,
which wanted action on the financial front of the government’s war on Bin Ladin. In
retrospect, one OFAC official thought that the reason it was unable to freeze Bin Ladin
assets is because none existed within OFAC’s jurisdiction.
The United Nations Security Council passed UNSCR 1267 on October 15, 1999, calling
for the Taliban to surrender Bin Ladin or face a U.S.-style international freeze of its
assets and transactions. The resolution gave a 30-day period before sanctions took effect,
however, allowing the Taliban and al Qaeda to repatriate funds from banks in the United
Kingdom and Germany to Afghanistan. As a result, these sanctions brought official
international censure but were easily circumvented.

Post-9/11 designation efforts
After the 9/11 attacks, the President signed Executive Order 13224 with great fanfare (the
White House described it as the “first strike in the war on terror”), but since OFAC
already had the ability to go after Bin Ladin and Taliban assets from the prior executive
orders, it did little to change OFAC’s authorities to name, block, and freeze assets
associated with Usama Bin Ladin or the Taliban. After the attacks, OFAC accelerated the
search for entities to name by either a presidential declaration (by amending the list
attached to E.O. 13224) or a secondary administrative designation, working off a CIAsupplied list of entities and persons. OFAC analysts and attorneys, like everyone in the
government engaged in counterterrorism at the time, were working nights and weekends
to evaluate and put together administrative records sufficient to freeze the assets of these
entities. A significant number of these individuals needed access to classified
information, but they had virtually no facilities in which to handle it. As a result, a
number of them crammed into the secure FinCEN facility in Northern Virginia that,
unlike OFAC’s downtown offices, could handle the most highly sensitive materials.
OFAC analysts started working on the designation of al-Barakaat about two weeks after
the attacks. This effort won preliminary approval almost immediately from Treasury
officials, on the basis of a one-page memo. Thereafter, OFAC officials began a twopronged approach to supporting the designation: gathering information informally
through an OFAC analyst’s contacts with U.S. law enforcement, and conducting research
on classified documents at FinCEN’s secure facility. The informal method for gathering
law enforcement data was necessary because of the weaknesses of the FBI’s data system.
The FBI, unlike the foreign intelligence agencies, wrote very few finished intelligence
reports. The only way to find out what was happening domestically was either to troll the
FBI’s data system, ACS (Automated Case Support), for periodic reports (a hit-or-miss
proposition at best) or call field agents and ask them what was going on (if you knew
whom to call). The analysts’ efforts to survey the foreign intelligence were easier because
the reports were more centralized, but had other frustrations: because of Treasury’s
archaic method of retrieving intelligence, the analysts received only about half of the
relevant intelligence on Jumale and al-Barakaat, and the omitted material included some

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of the best, most useful reports (a fact that was not known to the analysts until after the
designation).
Nevertheless, the OFAC analysts plowed forward and put together a package on alBarakaat. They were greatly helped by a list of worldwide al-Barakaat offices seized
during a raid of an al-Barakaat office in Norway and shared with the United States. The
analysts were told that they did not need to have evidence that each al-Barakaat entity
took part in terrorist financing; it was sufficient to show only that the main entity itself
was involved to be able to close all of the branches and freeze all of the money. Thus, the
analysts needed only to refer to the seized telephone lists or a commercial index of
businesses such as Dun & Bradstreet to justify the closing of each al-Barakaat branch
office. The Justice Department, which would have to defend any action should there be a
legal challenge, blessed the sufficiency of this tactic.
More nationwide coordination took place, including meetings at the NSC, the FBI, and
Customs. As people within the law enforcement community came to understand what
OFAC was planning, they asked it to hold off for 60 or 90 days so they could continue
their investigations. A number of field offices made this request, as did the Office of
Naval Intelligence, which was in the midst of a major intelligence operation on alBarakaat. OFAC, however, was under substantial pressure to proceed with the
designation as rapidly as possible. The analysts also wanted more time to make their
evidentiary package more complete and robust, but the OFAC management, apparently
reacting to external demands, told them they could not have it. Moreover, the head of the
FBI’s terrorist-financing effort ultimately concurred in the action.
The post-9/11 period at OFAC was “chaos.” The goal set at the policy levels of the White
House and Treasury was to conduct a public and aggressive series of designations to
show the world community and our allies that the United States was serious about
pursuing the financial targets. It entailed a major designation every four weeks,
accompanied by derivative designations throughout the month. As a result, Treasury
officials acknowledged that some of the evidentiary foundations for the early
designations were quite weak. One participant (and an advocate of the designation
process generally) stated that “we were so forward leaning we almost fell on our face.”
The rush to designate came primarily from the NSC and gave pause to many in the
government. Some believed that the government’s haste in this area, and its preference
for IEEPA sanctions, might result in a high level of false designations that would
ultimately jeopardize the United States’ ability to persuade other countries to designate
groups as terrorist organizations. Ultimately, as we discuss later, this proved to be the
case with the al-Barakaat designations, mainly because they relied on a derivative
designation theory, in which no direct proof of culpability was needed.
A range of key countries were notified several days in advance of the planned U.S.
designation of the al-Barakaat entities, and were urged to freeze related assets pursuant to
the own authorities.

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The November Raids
On November 7, 2001, federal agents entered eight al-Barakaat offices in Minneapolis;
Columbus, Ohio; Alexandria, Virginia; Seattle, Washington; and Boston, Massachusetts.
Using Treasury Department private contractors who handle asset forfeiture, OFAC and
federal agents seized everything with the businesses. In the UAE, about $1 million was
seized from the UAE EBI accounts, four offices were raided and their records seized, and
Jumale was ordered not to leave the UAE. The U.S. actions resulted in the freezing of
approximately $1.1 million, and Treasury claimed that the actions disrupted
approximately $65 million in annual remittances from the United States alone.
The President of the United States traveled to FinCEN’s offices and, with the Secretary
of the Treasury and Attorney General, announced the action in a press event, describing
Jumale as a “friend and supporter of Usama Bin Ladin.” Secretary of the Treasury Paul
O’Neill described al-Barakaat offices as “the money movers, the quartermasters of terror
. . . a principal source of funding, intelligence and money transfers for Bin Ladin.” He
later announced that “we estimate that $25 million was skimmed from the al-Barakaat
network of companies each year, and re-directed toward terrorist operations.”
Abdullahi Farah was the owner of Global Services, one of the Minneapolis wire
remittance companies named in the November 7, 2001 blocking order. He is a naturalized
U.S. citizen, having emigrated from Somalia in 1992. Although there already were
money remitters in Minneapolis at the time, Farah believed that there was still a need for
his services in the Somali community. Farah previously had been a customer of alBarakaat and had dealt with the al-Barakaat business representative for North America.
After having applied for a license and after establishing a formal business relationship
with al-Barakaat, Farah opened his operation. He claims that he never met Jumale and
had only an arm’s-length business relationship with al-Barakaat. While the business was
cyclical, with more money being transmitted during Ramadan, Farah generally
transmitted about $200,000 per month. He banked at the local Norwest Bank, where he
would deposit cash from his customers and then wire aggregate amounts to al-Barakaat’s
central office in the UAE. Farah made approximately $1,200 per month from this
business, and paid another employee about the same.
Farah’s first interaction with the federal government with regard to his business occurred
on November 7, 2001, when armed agents entered and seized his business, confiscated all
his records and his office equipment, and put a seal on the door preventing reentry. His
three business accounts, containing approximately $298,000 of his customers’ money,
were frozen, making it impossible for him to send that money forward on their behalf.
The name of his company was placed on the U.S. and UN lists as a supporter of
terrorism.
The money that his customers, primarily Somali immigrants, had entrusted to Farah was
not delivered to the intended recipients; his customers were angry and suspicious and did
not accept his explanations as to what had become of it. Most of his customers simply did
not believe that the U.S. government could do such a thing. For many Somalis, the

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blocked money represented their life savings and an economic lifeline to an impoverished
country. The United Nations estimated that the freeze cut the remittances to Somalia in
half.
Another of the Minneapolis money remitters, Garad Nor (also a U.S. citizen), had a
considerably bigger problem. On November 30, 2001, both Nor and his business were
publicly designated as a supporter of terrorist as a consequence of running a moneyremitting company. The net effect of that designation was that no one in the United States
could engage in any financial transactions with him. Not only could he not work but, in
the words of his lawyer, “the guy couldn’t buy a cup of coffee” without violating the
OFAC blocking order. On April 26, 2002, after he filed suit against the United States,
OFAC issued a license to Nor to allow him to get sufficient money to live. As a result, for
five months Nor, a U.S. citizen, faced the unenviable choice of starving or being in
criminal violation of the OFAC blocking order.

The Effect of the al-Barakaat Seizures
Al-Barakaat offices were closed in the United States, the UAE, Djibouti, and Ethiopia.
Before the action against al-Barakaat, the CIA surmised that AIAI would easily move to
other financial institutions in the event that al-Barakaat was shut down. It also understood
that the loss of money from al-Barakaat would only temporarily disrupt AIAI, which had
other revenue sources. Early intelligence reporting after the freeze indicated that AIAI
came under financial pressure because of the closure of al-Barakaat, but moved quickly
to develop alternative funding mechanisms. There was no analysis of whether that
pressure was the natural result of the closing of the country’s largest conduit of funds or
was due particularly to al-Barakaat’s alleged complicity in funding AIAI. Al-Barakaat
ultimately moved its offices to other locations in Dubai and Somalia and changed its
name. Moreover, AIAI was able to move money through alternative means. Even as
early as mid-November 2001, the CIA judged the Islamic terrorist-funding networks to
be “robust,” indicating that most Sunni-based Islamic terrorist funding went through
interlocking Islamic NGOs and financial entities in the Gulf region. To this day, the
Commission staff has uncovered no evidence that closing the al-Barakaat network hurt al
Qaeda financially.

U.S. Investigators Travel to the UAE
As OFAC continued to gather support for designations, or designation packages, plans
were made to send a team of investigative agents to the UAE to look at records seized
from the al-Barakaat offices as well as the al-Barakaat bank records at the EBI. The
investigators moved into the main conference room of the UAE’s central bank and were
supplied with thousands of pages of documents culled from ten accounts held by alBarakaat. They were able to take back to the United States for further analysis about
7,000 pages of documents from this trip. The investigators obtained unparalleled access
and support (unparalleled even in the United States, where criminal investigators do not
typically work closely with the central bank regulators). However, the size and
complexity of this investigation of a worldwide financial network, responsible for

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moving millions of dollars, required a follow-up trip in March 2002. In the United States,
a financial investigation can take years before investigators understand the intricate
financial transactions involved.
Before the second trip, the agent spearheading the effort for the FBI reviewed the OFAC
designation package for al-Barakaat and noticed some discrepancies between it and the
evidence obtained on the first UAE trip. His review left him with a number of significant
factual questions concerning what he thought to be uncorroborated allegations of alBarakaat’s ties to al Qaeda and AIAI. For example, the designation package described
Jumale as an associate of Usama Bin Ladin from the original Afghanistan jihad, who was
expelled from Saudi Arabia and then moved to Sudan, and who currently lives in Kenya.
However, the documentation obtained from the first UAE trip, including Jumale’s
passport, did not support that intelligence. In addition, a number of EBI accounts that had
been frozen did not appear, from the records obtained and analyzed, to be associated with
al-Barakaat at all. Overall, the agent believed that much of the evidence for al-Barakaat’s
terrorist ties rested on unsubstantiated and uncorroborated statements of domestic FBI
sources.
The second U.S. delegation to the UAE enjoyed a level of cooperation similar to that of
the first. The UAE Central Bank placed 15 people at the investigative team’s beck and
call. The UAE government did everything the U.S. team requested, including working all
night at times to make copies of documents. Jumale was interviewed by U.S. federal
agents twice, the first time for ten hours. The U.S. investigative team interviewed 23
individuals (including Jumale), other top al-Barakaat personnel, its outside accountant,
and various UAE banking officials. They also reviewed approximately 2 million pages of
records, including the actual EBI bank records.
To review some records, the U.S. government team worked where the records were
maintained: in un-air-conditioned warehouses in the desert, in stifling 135-degree heat.
The agents found that the bank maintained the same kind of records as one would find in
the United States and that they were relatively complete, well-organized, and wellpreserved. In fact, it appeared to the agent that the records extended far into the past;
UAE banks apparently did not systematically destroy older records, as U.S. financial
institutions commonly do. Constraints of time and resources prevented the agents from
conducting a comprehensive audit of all the records. Instead, they focused on key persons
and entities, looked for suspicious transactions, and selected certain dates as
representative samples for detailed analysis. On this second trip, the U.S. team brought
copies of about 10,000 pages back to the United States for further analysis. Additionally,
the FBI was able to make mirror images of data from dozens of the al-Barakaat and EBI
computers for further analysis.

No Direct Evidence That al-Barakaat Funded Terrorism
The FBI agent who led the second U.S. delegation said diligent investigation in the UAE
revealed no “smoking gun” evidence—either testimonial or documentary—showing that
al-Barakaat was funding AIAI or al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. team could find no direct

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evidence at all of any real link between al-Barakaat and terrorism of any type. The two
major claims, that Bin Ladin was an early investor in al-Barakaat and that al-Barakaat
diverted a certain portion of the money through its system to AIAI or al Qaeda, could not
be verified. Jumale and all the al-Barakaat witnesses denied any ties to al Qaeda or AIAI,
and none of the financial evidence the investigators examined directly contradicted these
claims. Moreover, some of the claims made by the early intelligence, such as the
assertion that Jumale and Bin Ladin were in Afghanistan together, proved to be wrong. In
additional, it appeared that the volume of money was significantly overstated. Secretary
O’Neill, in his announcement of the al-Barakaat action, had estimated that al-Barakaat
had skimmed $25 million per year and redirected it toward terrorist operations. The
agents found that the profits for all of al-Barakaat (from which this money would have to
come) totaled only about $700,000 per year, and could not conclude whether any of that
money had been skimmed.
Although the U.S. team could not find evidence of terrorist financing, they did identify
several inexplicable anomalies in the evidence. For example, the team’s review of
documents revealed several suspicious transactions that Jumale could not adequately
explain. Specifically, two NGOs made a number of unusually large deposits into the
account of a Kuwaiti charity official over which Jumale had power of attorney. The funds
were then moved out of the account in cash. When asked to explain the transactions,
Jumale claimed that the money was deposited for use in Somalia. After the deposit, the
charity would direct Jumale to send cash from those accounts to Somalia for charitable or
religious purposes, such as building a mosque. Because the funds were sent as cash, no
other records existed.
The FBI thought this explanation suspicious, as it was inconsistent with Jumale’s normal
business practices. Although the cash nature of the transactions may have been
necessitated by the state of the financial system in Somalia—given the absence of
financial institutions there, sending cash may have been the best way to build a mosque—
al-Barakaat had a bank in Somalia to which the funds for charitable use could have been
sent. However, the agents could draw only suspicions and no conclusions from these
transactions. The money transfers might have involved terrorism, they might have
represented the proceeds of another kind of crime, or they might have been nothing at all.
There was just no way to tell.
At the conclusion of the trip, the agent spearheading the FBI portion of the trip drafted a
memorandum, to be distributed to the UAE officials, describing the conclusion the team
had reached:
It has been alleged that the Barakaat Group of Companies were
assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or other
services in support of known terrorist organizations. Media and U.S.
law enforcement reports have linked al-Barakaat companies and its
principle manager, Ahmed Nur Ali Jumale, to Usama bin Ladin and
bin Ladin’s efforts to fund terrorist activities. However, this
information is generally not firsthand information or it has not been

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corroborated by documentary or other circumstantial evidence that
supports the allegation. For example, it has been reported that it is
common knowledge in the United States–based Somali community
that Al Barakaat is a money laundering operation backed by bin
Ladin. It has also been reported that bin Ladin provided Mr. Jumale
the initial financing to start the Al Barakaat businesses. At this time,
these items of information have not been substantiated through
investigative means. (emphasis added)
Thus, notwithstanding the unprecedented cooperation by the UAE, significant FBI
interviews of the principal players involved in al-Barakaat (including its founder), and
complete and unfettered access to al-Barakaat’s financial records, the FBI could not
substantiate any links between al-Barakaat and terrorism.
OFAC analysts hotly contest this conclusion, and insist that their designation was based
on solid intelligence. The FBI’s conclusions, they argue, reflect a profound
misunderstanding of the case, and ignore certain pieces of intelligence. 71 At the very
least, the OFAC officials contend, there is credible evidence that al-Barakaat was a
money-laundering group, responsible for millions in U.S. currency being laundered
through the United States, to an account in the UAE, and then out to suspect third-party
countries. Additionally, they point to documents yet to be translated, as well as records
from the hard drives of al-Barakaat, in the FBI’s possession and yet to be analyzed. At
this writing, neither the FBI nor OFAC is attempting to continue to investigate this case.

Delisting Designated Entities and Concluding the Case
Other countries who had joined in the international designation of al-Barakaat were
voicing real concern by early 2002. Their concern stemmed in part from a difference in
how each country set up its terror-financing designation scheme. In the United States, for
example, the power to designate derives from the executive’s power to wage war against
foreign enemies. As a result, the executive may rely on less evidence than is required in a
criminal or even civil trial. The judicial review that is afforded a designation is extremely
deferential to the executive’s judgment. In other countries, a designation is viewed as a
judicial or quasi-judicial act, in which the accused is afforded a right to answer the
charges and the standard of evidence is at least as high as would be needed to sustain a
civil lawsuit.
In January 2002, three Swedish citizens of Somali origin who were listed in the original
al-Barakaat designation petitioned OFAC and the United Nations for removal from the
list. Sweden, although not a member of the UN Security Council, sought to have the
Council adopt a criminal evidentiary standard prior to placing anyone on the sanctions
list. The Canadians, similarly, moved to take one of its own citizens off the UN list. All
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Intelligence community sources have informed Commission staff that the intelligence sources for much
of the reporting regarding al-Barakaat’s connection to al Qaeda have since been terminated by the relevant
agency as intelligence sources, based on concerns of fabrication.

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of the UN designations to that point had come at the suggestion of the United States, and
the Swedish proposal could have required the removal of either most or all of the names
on the list. The State Department sent demarches to all Security Council member
nations, urging “in the strongest terms” that they oppose Swedish effort.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, Abdullahi Farah and Garad Nor were trying to resolve their
cases and working toward getting their money unfrozen. They hired a lawyer, who made
both men available for interviews with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and federal agents
concerning their involvement in al-Barakaat.72 The lawyer contacted OFAC to try to
resolve the case; for months the calls were unreturned and neither of his clients was told
of the evidentiary basis of the freezing actions. Finally, in April 2002, Farah and Nor
filed suit against the government, alleging that the OFAC action deprived them of their
constitutional rights.
In response to the lawsuits and the concerns of our allies, and in order to forestall more
drastic action, the United States moved to develop a delisting process for those who
claimed that they were designated incorrectly. At the time, there was no procedure to
delist, either at the United Nations or at OFAC. Ultimately, the Policy Coordinating
Committee decided on a set of standards to use. Treasury Under Secretary Jimmy Gurule
went to the UN in the spring of 2002 and presented a whitepaper on delisting, which
included a requirement for an attestation that the individual had severed the link with the
tainted organization and a commitment not to associate with terrorist-related entities
again. The goal was to force behavior changes and to have an orderly process based on
principles, as opposed to requests for delistings based on the “inconvenience” or dislike
of the designations regime.
The OFAC analysts were then required to go back and justify their designations of the
three Swedes and the U.S. al-Barakaat entities and individuals. For the original listing,
the analysts were required to show only that the individual entities were part of the
overall al-Barakaat operation, which they could do through commercial directories such
as the Dun & Bradstreet registry, as well as the list that had been seized in Norway. In the
spring and summer of 2002, however, the analysts were tasked to show that each alBarakaat individual was involved in the funding of terrorism, rather than that he or she
simply belonged to an entity that, overall, supported terrorism. There was no such
evidence, although OFAC analysts complained of not having sufficient access to
classified information, as well as being denied information held by the FBI.73

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Farah was interviewed, but the US Attorney’s Office never arranged to interview Nor.
The analysts were hampered in the fact that they did not have access to the records seized in the
November raids. While those records were seized under OFAC authority, it was limited only to seizing and
retaining them. In order to exploit them for evidentiary purposes, the FBI was able to execute a search
warrant, which was then served on OFAC as custodian of the records. Those records were imaged and
made available to the criminal agents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. According to the OFAC analysts, the
FBI, perhaps burned by what they considered a premature designation, never shared a copy of the seized
records with them.

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On August 27, 2002, OFAC removed the U.S.-based money remitters in Minneapolis and
Columbus, Ohio, as well as two of the three74 Somali Swedes, from its list of designated
entities. Abdullahi Farah, the Minneapolis money remitter, signed an affidavit stating that
he had severed all ties with al-Barakaat, and received his money back. Throughout the
litigation, Nor had maintained that he was unassociated with al-Barakaat, and signed an
affidavit to that effect. He, too, received his money back.
The federal agents working on the al-Barakaat criminal investigation in Minneapolis
spent hundreds of hours reviewing financial records and interviewing witnesses. Despite
this effort, their attempt to make a criminal case simply had no traction. Ultimately,
prosecutors were unable to file charges against any of the al-Barakaat participants, with
the exception of one of the customers in Minneapolis who was charged with low-level
welfare fraud. The FBI supervisor on the criminal case, deciding that their efforts could
be better spent elsewhere, closed their investigation.

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The third was found to have made false statements to the investigating agents and on his application for
removal from the list.

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