The Treasury Department ordered banks yesterday to freeze the accounts of the Oregon and Missouri branches of a large Saudi charity that U.S. officials say has been used to finance the al Qaeda terrorist network around the world.
FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents searched a home in Ashland, Ore., that is the U.S. headquarters for the charity, the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. The search is part of an investigation into allegations that the Oregon branch was involved in money laundering and income tax and currency-reporting violations, Treasury officials said.
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Over the past two years, U.S. and Saudi authorities have intensified a joint crackdown on al-Haramain offices around the globe after concluding that they had funneled money, personnel and equipment to al Qaeda. Branches in Bosnia and Somalia were shuttered in 2002, and last December others were closed in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan.
U.S. officials continue to investigate the foundation's headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Several weeks ago al-Haramain's chief, Aqeel al-Aqeel, was fired by top Saudi clerical authorities amid growing suspicions about his role at the charity.
Lawrence Matasar, an attorney for the al-Haramain office in Oregon, said charity officials in that state are cooperating with the government in the investigation. "We believe no crimes have been committed," he said.
Al-Haramain's headquarters in Saudi Arabia launched its Oregon office in 1997 by funding the work of an Ashland landscaper, Pete Seda, who had been sending Korans to prison inmates. The two people now mainly under investigation are Seda and Soliman Albuthe, a Saudi citizen who also helped run the Oregon organization.
Officials are investigating numerous financial transactions involving Albuthe and Seda, also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty, including allegations of transporting large sums of undeclared traveler's checks across U.S. borders. Under U.S. law, anyone transporting $10,000 or more in or out of the country must declare it to customs agents.
Agents are looking into $131,000 that was wired by a man in London to the Oregon foundation, which then dispatched Albuthe to transport the funds by traveler's checks to Saudi Arabia. The transaction was not properly reported to U.S. authorities, according to an affidavit filed in court in Oregon. The funds were ultimately destined for Muslim fighters or refugees in Chechnya, it said.
The affidavit also disclosed that a federal grand jury has been investigating al-Haramain's U.S. operations.
The U.S. branch of the charity has mainly distributed Islamic books and videos to Americans, and also helped establish a mosque in Springfield, Mo., with more than $370,000 provided by the Saudi headquarters.
One of the top leaders of that mosque was Kamran Bokhari, a student at Southwest Missouri State University, who was also the U.S. representative of a radical London-based group called al-Mujahiroun, which supports al Qaeda, according to the Site Institute, a terrorism research group.
