WASHINGTON -- In a crackdown at home and abroad, the Bush administration targeted Osama bin Laden's multimillion-dollar financial networks Wednesday, closing businesses in four states, detaining U.S. suspects and urging allies to help choke off money supplies in 40 nations. \n"By shutting these networks down, we disrupt the murderers' work," President Bush said, announcing the first major crackdown on companies, organizations and people suspected of aiding terrorists from U.S. soil. \nAcross Europe and from coast to coast in America, police conducted raids designed to unravel two Islamic financial networks accused of laundering and raising money and providing other support to terrorists.\nInvestigators said they believe tens of millions of dollars a year flowed overseas through the Al-Barakaat network, much of it from money that Somalis living in America send home to relatives. Some of that money was skimmed for use by al Qaeda and other terrorist networks, investigators said. \nIn Mogadishu, Somalia, the chairman of the Al-Barakaat group, which operates in 40 nations including the United States, vehemently denied the White House allegations. \n"This is all lies," Ahmed Nur Ali Jim'ale told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Dubai. "We are people who are hard working and have nothing to do with terrorists." \nThe second network, al Taqua, is a loosely organized band of companies in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Bahamas and Italy, the White House said. It is controlled by Youssef Nada, a naturalized Italian citizen.\nActing on the United States' request, officials from Switzerland, Italy and Liechtenstein moved to block al Taqua assets. Two Arab financiers, Youssef M. Nada and Ali Himmat, were questioned by Swiss police for several hours before being released. \nIn all, the names of 62 entities and people were added to a list of suspected terrorist associates targeted by Bush in an executive order signed last month. The earlier list included 88 groups or people whose assets had been frozen because of their ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. \nIn coordinated raids Wednesday, Customs agents seized evidence and shut down Al-Barakaat companies in four cities: Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio. The Treasury Department froze assets of nine organizations and two people in the United States, most with links to Al-Barakaat.
In addition, evidence was seized at two businesses in northern Virginia that also have Al-Barakaat business, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. \nIn Boston, Mohamed M. Hussein and Liban M. Hussein were charged with running an illegal money-transmitting business, according to a criminal complaint. Officials said Mohamed Hussein was in custody. \nThe two men ran Barakaat North America Inc. in Dorchester, Mass., a foreign money exchange, without a state license, according to a U.S. Customs Service affidavit. The business moved over $2 million through a U.S. bank from January through September, the government said. \nThe raids shined a national spotlight on seemingly nondescript storefronts. \nU.S. Postal Service worker Sunday Draper, who delivers mail to a targeted business in Ohio, said, "It's scary to think they may have ties to terrorists." \nFederal agents seized office furniture, computers, sealed boxes and even trash cans from Barakaat Enterprise in Columbus. \nA man was briefly detained in Seattle after federal agents raided a Muslim grocery store containing a wire-transfer operation. \nFive organizations and one person, Garad Jama, were targeted in Minnesota. Agents detained at least one man. \n"Today, we take another important action to expose the enemy to the light and to disrupt its ability to threaten America and innocent life," Bush said at a Treasury Department investigation center just outside Washington in northern Virginia. \nSecretary of State Colin Powell said: "Money is the oxygen of terrorism." \nThe event was designed to show progress in the broad anti-terrorism campaign, countering doubts about the U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan and the administration's response to anthrax scares. \nThe United States also asked allies to freeze assets on terrorist-aiding organizations based in Switzerland, Somalia, Liechtenstein, the Bahamas, Sweden, Canada, Austria, Italy and the United Arab Emirates. \nThe United Arab Emirates seized assets and records of Al-Barakaat \nThe United States has blocked $26 million in assets of the Taliban and al Qaeda; an additional $17 million has been blocked by other countries, bringing the worldwide total to $43 million, a Treasury spokeswoman said. \nTo date, 112 countries have blocking orders in force.
