took a look around and didn’t see Parenting Today anywhere. I then dropped back down into the cubicle and began scrolling through the story list. I clicked on a few and started to read them but stopped each time I discerned that the story had not even a remote connection to Los Angeles. I realized I should have included Los Angeles in the key word search. I stood up to see if Mrs. Molloy was at the front desk but she was not there. The front desk was abandoned.
I went back to the computer and on the third page of the story list a headline caught my eye.
TERRORISM MONEY MAN CAPTURED AT BORDER CROSSING
I clicked the READ button and pulled up the entire story. The box above the body of the story said it had been published a month earlier on page A13 of the newspaper. It was accompanied by a mugshot of a man with deeply tanned skin and wavy blond hair.
By Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writer
A suspected money courier for supporters of global terrorism was arrested yesterday as he attempted to cross the Mexican border at Calexico with a satchel of cash, the Justice Department reported.
Mousouwa Aziz, 39, who has been on the FBI’s terrorist watch list for four years, was apprehended by Border Patrol agents as he attempted to cross from the United States into Mexico.
Aziz, who the FBI claims has ties to a Philippine cell of Al Qaeda terrorists, was carrying a large quantity of U.S. currency in a satchel found hidden under the seat of the car he was attempting to drive across the border. Aziz, who was alone in the car, was arrested without a struggle. He was being held in an unknown location under federal guidelines as an enemy combatant.
Agents said Aziz had attempted to disguise himself by dyeing his hair blond and shaving the beard he had been known to wear.
“This is a significant arrest,” said Abraham Klein, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Los Angeles anti-terrorism unit. “Our efforts around the world have been geared toward cutting off funding for terrorists. This suspected terrorist is believed to be a person intimately involved in financing terrorist activities here and abroad.”
Klein and other sources said Aziz could be a key figure in efforts to stop the movement of money-the lifeblood of long-term terrorism activity-to those targeting American interests.
“Not only did we take away a good chunk of cash with this arrest but, perhaps more importantly, we took a person who was in the business of delivering money to terrorists out of circulation,” said a Justice source who spoke on the condition he would not be identified.
Aziz is a Jordanian national who attended high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and speaks fluent English, the Justice source said. He had a passport and an Alabama driver’s license in his possession that both identified him as Frank Aiello.
Aziz’s name was placed on an FBI watch list four years ago after information was developed that connected him to money deliveries made to terrorists involved in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Aziz was nicknamed “Mouse” by federal agents because of his small stature, ability to stay hidden from authorities in recent months and the difficulty agents had in pronouncing his first name.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a higher alert status was issued in regard to Aziz, though sources said there was no evidence directly linking Aziz to the 19 terrorists who carried out those suicide attacks.
“This guy is a money man,” the Justice source said. “His job is to move money from point A to point B. The money is then used to buy materials to make bombs and weapons, to support the lifestyles of terrorists while they plan and carry out their operations.”
It was unclear why Aziz was apparently attempting to take U.S. currency out of the country.
“The U.S. dollar is good anywhere,” Klein said. “In fact, it is stronger than the currency in most of the countries where these terrorist cells exist. The U.S. dollar goes a lot further. It could be that this suspect was taking the money to the Philippines to simply help pay for an operation.”
Klein also suggested that money could have been headed for terrorists planning to infiltrate the United States.
Klein refused to say how much money Aziz was transporting or where it came from. In recent months federal investigators have suggested that a large source of financing of terrorists has come from illegal activities within the United States.