Gem Dealer Is Said to Aid Scheme on Terrorist Funds

Yehuda Abraham is a slight, stooped 76-year-old gem dealer, with a house in Queens, an office in New York's diamond district and shops around the world.

One night last October, prosecutors say, a client entered Mr. Abraham's 12th-floor Midtown office and handed him $30,000 in hundred dollar bills, an odd, if believable transaction in the world of international gem dealers. Mr. Abraham, by the government's account, counted out every note, then gave the client his business card.

But this was not a jewelry sale, prosecutors allege. It was a secretive deal, with a code number and a cash commission, in which Mr. Abraham agreed to transfer the client's money to a bank account in Europe, out of the sight of federal regulators.

That transaction, if it occurred as federal prosecutors say, has landed Mr. Abraham, an immigrant who came to America nearly half a century ago, in the middle of an international dragnet that prosecutors said took into custody a dangerous arms dealer and his accomplices who were willing to bring missiles into the United States to shoot down passenger jetliners.

Prosecutors said in federal court yesterday that Mr. Abraham was the money man, a shadowy figure who facilitated the work of terrorists by giving them the means to finance their actions — the purchase of the missiles — through an informal money transfer system, known as hawala, which is common in the Middle East and a preferred method of finance for terrorists.

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That transaction, if it occurred as federal prosecutors say, has landed Mr. Abraham, an immigrant who came to America nearly half a century ago, in the middle of an international dragnet that prosecutors said took into custody a dangerous arms dealer and his accomplices who were willing to bring missiles into the United States to shoot down passenger jetliners.

...a dangerous arms dealer and his accomplices who were willing to bring missiles into the United States to shoot down passenger jetliners.

<snip>Section 371 is the federal conspiracy statute. To prove the crime, the government need only show that at least two individuals agree to commit a federal crime, and that at least one of them performed an act in furtherance of that agreement, even if the act itself was not illegal. Thus, if Omar and Abdul decide to hold up a federally insured bank (an agreement to commit a federal crime), and Omar immediately purchases an automobile (a legal act) for their getaway, the boys from Yemen have violated 18 USC 371.

Section 2339 (actually, there are two sections, 2339A and 2339B) makes it a federal felony to provide "material support" to terrorists (2339A) or terrorist organizations (2339B). "Material support or resources" is defined in Section 2339A(b) as "currency or other financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, transportation, and other physical assets, except medicine or religious materials."

Together, these two federal statutes — even without individual statutes like Section 2339 — constitute America's silver bullet for any terrorist (citizen and non-citizen alike) subject to the jurisdiction of a United States court.

The Lindh case is a good example. Among other crimes — e.g., actually providing material support and resources to terrorist organizations — Taliban John was charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorist organizations. Over a score of overt acts in furtherance of that conspiracy were alleged. Despite his defense camp's huffing and puffing about how Lindh was innocent and how they would secure his acquittal, in the cold light of the facts and the law they copped a plea, their client accepting a deal that will cost him nearly two decades in federal prison.

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<snip>The third man, Yehuda Abraham, 75, a New York jeweler from Afghanistan, was charged with money laundering in a separate hearing in Manhattan and was held on $10 million bond. He was to be transferred to New Jersey.

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