Terrorism Scheme Stopped


June 11, 2012

A husband and wife who schemed to finance a terrorist group are sentenced to federal prison.


Audio Transcript

 Mollie Halpern: A husband and wife who schemed to finance a terrorist group are sentenced to federal prison.

Benjamin Beno: A lot of it, I believe, had to do with greed. There was a good amount of money that was in it for both the husband and wife.

Halpern: I’m Mollie Halpern of the FBI, and this is Gotcha. For nearly a year, Hor and Amera Akl met with an FBI confidential source about ways they could send hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hezbollah. Special Agent Benjamin Beno of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, or JTTF, in the Cleveland Division says…

Beno: We have over 100 hours of recordings of these individuals where they are actively planning this money transfer overseas.

Halpern: Hor even traveled to Lebanon in order to meet with high-ranking members of Hezbollah to set it all up.

Beno: They knew they were, in their own words, “giving money to terrorists.”

Halpern: The JTTF caught the Akl’s on video hiding money inside of vehicle accessories. Agents arrested the Akl’s before they carried out their plan to ship the car, with the accessories attached, to Lebanon.

This has been the FBI’s closed case of the week.

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