U.S. LINKS DRUG FUNDS TO MIDEAST TERRORISTS

Smuggling Traced To Detroit, Chicago

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities have amassed evidence for the first time
that an illegal drug operation in the United States was funneling proceeds
to Middle East terrorist groups like Hezbollah.

Evidence gathered by the Drug Enforcement Administration since raids in
January indicates that a methamphetamine drug operation in the Midwest
involving men of Middle Eastern descent has been shipping money back to
terrorist groups, officials said.

"There is increasing intelligence information from the investigation that
for the first time alleged drug sales in the United States are going in
part to support terrorist organizations in the Middle East," DEA
administrator Asa Hutchinson said Friday.

Agency officials said the men, most of whom were indicted on drug charges
after their January arrests, were smuggling large quantities of the
chemical pseudoephedrine from Canada into the Midwest.

Officials said the smuggling went through two primary locations, Chicago
and Detroit, and involved several men with ties to Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon,
and other Middle East countries.

There is no evidence that any of the money was connected to the Sept 11
terrorist attacks, officials said.

Pseudoephedrine is used in some popular cold and allergy medications. It is
an essential ingredient in making metham-phetamine, a powerful and
increasingly popular drug known on, the streets as "ice," "poor man's
cocaine," or "crystal meth."

Users generally inject or smoke meth. The powdery substance is produced by
heating about a dozen chemicals.

The U.S. drug ring was resell-ing pseudoephedrine to Mexican based drug
operations in the wes-tern United States that used it to produce
methamphetamine, authorities said.

The Middle Eastern men then were diverting some of the pro-ceeds from the
pseudoephedrine sales back to the Middle East to accounts authorities have
begun to connect to terrorist groups, the Drug Enforcement Administra-tion
said Some of the connections involved the Iranian-backed terror group
Hezbollah, and some of the money has been traced to accounts in Lebanon and
Yemen, officials said.

Agency officials said U.S. authorities don't know yet how much money was
funneled from the drug sales to the terrorist groups, but said the
pseudoephedrine sales alone amounted to millions of dollars.

"A significant portion of some of the sales are sent to the Middle East to
benefit terrorist organiza-tions," Mr. Hutchinson said.

The drug ring was broken up Jan. 10 as part of a DEA investiga-tion called
Operation Mountain Express, which has smashed sev-eral major
methamphetamine operations in the last two years.

Arrests were made in Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Phoenix, and several
California cities.

The raids have resulted in crim-inal charges against 136 people and the
seizure of nearly 36 tons of pseudoephedrine, 179 pounds of
methamphetamine, $4.5 million in cash, eight real estate properties, and
160 cars.

Mr. Hutchinson has been warning for months that illegal drug money provides
a compel-ling opportunity for terror groups to siphon support from the
United States, but the DEA investigation provided the first evidence of a
direct flow of money.

The evidence of the terror ties emerged after the arrests. U.S. authorities
said some defendants charged with drug violations could face additional
charges.

The Bush administration has been stepping up efforts to stem the flow of
money and items from sympathizers in the United States to foreign terror
groups under a law that prohibits providing "material support and
resources" to known terrorist organizations.

Six men who lived in the United States were indicted last week on charges
they conspired to provide such support to al-Qaeda or related terrorist causes.