Abdulrahman Alamoudiâs troubles are increasing. Last week, a judge ordered him to be held without bail. Alamoudi, a well-known US Muslim activist, is charged by US federal authorities with attempting to smuggle $340,000 into the United States. The 18-count indictment also accuses him of engaging in illegal financial transactions with Libya, money laundering, failure to report foreign bank accounts, misuse of a passport, and lying in an application to become a US citizen.
Now further charges against Alamoudi are emerging. Recently available court records say Alamoudi funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies and organizations tied to international terrorism. Law enforcement officials say Alamoudi, 51, was a principal player in a plot to launder money through front companies and phantom organizations. Alamoudi is listed as an officer, founder, director or board member of several companies and foundations which agents say were used to forward cash to terrorist groups. Two other foundations Alamoudi was affiliated with are alleged to have been fronts to fund Hamas. Agents charge that Alamoudi sent at least $160,000 from these organizations to an organization implicated in Al-Qaedaâs December 1999 plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. Equally unhelpful is Alamoudiâs link as vice president of the Taibah International Aid Association, a nonprofit organization based in Fall Church. In his affidavit, ICE Agent Brent Gentrup charges that during a March 2002 raid on the American Muslim Foundation and Success Foundation offices in Virginia, agents found an agreement in Arabic naming Taibah International as an agent for the Success Foundation âin executing its external projects.â The agents also found two checks, for $25,010 and $10,000, that were drawn on the Success Foundation account and made payable to Taibah International. Gentrupâs affidavit says they found $2.2 million in four bank accounts linked to Alamoudi, none of which he had declared in his tax returns.
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