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Home Front: WoT
FBI Probes Chicago Car Crash After Suspicious Items Found
2006-02-24
This just might turn out to be terrorism-related, so I'm posting it. It got big play in the Chicago tube and papers.
(CBS) CHICAGO A stunning discovery inside a car involved in a deadly crash on the Stevenson Expressway Wednesday has sparked a federal investigation. Two people were killed in the crash involving a number of cars and semi trucks.

CBS Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports one of the people killed was carrying several suspicious items. State police investigators along with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force are looking into why a check written for a large sum of money, along with a sizeable amount of cash and multiple IDs, were found in a 1999 Kia Sportage involved in the accident, District Chicago Master Sgt. S. Nowak said.

There were at seven vehicles, including two semis, involved in the 1 p.m. crash that had the southbound Stevenson shutdown for more than six hours Wednesday and left two people dead. The fatal victims were identified as Dorothy L. Walsh, 76, of 4001 S. Maplewood Ave., and Lafi Nofal, 45, of 10240 S. 86th Court in Palos Hills, who was a passenger of the Sportage, according to Nowak.

"I heard a loud noise, looked in my mirror, saw a semi jackknife. Two seconds later, a Jeep rear ends me,” Omar Majdobah said. "It was mayhem. Four or five cars, two nearly totaled, two semis hugging each other."

In addition to the fatalities, at least four other people were injured in the crash, including the driver of the Sportage, Amjad J. Husein, who was taken to MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn with serious injuries, Nowak said.

One of the truck drivers, Benton D. Chapman, of Oklahoma, was later cited with driving too fast for conditions and for equipment violations, according to Nowak. Chapman was also taken to MacNeal where he was likely treated and released, the master sergeant said.

But it is what authorities found in the wreckage, specifically in the car of the 45-year-old man who died in the crash, that has drawn top-level investigators. Sources originally told CBS 2 he was carrying a $1 million check, plus other checks, a large amount of cash and nearly a dozen unused credit cards. ThatÂ’s prompted calling out members of the elite FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force.

The FBI is now saying several "financial instruments" were found in the car. A spokesman has confirmed "...we are at the scene assisting the Illinois State Police investigating things that came up in the accident."

Sources caution against reading too much into the presence of the terrorist task force, which has a number of financial crimes specialists. They hint that the investigation could just as likely lead to a major counterfeiting operation as it could terrorism or terrorist financing.
And there you have it.
Posted by:Steve White

#7  sounds like typical Esquimeaux ops
Posted by: Frank G   2006-02-24 17:25  

#6  Its Chicago. Why is this particularly suspicious?

It's not like someone with concrete shoes in the trunk or several boxes of votes from the last election.
Posted by: Clolugum Phomogum8353   2006-02-24 16:43  

#5  Hope they got a few good armed guards watching the driver in the hospital. The obvious reason that the dead tell no tales.
Posted by: Sock Puppet O' Doom   2006-02-24 16:40  

#4  What's a "financial instrument"?

It's usually used to mean stocks, bonds or similar. It could be a bearer bond. A bond that can be cashed without proof of ownership.
Posted by: phil_b   2006-02-24 16:00  

#3  I'm thinking they either owned a cellphone store or a local variety store that sold about 20 million bucks of cigarettes a year...
Posted by: tu3031   2006-02-24 15:51  

#2  The article mentions a $1 million check, plus other checks and a multitude of virgin credit cards. Also a number of IDs. Doesn't sound like the deceased Lafi Nofal and the injured Amjad J. Husein were exactly model citizens.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-02-24 15:46  

#1  What's a "financial instrument"? Is that a cop code word for stolen credit cards or something?
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats   2006-02-24 15:21  

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