9/11: How Much did the FBI know about P Tech?
 
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:35:09 -0600 (CST)


http://web.archive.org/web/20060203212718/http://wbz4.com/iteam/local_story_343145212.html

CBS4 Boston - New England's Source For Breaking News, Weather, and Sports for Boston, Worcester, Cape Cod, Nashua, and More: How Much did the FBI know about P Tech?
Search
 
Dec 9, 2002 2:51 pm US/Eastern
How Much did the FBI know about P Tech?

P Tech is being investigated for ties to several individuals suspected
of financing terrorist#s -including al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

Our I Team investigation began in mid-June of this year.

By late August--federal agents got wind of our investigation and
launched their own.

The focus: who is behind P Tech? -- A company that specializes in
something called enterprise architecture--essentially the blueprints
of the information contained on computer networks.

The client list of this software firm called P Tech reads like a
who's who of federal departments involved in national security.

P Tech customers include the Army, the Air Force, the Naval Air
Command, the Congress, the Department of Energy, the FAA, the IRS,
NATO, the FBI the Secret Service and even the White House.

P Tech's specialty --something called enterprise architecture, blue
printing what's inside an agency or business's computer system.

In a five month investigation, the I Team has uncovered a web of
connections linking P Tech to individuals and organizations that
federal authorities believe have been financing terrorists, including
Osama Bin Laden and because of those links, security experts are
now concerned that terrorists might have gotten access to key
government data that could be used to launch an attack.

Connection number one:

According to three different sources, a powerful Saudi Arabian
businessman, Yassin Al Qadi, has been P Tech's chief financier, to
the tune of millions of dollars.

Al Qadi's name was on an executive order issued by president Bush
in October 2001. It freezes Al Qadi's assets and names him as a key
financial backer of Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist organization,
a charge Al Qadi denies.

Steve Emerson, Terrorism Expert "According to US intelligence
reports, Yassin Al Qadi is a major financier of Islamic terrorism
and has been long associated with Osama Bin Laden through NGO#s--non
governmental organizations--as well as co-business ventures in Saudi
Arabia and around the world."

Sources tell the I Team that Al Qadi starting pumping money into P
Tech, now based here in Quincy, in 1994.

This photograph, taken in Saudi Arabia in 1999, shows Al Qadi at a
meeting with the CEO of P Tech, Osama Ziade and other investors.

Matthew Levitt, Former FBI Counter Terrorism "For someone like that
to be involved in a capacity, in an organization, a company that
has access to classified information, that has access to government
open or classified computer systems, would be of grave concern."

Connection number two:

On P Tech's board of directors until recently -- a Virginia businessman
named Yacub Mirza.

Mirza's financial dealings are one focus of a high priority federal
investigation. It included a raid, last March, on several companies
and charities Mirza has directed here in the Washington, DC suburbs.
The government suspects they have been laundering money for Al Qaeda
and other terrorists.

Mirza had denied any wrongdoing.

Matthew Levitt, Former FBI Counter Terrorism "He is a senior official
of major radical Islamic organizations that have been linked by the
US government to terrorism."

Connection number three:

Among the top executives of P Tech is Hussein Ibrahim.

Title: Vice President and Chief Scientist.

Before joining P Tech, Ibrahim was vice chairman of a now defunct
investment group called BMI, based here in New Jersey.

This FBI affidavit filed in a Chicago case names BMI as a conduit
to launder money from Yassin Al Qadi to Hamas terrorists. BMI has
denied any wrongdoing.

In late August, when investigators here at the US Treasury department
learned that the I Team was investigating P Tech, they launched
their own investigation.

But the I Team has learned that another federal agency, specifically
the Boston office of the FBI, learned about P Tech's questionable
ties more than a year ago but failed to act.

An Email sent to the FBI's Boston office in October 2001 and obtained
by the I Team.

It was sent by a former executive at P Tech alerting the FBI that
Yassin Al Qadi was an investor in the company and that President
Bush had just named Al Qadi as a financier of Osama Bin Laden.

Did the FBI convey that information to the treasury department which
was investigating Al Qadi?

A high level government source tells the I Team the answer is no.

And consider Indira Singh's experience.

She is a consultant specializing in enterprise architechture and
learned --through associates--about P Tech's ties to Yassin Al qadi.

She called the FBI Boston office in early June.

Joe Begantino Did you inform them of how serious a threat you thought
this was?

Indira Absolutelly, on no uncertain terms."

Over the next several weeks, Singh learned that the FBI had not
even alerted a single government agency where P Tech had done work.

Joe Begantino What was your reaction?

Indira #Disbelief, shock, frustration, deep alarm."

Another question, despite the FBI's lack of action why didn't anyone
else here in Washington know that a man on the President's list of
terrorist supporters was financing a company doing sensitive computer
work in key government agencies?

Steve Emerson, Terrorism Expert "It's absolutely amazing that the
US Government was not aware of this for years. The fact that a Bin
Laden-invested company could be providing data and business to the
highest levels of the us government is quite frankly outrageous."

The FBI's Boston office issued a response to our story saying, #this
investigation has been going on for quite some time. The FBI and
customs, based on the facts of the case, decided it should be led
by customs.#

So how did a company financed by Yassin al Qadi an alleged financier
for Osama bin Laden end up doing business with the government?

The US general services administration or GSA screens contractors.

It asks a number of questions but one thing it does not ask of
privately held companies is --who are your financial backers?

Sources at the National Security Agency in Washington say they are
certain that the software installed by P Tech is safe.

But what no one knows at this point is how much sensitive government
information P Tech gained access to while it worked in several high
level government agencies.

The attorney for Virginia businessman Yaqub Mirza told me that Mirza
claims he was not actively involved in P Tech.