Men and women pulling “suitcases full of cash” started showing up at Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport last year holding tickets for international flights bound for Africa.
Transporting large amounts of cash overseas is perfectly legal. But it was who was carrying the money … and where it was going that caught the attention of law enforcement, according to a report by KING 5, the local NBC affiliate for western Washington.
Those hauling the cash-laden cases were Somali-Americans who’d come to this country as refugees. They routinely send money back to Somalia. And many of the greenbacks headed to the jihadist-infested East African country come from welfare checks the refugees receive from the U.S. government, compliments of American taxpayers.
Carrying more than $10,000 while traveling out of the United States is legal as long as the traveler declares it by filling out a one-page federal form.
It was while looking at these slips of paper that terrorism expert Glenn Kerns found a disturbing pattern.
“The thing was the amount, the staggering amount,” said Kerns, a Seattle police officer who was assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force for 14 years before he retired in December.
The cash couriers were working for hawalas – businesses that derive their name from the Arabic word for “transfer.” Hawalas are part of a traditional system of banking in Shariah-compliant Muslim communities.
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But is all of it going to downtrodden family members?
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It would make sense, since Somalia is home to an active jihadist rebellion from al-Shabab, an al-Qaida affiliate that slaughters Christians in neighboring Kenya and seeks to establish an ISIS-like caliphate in East Africa.
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