Hamas Probe Leads to American Firms
American investigators, cooperating in a probe of the January assassination of a top Palestinian leader in Dubai, have identified a handful of U.S.-based companies believed to have been used to transfer money to suspects in the case, a finding that brings international authorities closer to identifying who funded the operation.
The findings show American authorities playing a bigger role in the investigation than previously revealed. The case is especially delicate for the U.S., because Dubai police have said their prime suspect in the case is Mossad, the intelligence service of Israel, a key U.S. ally.
International investigators see money transfers made through the U.S. companies as key clues in a globe-spanning manhunt aimed at identifying more than two dozen suspects in the case, according to officials familiar with the matter.
The U.S. companies identified by investigators include Internet-based businesses that match freelance job-seekers with employers and process payments between the two sides. Authorities have identified financial transfers from several of these intermediary businesses into prepaid, cash-card accounts used by suspects in the Dubai killing, according to international investigators.
U.S. authorities say they don't believe the intermediary companies had any way of knowing the money would be used in the plot, according to a U.S. official familiar with the investigation.
Instead, U.S. investigators believe, suspects might have posed as freelancers in order to get money in a way that obscured their funding source, and used the money for operational expenses, such as buying plane tickets.
The next step in the investigation would be to determine who the employers were in the transactions.
Representatives of several companies identified in the probe said they hadn't been contacted by U.S. authorities and weren't aware of any investigation.
White House officials have declined to comment on how extensively the U.S. has been cooperating on the case with Dubai and the United Arab Emirates—a moderate, Western-leaning powerhouse in the Mideast.
Earlier this year, Dubai police identified 13 U.S.-issued, cash-card accounts they said suspects used in the operation. All the suspects linked to the cards used fraudulent passports, according to Dubai police. That means their names and details wouldn't have been on any international warning lists and wouldn't have otherwise raised alarm bells for the companies.
Dubai has accused Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a founding member of Hamas' military wing, which has carried out scores of attacks against Israel. Israeli officials say there is no evidence implicating the Jewish state.
After Dubai released details of dozens of forged or fraudulently obtained passports linked to the case, the U.K., Ireland and Australia expelled Israeli diplomats after accusing Israel of forging passports used by suspects.
Washington has for years sent officials to the U.A.E. to ask authorities there to investigate and shut down suspected terror-financing networks in the country. The Dubai investigation is the highest-profile case in which the roles appear reversed: The U.A.E. is now seeking help from Washington in following an alleged criminal money trail that leads back to the U.S.
The White House, however, has scrambled recently to patch up relations with Israel after months of strained ties over stalled Mideast peace efforts and other policy clashes. The White House declined to comment on the sensitivities of cooperating in the Dubai case.
The Mabhouh case has also put the prepaid cash card sector under the spotlight. Regulators and law-enforcement officials say they have worried in recent years such cards may be vulnerable to misuse for money-laundering or other criminal activity—the type of abuse that has worried U.S. counterterrorism officials, international investigators said.
The cards are used like debit cards, but are charged up ahead of time with cash electronically—for instance by an employer. They have become increasingly popular among companies that pay workers or other payees in far-flung locales, where cutting checks or wiring in money isn't convenient.
Some of the MasterCard Inc.-branded cards used by Dubai suspects were distributed by Payoneer Inc., a New York-based online payment company, and issued by Metabank, owned by Meta Financial Group Inc., Storm Lake, Iowa, said Dubai authorities. Dubai said suspects also used four other cards issued by European finance companies.
In a statement, Meta said the company had been "informed by authorities that the suspects apparently used stolen identities, including fake passports, to obtain employment/compensation from U.S. companies and acquire bank cards issued by Meta and other banks."
The cards in question were "loaded" by companies for "payroll, disbursements, and other compensation," Meta said. The bank said it launched its own review of the matter, and has found so far that it had followed all bank and regulatory requirements.
Meta and Payoneer, in public statements, have confirmed they have been in contact with U.S. authorities in the matter.
Investigators say it isn't clear how the Dubai suspects would have obtained their cards and used them. Several of the companies identified as paying into the accounts act as a sort of matchmaker and financial middleman between freelancers and employers or buyers of goods, such as photographs.
For example, two companies identified by U.S. investigators, Elance Inc. and Rent a Coder, which changed its name earlier this year to vWorker.com, offer online matchmaking services between freelance computer programmers and employers. Both are well-known firms in the computer-programming outsourcing arena, and they have both worked with Payoneer to provide prepaid cash cards as a payment option.
Ian Ippolito, the chief executive of Tampa, Fla.-based vWorker.com, said the company hasn't been contacted by authorities, and he is unaware of any probe. When told the names of two suspects whose cards had been linked to transfers from his company by investigators, he said they didn't show up in the company's records.
It isn't clear how U.S. investigators traced the suspected money transfers, or why suspects whom investigators traced to vWorker didn't show up in company records.
A spokeswoman for Elance, Mountain View, Calif., said the company had no knowledge of the matter.
Representatives at several other companies identified by U.S. investigators said their firms hadn't been contacted by U.S. authorities either, and they weren't aware of any probe related to the cards.
U.S. investigators believe the companies weren't aware of how the money flowing through them was used.
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