Following The Money

In the 10 days leading up to the Sept. 11 hijackings, ringleader Mohamed Atta received at least two wire transfers of cash from Egypt through a small Florida money-wiring business, sources tell TIME. Investigators are not saying who sent that money, but FBI documents obtained by TIME show that on Sept. 8 and 9, Atta was involved in money transfers with a man investigators believe was suspected Osama bin Laden finance operative Mustafah Ahmed, who usually works out of Egypt or the United Arab Emirates.

These newly uncovered fund transfers may be the latest evidence that Atta was a major recipient of bin Laden's elaborate financial pipeline. U.S. investigators said last week that they suspect Atta was a key conduit between the Sept. 11 hijackers and Mamoun Darkazanli, the Syrian businessman based in Hamburg who reputedly controlled a German bank account held by a man U.S. investigators believe was bin Laden's chief of finance.

The money transfers to Atta may prove critical in tying the World Trade Center attacks to bin Laden. They may also help answer two questions currently at the center of the investigation: How did the terrorists finance the attacks? And how does bin Laden's terrorist network fund itself worldwide?

These new pieces of the financial puzzle are emerging at a time when the Bush Administration has made tracking down and freezing assets a top priority in its war on terrorism. Before the Administration announced a plan for military action, President Bush was in the Rose Garden last week unveiling a list of 27 entities--13 terrorist groups, 11 individuals and three charities--whose assets the U.S. will work to freeze at home and abroad. Some of the organizations were linked to bin Laden, but others were said to be independent of him and active in the Philippines, Kashmir and elsewhere.

The Treasury Department has instructed some 5,000 U.S. banks to start checking their accounts against the list of 27. One New York City bank last week froze $3.8 million in assets linked to the suspected terrorists, an Administration official told TIME last week.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill praised the finance ministers of major industrial nations for pushing their financial institutions to go after the assets on the Administration's list. "They've all said, 'We'll do everything we can to help the U.S.,'" he says. "Serious money is being blocked now." Germany has frozen 13 accounts linked to the Taliban or bin Laden, although Darkazanli is the only one who appears on the Administration's list of 27. Britain has frozen $68 million in accounts of individuals and entities on the Administration's list.

Cooperation is not limited to the big democracies: Pakistan's central bank has ordered private banks to freeze accounts held by Harakat ul-Mujahedin, a group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir that is on the U.S. list. And the financial crackdown has received cooperation from a wide list of nations that includes China, Colombia, Costa Rica and the Czech Republic.