[Note: Baraka is Arabic for "blessings."]

FOX

Customs Police Raid Seattle Site

SEATTLE — More than a dozen U.S. Customs Service police on Wednesday morning raided an address listed by the Treasury Department as the office of a wire-transfer company whose assets were being frozen in an alleged terrorist money probe.

A slender, dark-skinned man was detained by agents at about 7:30 a.m. as he unlocked the door to a market — one of three units in the building in South Seattle listed as the address for Barakat Wire Transfer.

Two businesses in the building are identified by signs as Baraka Tax Service and Maka Market and Halal Meats.

The agents refused to talk to a reporter.

Five cars and a van pulled up at the building as the man unlocked the market. "Halal" is a reference to meat preparation that meets Muslim standards — the equivalent of "kosher."

A Seattle police car arrived a few minutes later.

The building, in an area of town with some Somali immigrant residents, is a run-down two-story structure. There is a martial arts and fitness studio upstairs. Some of the ground-floor windows are barred.

Barakat Wire Transfer in Seattle is one of 62 businesses and individuals in nine countries whose assets are being frozen by the Bush administration due to suspected ties to Usama bin Laden's financial network.

Investigators believe bin Laden has used the Al Taqua and Al-Barakaat networks to funnel hard-to-trace dollars outside the traditional banking system. The companies, nonprofit groups and money exchanges, also act as fronts — buying material and supplies allegedly shipped off to terrorists.

The order clamps down on the assets of Al Taqua co-founders Nada and Himat. It also names Mansour-Fattouh of Zurich, Switzerland, and Hussein Abdullahi Kahie of Somalia.

Three companies also were named: Youssef M. Nada and Co.; Al Taqua Management Co. in Switzerland; and Al Taqua Bank in the Bahamas.

-- Anonymous, November 07, 2001