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Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

The New York Times
July 10, 2002, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 3; National Desk

LENGTH: 969 words

HEADLINE: SEPT.11 HIJACKERS SAID TO FAKE DATA ON BANK ACCOUNTS

BYLINE: By JAMES RISEN

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, July 9
BODY:
The Sept. 11 hijackers were able to open 35 American bank accounts without
having legitimate Social Security numbers and opened some of the accounts with
fabricated Social Security numbers that were never checked or questioned by bank
officials, a senior F.B.I, official said today.
The banks involved approved several account applications in which the
hijackers simply filled in random numbers in spaces reserved for applicants'
Social Security numbers, said the official, Dennis Lormel, the chief of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation's unit conducting the financial inquiry of the
Sept. 11 plot.
With no scrutiny from the financial institutions or government regulators,
the hijackers were able to move hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Middle
East into the United States through a maze of bank accounts beginning more than
a year before their attacks.
"That is one of the lessons learned from Sept. 11," Mr. Lormel said, noting
that banks are now more diligent in checking on and reporting falsified
applications.
The hijackers relied most heavily on 14 accounts at SunTrust Banks, moving
$325,000 through accounts opened in Florida and taken out in the names of many
of the hijackers, Mr. Lormel said today in an interview.
A spokesman for SunTrust, which is based in Atlanta, said the bank had been
cooperating with the F.B.I.'s investigation. The spokesman said it was possible
for foreigners without Social Security numbers to open bank accounts in this
country, but he could not provide details of what forms of identification the
hijackers used to open the SunTrust accounts.
The SunTrust accounts and the financial transactions made through them
provide strong evidence of links between hijackers from different groups, he
added. In fact, Mr. Lormel said the bureau of investigation had discovered
direct financial connections between members of the four hijacking groups
involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
providing some of the most concrete evidence yet uncovered that the 19 men
involved closely coordinated their actions.
Since the attacks, American investigators have found relatively few direct
links among the four groups who each hijacked a different airliner, and
officials have said they have been impressed by the strict security procedures
that the hijackers seem to have practiced to avoid detection. Telephone, travel
and e-mail records strongly indicate that Mohamed Atta played a central