NP coupon-clipping terrorists

[Doug Millison]

TERRORISTS MAY EXPLOIT COUPON FRAUD FOR GAIN
$100 million in coupons are fraudulently redeemed every year, estimates
corporate security expert Ben Jacobson. Federal authorities have been lax,
he says, with an attitude of, 'This is not guns, it's not drugs. It's
coupons, and those rich companies can afford to lose a little.' This has
allowed unscrupulous store owners and worse to produce cash and launder
money. Some of those involved in fraud have strong ties to Middle Eastern
terrorists. During an investigation several years ago for redemption firm
A.C. Nielsen, Jacobson identified Hamada Video of Brooklyn, NY as an
important center for coupon fraud. This store was managed by a driver for
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Muslim cleric who is now serving a life
sentence for conspiracy to bomb several New York sites. Osama bin Laden has
called several times for Rahman's release.
    At least one USPS investigator believes the links are worth looking
into. Says Rick Bowdren, who heads the Midwest division of the postal
inspection service, "There's no doubt that over the years Middle Easterners
successfully defrauded product-goods manufacturers by means of coupon
fraud."

"Deadly Discounts," Barron's, 10/22/01
http://www.barrons.com/


...as reported in:

MEDIA PROFESSIONAL
Making print and online media work for you

November 2001, Volume 7, Number 5
http://www.accessabc.com/members1/mediapro.htm

Published the first of each month by the Young Media Professionals
Committee of the Audit Bureau of Circulations


....I hear our Director of Homeland Security will soon begin a major
investigation of US-based coupon-clippng organizations to determine how bin
Laden followers have duped housewives and other bargain huners to
infliltrate these clubs.  Supermarkets now become a new front in the war
against terrorism, as shoppers boost the economy by exercising America's
most powerful weapons-- credit cards and checkbooks -- and as check-out
cashiers will become front-line soldiers fighting against coupon-clipping
terrorists.