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Safe Banking Systems Unmasks Terrorists Licensed by the FAA

Dépèche transmise le 14 octobre 2009 par Business Wire

MINEOLA, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Safe Banking Systems (SBS), a Mineola, NY-based data mining firm, has--once again--uncovered national security breaches within the FAA and TSA, this time involving a notorious drug kingpin, convicted arms trafficker and others linked to aviation-connected crimes who continue to hold pilots' licenses, reports ABCNews.com.

In a recent posting on The Blotter from ABC Investigative Reporter Brian Ross (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/convicted-drug-kingpin-arms-smugglers-licenses-fly-us/story?id=8790260) Eric Longabardi and Joseph Rhee reported on how an airline owned by drug kingpin Fernando Zevallos Gonzalez (a.k.a. "Al Capone of Peru") was stripped of its license to fly in the U.S., yet Gonzalez' pilot license remained intact, despite FAA guidelines that list drug kingpin activity as grounds for immediate, emergency revocation.

SBS also uncovered additional security-risk individuals whose licenses had not been revoked, and earlier this year alerted the FAA and the New York Times that Lockerbie Bomber Al-Megrahi was still in possession of a valid FAA dispatcher license (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/26license.html?_r=5)

According to SBS President David Schiffer "Our SAFE Advanced Solutions software has the capability to apply fuzzy logic to large databases to identify criminals--terrorists, money launderers, drug dealers and fraudsters -- and uses pieces of connecting information to make positive matches. We use IT to outsmart the criminal masterminds."

"In spite of the TSA's claims to be combing their databases, this is the third time in five months that SBS has uncovered evidence of convicted terrorists' being currently licensed by the FAA," says Schiffer.

Despite daily checks for changes to the TSA's No-Fly List and Selectee List, the FAA still did not uncover the potential security risks. But using its proprietary software to decode the transliterations, misspellings, and similarities among the public data, SBS did.

To date, SBS has unmasked a Rogues Gallery of criminals such as:

• El Megrahi, aka the Lockerbee Bomber, with a current FAA dispatcher license until June 2009;
• Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, an eco-terrorist who still has his license and owns his own plane;
• Myron Tereshchuk, Maryland resident convicted of manufacturing ricin, a powerful poison favored by terrorists, is due for release from prison in January 2012. Licensed as a student pilot and aircraft mechanic;
• Fawzi Assi, Detroit resident, pleaded guilty to providing material support to Hezbollah in 2008;
• Re Tabib, California resident, imprisoned for illegally exporting US military aircraft parts to Iran. Received three FAA licenses AFTER being released from jail;
• Gabriel Eduardo Afanador Marin, Colombia, convicted of money laundering and narcotics trafficking in 2004.

SBS represents some of the leading organizations in the world such as KPMG, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, PNC Global Investment Services and International Fund Services.

About Safe Banking Systems (SBS)

The hard truth is that terrorists, financial fraudsters and drug dealers all use complex schemes to camouflage their identity. Given that laws like the Patriot Act require banks to identify these depositors or face massive fines, SBS is called on to outsmart the criminal masterminds before they can take a toll on banks, corporations, governments and the constituents they serve. Safe Banking Systems' software is based on complex algorithms that "isolate the anomalies" in the sea of data and alerts clients to dangerous elements in their midst. For more information: www.safe-banking.com.