Edition: U.S. / Global

Yemenis Held in Money Scheme

Published: June 27, 2002

Federal agents and the police yesterday arrested a dozen men, many of them shopkeepers in downtown Brooklyn, on charges they ran an illegal wire transfer service that they used to smuggle more than $100,000 to their native Yemen.

Law enforcement officials said the investigation that led to the charges focused on whether the money was used to finance terrorism, but that was still unknown. ''There's questions as to where the money is going,'' one official said. ''The records in Yemen, as you can imagine, are not the best.''

The 12 men were among 16 charged in an indictment unsealed yesterday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Four others were being sought. The case was the result of an investigation by city police, F.B.I. agents and customs officials.

Prosecutors at the arraignments argued that the men should be held without bail because they had access to large amounts of cash and thus might flee, and that the men had moved millions of dollars to Yemen through the service. The indictment refers only to about $100,000.

United States Magistrate Judge Marilyn Dolan Go ordered 10 of the men held pending bail hearings. She ordered two held without bail.

A separate complaint yesterday charged two other Yemeni men with producing false documents.

The nine-count indictment in the money-transferring case charges that the men operated an unlicensed and illegal money transmittal service. It said they evaded a federal law that requires anyone moving more than $10,000 to file a disclosure form.

Among those charged were three members of one family, Mohamed Ali Alriany, Ali Alriany and Ahmed Ali Alriany, the police said.