May 7, 2010 2:43 PM

Faisal Shahzad's Money Mystery

By
Pia Malbran
Topics
News
Accused New York Times Square bomber Faisel Shahzad, 30, was drowning in debt, raising questions about how he managed to have wads of cash at his disposal to help carry out his alleged plot.

Shahzad made at least a dozen return trips back and forth between the United States and Pakistan in the last 11 years.

Before taking his last trip to Pakistan in June of 2009, Shahzad worked for the Affinion Group of Norwalk, CT as a Junior Analyst.  The position pays an estimated annual salary between $55,000 and $80,000.

Yet, as CBS News first revealed, Shahzad came under scrutiny by the Department of Homeland Security for bringing into the U.S. more than $80,000 in "cash or cash instruments" between 1999 and 2008.

But clearly Shahzad had financial problems. He had a $200,000 mortgage on his 3-bedroom Shelton, CT home that he unsuccessfully tried to sell for three years. Then, in February of 2009, he took out an additional home equity loan for $65,000. But, it appears he never intended to repay that loan. Just the next month, he began defaulting on both loans.

New court records obtained by CBS News show Shahzad appeared to have trouble paying his bills as far back as 2007. On November 3, 2009 the home heating oil company Hoffman Fuel, filed a small claims lawsuit against Shahzad that is still pending. He owes them $793.34. Since November of 2007, Shahzad made only partial payments each month on the heating bill for his 1,300 square foot home, never paying in full.

Special Section: Terrorism in the U.S.

After an 8 month stint in Pakistan, Shahzad came back to the U.S. in February 2010. There is no record he had any job since returning. Yet he drove an Isuzu and paid $1,150 per month to rent an apartment in Bridgeport, CT, never missing a payment.

He clearly had plenty of cash. Shahzad slapped down $1,300 in $100 dollar bills to pay for the used SUV that was found smoking, rigged with explosives, in Times Square last Saturday.

A CBS News analysis estimates he spent at least $2,000 to make the bomb. He reportedly had at least one gun estimated to be worth $400.  On Monday night when he tried to flee, he forked over an estimated $800 in cash to pay for a one-way ticket to Islamabad, Pakistan via Dubai, UAE.

Understanding Shahzad's finances could be instrumental in helping to determine if he acted alone. According to the Associated Press, federal investigators are now trying to locate a money courier they say may have helped funnel cash from overseas to Shahzad.


Add a Comment See all 14 Comments
by maplebob May 14, 2010 6:19 PM EDT
The guy is a radical Islamic terrorist. What's the mystery? He got the money from his terrorist friends. He obviously wasn't here to become an American, he was here to kill and maim Americans. Real Americans of the type both Bloomberg and Curic hate and self-loathing Americans such as Bloomberg and Curic. He didn't care. He just wanted to spill American blood and incite fear. This isn't hard unless one is a overly-educated American liberal. Then it becomes a mystery.
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by insuranceuniversity May 8, 2010 6:48 PM EDT
hi friends..all of u have ur own opinion...but i am a Muslim and also Pakistani knw its Ur interest for reading my comments or not.........but the truth is Muslim are not terrorists and Pakistani are not terrorists..Taliban are nor Muslim or Pakistani...................they are funded by Indians and Israel (and a little bit of American support to Israel)
knw wht my opinion abt Faisal shahzad case is ......time square is busiest place and have a lot of security cameras still no video of Faisal when left the car.......secondly the person standing with pole change..looks to be above 40 years old man who they says its him...........why he leave key chain of 20 keys and uses the duplicate .why he stay for days in their waiting for police to came and arrest me...............who sloe that question is this American game to start war against Pakistan........or is this political game...............??????????
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by bruce789 May 7, 2010 11:15 PM EDT
He held his good job for about 10 years so he probably was getting along pretty good, trips to Pakistan may have kept him on an even keel though increasingly longed to return there. In 2006, that would have been a good year to sell a house and may even have been following the market up, always out of reach in case a sucker came along. Doing ok at that point (good income for expenses), just a quirk about heat bill. Seams in his pictures, comment on the plane, and the amateur method of the bomb (even the barbecue tank and Vigero lawn food seams like thrown into the mix), he doesn't take things seriously, he's smart, boss valued him. A kind of fantasy glimmer to his look, even at the point of being arrested doesn't fear it.
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by dixt1 May 7, 2010 8:23 PM EDT
OF COURSE, he lost his home to foreclosure---it has been reported that he made 13 trips to Pakistan over the past 11 years! Trips to Pakistan ARE NOT CHEAP! Had he paid his mortgage with some of that money, he wouldn't have lost his house! DUH! He did not construct a BOMB for Times Square because he was having financial problems! You would have to be fairly dim-witted to believe that, in lieu of all the information that has come out about this man. ALL immigrants NEED TO BE TOLD that utilities HAVE to be paid, rent HAS to be paid, groceries HAVE to be bought, etc. . . .
Reply to this comment
by vkmo May 7, 2010 8:19 PM EDT
In Islam, paying interest is forbidden. Banks should have a talk with muslims when they take out a loan. Faisal stopped paying interest on the bank transaction involving his home, and can tell his Imam, that he only did it for the sake of his misdeed. (to finance his bomb attempt). The 2nd mortgage of $66K he took can give his family good living for the rest of his life.
Reply to this comment
by theywerestrongandgood May 7, 2010 10:52 PM EDT
So what you're saying is that paying interest on a loan that you took out after reading and signing a contract that must disclose clearly the INTEREST RATE is against Muslim doctrine, but that stealing a nice chunk of change from the bank is perfectly all right. That doesn't add up to me.
by TheEnterpriseReport May 7, 2010 7:21 PM EDT
Now, Now CBS News Investigates...

Lets not get carried away with false claims about "New Court Records" .. they may be new to you, but they're not new to being published or reported on. They were long ago.

<< New court records obtained by CBS News show Shahzad appeared to have trouble paying his bills as far back as 2007. On November 3, 2009 the home heating oil company Hoffman Fuel, filed a small claims lawsuit against Shahzad that is still pending. He owes them $793.34. Since November of 2007, Shahzad made only partial payments each month on the heating bill for his 1,300 square foot home, never paying in full. >>

The records were obtained and reported on by The Enterprise Report.com over THREE days ago on May 4th, 2010. Please fee free to confirm that if you'd like. Your readers can for themselves as well:

PHOTO UPDATE: FAISAL SHAHZAD AMERICAN CAR BOMB SUSPECT

http://theenterprisereport.typepad.com/news/2010/05/photo-update-faisal-shahzad-american-car-bomb-suspect.html#tp

I'm sure CBS News would never lift something and claim an exclusive or being FIRST if it wasn't. The CBS News I know would never do that sort of thing. Armen K might want to double check this stuff before its published.

I didn't claim when I published the story three days ago that the story was exclusive or "first" or "new" because I didn't bother to check to see if if it was. That aspect wasn't a big enough of deal enough to warrant it. But you might want to do that next time, if you're going to make false claims in your reporting.

Porobably just be an oversight I'm sure. Nonetheless a correction would be the right thing to do.

Thanks,

Eric Longabardi
Producer/Investigative Journalist/Publisher
TeleMedia News Productions/TheEnterpriseReport.com
Newport Beach, CA
Reply to this comment
by vkmo May 7, 2010 8:26 PM EDT
It's interesting that the bank give him $66K towards his second mortgage. His family can live well on that in Pakistan for the rest of his life. Altho, he may have preferred living on in USA on good income.
by TheEnterpriseReport May 8, 2010 6:38 AM EDT
>Probably< just be an oversight I'm sure. Nonetheless a correction would be the right thing to do.
by maistir May 7, 2010 7:15 PM EDT
Good. The U.S. needs to instill some fear into the calculus of those who finance terrorism; go after them even if they turn out to own banks in the Persian Gulf states or they call themselves charities.
Reply to this comment
by akw1 May 7, 2010 7:13 PM EDT
The only money problems he had were his wife's shopping and the fact that he sold a condo in 2004 and bought an expensive house that he tried to flip in 2006 in order to cash in on the housing boom. He couldn't sell it in 2006 for as much as he wanted, so he hired another broker in 2008. By February, when he took out the $65,000 home equity loan, he already knew he was moving back to Pakistan and going to default on his mortgage. He became an a citizen in April, quit his job in May, and moved to Pakistan a couple of months later. His wife and kids followed the next month.

He didn't become a terrorist because of financial problems. He didn't have financial problems. He chose to quit his job and he chose to default on his mortgage, not because he couldn't afford the home, because he no longer needed the house.
Reply to this comment
by miami_don May 7, 2010 4:58 PM EDT
After an 8 month stint in Pakistan, Shahzad came back to the U.S. in February 2010. There is no record he had any job since returning. Yet he drove an Isuzu and paid $1,150 per month to rent an apartment in Bridgeport, CT, never missing a payment.

He clearly had plenty of cash. Shahzad slapped down $1,300 in $100 dollar bills to pay for the used SUV that was found smoking, rigged with explosives, in Times Square last Saturday
-----------
Was his father in Pakistan a retired military officer? I wonder about the money connection from him.

I am not a big conspiracy guy but the Pakistan military has been suspect in the past of having some pretty serious ties to terrorist. Of course, their homegrown Taliban trying to take over a Province stopped a great deal of that interaction; but I am curious if his father retired or was purged from the military.

Could that have been the money source?
Reply to this comment
by bruceben9 May 7, 2010 4:30 PM EDT
where is his wife and kids. is his wife complicit? i think she is.
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