Hijackers Had 35 U.S. Bank Accounts

Simple fakery, and not complex identity theft, was behind the Sept. 11 terrorists' successful use of U.S. banks to fund their attack, an FBI official told The New York Times.

Dennis Lormel, the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's unit conducting the financial inquiry of the Sept. 11 plot, told the New York Times that the hijackers moved $325,000 through 14 bank accounts at SunTrust Bank, making that bank the most heavily relied upon.

But dozens of bank accounts were opened, Lormel said, when the hijackers penned in Social Security numbers on applications.

Contrary to earlier reports, the Sept. 11 hijackers did not steal anyone's identity, Lormel said. Instead, they just made up Social Security numbers to set up bank accounts and drivers' licenses, he said.

Lormel said banks and government agencies were now more alert to the problem. "In terms of lessons learned, that would be one instance," he said.

Lormel also warned that religious militants planning attacks on the United States are increasingly using identity theft to acquire credit cards and fake IDs, just like common scam artists have done for years

Identity theft has for years been a favorite technique of people looking to run up credit-card bills or take out loans they never pay back, according to Federal Trade Commission statistics.

But in the wake of the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks, investigators have discovered that religious militants also use other people's identities, an FBI official said.

FBI agents have identified 14 undercover groups that have used identity theft to get their hands on passports, credit cards and telephone calling cards, Lormel said.

Lormel did not identify the organizations involved but said that militant groups in Spain and the United Kingdom use credit cards to finance their activities, while another in Brussels has stolen passports. In the United States, undercover cells have stolen credit cards and telephone calling cards.

"Many of the cells we've looked at and are currently investigating use identity theft," Lormel told the Senate subcommittee on technology, terrorism and government information.

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she was surprised the false Social Security numbers were not spotted. "They just made them up and that went through? How does that happen?" Feinstein said.

Lormel joined with other Bush administration officials to argue that Congress should toughen sentencing guidelines so identity thieves spend more time behind bars.

A bill sponsored by Feinstein and Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, would increase the maximum penalty for identity theft from three to five years.

It would also create a new category of "aggravated identity theft" for anyone who uses the technique to commit a range of crimes, from fraudulently obtaining a passport to assassinating government officials.

"People don't steal other people's identities for the sheer thrill of impersonation, it is almost always done for the commission of another crime," said Daniel P. Collins, chief privacy officer at the Justice Department.

Much like existing laws which add additional penalties for people who use firearms in committing crimes, the new category would add two to five years to prison sentences for other crimes.

The bill was drafted with help from the Justice Department, and is also backed by the FBI and the FTC.