Jeweler Charged in Bogus NYC Subway Plot

NEW YORK (AP) - A jeweler, apparently bent on revenge against former business associates, was arrested Monday for reporting a bogus plot to bomb the New York subways last July Fourth weekend, authorities said.

The false report launched a costly terrorist investigation that extended as far as Israel and involved more than 40 investigators, police said.

Rimon Alkatri, 34, a native of Syria living in Brooklyn, surrendered after a grand jury indicted him on a charge of falsely reporting an incident, a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, according to District Attorney Robert Morganthau.

Investigating the false threat cost well over $100,000, said Chief Phil Pulaski, commander of the NYPD Intelligence Division.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2006/jul/31/073102379.html

I don't remember that getting splashed all over the news....

This guy is a colossal stupid ass. What honestly motivates a person to do something so completely asinine such as this? In the current oppressive security climate we live in, he didn't expect to be found out??? what a boob.

I mean, if he wanted revenge, just wait till his rival went to the movies and yell fire. I mean, jeez, this is that kind of stupid.

Divorce lawyers and ex's will have a ball with this.

August 1, 2006

In a call to New York City’s terrorism hot line in May, the informant described the plot in chilling detail: Syrians working in the jewelry business had hatched a plan to carry out a suicide bombing in the subway system on one of the most symbolic days of the year, Independence Day.

They had hidden explosives in hollowed-out jewelry, the informant said, and then used their professional know-how to import the jewelry and bring it to a store that one of them owned in New York.

To clinch the story, the informant, who identified himself as Jose Rodriguez and said he was from Israel, told the police officer answering the hot line that he had overheard the plotters use the Arab expression “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great.”

The post-Sept. 11 antiterrorist law enforcement apparatus sprang into action, with city, federal and even Israeli officers following leads, conducting 24-hour surveillance and searching homes and businesses with bomb-sniffing dogs. A New York detective stationed in Jerusalem tried to track down the man called Jose Rodriguez.

In the end, the investigators concluded that the call was a hoax, they said yesterday, perpetrated by a Syrian Jewish refugee named Rimon Alkatri, 34, the owner of a jewelry store in Brooklyn. The five conspirators identified by Mr. Alkatri were not Muslims but Christians and Jews, the police and prosecutors said. He had done business with four of the men, officials said, and had named them as terrorists because he had a grudge against them stemming from a business deal that had ended in a bitter disagreement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/nyregion/01false.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin


I wonder how many more of these 'scares' were hoaxes? Nice to see someone finally get nailed for this crap.

Looks like it was someone else, though.

That the debunking of these ridiculous scams gets so much less press than the scam itself.

He certainly wasn't trying to play up any stereotypes!

at the part where they would be hiding explosives inside jewelry. Oh, really? And just how much explosive can fit in a hollowed out ring, or bracelet or chain necklace? Even relatively chunky jewelry can't hold that much, and the effort to hollow it out and then place the explosives in place would be lengthy and tedious.

What's really pathetic is that anyone with half a brain could begin to think this was a serious plot. I'm constantly astonished these days at the gullibility of people who I would have thought would know better.