http://organizedcrime.about.com/library/weekly/aa082902a.htm Part 1: The Drug Connection Much has been written in the last year about the connection between terrorism and organized crime. Shortly after September 11, President Bush came out and directly cited narcotics trafficking as a source of revenue for terrorist organizations. The United States government reported that the Taliban allegedly helped finance Osama bin Laden's terror network by giving him 10 percent of the $8 billion Afghanistan reaped from its opium crop. In return, Al Qaeda was to use its "formidible" international network to market the crop. Nonsense, says McGill University organized crime expert professor R.T. Naylor. (no relation.) "It is likely that the informal banking system used extensively in the region, usually referred to as the hawala or hundi system, is also used by drug traffickers," Hutchinson said. "This system is an underground, traditional, informal network that has been used for centuries by businesses and families throughout Asia. This system provides a confidential, convenient, efficient service at a low cost in areas that are not served by traditional banking facilities. The hawala or hundi system leaves no "paper trail" for investigators to follow." That reminds me there was a quite long story on Ithaca dollars,esp interesting as I lived there for a year once.There's another horseman loose there,the net sex killer,I shit you not... http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/47084.htm Hey remember when meyer and lucky helped stamp out nazi sabotage on the waterfront? Well some wiseguys just got knocked back on a similar deal to watch out for Al Quim frogmen. That's too bad. The Coast Guard and Customs Service are woefully understaffed to keep an eye on every ship that comes into the 1,500-square mile Port of New York and New Jersey. By the Coast Guard's own admission, they can inspect just 1 percent of the cargo containers that enter the Harbor. "Do we have all the people we need? No," Vice Admiral James D. Hull, the Commander of the Coast Guard Atlantic area, said in a telephone interview. "But we have prioritized our missions." The Port Authority and the Waterfront Commission of New York and New Jersey have done a great job of cleaning out organzied crime from the harbor, but let's face it: where there is money, there is the mob. The same methods used to keep the Harbor clear of Nazis 60 years ago could work today. All the government has to do is ask. Sure this is a simplistic solution and in many cases goes against the self interest of the mobsters, but it worked in the 1940s, it can work today. Hell the port authority is just a WASP mob anyways,right?