Jewelry Stores Targeted in Terror Money Inquiry

The FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service have raided 75 jewelry stores and kiosks in U.S. shopping malls as part of an investigation into suspected money-laundering by the Al Qaeda terrorist network, officials said.

About a dozen men, mostly Pakistanis, remain in custody on immigration charges as a result of the sweeps, which also netted documents, computer records and other evidence being examined by anti-terrorism investigators, officials said.

Law enforcement officials said the sweeps, carried out in late June, represented the early phase of a probe centering on a chain of stores, most of them called Intrigue Jewelers, that is owned by a Florida company under suspicion of funding terrorist activities and laundering terrorist money.