Center for Security Policy

The Americas Report | Jan 29, 2009

By Nicole Ferrand

Our Staff has published articles about the presence of Hezbollah in Latin America, especially in Argentina, Venezuela and the Tri-border region (between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil which intelligence officials usually refer to as "The Muslim Triangle meeting zone." ) We wrote a piece about the Iranian presence in Nicaragua, where they are planning to build a dry canal connecting both coasts. Iran also has a huge embassy in Managua where diplomats enjoy immunity and the full support of President Daniel Ortega.

Our team also wrote an article on Iran Air’s weekly flights between Tehran, Damascus and Caracas-- where only officials, high ranking intelligence operatives and military personnel from these countries are allowed to travel without needing visas, and where any type of material can be transported. We also published a story about how the Venezuelan government has already issued passports and official documents to members of Hezbollah and Hamas because President Chavez believes in their cause and is a strong supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

With this in mind, there is a real possibility that any of these individuals having access to stolen, doctored passports, and thus to U.S. visas could enter this country with the purpose of carrying out terrorist attacks. In fact, it has already happened: four of the nineteen hijackers from 9/11 carried passports that had been "manipulated in a fraudulent manner." The Saudi documentation was genuine, and so were the U.S. visas. Investigators believe the hijackers obtained new passports after telling Saudi authorities they had "lost" their old ones, presumably to cover up trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Then, knowing that brand new passports would raise questions, the hijackers artificially aged them and forged entry and exit stamps. When asked, a veteran counterterrorism expert said that “without a microscopic forensic examination, a routine inspector wouldn’t have ascertained that the stamps weren’t valid.”[1]

It now seems that any person wanting to attack this country could use doctored or manipulated passports or could simply travel to Mexico and pay a Coyote to illegally cross the border.

For some time now, experts agree that South America has become a place of preference for terrorists that want to travel to the United States. A case in point is that in 2005, Mr. Minas Mirza of Warren, Michigan along with three others were charged with smuggling people into the U.S. through South America ever since 2001. In guilty pleas, they admitted helping dozens of Iraqis and Jordanians travel to the United States on European passports. In fact, these travel documents had been stolen and then doctored in Lima, Peru and purchased by Mirza there from a “broker.”

A 2007 NBC News investigation uncovered a black market for stolen passports in Latin America.[2] A reporter from this network disguised as a tourist was able to obtain entire new identities and official passports from Peru, Spain and Venezuela and travel throughout the hemisphere without ever raising suspicion.

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Frank Gaffney's weekly Decision Briefs News from the Shariah Risk Project and the Coalition to Stop Shariah The Occasional Papers Series Center for Security Policy's 2007-2008 National Security Scorecard The latest Americas Report