ABC is reporting that terrorist-linked organizations have been Earning Big Bucks by clipping shopping coupons, and through coupon fraud.
In 1987, [Jacobson] was hired by NCH, the nation’s leading Consumer Coupon Clearing House, to uncover coupon fraud in the New York metropolitan area. Jacobson thought he would end up reeling in a few crooked grocery store owners.
Instead, one of the culprits turned out to be Mahmud Abouhalima, the man who is now serving a 240-year prison sentence for masterminding the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
Abouhalima was the manager of a Brooklyn video store that served as a meeting point for those involved in the coupon scheme and as a processing center for millions of dollars of coupon fraud in the New York area.
The story initially strikes one as ludicrous, but evidently there’s big money to be made with coupon fraud. Unfortunately, the article notes, because it all seems so frivolous, it’s been impossible to get much law enforcement attention given to it, despite the terrorist connection.
(Via OpinionJournal)