PARIS — There is no honor among thieves, the angry Algerian said.
Bassam Rifai was fuming that a member of his own gang in Zurich, Switzerland, had made off with expensive stolen merchandise, according to a wiretap in an investigation of alleged terrorism financing.
"The group was in the mountains in Algeria waiting for the money," Rifai said, according to a transcript. "And he ripped me off. He stole computers I wanted to send to them in the mountains.... We all know you have the right to kill if someone touches one of three things: religion, honor and money. Half was for the cause of Allah. For five months, I got up at 5 a.m. to prowl to make that sum."
A few months after that conversation last year, Swiss police arrested Rifai and three other suspects. Now, interconnected investigations are trying to prove that muggings in Switzerland, burglaries in Spain and tax fraud in Italy helped fund bombings and ambushes by an extremist Islamic group in Algeria.
The cases explore the ground-level mechanics of terrorism financing, and raise the specter that logistics cells in Europe could transform into an advance guard for attacking the West. They also show the difficulties of prosecuting an offense on the blurry line between crime and extremism.
The money allegedly flowed to an Algeria-based network that recently had renamed itself Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's terrorism network, part of an attempt to reinvent itself as a regional movement.
Algerian security forces not long ago seemed to have the group on the run, but it has regained strength, sending fighters to Iraq, training recruits in the Sahara and working to federate networks across North Africa in a wider struggle.
"They have proclaimed the internationalization of their combat, certainly continuing to target Algeria, but also Western countries," a top French intelligence official said.
The network has bombed the convoys of foreign contractors in Algiers and also may be tied to a recent botched suicide bombing in Morocco and a Moroccan operative captured in Spain. In February, police in the northeastern Spanish town of Reus arrested Mbark Jaafari, a semiprofessional boxer known as "The Tiger," who is accused of sending 32 recruits to train or fight in Algeria, Iraq and Afghanistan, police say. U.S. anti-terrorism agents suspected him of plotting against U.S. targets, a senior Spanish law enforcement official said.
"That was an alert the Americans gave us, that he wanted to do something against American interests in Europe," the Spanish official said.
In contrast, financing cells dedicate themselves mostly to criminal activity and can be anarchic, with suspects stealing from each other and fighting over money, investigators say. But police assert that they have uncovered direct links to attacks and leaders in Algeria.
A deadly 'wedding'
While under surveillance by Italy's Financial Guard in 2005, suspects in Milan got a phone call from an Algerian militant exulting about a "wedding" in a town called Biskra. Investigators allege that the word is extremist code for an attack and that an ambush in Biskra had killed a dozen Algerian soldiers two days earlier.
The Italian suspects had advance knowledge of attacks carried out by the militants they helped fund, according to the testimony of an associate.
"These people in Italy always have firsthand news about what happens in Algeria," he said, according to documents. "I remember Ammar telling me about an attack beforehand. He specifically told me, 'In 10 days there will be an attack on the police in Bad el Oued.' "
The half a dozen suspects in Italy were mostly in their 30s and 40s, often veterans of combat in Bosnia and Algeria. They are accused of raising money through a restaurant, an electronics firm and an import-export company, as well as from contributions from around Europe. The nominally legitimate businesses evaded taxes and engaged in other skulduggery, investigators say.
A suspect in Naples owned a bus company that was used by clandestine cash couriers who rode the buses to the French port of Marseilles, then traveled by sea to Algeria, investigators say.
"Twice a week they sent three or four trusted people carrying about $2,000 apiece," said Lt. Col. Domenico Grimaldi of the Financial Guard. "That adds up over time."
The group also allegedly used false identities to make illegal wire transfers. The total allegedly provided to Algerian militants exceeds $2 million, Grimaldi said.
The Italian investigation has tangential links to the Swiss case. But Swiss police first targeted the gang in Zurich with the help of Spanish investigators who rounded up a burglary ring in the Spanish city of Malaga. The connected Swiss and Spanish cells allegedly stole computers, cellphones and other goods to fund the Algerian group's "second zone" in central Algeria, according to investigative documents.
