IGNORE MY INTELLIGENCE AT YOUR PERIL (I AM NOT AS STUPID AS I LOOK) 267with Amin and developed a bit of a rapport with him, although Amin would
never give his full name. Amin came across as very well educated and well
traveled and said he had spent considerable time in the United States, as well
as in many Muslim countries of Asia, such as Indonesia. Amin generally
appeared nervous and revealed very few details about himself.
Amin did tell Bob that he planned to stay in Baja for a few more days
and then would return to California. For reasons he never explained, Amin
said he wanted to buy a different vehicle for the return drive north.
I ran the tags from Amin’s vehicle with a former federal law enforce-
ment friend of mine, and it came back as a reported stolen vehicle. I pre-
pared a report with all details and passed it to my US government contacts.
Although most leads like this turn out to be nothing, in light of the recent
9/11 attacks and active search for al-Qaeda support assets (some of whom
were possibly in Mexico), I recommended that our government at the very
least task their Mexican security service counterparts to pick up Amin to
find out who he was and why he was in Baja. They should do this immedi-
ately, since Amin said he planned to return soon to California in a different
vehicle, and I may not be able to get the second tag number. I also was
unable to come up with Amin’s full name or other bio data. It was impera-
tive that police locate and question Amin ASAP while he was still in Baja.
The US government did nothing in response to my urgent report. Bob
told me he had called in this same information to the FBI Counterterrorism
Squad in San Diego and to the FBI field office in Palm Springs; both FBI
offices told him it was probably nothing and to not worry about it.
Frustrated, I then faxed the same information to the US ambassador to
Mexico, with whom I’d worked in Latin America many years earlier. The
ambassador was a brilliant and highly respected foreign service officer with
the rank of career ambassador. He immediately grasped the significance of
the report and arranged for an agent to knock on Amin’s (car) door. Unfor-
tunately, by the time the agent arrived at the remote Baja village, Amin had
found another vehicle and had presumably reentered the United States.
He had vanished.
Was Amin an al-Qaeda support asset who facilitated the 9/11 attacks
and who remains active inside the United States to this day? Because two
different branches of the US government failed to act, we will likely never
know the answer to that question.