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Counterterrorist agents pounced on five men, one in Utah and four in California, on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the U.S. connections of a suspected senior al-Qaida operative imprisoned in Iraq.
But for now, the federal indictments against the men - all of whom have ties to Utah and all of whom are related to accused terrorist Shawqi Omar - involve only fraud and money laundering.
But FBI agents say that some of the money alleged to have been stolen in various schemes wound up in Jordan. And now they want to know whether that cash has ended up in the hands of terrorists.
"We would be derelict not to investigate where that money is going," said agent Greg Bretzing, a supervisor in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Utah.
The Omar family has extensive ties in Jordan, where Shawqi Omar moved his family in 1995 and where he now stands accused of helping terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi plot a chemical attack.
Al-Zarqawi claims to be al-Qaida's Iraqi leader and has been implicated in scores of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. The U.S. government has put a $25 million bounty on his head.
Federal investigators believe Shawqi Omar acted as al-Zarqawi's "personal emissary" in several Iraqi cities. But back in Utah, Omar's brother Gus says there is no connection.
"If you're a Sunni and from Jordan and in Iraq, then you're bound to meet somebody who has met Zarqawi, but Shawqi doesn't know him," said Gus Omar, who has not been implicated in the case against his brothers.
In court filings, U.S. military officials have offered evidence to the contrary, saying Omar had taken al-Zarqawi's sister-in-law as a second wife.
Omar, who worked as a refrigerator repairman when he lived in Utah in the late-1980s, was arrested in Iraq on Oct. 29, 2004. U.S. military officials have alleged the 44-year-old man, acting on al-Zarqawi's behalf, was harboring one Iraqi insurgent and four Jordanian fighters at his Baghdad home. He had also plotted the kidnapping of American workers in Iraq, U.S. officers alleged.
Omar could be the first American citizen to be tried in the Iraqi court system, if military officials prevail in an ongoing legal battle. It is a prospect his family in the United States is fighting to prevent. A document filed by Omar's lawyers this week, in which they have again requested access to their client, alleged that U.S. troops beat Omar and tortured him with electric shocks.
Bassam Omar, who family members say was the joint owner of the construction company Shawqi Omar was managing in Baghdad at the time of his arrest, has denied his brother is a member of al-Qaida.
"He is not a terrorist," he told NBC News in February, "and it's not fair to him or us."
Now Bassam Omar is behind bars.
The San Diego engineer, who owns several Utah businesses, was taken into federal custody on Wednesday, hours after another Omar brother, Sharif, was arrested at his home in the Salt Lake City suburb of Cottonwood Heights.
Two nephews and a brother-in-law were also detained in California.
The Utah arrest came as a shock to neighbors in the upscale gated subdivision where Sharif Omar has lived with his wife and three children for more than a year.
"Of anybody here, he's the last guy I would have expected to get arrested," said neighbor Bob Skanchy.
Friends said that Sharif Omar's family seemed to have rapidly climbed the economic ladder over the past few years, though state records indicate most of the dozens of businesses he and his relatives have owned along the Wasatch Front have closed.
Skanchy said homes in the community can cost upwards of $500,000. Two luxury sport utility vehicles were parked in front of the Omar home Wednesday afternoon.
Inside the newly built house, Hannah Omar said she had yet to be told why her husband had been arrested.
"I don't know what's going on," she said. "I haven't even talked to our lawyer."
She'll have an opportunity to learn more today at her husband's arraignment on charges of bank fraud and money laundering.
The four indictments allege that the Omar family members, aided by three other Utahns, defrauded banks of hundreds of thousands of dollars with bad mortgage and car loans from 2000 to 2004.
In at least one instance, Omar nephew Ihab Ramadan allegedly wired $50,000 to an account in Amman, Jordan, according to the indictments. Ramadan was arrested at his Chula Vista, Calif., home early Wednesday.
Another Omar nephew, Alaa Ramadan, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after FBI agents received word he was returning from Jordan, where friends say he has lived for several years. The fifth family member, identified as Omar's brother-in-law Ahmad Abudan, was arrested in the San Diego area on the same day.
A federal grand jury in Utah indicted the men several months ago but those charges were kept under seal until the agents were sure of Alaa Ramadan's return. Omar family members said Alaa made his living in real estate and spends most of his time in the Middle East.
The other Utahns named in the indictments for their role in an alleged mortgage scam - Rebecca Teece, James Gibbons and Teri Hansen - have been summoned to appear in court but have not been arrested, though Gibbons is currently in custody on unrelated charges.
The Omar family has worked tirelessly to ensure that Shawqi Omar, currently being held at a U.S. prison facility in Iraq known as Camp Bucca, will be provided legal council and not be turned over to the Iraqi court system.
According to documents filed Friday in a Washington, D.C., federal court, Omar's attorney Susan Burke claims he is being tortured. She said she received an unexpected phone call from Omar on April 13, in which her client told her that "Americans, claiming to be Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, beat him severely and applied electric shocks to his body."
"The agents claimed they could kill him if they wanted to," Burke wrote. "The American agents threatened to rape his son if Mr. Omar failed to provide information. A translator believed by Mr. Omar to be Moroccan threatened to rape Mr. Omar's wife, who was also in United States' military custody at the time."
Burke - who earlier won a temporary injunction barring Omar's transfer to an Iraqi court - has requested access to Omar's medical files, any photographs taken after the alleged beatings and tape recordings of their conversation.
She also demanded immediate and continued contact with her client, who U.S. officials have alleged would often use his U.S. passport to gain access to guarded Baghdad hotels in order to entice foreigners to his home, where they would be kidnapped for ransom.
Regardless of the allegations in Iraq, Gus Omar believes the FBI is manufacturing a connection between Shawqi Omar's alleged terrorist actions and the family's U.S. business holdings.
"There is no connection," said Gus Omar, who works at a car dealership in Murray owned by the recently arrested Omar brothers.
Bretzing, the FBI counterterrorism supervisor, said Utah's FBI office previously received a tip about the family's alleged financial misdeeds, but didn't start its investigation until January 2005.
That came at a time when counterterrorism agents throughout the country were investigating Shawqi Omar's American ties.
The FBI's top officer in Salt Lake City said the counterterrorism task force isn't done yet.
"From our perspective, this investigation is not over," said Timothy Fuhrman. "This is another tool in our tool box to advance the investigation. . . . Sometimes you get an indictment and then people cooperate."
It would not be the first time federal investigators have leveraged mortgage fraud charges against a suspect in order to gain compliance in a terrorism investigation.
In December, a federal jury acquitted University of South Florida doctoral student Sameeh Hammoudeh of charges that he helped fund and supported a Palestinian terrorist group.
But Hammoudeh remains in custody and he has been ordered to be deported from the United States because officials were able to obtain a conviction on other charges - including mortgage fraud.