Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThisThe Case of a Lifetime
Right away, the ATF began a round-the-clock surveillance of the smugglers. Fromme did his part by spending long days at a vacant storefront across from JR's, where he'd papered over the windows and set up hidden cameras. Soon the ATF established that the smuggling ring involved more than a dozen people who had settled into quiet middle-class Charlotte neighborhoods. They weren't Hispanics, as Fromme had first assumed. They were Arabs.Unknown to the smugglers, each van led a secret motorcade of five ATF cars as they drove north. The cars would take turns following closely behind the van -- "the eyeball," they called it -- so that no one vehicle was in the smugglers' rearview mirror for too long. As an extra precaution, the agents sometimes changed clothes and switched license plates during pit stops.
While the routes varied, the smugglers' destination was always the same: Michigan. Sometimes it was a gas station in Dearborn, other times the garage of a house in Detroit, where more Arab men unloaded the cargo and handed over cash payments. Since Michigan had the nation's highest cigarette taxes, at $7.50 per carton, while North Carolina's tax was just 50 cents, the attractions of the operation were obvious. That $7 profit on every carton meant up to $13,000 for a full van load. At the height of the operation, three or four vans made the trip each day. One big puzzle piece remained missing, though. The investigators found that the smugglers didn't seem to spend much of the money. Where, then, were all the profits going?
Unbeknownst to both Fromme and the ATF, the FBI was conducting a parallel investigation. For two years, then three, the smugglers carried on their routine while the FBI tried to find out what was motivating the nefarious smugglers by tracking the full range of their operations. Once the feds started to intercept shipments to build evidence, the smugglers changed their tactics. They hired women to travel with them, and strapped bikes to the vans to look like vacationers. In spring 1999 investigators finally had enough evidence to wrap up the case. Meanwhile, the ATF asked the U.S. Attorney's office in Charlotte to prepare indictments. That was when Ken Bell entered the case. And it was why, three days later, the FBI entered his office.
He listened as the agents described the swarthy band of smugglers as supporters of one of the most treacherous terrorist groups in the world: Hezbollah. Ken Bell knew he was being handed the case of a lifetime. A quick thinker with a cool demeanor, he'd risen in the ranks fast. Fifteen years earlier, at just 25, he'd become the youngest assistant U.S. Attorney in the country. Two years later he was jailing mobsters and coke dealers as the head of a regional organized crime and drug task force. Now he was his office's top prosecutor.
Still, Bell realized this case would be tough, and probably dangerous. The more he researched Hezbollah, the more he understood what was at stake.
Founded in 1982 to fight the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, the Lebanese-based organization was behind the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 people. It's also been linked to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which destroyed a building housing U.S. servicemen, killing 19. While Hezbollah's main goal is to destroy Israel, its leaders often call for America's ruin as well. "Death to America was, is and will stay our slogan," says the group's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah.
Advertisement 
