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FBI sources: Informant's story about U.S. infiltrators is false
From Kelli Arena
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some FBI officials now believe an account of five men infiltrating the United States from Canada -- leading to a nationwide manhunt for the men for questioning -- was fabricated, sources inside the FBI said Monday. The alert, based on an account by Michael John Hamdani, prompted widespread news coverage and fears of possible terrorism around the holiday season. The FBI and 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies made finding the quintet a top priority. Now, said sources, the account may have been bogus. Hamdani, who is in police custody in Canada, passed an initial Canadian polygraph test when he reported the alleged illegal entries, but officials said they were not convinced he told the truth. Further investigation, they said, showed discrepancies in his story. Despite their skepticism, the agency issued an alert on December 28. As of Monday evening, the FBI still had the five men's pictures posted on its Web site and said it would like to talk to them. Their names surfaced during an investigation into a Pakistani smuggling ring that provided fake documents and officials said they believed the men were Pakistani. But a jeweler in Lahore, Pakistan, who said he was one of the men pictured in the FBI photographs, claimed he has never been in the United States and said that it was a case of mistaken identity. Extradition orderedMonday, Hamdani, who faces U.S. forgery charges, was ordered extradited to the United States, his lawyer said. Attorney Deepak Paradkar said the judge ordered Hamdani extradited after a hearing in Ontario. Hamdani did not object to the extradition, he said. After authorities arrested him on a 1996 charge of "knowingly and intentionally" possessing false identification documents in New York, he posted a $200,000 bond but later skipped town. Hamdani was arrested in October in Ontario after an investigation into the passing of forged traveler's checks. Police officials say a search of his house found some $600,000 in forged traveler's checks as well as a number of fake passports and pictures. His lawyer said Hamdani has been cooperating with Canadian and U.S. law enforcement officials since his arrest.
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