Profile: SunTrust Bank

Ziad Jarrah (left) at his flight school in the second half of 2000. [Source: National Geographic]Some 9/11 hijackers open bank accounts in Florida around the time they start flight training there (see July 6-December 19, 2000). Ziad Jarrah opens an account at the First Florida National Bank with a $2,000 deposit and, nine days later, hijacker pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi open a joint account at SunTrust Bank in Venice, Florida. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 139 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ] It is unclear whether more accounts are opened at this time, although the New York Times will also say that an account is opened with the Century Bank and that money is paid into this account from abroad (see (July-August 2000)). [New York Times, 11/4/2001] It will initially be claimed that the hijackers provide fake and randomly made up social security numbers. [New York Times, 7/10/2002] However, the 9/11 Commission will say that they did not present or give false numbers, but that in some cases bank employees completed the social security number field with a hijacker’s date of birth or visa control number. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 140 ] Reports of the number of accounts the hijackers open in the US vary over time (see Late-September 2001-August 2004), although the hijackers are known to have had several other bank accounts (see February 4, 2000, Early September 2000, May 1-July 18, 2001 and June 27-August 23, 2001).

Waleed Alshehri. [Source: FBI]The 9/11 hijackers open nine new SunTrust bank accounts in Florida. One is opened by hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah, the others by the newly arrived hijackers:
Satam Al Suqami and Waleed Alshehri open a joint account on May 1 with a $9,000 deposit; [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 136 ]
Ziad Jarrah opens an account on May 15;
Ahmed Alnami, Hamza Alghamdi, and Mohand Alshehri open accounts on June 1;
Wail Alshehri opens an account on June 18;
Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alhaznawi open accounts on July 12;
Fayez Ahmed Banihammad opens an account on July 18. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 3, 19 ] Many of the hijackers also obtain Florida driver’s licenses and ID cards at the same time (see April 12-September 7, 2001).

An apartment in Hollywood, Florida, where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi lived for a month from May 13. [Source: Patrick Durand / Corbis]Several large deposits are made on the 9/11 hijacker pilots’ accounts. The joint SunTrust account of Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi receives $8,600 on May 11, $3,400 on May 22, and $8,000 on June 1, when $3,000 is also deposited in Ziad Jarrah’s SunTrust account. The 9/11 Commission will not identify the source of these funds, but will speculate that they may be from physically imported cash or traveler’s checks the investigation did not identify, or funds that were previously withdrawn, but not spent. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 136-7 ] Alternatively, they may be related to the way in which Mohamed Atta distributes cash transferred to his US bank accounts (see Mid-July-Mid-August 2001).

Future 9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi goes into a branch of the SunTrust Bank in Del Ray, Florida, apparently with fellow hijacker Hamza Alghamdi. Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta opened an account at SunTrust in July 2000, and Alshehhi tells the teller that he wants to cash a check for $2,818 and then use the money to purchase a cashier’s check to rent a nearby apartment. However, he arouses suspicion by presenting identification documents with different addresses and the bank personnel think the signature on the check does not match the signature on the file. The bank manager refuses to cash the check, and issues a 30-day internal alert to other SunTrust branches to watch out for possible fraud. But the next day, the alert is cancelled. After 9/11, SunTrust will be unable to figure out why this happened. A later review will show that Alshehhi does not cash any check at any branch around this time. Alghamdi also has a SunTrust bank account, but he also does not cash any check around this time. [9/11 Commission, 4/13/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 53, 140 ]