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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Federal Bureau of Investigation - National Security Branch
Team 10
Dr. Giacobe

SRA 231 Decision Theory & Analysis

Spring - 4/26/2015

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Table of Contents

BLUF: 3

Scene Setter 3

Mission Statement 4

Overall Agency Mission 4

Team or Task Force Mission 4

Organizational Information 5

Team Make-up and Roles 5

Contributions to this project 5

Problem Statement 5

Purpose statement of overall investigative focus 5

Scope 6

Constraints 6

Elements of the Investigation 7

Operational Space 7

Objects/Subjects of Your Investigation and Roles Played 7

Analytic/Investigative Methods 8

General description of analytic approach: 8

Description of tools, methods and means: 8

Findings 8

General Finding Statement 8

Key Evidence 9

Key Assumptions 9

Inferences: 9

Specific Findings 9

Key Evidence 9

Open Issues 10

Analysis 10

Description of Analytic Methods: 10

Discuss Your ACH Process and Revisions: 10

Describe Supporting Analytic Tools & Graphics: 12

Appendices 13

ACH 1 13

ACH 2 14

ACH 3 15

ACH 4 16

Timeline 17

Timeline Section 1 18

Timeline Section 2 18

Timeline Section 3 19

Timeline Section 4 19

Location of Terrorist Attack (Map of DC) 20

Walking Distance from Train Crash to Jewel Heist 20

Border Crossing by Aum Shinrikyo 22

Catawba Island, Ohio 22

Pelee Island Ferry 22

Home of Angel Cordero 24

Jackson Heights Terrace, Washington DC 24

BLUF:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation National Security Branch believes that Aum Shinrikyo carried out the metro train attack. We also believe that Aum Shinrikyo is responsible for the Sumter-Dodge jewelry heist as well. During our investigation we gathered numerous pieces of evidence to support involvement by Aum Shinrikyo. In 1995 Aum Shinrikyo carried out an attack on the Tokyo metro system where they released sarin gas on to five trains. This resulted in 12 deaths, 54 injuries, and 980 infected people. The attack that occurred on the DC Metro was similar in nature. We believe that Aum Shinrikyo poisoned the train conductor, Quentin Jones, with codeine resulting in his death. Then they disengaged the braking system of the trains causing the crash. Two backpacks containing hydrogen cyanide canisters in the train tunnels. Aum Shinrikyo intended for those canisters to break, during the crash, releasing the gas into the train killing the Japanese Prime Minister. While the train attacks were taking place, hired members used the ventilation shaft to break into Sumter-Dodge Jeweler and steal diamonds. Aum Shinrikyo uses the diamonds to fund their terrorist activities. Aum Shinrikyo killed off their hired pawns to tie up any loose ends after the attack and robbery were completed.

Scene Setter

On 1 April 2011 the DC Metro Rail the Blue Line train slammed into the Orange Line train as it was pulling out of Farragut West Metro Station. The trains were transporting mostly tourists who were in the DC area for the 2011 Cherry Blossom Festival. The collision caused multiple injuries and several passengers were killed. Initial reports stated that human or mechanical error were to blame. The FBI launched an investigation to determine whether or not this was a human / mechanical error, or a terrorist attack. To the left our findings for this ACH supporting our belief that this was a terrorist attack and not human error. The full version of this ACH can be located on Page 12.

At the conclusion of our investigation, we believe the train collision was not due to human error, but was a terrorist attack carried out by Japanese terror group Aum Shinrikyo. To the right is a snippet of our ACH supporting our belief that this was a terrorist attack. The full version of this ACH can be located on Page 13.

Our reasoning behind this is rather simple. Aum Shinrikyo has recently threatened the Japanese Prime Minister. Not only did Aum Shinrikyo threaten the Prime Minister, they elaborated on the situation and told Prime Minister Owada the attack would take place while he and his wife visited Washington DC to meet President Obama.

A jewel heist also occurred at 1500 I-St NW, Washington, DC. This jewelry store is not far from the train collision; less than 0.4 miles. Depicted on the right is a map showing these locations. A larger scale of this map can be found in the appendices on Page 19.
The initial reports convinced most individuals that the train crash at Farragut West Metro Station and the jewel heist were isolated incidents. However, once the FBI completed our comprehensive investigation, we have concluded that Aum Shinrikyo carried out both of these criminal attacks.

Mission Statement

Overall Agency Mission

The mission of the FBI is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats. The FBI is concerned with upholding and enforcing the criminal laws of the United States, and providing leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners.

Team or Task Force Mission

The FBI’s national security mission is to lead and coordinate intelligence efforts that drive actions to protect the United States.

Our goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the threats and penetrate national and transnational networks that have a desire and capability to harm us. Such networks include: terrorist organizations, foreign intelligence services, those that seek to proliferate weapons of mass destruction, and criminal enterprises.
In order to be successful, we must understand the threat, continue to integrate our intelligence and law enforcement capabilities in every FBI operational program, and continue to expand our contribution to the Intelligence Community knowledge base.
Due to the tangling of national security and criminal threats, our ability to integrate intelligence and investigations makes us uniquely situated to address our nation’s threats and vulnerabilities.

Organizational Information

Team Make-up and Roles

Team 10 in SRA 231 had the following breakdown:

Team Leader: Brian Roam

Assistant Leader: Ari Rosenblum

Analysis Binder: The Entire Team

Story Board: Tim Bevan

Evidence & Database: Colin McNulty/ Chris Masden/ Tyler Chubb

Writer & Report Editor: Bryce Malinchak / Eric Emery / Brian Roam

Visualizations: Eric Emery/Chris Masden

Presenters: Chris Masden/Tyler Chubb/Tim Bevan

Contributions to this project

While distributing the work throughout our group, we made an effort to play off each other’s strengths to achieve maximum efficiency. Chris Masden, Tyler Chubb, and Colin McNulty primarily compiled the ACH’s. Tim Bevan and Eric Emery were our resident experts on everything dealing with evidence from the case files. Brian Roam, Eric Emery, and Tim Bevan compiled the profiles and worked on the analysis binder. Every member contributed to the weekly reports. Tim Bevan compiled the weekly association charts. Tim, Chris, and Tyler will handle the presentation of our findings. Brian handled supervision with great enthusiasm and vigor. Ari and Bryce primarily wrote the final written report along with contributions from all other group members. Ari also assisted with the supervision of the group to help ensure the team was staying on track with planned milestones. Chris created the title page and the format for the final paper.

Problem Statement

Purpose statement of overall investigative focus

The focus of our investigation is to determine whether or not the train crash on 1 April 2011 was the result of a terrorist attack. Our investigation took into account various terrorist groups involvement who could have been behind this attack; or if this was a case of human or machine error. Once we concluded, with a degree of certainty, that Aum Shinrikyo was involved, we continued with the mindset of a purported attack. Aum Shinrikyo had motive to attack the Japanese Prime Minister, so our primary focus was to determine the methods of attack. Our secondary focus was to find all suspects involved in planning and carrying out the attack.

Scope

The scope of our investigation was very broad, we took into account all evidence and potential suspects. Those suspects included, but were not limited to, the conductors of both Metro Trains, the Metro maintenance crew, Aum Shinrikyo, and other terrorist organizations. However, as more evidence presented itself, our focus began to narrow to the point where we could no longer dismiss the fact that this was a terrorist attack. Along with the train crash on April 1^st, we also began to conduct an investigation on the jewelry store located at 1500 I-St NW, Washington, DC, approximately 0.4 miles from the train crash. When the FBI completed our comprehensive investigation of both situations, linkage to the Sumter-Dodge jewelry heist and to the train crash are obvious and we have concluded that Aum Shinrikyo carried out both of these criminal attacks. Canadian authorities alleged that Aum Shinrikyo members were crossing the Canadian border into and back out of the US. We could not verify this activity with the limited evidence available to our organization. We know that Japanese intelligence agencies have reported increased activity of Aum Shinrikyo in recent months. Information from Japanese intelligence agencies was crucial to our investigation. Aum Shinrikyo’s previous attack influenced our mindset when determining who was responsible for the events on the morning of 1 April 2011.

Constraints

Due to the NTSB not releasing their findings and information to us, we were not able to learn all the exact specifics of the crash or to collaborate and hypothesize with that agency.

Unfortunately, due to the deaths of many key suspects, so unexpectedly, we were unable to question those individuals for valuable information pertaining to our investigation.

In addition to the NTSB not releasing their findings and the sudden death of suspects, we also encountered difficulty with video surveillance from the train tunnels. It seems as if the suspects covered their tracks by sabotaging the lenses with paint the day of the attack. Again, this altered our view in the tunnel and we rendered the footage useless; limited our ability to identify any suspects.

We were unable to find a ‘fire’ that came from the ‘smoking’ evidence that reported terrorist movement over the Canadian border. We were limited in our ability to track suspects involved in the investigation and bring anyone in for questioning, at this point.

Elements of the Investigation

Operational Space

The operational space of our investigation included the Washington DC area and various locations in Canada. More specifically in DC, we investigated within the Metro DC tunnels and the train station where the attack occurred.

The Sumter-Ford jewelry heist above the Farragut Station was also included within the parameters of our investigation.

We included the Canadian border crossing at Pelee Island of a suspected Aum Shinrikyo agent was included. One of our key suspects was found deceased at this location.

Objects/Subjects of Your Investigation and Roles Played

An early suspect in our investigation was the conductor of the train, Quentin Jones. His death led us to initially believe this was a suicide attack. Upon further investigation, we discovered that the conductor died before the crash by ingesting and overdosing on codeine.

The primary subjects of our investigation were all suspects with ties to Aum Shinrikyo. Makoto Hirata was a person of high interest throughout the investigation as he crossed the Canadian border prior to the attack. Sean O’Leary was also a person of interest with his ties to the IRA, and his suspicious activity. O’Leary was in the US illegally and intended to provide information to authorities about his associate, Harrington. O’Leary provided information on the Sumter-Dodge Jewelry Store robbery. Notified authorities that Harrington and a Japanese syndicate was involved in the robbery. His body found 21 April 2011 with a map of the DC Metro Transit lines, several newspaper articles from 2 April 2011 and a 1 karat diamond in a pouch from Sumter-Dodge.

Authorities detained Douglas Frederick. After 6.5 hours into the interrogation Mr. Frederick showed signs of distress. Frederick later died from cyanide poisoning. Two high priced Japanese lawyers showed up to defend Frederick before his death. The origin of these lawyers is suspicious as they did not recognize their client and they specialized in money laundering cases.

Mohar Abul-Nassar is an MTA employee and Egyptian citizen living in Washington DC. Egyptian National Police contacted US authorities wanting to know his whereabouts. Abul-Nassar died on 22 April, 2011, from cyanide poisoning.

Angel Cordero is a known criminal associated with Dontel Smith, Douglas Frederick, and Sean O’Leary.

Analytic/Investigative Methods

General description of analytic approach:

Each team member analyzed the intelligence at hand. Some team members read the intelligence reports more than once. We participated in many engaging discussions about the intelligence reports. We developed an evolving theory on what happened at 10:55 on the morning of 1 April 2011. Our organizational focus is terrorism, but this did not cause us to rule out human error at the beginning of the investigation. After our determination that the train accident was an act of terror, we were able to quickly pin the crime on Aum Shinrikyo.

Description of tools, methods and means:

Using the alternative competing hypotheses (ACH) methodology we initially deduced that the event was most likely a terrorist attack. Using that analysis we further concluded, using the ACH method, that Aum Shinrikyo is the most likely perpetrator.

ACH I: Determined whether or not this was a terrorist attack or human / mechanical error.
ACH II: Determined whether or not this was a terrorist attack or not.
ACH III: Determined if Aum Shinrikyo or another terrorist organization was behind this attack.
ACH IV: Determined that Aum Shinrikyo was responsible for the jewel heist at Sumter-Dodge.
Our team developed an association chart through Analyst’s Notebook (ANB). This chart grew throughout the investigation as our knowledge of the day’s events increased.

Findings

General Finding Statement

We believe Aum Shinrikyo was behind both of these crimes. We believe this was a terrorist attack due to the large amounts of codeine found in the train conductors system, coupled with, the technological malfunction of the train’s braking system.

Aum Shinrikyo poisoned the conductor by putting a large quantity of codeine in the coffee that he then ingested. The overdose of codeine killed the conductor and left him unable to stop the train crash from occurring.

The emergency braking system was not functioning properly the day of the crash. This system should have been working and would have stopped the train crash from happening as well.

Key Evidence

• 
  Hydrogen cyanide found in tunnels
  
• 
  Multiple deaths due to cyanide
  
• 
  Jewelry heist occurred during the train crash
  
• 
  Japanese Prime Minister present on train during crash
  

Key Assumptions

• 
  Jewelry store heist is related to train crash
  
• 
  Japanese Prime Minister was the target of the attack
  
• 
  Backpacks filled with hydrogen cyanide was part of the attack
  
• 
  Mohar Abul Nassar died from exposure to the cyanide gas while it was being made in his apartment
  

Inferences:

The FBI is certain that Aum Shinrikyo is responsible for the metro train collision. The group is using diamonds from the Sumter-Dodge jewel heist to fund their terroristic activities. The organization killed off all of their hired conspirators in an attempt to conceal their activities.

Specific Findings

Key Evidence

• 
  Two poorly constructed hydrogen cyanide containers were found in two book bags in the tunnel where the train collision occurred.
  
• 
  Cyanide containers were meant to be activated during the train mishap but did not deploy correctly.
  
• 
  Sean O’ Leary, Douglas Fredrick, Angel Cordero, and Dontel Smith all played cards together.
  
• 
  All members of the card playing group have either died or become incapacitated.
  
• 
  Of the card playing group one was shot and killed and the rest have been killed from hydrogen cyanide poisoning.
  
• 
  Mohar Abul Nassar also died from cyanide poisoning.
  
• 
  Sean O’ Leary’s body was found with a map of the DC metro tunnel system, some newspaper clippings from April 2, and a 1 carat diamond inside a pouch with the initials S.D. for Sumter-Dodge written on it.
  

Open Issues

• 
  National Transportation Safety Board - NTSB should investigate how Aum Shinrikyo was able to disengage the braking system.
  
• 
  Metro Police Department of District of Columbia - MPDC should conduct the initial investigation of the Sumter-Dodge jewelry heist.
  
• 
  District of Columbia Metro Transit Authority - DCMTA needs to review why 2 people were spotted in the train tunnels without permission.
  

Analysis

Description of Analytic Methods:

As we began this investigation we focused on whether or not there was terrorist involvement in the train crash at Farragut Station. We focused on the train crash and Aum Shinrikyo’s involvement in the crash. Our initial ACH’s led us to believe that there was terroristic intent behind the train crash. Their recent activity, as well as, the Canadian border crossings of suspected Aum Shinrikyo agents all pointed to the fact that the organization was planning an attack. We originally didn’t believe the jewelry heist and the train crash were correlated.

As our investigation continued we found key evidence that further supported Aum Shinrikyo’s involvement, as well as led us to reevaluate the jewelry heist. We were able to update our association chart of key characters, and suspects involved in both the train crash and the heist were interconnected. Moving forward with the mindset that both events were in fact connected, we combed back through our evidence. After completing and ACH with past evidence we found that it supported our new hypothesis.

Discuss Your ACH Process and Revisions:

Our first ACH determined whether or not the train accident was a terrorist attack or the result of human and mechanical error. This ACH determined that we were dealing with a terrorist attack. This depiction can be located on the right, as well as on Page 12.

We created our second ACH to determine whether this attack was or was not a terrorist attack. From this ACH we concluded that it was a terrorist attack. The graphic below as well as Page 13 shows this ACH.

We developed our third ACH to determine whether or not the terrorist attack, the train crash, was carried out by Aum Shinrikyo, or another terrorist organization. We concluded from this ACH that Aum Shinrikyo carried out the attack, this ACH snippet is located below as well as on Page 14.

We developed our final ACH to determine whether or not the jewelry heist was connected to the train crash. We concluded from this ACH that Aum Shinrikyo carried out the robbery, you can see below this paragraph as well as on Page 15.

Describe Supporting Analytic Tools & Graphics:

We created an association chart linking the key evidence of this case together prepared in Analyst’s Notebook. The two main points being the train crash and the jewelry heist have webs consisting of their supporting evidence.

Appendices

ACH 1

The FBI launched an investigation to determine whether or not this was a human / mechanical error, or a terrorist attack.

ACH 2

We created an ACH to further back the point that this was a terrorist attack. Below are our findings as it pertains to if this was or wasn’t a terrorist attack.

ACH 3

Our third ACH focused on if this was a terrorist attack carried out by Aum Shinrikyo or an attack carried out by another terrorist organization.

ACH 4

The fourth and final ACH focused on whether or not the train crash and jewelry heist were interconnected at all. Once we completed this ACH we found out that they were.

Timeline

Throughout our investigation we continued to implement individuals to out linking table; this table depicts who knows whom. Because of its large size, we broke the overall chart down into 4 separate sections. On the pages below these sections are labeled “Timeline Section 1 through 4”.

Timeline Section 1

Timeline Section 2

Timeline Section 3

Timeline Section 4

Location of Terrorist Attack (Map of DC)

Walking Distance from Train Crash to Jewel Heist

Border Crossing by Aum Shinrikyo

Catawba Island, Ohio

• 
  US-Canada Suspected Border Crossing of Makato Hirata:
  
  • 
    Crossed into US near Catawba Island, Ohio
    

United States

Canada

Pelee Island Ferry

• 
  US-Canada Suspected Border Crossing of Makato Hirata:
  
  • 
    Crossed back into Canada near Pelee Island Ferry to Kingsville, Ohio
    

Canada

United States



Canada

United States

Home of Angel Cordero

Jackson Heights Terrace, Washington DC

(U) Warning: This document is SECRET/ / REL TO US, JPN and intended for Official Use Only. It contains information that may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552). All information, analysis, data, and methodology included herein are considered official products of work, owned by the Federal Government and held for the benefit of the public. No information contained herein may be duplicated, reproduced, or disseminated without the express authorization of the National Security Branch (NSB). Information in this report is originator-controlled information as it may, in whole or in part, be related to an ongoing operations. Information contained in this report should not be released to foreign organizations or persons unless specified in classification.

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