“How did he manage to live in that neighborhood?” Edgar wondered as he saw the income that was declared on the taxes. “Where did he get the money to buy that home?”
Edgar found the reason for that very question in the next set of documents – bank statements. Edgar noticed that Samir did banking in two different banks. This did not immediately raise concern for Edgar as many people in the country keep their money in multiple banks.
Edgar started off with the account that was opened in 1997. It was the year Samir got married to Sania, and they had bought their home the same year. There was an initial deposit of close to four hundred thousand dollars made when the account was opened.
Samir must have made a lot of money when he worked in Saudi Arabia, or he must be coming from a family of wealth to have had that kind of cash sitting in the bank, Edgar thought to himself.
Other than the initial deposit, everything else looked normal – monthly mortgage payments, payments to a Mastercard account, and so on….
Edgar quickly sifted through the document and didn’t find any payments or debit card transactions that remotely reflected that Samir was having an affair. Edgar was slightly disappointed by it, but he reminded himself that there was one more bank account that needed to be analyzed.
Edgar was struck dumb when he analyzed the second account. The account was opened very recently in May 2001 in a regional bank named JNC. Just like the other account, there was an initial deposit, but it was much smaller - one hundred thousand dollars. But there was a difference in the way the initial deposit was made between both accounts. The initial deposit to the first bank was a cashier’s check. The initial deposit to the second bank was a wire transfer from an account-based out of a Dubai bank. Edgar highlighted the difference and made a mental note to look into the account in the Dubai bank later.
Edgar sifted through the various transactions on the JNC Bank account, and he noticed a pattern emerging. The majority of transactions in the last four months were cash withdrawals. Most of them were quite small, in the range of hundreds of dollars, but there were some outliers, where withdrawals were in thousands of dollars. But none of them ever went over ten thousand dollars. Edgar had earlier learned in his training that any withdrawal over ten thousand dollars would automatically be flagged and added for authorities’ purview. Looking at these transactions in Samir’s account, Edgar wondered if that was an angle he had to consider. Was Samir trying to hide these transactions? Why would anyone need to withdraw that kind of money in such a short period?
As Edgar pondered over those questions, he became more convinced that Samir had something to hide. What does a married man hide more than anything else? An affair. Who has a secret cellphone and a secret bank account? A person who was having an affair. He has a need to keep his phone calls and payments to his mistress a secret from his wife. As he thought about it more, Edgar started to like his gut feeling about the case a lot more. Samir was having an affair, and it played a role in his disappearance. He probably ran away with his mistress, leaving his wife and unborn baby behind — a real lowlife.
With that thought in mind, Edgar turned his attention to other miscellaneous transactions on the account. There were a few payments, less than fifty dollars each, made to the same credit card company.
Secret credit card, Edgar thought in his mind, speculating about the small payments.
In the sea of transactions, Edgar almost missed a small withdrawal of twenty-five dollars in May 2001. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that this particular withdrawal was different – it was a bank transfer, and the other withdrawals were for cash. Edgar peered further into the transaction and found out that the twenty-five dollars were drawn by JNC Bank as a setup fee for opening a safe deposit box in the bank.
The revelation about the safe deposit box definitely piqued Edgar’s interest. As far as he could remember, Arya never mentioned Samir having a safe deposit box in the bank. It could be possible that Arya forgot to say that to him, or that Sania forgot to disclose it to Arya. Nowadays, many Americans have a safe deposit box where they store documents for safety reasons. However, in Samir’s case, Edgar had the same initial gut feeling that he had before. Samir was keeping this safe deposit box as a secret from his wife. Secret cellphone, secret bank account, and now a secret safe deposit box. All roads were leading to the same place – Samir was living a secret life.
For the next thirty minutes, Edgar and Arya exchanged their discoveries with each other. Edgar went first with the information he had learned and his suspicions based on it, and then Arya followed.
As they did with every other case, they passed no judgment about each other’s analyses or suspicions. They both listened to each other with the utmost respect and followed their usual practice – writing down each other’s suspicions and their initial judgment about it on the whiteboard. They then followed up with poking each other’s theories about the revealed information for the next twenty minutes.
“Let’s go with what we have learned so far about Samir,” Edgar started. “First – his job. Samir not only lied about his past job in Saudi Arabia but also about his position in Aries Financials with his wife, Sania.”
Edgar gazed straight into Arya’s eyes and continued, “Next, he lied about his resignation, or, in other words, he withheld his resignation news from Sania.”
Arya looked straight at Edgar without saying a word.
“Next….” Edgar paused as he searched for Arya’s notes on the table. “We then have him traveling all over the country. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Newark, Boston, and on and on.…”
Edgar shifted his eyes from Arya’s notes to her. “Don’t you think it is strange that he was paying rent for an apartment in Culver City?”
Arya nodded, agreeing with Edgar’s sentiment.
“Wow! I almost missed it,” Edgar exclaimed, staring at the statement. “The purchases in Kuala Lumpur.”
“Why that one in particular?” Arya narrowed her eyes, trying to understand why Edgar was so excited about this transaction.
“How did he go there? We have his complete financials, and I don’t see any payments for an overseas trip.”
“Maybe he paid through different means.”
“How? If he had another bank account or a secret credit card, we would know. We have all the accounts that were opened with his Social Security number. Unless….” Edgar paused with a ‘eureka’ expression on his face.
Arya restlessly gestured Edgar to keep going; his dramatic pause raised her curiosity.
“Unless he had a different Social Security Number which we didn’t know of,” Edgar delivered his revelation.
“Now, I think you have an active imagination. We know that Samir had multiple bank accounts, and one of them had a huge infusion of cash in May. Maybe he paid cash for the ticket,” Arya provided an alternate theory.
“Maybe.” Edgar sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. “We can verify it easily with his passport. Do you have that?”
Arya shook her head. “I checked with Sania, and it looked like Samir took it with him during his trip to Los Angeles on September 10th.”
“Supposed trip to Los Angeles, which turned out to be a lie,” Edgar corrected Arya.
Arya raised both her hands to gesture that she stood corrected.
“I have requested the State Department for records, and we should get them by tomorrow.” Arya went on to share her request to the State Department about Samir’s immigration record.
Edgar nodded approvingly. “That is a good move. State Department’s records should have more information about Samir’s past – his work in Saudi, as he came to the country on a work visa.”
Arya, without acknowledging Edgar’s compliment, jumped onto the topic that has been troubling her mind. “Forget about how he went there. Why did he go to Kuala Lumpur? He was a service technician who resigned from his steady job and was working part-time.” Arya arched one of her eyebrows slightly, “Why did he go
there? What job did he have there?”
Edgar shrugged his shoulders. “It beats me.”
“The whole thing is bizarre. A secret credit card and a secret bank account were opened in May, almost in the same timeframe he resigned from his job. He then went on to use those new accounts to pay for some bizarre things, such as air travel, rental property, and rental cars.”
“Don’t forget about the safe deposit box,” Edgar interjected.
Arya nodded. “True. This whole thing smells fishy. Samir was definitely leading a secret life. But why?
“What was he hiding?” Edgar interjected.
Arya knew where Edgar was leaning. The Affair. Arya knew that was a very plausible theory. Still, she found certain coincidences that were not adding up with that theory.
“What about Omar Raqqa?” Arya asked. “He disappeared quite mysteriously.”
“Coincidence,” Edgar offered a simple explanation.
“What about the other Samir Tariq who committed suicide? What about the theft that happened in the Marisomo facility? It all happened during the same timeframe as Samir resigning from Aries Financials. Are you going to saying all these were just a big fat coincidence?”
Arya sat back, leaving Edgar with silence as he pondered the gauntlet of coincidences.
“I can’t explain. It could be a coincidence or some sort of an elaborate plot.” Edgar paused as a thought flashed through his mind. “If it is an elaborate plot, what could it be?”
Arya shrugged her shoulders. “I have no clue.”
A silence fell on the room for a long minute as they both searched their minds for possible motives. They both came up empty.
“I think the time has come for us to have an in-depth conversation with Sania,” Edgar broached the topic that had also been making rounds in Arya’s head.
“I think so too.” Arya nodded her head, agreeing with Edgar.
When all was said and done, they both suspected Samir was living a duplicitous life. They both believed the timing of Samir’s JNC account pointed to one thing; it’s a cover to hide his transactions from Sania’s eyes. With all that said, they both believed that Sania knew more than she had shared so far. It was time for them to make the trip to meet Sania with questions that might shatter her perception of her husband, Samir.
No wife is in total darkness to her husband’s secrets. They always knew when the wheels were about to come off. With what Edgar had learned, the wheels were definitely coming off with Samir’s story.
24
“You heard it right; it is Culver City,” Edgar said. He shifted his eyes towards Arya and flashed a smile to signal that the conversation was going per their plan.
Arya nodded briefly, acknowledging Edgar, before turning her attention back to her own conversation on the phone with her friend from the State Department.
Edgar was on the phone with his mate from college, Greg Kelly, a detective with the LAPD. Upon sifting through Samir’s financials, Edgar and Arya had decided that they needed to dig deeper into certain aspects of Samir’s life. Samir’s reasons for paying rent for an apartment in Culver City, his new bank account and bank locker, his travel internationally to Kuala Lumpur, his considerable uptick in domestic travel during the previous three months, his benefactor who wired the large payment from Dubai bank, and any links to Omar Raqqa and the Marisomo Corporation. There were so many questions that needed to be answered.
Edgar had turned to his college mate, Greg Kelly, an LAPD detective, to ask for a favor and find out about Culver City. Similarly, Arya turned to her friend in the State Department to get access to Samir Tariq’s records.
“You sure?” Arya said on the phone, sounding surprised.
“Thanks, man, I owe you one,” Edgar smiled on the phone as he steered the car to turn left into Sania’s neighborhood. “Call me the moment you find out about the apartment. Don’t worry about the time.”
Edgar paused for a moment as he listened to Greg on the other end of the phone before answering, “Simone is not in town; she has gone to meet up with her mother.”
Greg must have cracked a joke, as Edgar’s face lit up, and he broke into a big laugh. “You haven’t changed a bit, Greg. Trust me, being home alone for a week is not the same as being a bachelor. When you finally get hitched, you will get it.”
As Edgar and Greg continued with their banter, Arya wrapped up her call with her friend and was in a state of disbelief.
“Got to go, Greg. Just about to reach the wife’s house. Call me the minute you find out about Culver,” Edgar quickly wrapped his conversation with Greg as the car came to a stop in front of Sania’s house.
“Greg is going to come through. He is close with a detective in Culver City PD, and he is going to hit him up with our request.” Edgar flashed a smile, glancing at Arya. Edgar then went on to fill Arya about his conversation with Greg.
There was no reaction from Arya. She sat still, staring blankly at the road. It was almost like she didn’t hear anything that was said by Edgar.
“What’s wrong?” Edgar asked, reaching towards Arya’s shoulders.
Feeling Edgar’s hands, Arya slowly turned towards Edgar.
“What’s wrong?” Edgar repeated his question, seeing the bewildered expression on Arya’s face.
“Samir.” Arya paused for a brief moment, adding to Edgar’s curiosity. “State has no record of Samir ever going to Kuala Lumpur.”
“What? We have his credit card activity,” Edgar was trying to make sense of what he had just heard.
Arya shook her head. “Nothing on his passport.”
“Maybe his credit card information was stolen…,” Edgar thought aloud.
“I am not sure,” Arya sounded doubtful. “It was not just that State did not have him visit Kuala Lumpur. They instead had him in Mexico during that same period.”
“Hmm…. Do you think Samir’s credit card was stolen in Mexico?” Edgar speculated.
“Possibly, but we have a problem with that theory. We have no transactions in his financials for Mexico. How did he go to Mexico, and how did he buy anything there?”
“Car and cash,” Edgar provided an explanation.
“Cash. You know who drives all the way to Mexico in a car and does all their transactions in cash?” Arya’s gaze squarely fell on Edgar.
“Someone who wants to hide what they were doing from the authorities,” Edgar answered, coming to the same realization as Arya.
“Exactly. I think we just found out that Samir’s secrecy might be bigger than hiding an affair from Sania.”
“Jesus! Do you think he was into something illegal?”
“I think it is very much possible. Looking at what we have unearthed so far, I am not going to rule that out. Would you?” Arya eyed Edgar.
Edgar nodded, gesturing his agreement with Arya’s assessment.
“One more thing – Samir Tariq’s education.”
“What about it?”
“In his application to enter the country, it was marked that he has a Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Lahore University.”
“Chemical? That is odd, given he was working as a service technician in Aries Financials.”
“Yes, I thought the same,” Arya nodded.
“I will give you that it is a peculiar choice, but Samir wouldn’t be the first person to have worked in a field different from his degree.”
“I know, I know,” Arya mumbled, looking disturbed.
“What is it? Spit it out.” Edgar could see Arya was clearly troubled.
“It seems Samir had applied for a visa before he got married to Sania, and he was rejected.”
“When?”
“1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996.”
“Four times?”
Arya nodded.
“Why was he rejected that many times?”
“My friend couldn’t tell from the records.”
“Wow! Four times. Got to give it to the guy; he was persistent,” Edgar sighed.
“You know what? Samir might have married Sania for the wrong reasons.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sania is a U.S. citizen, and marrying her would get Samir into the country. Given how persistent he was in the past, I wouldn’t rule that out.”
“Do you think Sania would have fallen for that?”
“Do you think it is a stretch? Look at what we know that she has fallen for – his previous job in Saudi, his position in Aries Financials, his resignation, and his new contracting job.”
Edgar sighed deeply. “What do you suggest?”
“It is time to find out.” Arya got out of the car and began to walk towards Sania’s front door.
25
Edgar stood on the edge of the front porch as Arya rang the front doorbell for the third time. Just like the other two times, this attempt turned out to be futile.
“I guess she is not home,” Arya sighed, turning towards Edgar.
“Isn’t that her car?” Edgar gestured with his hand towards the white Toyota Highlander, parked alongside the curb in front of Sania’s house.
Arya gestured that Edgar was right. “I guess she must have gone out by a cab or with a friend.”
Edgar shrugged. “Why don’t you call her mobile?”
“Come on!” Arya threw her hand in disbelief. “Don’t you think I would have called her if she had a mobile?”
“I would if I didn’t know you for as long as I know you.” Edgar smiled teasingly.
“Smartass.” Arya punched playfully on Edgar’s shoulders.
“Detectives, are you looking for Sania?” A loud voice broke through the silence of the night and reached the ears of Edgar and Arya.
The Hunt for Truth Page 13
