Nukes, Cyanide, and Drug Money? (UPDATE)

The case of the Ethiopian fellow stopped in Detroit with the 78 grand in cash--and the laptop full of curious data about nuclear weapons and cyanide--is even weirder than it first appears. I saw this part and made a snap judgment:

Customs officials became suspicious of Dinssa when a narcotics dog signaled the scent of drugs on the money in his possession.

And I thought, okay, well, Amsterdam, the guy's taking drug money out to be laundered--perhaps as part of a hawala scheme. They do that there:

Data about informal hawala banking as a potential money laundering/terrorist financing source is still scarce. Initial research by the Dutch police and Internal Revenue Service and Economic Control Service (FIOD/ECD) indicates that the number of hawala-type banks in the Netherlands is rising. ...The Dutch Finance Ministry plans to participate in a World Bank-initiated international survey on money flows by immigrants to their native countries, with a focus on relations between the Netherlands and Suriname. The Dutch Central Bank will also initiate a study into the number of informal banking institutions in the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, a special police unit has been investigating underground bankers. These investigations have resulted in the disruption of three major underground banking schemes.

So I thought, hmm, drug courier taking the narcotics-scented swag back for a wash.

But wait a minute. Sisayehiticha Dinssa (a U.S. citizen) was coming from Amsterdam with this cash. The ordinary direction of these exchanges is that drugs come into the United States, and cash goes out.

Alternate explanations that leap to mind: he's got a shopping list on that computer. And he's got the financing to build something really, really unpleasant here in the United States. The money was in U.S. currency, btw.

Where would he get a lot of drug-tainted cash from? Well, as I said, it's not that unusual in Amsterdam, but there's no reason to bring it back to the United States for a drug transaction. So take a look here and here and you'll see what I'm thinking.

PPS--Irony: He arrived on (NWA) Flight 93.

More at Hottie, and Malkin, and also at the Jawa, though Rusty's Sandcrawler seems to have broken down.

UPDATE: Via LGF--more details emerge. Dinssa lives in Dallas, he was headed on to Phoenix, and his trip started in Nigeria.

Perhaps it was that guy who keeps e-mailing me about the fortune he wants me to help him smuggle out of the country.

Or something.