It certainly looks fishy:
The driver drew suspicion at the port’s delivery entrance around 8 a.m. after making inconsistent statements, said Judy Orihuela. The vehicle was subsequently searched and two additional men were found in the truck’s cab, Orihuela said.
The three men, all of Middle Eastern descent, were in the country legally and none appear to be on any terrorist watch lists, she said.
Fox News is reporting that the port is operating at a hightened alert level. Not much is known about the men or their motive at this point:
Police became suspicious and discovered two men hiding in the sleeper cab of the 18-wheeler. All three men are of Middle Eastern descent.
“At this time we don’t know why they were here, what they were planning to do, or quite honestly even if the driver knew that the two men were back there,” Harmeyer said.
It looks like the driver was an Iraqi and his passengers were Lebanese. It appears that the cargo might not be synching up with the manifest. That’s not good:
An FBI spokeswoman in Miami said an Iraqi truck driver trying to get into the port has been arrested after the cargo in his truck did not match what was declared on the truck’s manifest.
A second Lebanese national was found hiding in the truck, the official said.
”Right now, we’re trying to figure out what these men were trying to do,” said Judy Orihuela, the FBI spokeswoman.
She said the incident began when the Iraqi driver tried to make a delivery at the port and was told he needed a day pass.
During the questioning, inconsistencies surfaced in his story and the Lebanese national was found, she said.
Hot Air: The Herald also says the Center for Domestic Preparedness, which bills itself as “the nation’s premier Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) training center,” is on the scene.
Um, nothing to see here. Move along:
“Due to a miscommunication between the gate security personnel and the truck driver, we believe there was a discrepancy in the number of people in the vehicle attempting to enter the Port of Miami,” Goldberg said. “This, and the fact that one of the individuals did not have any form of ID, raised our level of concern.”
“Maybe it could have been a language barrier; we don’t know at this point,” she said.
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January 7th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Port of Miami On Heightened Alert…
Fox News is reporting that the Port of Miami is on a heightened state of alert, following the discovery of two middle eastern men hiding in a truck, the driver of which aroused suspicion when giving inconsistent answers to an inspector….
January 7th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Breach of Security at Port of Miami?…
Strange goings-on at the Port of Miami cargo operations as a truck tried to gain entry to the port without proper paperwork….
January 7th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Three Middle Eastern Men Detained Trying To Enter Miami Port Illegally…
Fox news is reporting that the driver reportedly is of Iraqi descent and one of the other two is a Lebanese national; the third is also believed to be Middle Eastern.
……
January 7th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Middle Eastern Men Detained Entering Port of Miami…
Three men of middle eastern descent have been arrested after trying to enter the Port of Miami….
January 9th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Three Arabic men arrested trying to infiltrate M…..
One was the driver, the other two were hiding themselves inside the truck. The Miami Herald (via Hot Air, which has an extra entry on this) has the best report on this…