April 26, 1995: FBI Following Money Trail of Accused Oklahoma City Bomber

The press reports that the FBI is closely investigating the “money trail” left behind by accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). Witness reports say McVeigh and his suspected confederate had “thousands of dollars” in their possession in the days before the attack, though McVeigh has only worked sporadically at low-paying jobs for the last few years. The suspicion is that McVeigh and his suspected colleague or colleagues engaged in criminal activities, particularly bank robberies (see August - September 1994 and December 1994) and other thefts (see October 3, 1994 and November 5, 1994). Authorities are examining a half-dozen unsolved bank robberies in Kansas City, Missouri, and elsewhere in the Midwest, where two or more armed men used explosives to rob banks. Investigators say they do not as yet have hard evidence of just how McVeigh raised the money needed to finance his bombing plot. One September 1994 bank robbery in Overland Park, Kansas, was carried out by two men whose descriptions generally match those of McVeigh and his unnamed, suspected partner, “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995). [New York Times, 4/26/1995] It is possible that some of the robberies were carried out by the Aryan Republican Army, a white supremacist group to which McVeigh has ties (see 1992 - 1995) and which may have helped McVeigh fund his plot (see November 1994).