What did the FBI officially conclude about the five Israeli detainees after the Urban Moving Systems investigation?
Executive summary
The FBI’s public, documentary record on the five Israelis detained after the Urban Moving Systems arrests yields an equivocal official posture: field reports and searches noted suspicious behavior and that Urban Moving “may have been providing cover” for intelligence activity, but the formal FBI files available to journalists and release dates include statements that the bureau did not find evidence tying the five to clandestine intelligence operations or to foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Background: the arrests that launched a longer probe
Five Israeli nationals working for Urban Moving Systems were detained by local police and handed to federal authorities on September 11, 2001, after witnesses reported they were photographing and acting in ways described as celebratory near the World Trade Center and a warehouse in Weehawken, New Jersey; their van and company became the focus of an FBI-Newark inquiry [1] [5].
2. What the FBI’s released files explicitly state
Contemporaneous Newark Division documents, as reported in released FBI files and cited in media summaries, show investigators seized company computers, processed photographs from a detainee’s camera, and described Urban Moving as having odd or potentially fraudulent characteristics; some FBI text concluded that “none of the Israelis were actively engaged in clandestine intelligence activities in the United States” in a file dated September 24, 2001 [1] [3].
3. Contradictory assessments from intelligence sources and press accounts
Despite the language in certain FBI files, multiple media outlets—including The Forward and subsequent articles citing anonymous former intelligence officials—reported that some within government concluded the five men were conducting surveillance for Israeli intelligence and that Urban Moving may have been a Mossad front; those accounts quote unnamed former high-ranking officials who said the FBI’s operational assessment pointed toward Mossad links even as final criminal charges were not filed [6] [3] [7].
4. Evidence collected that fueled suspicions
Investigators documented a range of materials that raised questions: photographs of the men appearing happy while filming the events, maps and notes found in the van and warehouse, computers seized from Urban Moving’s offices, and witness statements placing Urban Moving vehicles at relevant locations before and during the attacks—items that led agents to treat the company and its employees as potentially providing cover for intelligence activity [1] [5] [2].
5. Official outcome: detention, long questioning, and deportation without prosecution
Practically, the five men were held for an extended period—reports state about 71 days—subjected to interviews and polygraphs, and ultimately deported to Israel without criminal charges related to terrorism; public records and reporting emphasize that no federal prosecution tied them to advance knowledge of 9/11 [8] [4] [2].
6. Why the record remains contested and why different sources diverge
The divergence between on-the-record FBI documents saying no active clandestine activity was proven and off‑the‑record or later-sourced claims that the operatives were Mossad stems from several factors: redactions and destroyed or withheld records in the released files, anonymous former-official briefings to journalists, different definitions of “clandestine activities” versus “surveillance on local Arab communities,” and geopolitical sensitivities that produced both denials and private acknowledgements between the U.S. and Israeli governments reported in The Forward [3] [6] [7]. Some outlets emphasize suspicious indicators and intelligence-source leaks; others emphasize the lack of prosecutable evidence and the FBI’s public finding of no proven clandestine activity [2] [3] [4].
7. Bottom line: the FBI’s formal, publicly documented conclusion — and the caveat
The most defensible statement based on released FBI documents and mainstream reporting is that while the FBI investigated Urban Moving Systems, seized evidence, and described the company as possibly providing cover for intelligence activity, the bureau’s public file includes an official determination that none of the five detainees were proven to be “actively engaged in clandestine intelligence activities” within the United States, and they were deported without terrorism charges; however, anonymous intelligence-sourced reporting and later journalistic accounts continue to assert an operational FBI belief that at least some of the men had Mossad links, leaving the episode officially unresolved in the court of public record [1] [2] [3] [6] [4].