A search of Mr. Soofi by airport security screeners in Birmingham, Ala., as he waited to board a flight to Chicago on Sunday found that he was carrying $7,000 in cash and that his luggage contained a cellphone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, three cellphones taped together and several watches taped together, officials said.
“The items were not deemed to be dangerous in and of themselves,” said Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, and Mr. Soofi was permitted to fly on to Chicago.
Investigators later considered the possibility that the objects might have been part of a test run for a terrorist plot.
But Omar Sufi of Detroit, who said he was a cousin of Mr. Soofi, said his relative’s actions did not sound unusual.
He said that his cousin had most likely been trying to take medication and phones back to his family, and that it was common to bind together items meant for the same recipient. “This is our culture,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/world/europe/01plane.html?partner=rss&emc=rss