'Reward Matchbooks' a Lure for Info Leading to Capture of Wanted Terrorists

The federal authorities had the green matchbooks designed to catch terrorists.

The matchbooks carry images of Osama bin Laden, an Islamist terrorist and Al Qaeda ringleader, and Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Identical so-called reward matchbooks featuring pictures of the two terrorists were distributed in several foreign countries as lucrative lures for civilians to provide information leading to the capture the criminals. The U.S. State Department’s reward for justice program created the matchbooks at the request of the F.B.I.

Former F.B.I. agent Myke Taister, who worked as a forensic artist in the 1993 WTC bombing investigation, recently donated the matchbooks and a number of other items to the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

An exact date of when the matchbooks were produced is still being determined. It’s presumed that the Yousef matchbook was likely released between the spring of 1993 - shortly after the bombing - and February 1995, when the FBI arrested Yousef in a guest house in Islamabad. He was subsequently extradited to the United States for trial.

Yousef's arrest resulted from an informant benefiting from the rewards program.  That informant, who netted $2 million, claimed to have seen a magazine article about the reward, rather than a matchbook bounty.

The collecting interests of the memorial and museum include historical materials illuminating the 1993 terrorist bombing at the WTC complex and the connections of those perpetrators to the 2001 conspiracy to destroy the towers and other national landmarks by using airplanes as weapons. These artifacts show a link to who was responsible for the first attack at WTC and their return to target the site again eight years later on Sept. 11.

By 9/11 Memorial Museum Staff