MI Gem Merchant Says he Should Get $25M Reward for bin Laden’s Death

Photo Credit: APA Michigan gem merchant who claims he tipped the FBI on the location of Osama bin Laden’s secret compound in Pakistan eight years before his killing has hired a high-powered Chicago law firm to help him go after the $25 million reward offered for the terrorist’s capture.

Tom Lee, 63, of Grand Rapids, “accurately reported” to an FBI special agent in 2003 that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, according to a letter sent in August to FBI Director James Comey by an attorney for the Loevy & Loevy firm.

Lee, a U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent, said he learned of the complex’s location from a Pakistani intelligence agent who told him he had personally escorted bin Laden and his family from Peshawar to Abbottabad. The agent was a member of an anti-Al Qaeda family who had done business with Lee for decades, according to the letter.

Lee claimed he relayed the information to a U.S. customs agent who had previously worked with Lee on investigations into corruption in the international gem trade. Lee and the customs agent later met with an FBI agent who wrote a report of the interview, the letter stated.

Bin Laden was killed in May 2011 during a raid by U.S. special forces on a heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad.

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