R thousands ip. Snowdr snowden spop ssn in moscow. P we beg we begin wi that has baffled. Two passengers bought the tickets together. Thr they sthey say thp to to ber to p to be t reports indicated. Tr the uthe use ofp tth raisip raisiraising serious investigatoinvestigators say iy to draw any conclusions. R on oip op usused inp used in larr us aircraft ale. Aanrantanrand expandede. Reporter . Requesting the tickets for two friends, is how he said, a man known to this travel agency for several years. And an iranian, they say, thats how they describe him, mr. Ali is the name that the police say the travel agency has given them. They say that he called up the travel agency on the first 1st of march, saying get me the cheapest tickets back to europe for my two friends. A few days later, he didnt collect on those tickets. On thursday, that was the thursday before the saturday where when the plane took off for beijing, just two days before, the iranian called again to this travel agency and said book my two friends on the cheapest flights to europe, and they booked them from beijing or from kuala lumpur, and the one on the austrian stolen passport to frankfurt. What were learning from this travel agency and from the police is that mr. Ali regularly bought tickets in this way for people from this travel agency. And in this case, the tickets were paid for in cash. It certainly gives the appearance here of somebody who is established in buying tickets, possibly some kind of network of some kind. Again, criminal or whatever. And thats not clear, wolf. But those are the latest details we have. I assume authorities in malaysia, theyre speaking to this individual, right . Thats not clear at this moment. The travel agency believed that he had lived in thailand for a couple years. Thats how they came to know him. He was a regular customer. But they say they believed he had moved back to iran, perhaps as much as a year ago. And he had contacted them on the telephone to back these particular tickets. And its not clear if he showed up himself in person or an associate turned up with the cash to get the tickets, wolf. But the travel agency got the two tickets paid for in cash. Somebody showed up there, but its not clear if this individual, ali, was the person who did so or made the phone call, just made a phone call saying get ready to sell these two tickets. Yeah. Thats what we are getting so far. But again, because because theres a history with him buying tickets from this travel agency that, will oh obviously give investigators some useful information to go on, but perhaps gives an idea about the nature of whether or not and there has been a lot of speculation and absolutely nothing confirmed, about whether or not this could have been for terrorism or criminality or precisely or precisely what. And we dont know about the other tickets that he has bought in the past. That they had also been forged or stolen passports, thats not thats not clear. But it does indicate a history of activity like this, again, that for investigators will be very useful, assuming the travel agency can actually connect investigators with mr. Ali, if hes available, wherever he is, wolf. Wherever he may be. Nic robertson in london, thanks very much. Lets discuss what we just heard. Joining us, Law Enforcement analyst, tom fuentes. What do you make of this new piece of information were now getting from nic . Hi, wolf. It provides great leads for the investigators to follow up on, particularly in thailand. The passports were originally stolen in 2012, the second one in 2013. In phuket, thailand, a resort town. And now you have the tickets actually being fraudulently obtained by using the stolen passports in thailand also. And passports were paid or the tickets were paid for in thai currency, the thai bottom. So it will be a great lead to locate this individual dealing with that travel agency and intensive investigation of that agency themselves. Are they providing stolen passports on a regular basis to a variety of customers for many different reasons, which could be unrelated to terrorism but passport fraud, people using for Drug Trafficking or organized crime or any number of reasons that could be possibly why they were used. And the fact that this individual that nic describes, this iranian, that may or may not have anything to do with terrorism. It could be drug smuggling, it could be all sorts of other potential criminal it activities that may have been involved. Well, thats true. And also, im not sure how they verified that hes iranian or how they know his true identity or true nationality. So i would like to see the additional facts concerning that. You know, because there has been reporting on a number of occasions this weekend that turned out to not necessarily be accurate. But, you know, that would be necessary to confirm that. But obviously a great lead to cover in thailand at that travel agency, in that city. So how is it possible in this day and age where interpol has a record of all stolen passports that two passports were clearly stolen, an as tree an passport, italian passport, one stolen in 2012, one in 2013, stolen, as you point out in thailand in this resort town. How is it possible that those stolen passports with those numbers can be approved to board an International Flight when he could easily check with interpoll to get a record of stolen passports . Thats true. They could easily check with interpol, but didnt. And most countries dont before why not . Well, thats that would have to be a question for the malaysia authorities. Because they just havent had the will to do it. This is something ron noble, secretary general of interpol, has been pushing this every year. He pushed it again this year in carta haina at the annual General Assembly i attended, saying, look to the member countries, the 190member countries, very few of you are checking this database before people are allowed to board aircraft for entire National Flights and leave your country. And it just has not motivated the majority of countries to set up a system, especially for the outbound passengers. Now, on the inbound, where you come in and actually physically go through passport control, those are more often checked, and many of those passport computers or passport control computers, are set up to automatically make an inquiry not just in the individual countrys databases, but to interpol headquarters inially own, france, for whether or not the document is stolen or whether the name used on that document, there has been an arrest warrant, red notice, issued. So its more common on the incoming flights, but not as common on the outgoing. And this is something interpol, back when i was on the executive committee of interpol from 2006 to 2009, this came up every year. Its been pushed every single year. But the majority of countries still do not make that inquiry and do that check. Does the United States make that inquiry . Well, my understanding is that customs of Border Protection does do inquiries on, you know, on the flight list of people that are going to be outbound from the United States. Including all the queries of the various u. S. Watch lists and terror screening lists, as well. But many of the countries are not doing that. And, in fact, those numbers are huge. Its 1 billion with a b passengers annually board aircraft on International Flights where the documents have not been checked through the database. Tom fuentes, thanks very much. Were going to continue to monitor this mystery. A lot more coming up. Just ahead, this search intensifying for flight 370. Everybody has a theory about what happened. Which are getting the most attention. And the russias say they havent invaded ukraine but our team is on the ground and says the land grab is under way right now. Peace of mind is important when youre running a successful business. So we provide it services you can rely on. 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Dont take celebrex if you have bleeding in the stomach or intestine, or had an asthma attack, hives, other allergies to aspirin, nsaids or sulfonamides. Get help right away if you have swelling of the face or throat, or trouble breathing. Tell your doctor your medical history. And ask your doctor about celebrex. For a body in motion. In taste, freshness, and nutrition . Easy. Its eb. Egglands best. Better eggs. Its eb. For families who have people on board the flight the wait for news is heart breaking. And the biggest complaint so far, they arent getting enough information. David mckenzie joining from us beijing. Were hearing reports the frustration is boiling over into anger, family members, even throwing Water Bottles at officials. Have you been able to get a sense from the families what theyre feeling, what theyre saying, what they believe . Reporter well, wolf, at first it was shock, of course. Then frustration and anger. Yes, it is at times boiling over, because people just dont have any closure in this issue. From the very early hours when this plane disappeared, up until now, we are talking hours and nowadays, theyre complaining theyre not getting enough information from the airlines, from the government, even pointing the finger at the chinese government, which in china can be a big deal. They were tonight shipped off in buses, some of them. The airline says theyre going to take the closest family members and fly them to kuala lumpur in malaysia. The problem is, normally in these cases, wolf, they go to a location to the crash site. They dont know where that crash site is, so many of the families telling us theyre going to stay put here until they know more. Wolf . Most of the passengers on that plane were chinese or taiwanese. And clearly theyre distraught right now. This these two stolen passports that were used by two of the passengers to board the flight, what are folks in beijing saying about that . Do they believe this was some sort of security lapse . Reporter at this stage, they dont really speak about how this happened, and why this happened. They just want to know, what happened . What happened to their family members. If you can consider that the authorities are still saying this is a search and rescue effort, not a recovery effort, they are Still Holding out hope. One counselor i spoke to said thats the hardest thing, wolf, that as these hours slip by, human nature, you my belief there is some tiny hope your loved one is alive out there somewhere. Until they have that closure, they are in limbo, this terrible limo, hours of agonizing waiting. So theyre not even thinking about the why. Right now they just want to know what happened to that plane. Our heart goes out to all those folks over there in beijing and elsewhere. Thanks very much, david mckenzie, for that report. The head of malaysia Civil Aviation says the disappearance flight 370 is an unprecedented mystery. Dozens of ships combing the south for any sign of the missing boeing 777 and the absence of good leads or solid evidence, conspiracy theories already out there. And theyre filling the void. Our National Security analyst, peter bergin, joining us from washington. Peter, we have seen these theories pop up before in other aviation disasters. How do these square with reality once the facts are actually known . Well, often, they dont, wolf. Of course. You recall twa 800, which fell out of the sky in the atlanta shortly after leaving jfk airport. A another people saying they saw missiles going up hitting the plane, turned out to be unreliable eyewitnesses. Peter sallinger, jfks press secretary said a navy ship, and because of his position, some took that seriously. And after the longest investigation that the National Transportation safety board has ever done, after four years, concluded it was a spark in the central fuel tank that caused the explosion. And we have seen this also in cases like egyptair, where ntsb came to the conclusion that the plane had been brought down in the atlantic by a pilot intentionally, which is something you cant discount. Its very unusual. In pan am 103, some people posed it was a cia operation that had blown up over scotland. No evidence of that at all. But, you know, people its natural human tendency when something catastrophic happens, often people seek some kind of explanation, more than the mundane explanation that usually turns out to be the case. And what does it say to you . And it may mean nothing at all we just heard Nic Robertson report at the top of the hour, the individual who actually bought these two tickets for these two passengers were the stolen passports was an iranian individual, bought the tickets with cash in thailand for some reason. And then these passengers got on that plane. What, if anything, should that youve studied terrorism, obviously, throughout your entire career. Well, the iranian connection, if its true, is pretty interesting. Certainly iran has engaged in terrorist activities in thailand in the past. But then the question you ask, why would they do this . The victims here, this was not a western airline. It wasnt an american airline. You know, it kind of if this is terrorism, the key question would be, who benefits . And the groupses that might be inclined to attack the chinese target, for instance, chinese separatist groups, have shown little or no ability to operate outside china. Certainly nothing on the scale of bringing down an airplane. So, yeah, the terrorism cannot be ruled out. But the bottom line is, why this plane . Why these victims if this was really an act of terrorism. Yeah. Theres a lot those are excellent questions. And obviously this investigation is only just beginning right now. Peter, thanks very much. And peter wrote an excellent article on cnn. Com. He posted it a little while ago. Still ahead. If terrorists did bring down flight 370, why arent they talking about it . The silence can be a clue of a larger plot at least one expert is suggesting. First, americans are speaking out on russia and ukraine. Do they want to put u. S. Troops on the ground to force russia out . Results of our brandnew cnn poll. Thats coming up. Jake and i have been best friends for years. One of our favorite things to do is going to the dog park together. Sometimes my copd makes it hard to breathe. So my doctor prescribed symbicort. 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The crisis in ukraine keeps growing by the hour. Masked men have taken control of a military base in the crimean peninsula, while russia is accusing far right groups of conniving new authorities. And we also learned russia troops may be grabbing land belonging to the ukraine. The Prime Minister due at the white house for talks with president obama on wednesday. What did can the United States and the western allies do to stop russias advance . Were learning that americans think what americans think should be done in our brandnew cnn poll. Our chief political analyst, gloria borger, is joining us now. Gloria, lets take a look at the poll results. We asked how president obama was handling the situation in the ukraine. 48 approve. 43 dont approve. 9 arent sure. As the president works to reverse the russian incursion into ukraine and crimea specifically, how key politically would this kind of these kinds of poll numbers be, gloria . Well, look, i think the president would rather have the wind at his back, and it looks like he does. More people approve of the way hes handling this than disapprove of it. I think in that disapproval number, what you see are people who generally disapprove of this president s Foreign Policy. Who by this sort of Lindsey Graham john mccain argument, that b