moin any moan any. let me ask you, it seems like in talking to drew griffin, a big break in the case was when you had an investigator drawl underneath this suv and he was able to find the vin number on the bottom of the engine to finally link this car to the owner, to faisal shahzad. is this normal? a vin number has to be a precious piece of evidence in a case like this. caller: yes. but you have to understand what you are dealing with. not just because i m a former agent but fbi is the best investigative agents in the world. now, you have evidence of this vehicle that was intact. we have post-blast courses and we have done this back in 1993 where after the vehicle explodes now you have to find that vin number of all the shrapnel and rubble and then identify it. now, you have a vehicle. most people don t understand. some think that the vin number
naturalized u.s. citizen who was born in pakistan. he is expected in a federal courthouse a couple of hours from now. he was taken into custody last night at new york s jfk airport. in fact, we have been learning he was on a plane bound for pakistan via dubai, and a federal law enforcement source was telling cnn that it was not some sort of ruse to allow him on the plane, to sitting in his seat at the last minute. this was a close call, folks. he was that close to leaving country. a law enforcement official tells cnn shahzad has told investigators he acted alone. he s also believed to be the person who drove that nissan pathfinder full of explosives into times square saturday evening. evening. cnn continues in just a minute.
maybe that s how he got the idea to buy this vehicle he was going to bring into times square. that s what we have got for you so far. if you get any neighbors who are willing to talk to you on camera, we would love to hear from them personally. excellent job reporting out of connecticut. thank you for that. obviously, a lot of ground to cover on this story. to get the bigger, better picture in this investigation, someone else who has been working it up all night for us, cnn s drew griffin of the special investigations unit working his sources overnight joining me now from new york. i want to start with the big break in this case, that is the vin number, and a lot of people don t realize, you have the vin number on the dashboard, which, of course, shahzad had removed. there are many other locations on a car where a vin number is at. right. as many as 15 perhaps, different places. this particular vin number, you said, the one that we are all familiar with on the doosh boas was remo
quite frankly, there are a host of charges that he could ultimately be looking at. charges such as attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempted murder, possession of an explosive device, another possible charge, interstate transportation of an explosive device. so these are some of the charges that prosecutors will be looking at. it will obviously all depend upon what type of case they re able to build against shahzad. investigators have been questioning him this morning. we are hearing that they questioned him for several hours this morning at jfk. investigators from the joint terrorism task force trying to determine if this was a man who acted alone or if he had some help. again, later today at around 2:00, we re expecting that initial court appearance with shahzad here at the federal courthouse. brook? jason carroll, as soon as we see those pictures of faisal shahzad, i m sure we ll take them live on cnn. good update from you. thank you. also now for people who are j
the suspect now in custody, faisal sha zachld. he was arrested around midnight last night at new york s jfk airport and from what we understand, he was taken off of a plane that was headed to dubai perhaps en route to islamabad. two other people were taken from that same plane. we ve just learned both of them have been cleared of any involvement here and they have been released. as i mentioned, final destination, pakistan. he will be appearing in a new york federal courtroom at some point this morning being arraigned. we are still not sure yet. no indication from the u.s. attorney general as to what charges he may be facing. shahzad and here again pictures that we are just now getting of him to cnn. he is believed to be the man who