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FBI Probes Ozarks Trucking School for Terrorist Ties NewsMax.com Wires SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- The FBI is investigating a commercial trucking school in West Plains whose director called authorities because a large number of people taking license tests had names that appeared to be Middle Eastern in origin.
The superintendent of the West Plains public school district, which runs the South Central Career Center Truck Training Program as part of vocational training, said the FBI had told district officials the investigation was focused on people who took the tests for a commercial driver's license.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, security efforts have included scrutiny of schools that train pilots as well as truck drivers who might be behind the wheel of rigs carrying tons of fuel or hazardous materials.
The FBI declined to comment except to acknowledge that there was an investigation. Agents exercised a search warrant at the school two weeks ago.
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"It's an ongoing investigation and I can't comment. I can't say what we're looking at," said Jeff Lanza, spokesman for the FBI office in Kansas City.
The U.S. attorney's office for western Missouri said no charges have been filed but would not comment further. School district superintendent Karla Eslinger said the FBI took hard drives and records of people who took commercial driver's license tests.
She said these are people who walk in to take the test with records showing they completed training elsewhere, not students who trained at the school.
Eslinger said the trucking program's director, Dean Proffitt, had first contacted state police in 2003 to report his suspicions that a large number of people taking the CDL test had names that appeared to be Middle Eastern in origin.
"They're just names that you would question as to how come there were so many people of those origins, because in the area we don't have that many Middle Eastern people," Eslinger said. Records obtained from the school by The Associated Press under Missouri's open records law showed a high percentage of surnames such as Ali, Fatah, Mohamed and Yusuf.
Of about 520 people who did not train at the school but took the test there from May 2004 through December 2005, over 300, or about 60 percent, had names that could be Middle Eastern in origin.
The records are a monthly income statement for the school and do not include any addresses or other information, just the names of test takers.
Missouri can issue commercial driver's licenses to noncitizens residing in the state if they provide proof of identity, training and legal residence in the United States, according to the Department of Revenue Web site.
West Plains, about 100 miles southeast of Springfield near the Arkansas border, is a town of about 11,000 people in Howell County, where the population is over 95 percent white, according to the U.S. Census. The largest immigrant population is Hispanic.
"We don't have any community of Middle Eastern immigrants," Howell County Commissioner Larry Spence said, adding he was not aware of any similar immigrant groups in neighboring counties.
Eslinger said the truck driving program's director, Dean Proffitt, said he had first contacted the Highway Patrol in 2003 after noticing what he called a suspiciously high number of names that appeared to be Middle Eastern among those who walked in for the driver's test.
The issue went quiet again until the FBI arrived with a search warrant two weeks ago, she said.
Since then, the district school board has put Proffitt and one of the examiners on a leave of absence with pay on the advice of the districts lawyers.
The Highway Patrol has also removed the South Central Career Center Truck Training Program's ability to test for commercial driver's licenses, Eslinger said.
© 2006 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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