Monitors have been brought in to oversee the removal of debris from the World Trade Center to fend off organized crime and corruption that could accompany the massive cleanup effort. 
The effort is a precautionary measure meant to "ensure against organized crime or any other insidious interests," said Edward Kuriansky, commissioner of the city's Department of Investigations. 
A grand jury is already investigating whether some scrap metal removed from the disaster site was diverted to mafia-owned businesses rather than shipped to the dump where investigators are picking through the rubble for evidence and DNA. 
And Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had harsh words for people he said had been trying to profit from the attacks by offering to sell debris to victims' families. 
New York officials discussed the corruption monitoring Thursday as the city comptroller provided an update on the economic fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks. The figures are daunting: The attacks could cost the New York economy $100 billion over the next two years. 
"And that assumes the federal government picks up the major expenses here," said David Neustadt, spokesman for Comptroller Alan Hevesi. "If not, then all bets are off." 
Officials said the most common responses following the trade center attacks have been kindness and generosity, but they want to err on the side of caution to avoid corruption as they monitor the rubble removal. 
Contractors will be assigned monitors who will track equipment and personnel as well set up uniform record-keeping and billing procedures. 
At the site Thursday night, firefighters perched high above the mountains of rubble continued to spray water into the smoldering debris. Elsewhere, laborers continued to dig by hand for bodies and evidence. 
Although the skyscrapers contained millions of square feet (meters) of office space, crews are finding no desks, telephones, computers or fax machines in the wreckage. All that exists are large steel girders, chunks of concrete and endless piles of dust. 
"That's the weird thing," said Alan Bennett, a 32-year-old iron worker. "There's a lot of dead people in there, we know that. And thousands more made it out, but we haven't seen any sign that life ever existed in those buildings." 
As of Thursday, the number of missing remained at 4,986, while the number of confirmed dead rose to 380. 
The death toll is accompanied by a devastating impact to the New York economy. Hevesi said the trade center's destruction cost $6.7 billion; $12 billion was lost in computers and other office equipment; rebuilding the complex will cost $5.3 billion; and the city's economy will lose $11 billion in spending by the thousands of trade center victims. 
Hevesi also said 115,300 jobs would be lost this year alone, though that number could be offset by gains in construction and other fields involved in cleanup and rebuilding. 
Congress has stepped in to provide some assistance, giving $20 billion to help with the recovery. Some of an additional $20 billion authorized for anti-terrorist measures will also end up in New York. 
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