Editor’s Note: CRE has long warned about the use of cigarette smuggling to fund transnational terrorist organizations. New York City Police Commissioner Kelly agrees.
From: New York Daily News
Some of the arrested have links to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik, and Rashid Baz, who opened fire on a van of Yeshiva students on the Brooklyn Bridge, killing Ari Halberstam. ‘We’re concerned because similar schemes have been used in the past to help fund terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah,’ says Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
By Greg B. Smith
Authorities fear a regional cigarette smuggling ring was funneling a fortune to terrorist groups in the Middle East, the city’s top cop said Thursday.
“While it hasn’t been established yet where the illicit proceeds ended up, we’re concerned because similar schemes have been used in the past to help fund terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Kelly aired his concerns as state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that 16 people — all Palestinian nationals — have been hit with enterprise corruption and other charges for allegedly flooding the market with more than a million cartons of tax-free cigarettes.
“By cheating New Yorkers out of tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue, this dangerous criminal ring was able to generate astounding profits that we are still continuing to trace,” Schneiderman said.
All the suspects are being held without bail and face anywhere from eight to 25 years in state prison if convicted.
Jefferson Siegel/In total 16 people, all Palestinian nationals, were charged in the operation.
The reputed ringleader was identified as Asel Ramadan, 42, of Ocean City, Md. Three handguns and $1.4 million in cash that was stuffed into black garbage bags was seized at his home, officials said.
Ramadan’s 40-year-old brother, Samir, was also busted. Together they allegedly stashed more than $55 million in ill-gotten gains in banks in and around Ocean City, and then used some of the dough to buy more cigarettes.
Also collared was Muaffaq Askar, 46, a Brooklyn man who Kelly identified as a “close associate” of Rashid Baz, who is serving a 141-year prison sentence for firing on a van filled with Yeshiva students on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994 and killing 16-year-old Ari Halberstam.
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Police also nabbed 52-year-old Youssef Odeh of Staten Island, a vocal supporter of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik now serving a life sentence for his role in a foiled 1993 plot to blow up New York landmarks.
Jefferson Siegel/The gang allegedly bought cigarettes from Cooper Booth Wholesale Inc., a wholesaler in Virginia, and then would drive them to New York for illegal sales, say authorities.
Odeh is also close to Ahmed Sattar, the sheik’s interpreter, who is serving time for his role in smuggling Abdel-Rahman’s “messages of hate” out of prison.
Though none of the 16 was charged with terrorism, sources said police were investigating whether some of the $10 million in profits the group netted wound up in the hands of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip and has vowed to wipe Israel off the map.
Investigators said the ring worked like this:
The Ramadan brothers bought cigarettes from Cooper Booth Wholesale Inc., a wholesaler in Virginia, and stored them at a public storage facility in Delaware.
Then, several times a week, 42-year-old Adel Abuzahrieh of Brooklyn would drive down from New York City to buy cigarettes from the brothers.
Jefferson Siegel/The alleged accomplices have been under surveillance by the state Organized Crime Task Force and NYPD for months.
Abuzahrieh, who was also arrested, hauled back about 20,000 cartons a week, which were then distributed by other members of the ring and sold untaxed at Arab markets and grocery stores in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx.
In the process, the ring managed to dodge $80 million in taxes, prosecutors said.
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Cops have been warning for years that cigarette smugglers have been sending some of their profits to Hamas and other terrorist groups overseas.
The Ramadan brothers and their alleged accomplices have been under surveillance by the state Organized Crime Task Force and NYPD for months, and search warrants were executed up and down the East Coast.
Murray, Ken, New York Daily News/One of the arrested was someone Kelly called a “close associate” of Rashid Baz, now serving 141 years for firing on a van filled with Yeshiva students and killing Ari Halberstam,16-year-old Brooklyn Yeshiva student in 1994.
Odeh, an alleged distributor, first surfaced years ago as a supporter of Abdel-Rahman and Sattar.
After the sheik was convicted in 1995, Sattar called the verdict “very sad, absurd and fearful for the future of Muslims in this country. There will be a backlash.”
Seven years later, Sattar was charged with acting as the jailed sheik’s messenger, helping him spread what prosecutors called his “message of hate” across the world.
In one of the fatwas Sattar smuggled from his cell in Minnesota, the sheik exhorted followers to “kill (Jews) whereever they are.”
Eight other Brooklyn men were charged: Ahmad Abdelaziz, 42, Mufeed Attal, 62, Saad Badr, 58, Munther Mahmoud, 52, Izzat Nimer, 46, Issa Sulieman, 44, Bassam Twam, 47, and Mohammad Seif, 39.
Also charged were Murad Bisharat, 37, of Ridgewood, Queens, Ribhi Awadeh, 39, of Guttenberg, N.J., and Mohamed Awanda, 47, of North Bergen, N.J;
