Racketeering charges filed against Kansas City, MO Uzbeks

This is a story I reported back in June but the Associated Press has more details now.   It appears that Immigrant frauds are turning into a sideline business at RRW lately.  Here is the story posted yesterday at AP: 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — From a nondescript brick building a few blocks from the bright lights of Westport, Kansas City’s oldest entertainment district, Giant Labor Solutions lured hundreds of foreigners to the city with promises of good jobs and a chance to live the American dream.

But from 2001 until this spring, Giant Labor and two other metro-area companies turned the workers into slaves, fanning them out to housekeeping jobs in hotels and other businesses in 14 states while forcing them to live, sometimes eight at a time, in small apartments for which they were charged exorbitant rent, federal authorities allege. Most of the workers were in the country illegally and were threatened with deportation. 

In a 45-count indictment handed down in May, the U.S. attorney’s office accuses eight Uzbekistan nationals and four others in the largest human trafficking case ever prosecuted in the city. Authorities say it is the first time a human trafficking ring has been charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal statute most often associated with mafia cases.

Modern day slavery

When I see that many of the workers taken advantage of were cleaning hotels, it brings to mind the press conference at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel in Nashville in support of amnesty for illegal aliens. Or how about the Marriot Hotel heiress involved in that recent Washington DC strategy meeting of businesses and open borders advocates.   I wonder if either of those hotels used the services of “Giant Labor” or the two other “services” busted in the scam.

The indictment says Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, 30, owned and operated Giant Labor, a labor-leasing company, and controlled a dozen other businesses that filed fraudulent applications for foreign workers. Askarkhodjaev and others used false IDs to create the companies and open dozens of bank accounts for them, prosecutors said.

The workers, who were mainly from the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Philippines, paid thousands of dollars – often taking out loans in their home countries – for Giant Labor to bring them to the U.S. and get them temporary visas, authorities said. But once they arrived, the workers were stuck in small, sparsely furnished apartments, had no access to their mail and were charged so many fees that they were sometimes told on payday they owed the company money.

When you read the article, note they caught the big fish, Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, but a few of his co-conspirators slipped out of the country.

I sure hope none of these Uzbeks were among the privileged Uzbeks flown into the US by the State Department after the Andijan uprising.   Two of those ‘refugees’ who got the special airlift later died under mysterious circumstances in Boise, ID, here. and some others left the country.

I sound like a broken record, but I continue to be amazed at the variety and creativity of the immigrant scams we have written about.  Honestly, there must be training courses abroad on how to get into the US and rip off the dumb Americans.

We can’t help!

Although we have clearly posted in the column on the righthand side of this page that we are NOT a government resettlement agency, we are getting comments with increasing frequency from people all over the world in difficult situations and most are looking to get into the US.   I’m sorry but we can’t help.

More Somalis to Malta: 115 rescued from sinking vessel trying to reach Malta

Thank former US Ambassador Tea Party Molly!   That’s right, a former Bush Administration Ambassador to Malta began a new policy that I believe has now encouraged more Somalis to try to reach Malta in hopes of winning the ultimate lottery—a ticket to the US as a refugee.   It is so obvious that when Molly gave a tea party send-off for Somalis (illegal aliens to Malta!) a year ago tomorrow she only encouraged the flood.   Those tea party recipients went to Colorado!  Where will this group end up, in your town?

Here is the story yesterday from Reuters.

Type ‘Malta’ into our search function for more information.

Refugees International President, Ken Bacon, has died

I have written very critically about Ken Bacon on these pages and at first thought it might not even be appropriate to write about him after his untimely death from cancer, but since the Washington Post has opened the can of worms, I’ll tell you what the WaPo says.

Kenneth H. Bacon, 64, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who was top spokesman at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration and later became a prominent advocate on behalf of international refugees, died Aug. 15 of melanoma at his vacation home on Block Island, R.I. His primary residence was in Washington.

[….]

After leaving the Pentagon in 2001, Mr. Bacon became president of the D.C.-based advocacy group Refugees International and emerged as one of the strongest voices for the dispossessed around the globe. His organization, which accepts no funding from governments or the United Nations, estimates that there are 12 million international refugees.

Faithful readers of RRW will be interested to note that he too has the Columbia University connection.

He received dual master’s degrees, in business administration and journalism, from Columbia University in 1968.

The Washington Post calls it his only ‘blemish’ but in my opinion it suggests a major character flaw.  Bacon, by his illegal act of releasing Linda Tripp’s personel file at the Defense Department during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, with that one move directed the media dogs off Bill Clinton’s porch and onto ordinary citizen Tripp’s front yard.  Bacon obviously also understood Alinsky’s admonition to pick a target and destroy it.

The one blemish in Mr. Bacon’s career came in 1998, when he was briefly embroiled in the scandal surrounding President Bill Clinton and onetime White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In 1996 and 1997, Lewinsky was an assistant in Mr. Bacon’s office at the Pentagon. One of her friends was an employee in the department, Linda Tripp, who had tape-recorded telephone conversations in which Lewinsky said she was having an affair with Clinton.

In March 1998, Mr. Bacon authorized a deputy to release parts of Tripp’s personnel record to a reporter from the New Yorker magazine, revealing that Tripp had not disclosed on an employment application that she had been arrested for theft when she was 19. The charge was reduced to loitering.

The episode touched off a firestorm in conservative circles, as critics accused Mr. Bacon of breaking federal privacy laws to damage Tripp’s reputation. He quickly admitted he had handled the situation poorly, and a Pentagon inspector general concluded in 2000 that Mr. Bacon had not followed Defense Department procedures. Then-Defense Secretary Cohen sent Mr. Bacon a letter expressing “disappointment” over his “hasty and ill-conceived” actions. [Note that Bacon must never have expressed remorse, or apologized to Tripp or surely the WaPo would have mentioned that.]

Despite that incident, Cohen said in an interview with The Washington Post last week, Mr. Bacon “was always extraordinarily well prepared.”  [“well prepared?” sounds like a rather weak comment.]

“He was a special guy,” Cohen added. “But for that Linda Tripp issue, I have nothing but accolades.”

Here is what Hillary Clinton said about Bacon (who saved her husband’s bacon, clever huh!) on learning of his death.  

The United States and the world lost a great humanitarian leader with the passing today of Ken Bacon, President of Refugees International. Most Americans remember Ken as the unflappable civilian voice of the Department of Defense, where he served with distinction as spokesperson for many years. But for millions of the world’s most vulnerable people – refugees and other victims of conflict – Ken was an invaluable source of hope, inspiration and support. From Central Africa to South Asia to the Americas, Ken shone the spotlight on the causes of humanitarian suffering, and served as an impassioned yet reasoned advocate for the principles of humanitarian protection and assistance. We will miss Ken, but we will be inspired by the contributions he has made and the example he has set.

What do we know about Refugees International?   The organization Bacon headed is a lobbying shop advocating among other things for more refugees to be brought to the US.  I have suggested in past posts that they have been predisposed to promoting resettlement of Muslim refugees as they lobbied for both Iraqi Palestinians and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. 

They aren’t government funded like so many other non-profits in the same field, but I have not been able to figure out who does fund them.   Although we know it’s mostly individuals and foundations, who exactly they are, I don’t know.  We do know that George Soros was previously on the Board of Directors, so that might be a hint where some of their funding originates.  I note today that their website “partners” page is blank.

Here is their 2007 Form 990 where you can see how they spent their money and who they employ.   Their Chairman of the Board is Muslim activist Farooq Kathwari (also CEO of Ethan Allen Furniture).

Note to new readers:  For everything we have written (and its extensive) use our search function for ‘Refugees International,’ ‘Ken Bacon,’ and ‘Farooq Kathwari.’

Iraqi refugee issue to go to Power in the White House

Update August 20th:  More evidence that Ms. Power will be taking State Department powers into the White House, here.

Well it looks like Obama, in another extraordinary move to consolidate his power in the White House, is taking one more issue away from Hillary at the State Department—Iraqi refugees.  I must admit I would normally love watching all this insider intrigue if it weren’t so very serious.  And, I do have a little sympathy for Hillary Clinton as Obama gradually reduces her power and influence—this time using her arch-enemy Samantha Power.

Pamela Geller over at Atlas Shrugs has a juicy little post Saturday that begins:

Back in October of 2008, before BHO was elected, I posted a video of one of Obama’s closest advisers, Samantha Power, calling for a military invasion of Israel (here). Power’s anti-Jewish racism became so hot, she was forced to resign. Of course that was not the reason given. If you remember, it was said that Power resigned from Obama’s election campaign because of a caustic comment she made about Hillary Clinton. Power called Clinton a monster. Oh yeah, Power is a real piece of …..work.

Read the rest of her “Hillary smackdown” post in which she explains how Ms. Power will be taking over an issue normally falling under the purview of the US State Department.

I bet what is going on is that the State Department is being sensible about Iraqi refugees and is coming to the understanding that we can’t resettle millions or even thousands here when there isn’t even enough employment for them and many are already very unhappy.    The White House and its power-brokers including Alinskyites such as John Podesta must be back to their insane idea of airlifting hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Muslims here ASAP.   See this post I wrote last winter about Podesta’s Center for American Progress lobbying for just that—an AIRLIFT. 

Now, go back and read my previous post about importing the poor and angry and using them as pawns. I must admit it is getting pretty creepy watching all these radical ideas coming to fruition.