Tag: cigarette smuggling

Comment worth noting: Are these the immigrant “entrepreneurs” we’ve been told America needs?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a comment we don’t want you to miss from ‘pungentpeppers’ in response to the previous post on the South Carolina cigarette trafficking story.

Jordanian immigrant entrepreneur Kamel Qazah will now cost taxpayers a bundle while behind bars for the next 18 years!

“Immigrants open businesses and revitalize communities,” politicians say. Nasser Alquza boasted that he owned 30 businesses! He and his nephew Kamel Qazah (same family name, just spelled differently) ran a pizza parlor, a Subway franchise, a car lot, two gas stations, etc. Ideal, upstanding immigrants – or thieving, economic terrorists?

The nephew Qazah bragged to undercover agents that he could “sell anything.” That ranged from stolen electronics to Christmas decorations pilfered from a hijacked Wal-Mart truck. Uncle Alquza told investigators that he, too, sold a diversified portfolio of stolen merchandise – from baby formula to Advil to condoms. He also confided that he could launder hundreds of thousands of dollars overseas each month through various accounts. The secret to his success: Keep changing your operation, he told agents, and you’ll never get caught. And they weren’t alone – they ran their scheme in cooperation with a large network of family, friends and associates in the immigrant community.

Is that what America needs?! Immigrant “entrepreneurs” who steal merchandise, sell it, skip paying taxes, and ship the money overseas?!

Our legitimate business owners are burdened by taxes – but at least they have the satisfaction of knowing that the money they send to their to local governments pays for police protection, schools, road repair, local parks, trash collection, and to help fellow citizens who have hit on hard times. But our decent business owners just cannot compete against people who couldn’t give a hoot about the local community, and instead just milk whatever money they can get out of the American cash cow – ignoring all rules and obligations – and then launder their ill-gotten stolen money abroad to the Middle East.

Stop this harmful, “immigrant business” foreign aid program! Our towns and cities cannot afford it anymore!

Readers:  I had forgotten we had this category “Comments worth noting.”   I’ll keep an eye out for other good comments like this one and try to publish them more prominently going forward.

Former South Carolina Mosque President convicted in huge cigarette trafficking ring

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What does this have to do with refugees?  Hopefully not much, but a note of warning to the Bhutanese refugees rumored to be trafficking cigarettes, you will likely be caught one day.

Convenience store fraud is not limited to food stamp fraud (a side interest here at RRW).  In addition to SNAP trafficking there is gambling, illegal drug sales, cigarette smuggling and even gun sales going on behind those shoddy facades at the local mom and pop stores.

I sound like a broken record, but someone really needs to create an entire blog about immigrant criminals in America!

Nasser Alquza, former President Central Mosque of Charleston, to do time in the big house!

Here is one account from 2012 of the bust of the ring headed by Jordanian immigrant Nasser Alquza. From The Post and Courier (Hat tip: the ever-vigilant ‘pungentpeppers’):

A Mount Pleasant man fronted cash in a multimillion-dollar cigarette trafficking and money laundering scheme that crossed state borders and hid cash within South Carolina businesses, according to federal court documents unsealed last week.

Nasser Alquza, 56, was president of the Central Mosque of Charleston until after his arrest Nov. 30.

Investigators nabbed Alquza and 10 other men in a 26-count indictment filed in North Carolina, accusing them of crimes ranging from conspiracy to receiving stolen property.

Court records say the men bought nearly 7,000 cases of “stolen” cigarettes, each containing 60 cartons, from undercover officers in exchange for about $7.5 million.

Federal agents searched Alquza’s home, a three-story yellow house on Oakhurst Drive in the upscale Rivertowne community in Mount Pleasant, shortly after 7 a.m. on Nov. 30. They left with computers, cameras, money, check books, receipts, business records, passports and identification documents.

Officials asked a judge to seal the court records as the investigation continued, but the documents became public last week.

And in a recent update of the story, this time at the Lake Wylie Pilot, we learn of the convictions in the case where “business ties” extended to the perps’ native Jordan.  Don’t you wonder which of our LEGAL immigration programs let Alquza and his crew into America?

Key figures in a $20 million cigarette-smuggling ring across the Carolinas, which involved the undercover sale of almost a half million cartons of smokes, received federal prison sentences of up to 18 years this week in Charlotte.

In all, “Operation Burn Notice” led to the arrests of 12 people on cigarette-trafficking and money-laundering charges – all connected to the flow of illegal merchandise between Charlotte, Greensboro and Columbia.

[….]

Undercover agents from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police and other law enforcement groups eventually focused on the uncle-nephew team of Nasser Kamal Alquza of Mount Pleasant, S.C., and Kama Zaki Qazah of Columbia.

Together, the men owned businesses ranging from convenience stores to used-car lots to Subway franchises. They also maintained extensive business ties throughout South Carolina and their native Jordan.

[….]

Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney sentenced the 35-year-old Qazah to 18 years in prison followed by two years of supervised release. Whitney also ordered him to forfeit any property associated with his crimes.  [Two years of supervised release? How about deportation!—ed]

That last hit could be substantial. When authorities searched Qazah’s house after his arrest, they came across a cardboard box in his garage. It held $1,299,990 in cash.

According to this report, uncle Nasser Alquza will be sentenced sometime this week.

Just like the stories of refugee criminals we have reported lately here in Utah, and here in Colorado, this story will not reach the national mainstream media, so it’s up to you, bloggers, on-line publishers and readers on the web, to get this news out!

For our complete archive on food stamp fraud, click here.

Palestinian alleged terror-funders arrested in Maryland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  This is cross-posted from my other blog, Potomac Tea Party Report.  We don’t know how these Palestinians got into the US (the mainstream media is rarely curious about that), but readers here at RRW should know that we (US State Department and refugee contractors) are now taking some Palestinian “refugees” to your towns and cities (101 so far this fiscal year).  And, sheesh, I thought that this morning I could get back to my posting backlog of more mundane issues such as the State Department hearing this past week, but these Muslim terrorist stories keep breaking like the waves on Ocean City beaches!

Thanks to Jeff, here is a mind-blowing story in the Baltimore Sun on Friday about the arrest of a pair of Palestinians who have been running a multi-million dollar cigarette smuggling scam for years.  Because they lived a modest lifestyle and no one knows where all the money went, it’s a good bet it was leaving the country to fund Islamic terrorists around the world (or maybe funding them right here at home!).

We need to thank the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly who unraveled the scheme from the New York end.  In Maryland our police are way too busy swatting benign conservative Americans like Terry Porter in rural towns.

And, as is the usual case, there is no mention of the brothers’ immigration status—how did they come to be living legally in America in the first place (assuming they were legal immigrants)?*

From the Baltimore Sun:

The Palestinian immigrant and his brother lived next door to each other in homes in West Ocean City, over the years opening a number of businesses throughout the area — three pizza shops, a Mexican restaurant, a liquor store, gas stations, and development companies, court records show.

This week, however, authorities in New York alleged that Basel, 42, and Samir Ramadan, 39, were also at the top of a multimillion-dollar cigarette-smuggling ring and said they believe members of the organization may have funneled some of their proceeds to terrorist groups. [Update: Photos of the Palestinian alleged terror funders are here—ed]

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the Ramadan brothers had deposited more than $55 million from their untaxed cigarette sales into small banks in and around Ocean City, making a profit of $10 million along the way.

[…..]

Only a fraction of the money has been recovered, and the brothers’ lifestyles were described by authorities as modest. That, along with alleged links among some of the members of the ring to known terrorists such as Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind cleric serving a life sentence for a conspiracy to blow up New York City landmarks, raised concerns that the money might be funding militant groups.

There is a lot more!  Read it all!

LOL! Someone should check to see if they were political donors to O’Malley and the boys!

Just for your information, we write often about food stamp fraud (trafficking) busts here at Refugee Resettlement Watch (archive here).  The majority of the scams are coming from immigrant-run convenience stores.

* We don’t resettle very many Palestinian refugees (a few in recent years) mostly because the militant Islamists in the Middle East want to leave them right there in their supposed “camps” funded largely by US taxpayers so as to remain a thorn in Israel’s side.  I don’t know how these Palestinians got into America legally.   I do think the food stamp scammers are using the Investor visas we give out like pez candy.