← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 9218 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-08-22
2003-08-22 21:31 | User Profile
From The Associated Press, available online at: [url=http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6579564.htm]http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/n...ews/6579564.htm[/url]
Posted on Wed, Aug. 20, 2003
N.Y. Suspect in Missile Plot Out on Bond
STEVE STRUNSKY Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. - A Manhattan diamond dealer charged with money laundering connected with an alleged missile-smuggling plot was released Wednesday after posting $10 million bond.
Yehuda Abraham was freed from a jail in Paterson, N.J., after guaranteeing the bond with $5 million worth of property and 10 co-signers, federal officials said.
Abraham, 76, and two other men are accused in a plot to smuggle shoulder-fired missiles that could shoot down a commercial airliner. They were arrested Aug. 12 in an international sting operation.
Abraham has been charged with conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The U.S. citizen faces up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
His lawyer, Lawrence Krantz, did not immediately return calls Wednesday.
An Indian citizen, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, has been charged with money laundering and conspiracy. A Briton, Hemant Lakhani, is accused of providing material support to terrorists and dealing arms without a license. Both are being held without bail.
A woman who identified herself as Abraham's daughter answered the phone Wednesday evening at Abraham's home in the New York City borough of Queens.
"We're really not going to make a comment," she said, "other than to say we're happy to have him home."
The arrests resulted from an investigation that began in December 2001, when the first of what eventually amounted to 150 conversations occurred between Lakhani and an FBI informant posing as a representative of a fictitious Somali Muslim group. Lakhani expressed an interest in brokering an arms sale, according to affidavits in the case.
During the same time period, Lakhani developed what he thought were contacts with Russian suppliers of shoulder-launched missiles. The contacts were actually Russian agents working with the FBI.
Last month the Russians gave Lakhani a fake missile that he thought was the real thing, and he soon asked them for 50 more of the weapons, according to court documents.
Abraham accepted an initial $30,000 down payment on behalf of Lakhani, and presumably got it overseas to accounts controlled by Lakhani, according to federal prosecutors.
2003-08-22 22:18 | User Profile
Hopefully, Yehuda will flee to Israel. I wonder if the media would cover such an event.
2003-08-22 22:25 | User Profile
*Originally posted by Chaucer@Aug 22 2003, 14:18 * ** Hopefully, Yehuda will flee to Israel. I wonder if the media would cover such an event. **
Oh, they'd probably just let his name and deed disappear down the memory hole ... or concoct a story that shows him to actually having been an Iranian plant, and now no one can find him ... while Mr. A. sits in Haifa laughing his ass off. I'm amazed that even this story got out.
5 years in jail and a quarter million in fines? He should be facing a firing squad.
2003-08-23 14:43 | User Profile
Does El Al have red-eye flights?