|
Newhouse News Service – January 2, 2007
Investigations of Arab Americans draw complaints
BY MIKE TOBIN
CLEVELAND -- Federal agencies increasingly are fighting the war on terror with tax laws and food stamp regulations.
Investigators from the FBI, IRS and other agencies have turned to tactics similar to those that broke the Mafia to investigate people suspected of funneling money to terrorists overseas.
Decades ago, FBI agents snagged mobsters in low-level crimes and then persuaded them to testify against their bosses in return for lighter prison sentences. These days, federal investigators recruit Arab informants involved in crimes such as food stamp fraud, income tax evasion and drug trafficking, to penetrate organizations that investigators believe might be sending money to terrorists.
Critics in the Arab-American and Muslim communities complain that the tactics are nothing more than ethnic and religious profiling. The investigations target businesses started by recent immigrants and alienate the community without making a dent in terrorism, the critics say.
Law enforcement officials acknowledge that while there have been no terror-related indictments in Cleveland, they investigate tips that come in and then make the best case they can. A big part of their focus has been trying to disrupt the money flow by giving greater scrutiny to groups with access to large sums of cash.
A recent trial in U.S. District Court shed light on an investigation that ensnared several Arab-owned businesses. In the case of Abrar Haque, the FBI sent an undercover informant into Haque's Cleveland accounting firm after getting tips that Haque was sending money abroad to terrorists.
Agents used the informant, wiretapped phones and secret video recordings but found no evidence that Haque was sending money to terrorists.
They did learn, though, that he sold phony financial documents that his clients -- almost exclusively small-business owners from the Middle East -- used to obtain fraudulent bank loans or welfare benefits or free health care coverage intended for the poor.
Altogether, at least 15 people have been charged in the Haque investigation, and prosecutors expect more indictments.
Isam Zaiem, chair of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Cleveland office, said the Haque case is an example of law enforcement agencies targeting Middle Eastern immigrants based on assumptions and flawed information.
"Not only in Cleveland but across the country, there's a perception that law enforcement, post-9/11, have been targeting Muslims and Arabs," Zaiem said. "We feel there's been an intentional targeting of the community."
In some ways, there has been….
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/tobin010207.html
|
|
