Feds: Top U.S. Official Aided La Shish Scam

A high-ranking official with the Detroit office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (“ICE”), formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and four other metro-Detroit men were indicted by a federal Grand Jury with multiple counts of bribery, conspiracy and extortion, United States Attorney Stephen J. Murphy announced today.

U.S. Attorney Murphy was joined in the announcement by Thomas M. Frost, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago, Illinois office of the Department of Homeland Security - Office of Inspector General, and Andrew G. Arena, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit, Michigan, office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

ROY M. BAILEY, age 54, of Romulus, Michigan, ANTONIO IVEZAJ, age 39, of Milford, Michigan, TALAL KHALIL CHAHINE, age 52, formerly of Plymouth, Michigan, MOHAMAD ARZOUNI, age 59 of Dearborn Heights, Michigan; and MOHAMMAD BAZZI, age 61, formerly of Detroit, Michigan.

The article says that the corruption was isolated. A google search turns up a Debbie Schussel article (linked from Michelle Malkin’s site) that says these indictments were kept underwraps for about four years. It took four years to investigate an isolated case of corruption, or to determine that fact? I am not encouraged.

Ever notice how cockroaches scatter when you hit the light? I think - if other recent cases: Holy Land Foundation comes to mind are any indication - the feds have been using night vision on this case, watching this operation to gather intel on the contacts of these contacts etc. over the years. Lets hope.

I'd look to Steve Emersons or Robert Spencers sites for their takes.

Thought I would follow up with an FR post from today:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1906332/posts

While the Feds waited four years to indict, one of the illegal immigrants the bribed INS/ICE official freed killed a man — an “honor” killing. I am not encouraged that the Feds know what they are doing. The Islamist extremists sure do.

First of all these people were not islamic extremists. Just because you are a muslim and commit a crime that does not make you a terrorist. They were greedy and wanted to avoid paying state and federal income taxes, social security withholding, and some employment taxes, plain and simple. If any other race embezzled money to avoid paying taxes people would be talking about it like any other white collar crime.

Coincidentally, Talal Chahine as remained in this country and is paying off her debt of over 4 million dollars in taxes, penalties and interest.

I absolutely do not defend what the owners of La Shish did, but they are not terrorists.

If people are interested in focusing on extremists and terrorists they should be looking elsewhere. The only usefulness this case has in the war on terror is that it shows that we are not doing a very good job of monitoring federal employees. Maybe we should be doing random bank account checks, audits, and other things to ensure that federal employees are sticking to the straight and narrow.

I also am not sure what this “honor killing” that was referred to is. If you are speaking about the owner’s son, he killed his ex’s new boyfriend. That as nothing to do with being muslim. Crimes like that are committed all of the time by blacks, whites, latinos, asians, etc. It is unfortunate that people do not raise their sons to respect women and have healthy relationships with women. This is more problematic in the muslim community but the crime didn’t have a damn thing to do with terrorism, any more than OJ and Nicole did.

If there was any real leadership in MI you’d have salvage crews dismantling the whole rotten inner core of detroit : buildings, streets, utilities; right down to bedrock. Then make it a vast park like central park in NYC w/6 flags amusement theme parks, megamalls and overhead gondolas, trams, raised EL trains. Put a BLACK CZAR in charge of this urban renewal project, one with a degree in urban planning, a no nonsense kind of guy, ready to do battle w/any nay sayer. This would be a model for all decayed inner cities.

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