Free Republic

Last month, the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo reopened after a four-month investigation that led to the arrest of four employees who allegedly sold visas. This week, investigators flown from Washington, D.C, were still combing through documents and interviewing people at the U.S. Consulate in Juárez, making it clear that visa fraud is far from an unusual occurrence. In fact, the Diplomatic Security Service, part of the State Department, opened 250 visa fraud investigations worldwide since October, officials said. "Visas are really valuable property," said Nida Emmons, the spokeswoman for U.S. Consul Maurice Parker in Juárez. "They are counterfeited, sold...

Wednesday, March 12, 2003 - MOSCOW, Idaho - This was supposed to be the safe place, the Idaho town that fought the state's stereotype as a haven for white- supremacist and anti-government groups. For sure, that's how Marwan Mossaad felt about Moscow, home to the University of Idaho, where the 25-year-old Egyptian national is majoring in economics and architecture. It's hard to imagine the disconnect between the chaotic streets of Cairo, a city of 16 million people, and Moscow, where the grain elevator at the south end of Main Street is the tallest building in town.Until now, said Mossaad, head...

<p>SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- A former University of Idaho football player has been arrested as a material witness in an investigation of Islamic charities with possible links to terrorism, FBI agents said Tuesday.</p> <p>Abdullah Al-Kidd, 30, was arrested Sunday at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., according to two FBI agents who separately spoke on condition of anonymity. He was carrying a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia, court documents show.</p>

10 Iraqis detained in Jamaica were headed to Belize. 10 Iraqis detained in Jamaica were headed to Belize In news just in, the Associated Press is tonight reporting that ten Iraqi citizens have been detained in Montego Bay, Jamaica and are being interviewed by the U.S. F.B.I.. Their destination? Belize. Let me read the bulletin as we received it just minutes ago: "F.B.I. agents on Tuesday were questioning ten Iraqi men who were detained at Montego Bay's airport, Jamaican police said, but did not say why they are being held. The police detained the ten men on Monday after reviewing...

<p>February 7, 2003 -- A Brooklyn greeting-card salesman - who worships Osama bin Laden and hopes for another Sept. 11 - masterminded a Muslim immigration ring in which more than 200 people obtained green cards by pretending to be religious workers teaching the Koran, the feds charged yesterday.</p>

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - The owner of an immigration-law firm that filed thousands of work-permit applications with false information and phony signatures was convicted of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. The illegal immigrants, who paid the firm up to $20,000 each, were unaware of the fraud by Capital Law Centers in the green card application process. A federal jury Wednesday convicted Samuel G. Kooritzky, 64, on all 57 counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. He faces a probable prison sentence of eight to 10 years and may also forfeit as much as $2.5 million, part of what authorities believe...

Just talked to my Dad in Panama City who said they have arrested an Arab man trying to get into the Panama City Airport. He had a false German passport and was driving a rental car rented in Boca Raton. The bomb-sniffing dogs deployed at the parking entrance caught him. We figure these thugs are trying to find small town airports where they think the tougher security measures have not yet been implemented. I guess they don't know about Tyndall and Eglin Air Force bases right up the road from this airport! They don't mess around down on the Panhandle. ...

U.S. embassy official took bribes for Saudi visas - - - - - - - - - - - - By Jeffrey Gold May 21, 2002 | NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- A former employee of a U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia where most of the Sept. 11 hijackers got their visas admitted Tuesday that he took money and gifts to provide fraudulent visas to foreigners. Abdulla Noman had no connection to any of the hijackers, 15 of whom got visas legally through the consulate in Jeddah, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Vilker said. "There's no evidence whatever linking him to terrorism,"...

A California Republican has introduced a new visa reform bill that would require the federal government to employ the latest technology to better categorize and track foreign visitors, including "machine-readable visas containing biometric information." According to a summary of the Visa Entry Reform Act, which was introduced Nov. 6 by Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., if passed it would require the Homeland Security Office, in conjunction with other federal agencies, "to establish and supervise a single computerized database (lookout database) to screen and identify inadmissible or deportable aliens. …" Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif. The bill would also mandate that such ...

NEW YORK, Feb 20, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Authorities refused to let 31 Yemeni passengers board a flight departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport because they did not have proper visas, the Port Authority said Wednesday. The group was scheduled to take British Airways Flight 116 at 11 p.m. Tuesday to Yemen with a connection in London, Port Authority spokesman Sgt. Jeff Baumbach said. They were barred from the flight and detained after the visa problem came to light, Baumbach said. He said the airline called the FBI, whose Joint Terrorist Task Force responded to investigate. The ...

MILWAUKEE (AP) Federal authorities have found seven people in Wisconsin suspected of bribing U.S. embassy officials in the Persian Gulf to obtain illegal visas. Six of the seven don't appear to have terrorist ties, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis D. Schmitz. He said little is known about the seventh person, Ahmad Abed Atia, 23, who had been living in Milwaukee. Atia was uncooperative with investigators and has been transferred to Chicago on a federal visa fraud charge, Schmitz said. The seven are part of a larger group of foreigners from Jordan, Pakistan, Syria and Bangladesh suspected to have paid at...

Federal agents swarmed into Arlington yesterday and shut down a massive immigration fraud scheme that allowed thousands of illegal immigrants to obtain permission to work in the United States -- and made millions of dollars for an Arlington lawyer and his colleague -- prosecutors said. Samuel G. Kooritzky, 63, an immigration lawyer and owner of the Capital Law Centers, and Ronald W. Bogardus, 65, an engineer, had submitted nearly 2,700 phony applications since the beginning of last year for "labor certifications" from the state and federal government, according to a 60-page affidavit filed in federal court in Alexandria yesterday. The...

<p>Federal authorities have detained a Jordanian man they believe was a roommate of at least two of the Sept. 11 hijackers after a raid at a Southeast Baltimore home.</p> <p>Rasmi Al-Shannaq was taken into custody early Monday, apparently for overstaying his visa, according to law enforcement sources and news reports. He is believed to have lived last year with two of the hijackers who were on board American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon.</p>

<p>Federal authorities have 31 Middle Eastern and Asian citizens in custody -- including two Pakistani men arrested in Miami -- and are searching for 28 more in a broadening investigation into the sale of fraudulent visas at the U.S. Embassy in the Persian Gulf country of Qatar, U.S. officials said Tuesday.</p> <p>The two Pakistanis in Miami and two Jordanians arrested in Baltimore and Detroit are charged with entering the United States on visas that were illegally obtained at the embassy in Doha, Qatar, for bribes of up to $10,000 apiece.</p>

<p>LAS VEGAS — A Saudi citizen has been arrested in an FBI sting operation for allegedly accepting bribes to issue American visas to Saudi nationals, authorities said Sunday.</p> <p>Abdulla Noman, who works for the U.S. Department of Commerce issuing visas at the American Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, was arrested Thursday in a Las Vegas Strip hotel room, authorities said. He is being held in federal custody.</p>

<p>LEXANDRIA, Va. - A Saudi Arabian man with Massachusetts ties was ordered held without bail here yesterday, after a search of his home allegedly found materials referring to terrorist attacks. He is accused of scheming to fake English-language proficiency tests for foreign student-visa holders to enable them to remain in the United States.</p>

Money and immigrants arouse security concerns Early last month, a former top government lawyer got an especially warm greeting from a Senate panel considering a major overhaul of immigration laws. He was introduced as a "highly respected" expert whose insights were valued. That May 2 appearance by Paul W. Virtue, former chief counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, was one of many he has made since leaving the agency, where he worked for 16 years, ending in 1999. Virtue, a partner in a top Washington law firm, also has made frequent appearances on national radio and television programs...

In the popular Russian film "Brat 2," one of the heros is issued a U.S. visa under the pretense of attending a computer conference in Chicago. The film features a comical episode in which the shaved-headed gangster struggles to explain the theme of the conference to customs officials. Ira is no gangster, but the 24-year-old mother from a small town doesn't exactly fit the description of a computer specialist either. In fact, she has never worked with a computer before. But as far as she knew, she was guaranteed a place in a Russian delegation flying to San Francisco for...