May 17, 2013, - 5:32 pm
Yet Another Muslim Cigarette Smuggling Ring in America Financing Islamic Terrorism – HAMAS, Hezbos, Qaedas in NYC
Over the years, I’ve written about many Muslim cigarette smuggling rings throughout America. In every case, they are funding either HAMAS or Hezbollah. And now there is one that fronts for both AND Al-Qaeda. Yup, this is what higher cigarette taxes do for Islamic terrorists: they transfer money from the mostly poor, working-class stiffs in America who smoke to Islamic terrorists who hate us. Halal Cha-ching! Oh, and by the way, the perpetrators–16 of them!–are all Palestinian Muslims. And all but one are illegal aliens. No worries, though, because they would all be eligible to “come out of the shadows” and get their golden U.S. citizenship ticket, thanks to Marco Boob-io and his Senate Gangbang of Eight.
A Palestinian smuggling ring with possible ties to Middle East terrorist groups made millions selling tax-free cigarettes in the city and upstate. . . . Late Wednesday, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the NYPD busted up the ring of 16 defendants they say flooded the market with more than 1 million cartons of tax-free cigarettes. Law enforcement sources told The News some members of the group may have ties to Hamas and Hezbollah. One defendant is Youssef Odeh, 52, of Staten Island, a vocal supporter of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik now serving a life sentence for his role in a foiled 1993 plot to blow up New York landmarks.
Click on the image below to see it in its entirety:
Odeh is also close to Ahmed Sattar, the sheik’s interpreter, who is serving time for his role in smuggling Abdel-Rahman’s “messages of hate” out of prison. Since 2004, law enforcement has warned that groups smuggling cigarettes from Southern states like North Carolina and Virginia, where they are cheaper, to sell them tax-free up north have funneled millions of dollars in profits to terrorist groups. Prosecutors will allege the ring was run by brothers Basel and Samir Ramadan of Ocean City, Md., according to sources familiar with the investigation. In the last year, the group allegedly bought $55 million worth of virtually every brand of cigarettes in Virginia, trucking 20,000 cartons a week north and selling them — tax-free — in New York City and upstate.
The group sold the cigarettes to a vast network of distributors in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and upstate, as well as several other states, sources allege. Members of the ring managed to dodge $80 million in taxes and pocket at least $10 million in profit, prosecutors will charge. The group has been under surveillance by the state Organized Crime Task Force and NYPD for months, and search warrants were executed up and down the East Coast. Investigators recovered three guns and more than $1 million — some of which was stuffed into black plastic garbage bags — in a Maryland home linked to the ring.
Odeh, an alleged distributor, first surfaced years ago as a supporter of Abdel-Rahman and Sattar. After the sheik was convicted in 1995, Sattar called the verdict “very sad, absurd and fearful for the future of Muslims in this country. There will be a backlash.” Seven years later, Sattar was charged with acting as the jailed sheik’s messenger, helping him spread what prosecutors called his “message of hate” across the world. In one of the fatwas Sattar smuggled from his cell in Minnesota, the sheik exhorted followers to “kill (Jews) whereever they are.”
More:
All 16 of those charged are Palestinian and all but two were living illegally in the U.S. One managed to flee to Jordan before the arrests late Wednesday. Kelly said the group included several “individuals on our radar with links to known terrorists,” starting with Mohannad Seif, 39, a cigarette reseller from Brooklyn. Kelly said Seif lived in the same three-story walkup with the personal secretary of Hamas’ main fund-raiser in the U.S., Mousa Abu Marzouk, who was deported from the U.S. in 1997. Marzouk continues to raise money for Hamas in Egypt.
The NYPD also linked Muaffaq Askar, 46, a reseller in Brooklyn, to the Arab gunman who shot up a van full of yeshiva students on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994. The gunman, Rashid Baz, killed 16-year-old passenger Ari Halberstam. At the time, Baz claimed it was a case of road rage, but the incident has since been recategorized as a terrorist hit. On Thursday, Kelly said the Halberstam murder was “still open.” He revealed Askar was a “confidant” of Baz who considered Askar his “Palestinian uncle.”
Defendant Youssef Odeh, 52, of Staten Island, had financial ties to the imprisoned blind sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in a 1993 plot to blow up New York landmarks, Kelly said. Before he got into the cigarette business, Odeh sold baby formula. In the early 1990s, the sheik invested $10,000 in Odeh’s business, Kelly said. . . . The accused ringleaders, brothers Basel and Samir Ramadan of Ocean City, Md., bought cigarettes from a Virginia wholesaler, Cooper Booth Wholesale Inc., which shipped them to a public storage facility in Delaware, prosecutors said. . . .
Several times a week, Adel Abuzahrieh, 42, of Brooklyn, drove a white box truck covered in graffiti from New York to meet the brothers in Delaware, authorities said. He’d drop off black garbage bags filled with cash and leave with thousands of cartons of cigarettes — up to 20,000 a week, prosecutors say. The brothers would show up at small local banks with beer coolers filled with cash to deposit.
Religion of Peace . . . and Hezbollah/HAMAS/Al-Qaeda ciggie smuggling.
Again, why on earth are we forcing America’s working-class poor to pay these absurd taxes on cigarettes that only end up going to line the pockets of Islamic terrorists and America haters?
I’ve asked this question repeatedly before on this site, and yet, the only answer we seem to get is further tax hikes on cigarettes in states like Michigan and New York.
Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-chaing, allahu FUBAR.
Tags: A. Abdulaziz, Abu Ali, Abu Mahmoud, Abu Nabil, Abu Salim, Abu Samer, Abu-Salah, Adel Abuzahrieh, Ahmed Sattar, Al Jabai'i, al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda Cigarette Smuggling ring, amnesty, Ari Halberstam, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Basel Ramadan, Bassam Twam, Blind Sheikh, cigarette smuggling, cigarette taxes, Hamas, HAMAS cigarette smuggling ring, Hezbollah, Hezbollah cigarette smuggling ring, Illegal Aliens, Immigration, Islam, Islamic Terrorism, Israel, Issa Suleiman, Izzat Nimer, Jihad, M. Awawdeh, Marco Rubio, Mohannad Seif, Mousa Abu Marzook, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Muaffaq Askar, Mufeed Attal, Munther Mahmoud, Murad Bisharat, Muslim, Muslim cigarette smuggling ring, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Omar Abedel RAhman, Operation Tobacco Road, Palestinian cigarette smuggling ring, Rashid Baz, Ribhi Awadeh, Saad Bader, Samir Ramadan, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, Youssef Odeh
If you outlaw cigarettes, only Islamic terrorists will control the American tobacco black market. If anything, we want to expand it.
Shukran, Allah is welcoming of cigarette smuggling in America!
NormanF on May 17, 2013 at 7:25 pm