Michigan-smuggling ring sending profits to Hezbollah

The U.S. cracks down yet again on another U.S. based money machine funding terrorists around the world.

This one is was selling counterfiet items, including rolling papers and Viagra.

DETROIT (CP) - Federal authorities said Wednesday they have broken up a smuggling ring that sent some of its profits to the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.

Eighteen people have been indicted in the Michigan-based ring, which sold contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig-Zag rolling papers, and counterfeit Viagra, U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy said in a statement.

Nine of the suspects, from the Detroit and Windsor, Ont., areas, were arrested Wednesday on an April 2004 indictment that had been sealed by court order. A Miami Beach, Fla., man was to surrender in April, and authorities were seeking eight others who now live out of the country.

The suspect arrested in Windsor was identified as Karim Hassan Nasser, 37. Also named in the indictment, but not arrested, were Hassan Hassan Nasser, 36, and Naji Hassan Alawie, 44, of Windsor and Hassan Mohamad Srour, 30, and Abdel-Hamid Sinno, 52, of Montreal.

The indictment alleges that from 1996 to 2004, the group ran a multimillion-dollar cigarette-trafficking ring out of Dearborn. It purchased low-taxed or untaxed cigarettes from North Carolina or a New York Indian reservation and resold them in Michigan and New York, making profits by evading state cigarette taxes, prosecutors said.

Full Story

Gordon Taylor
Team Member