We were just talking about the Hezbollah group today in class, and I stumbled upon this article. This guy was selling PS2's to fund "terrorism." who would have thought something we use in our everyday lives is being shipped out to other countries for a large profit margin, to fund terrorist activity.
Miami man accused of exporting PS2s to fund terrorism
March 3 3:02 P.M.
A Miami man was freed on a $1.55 million bond by a Federal judge this week after authorities alleged he conspired to export over $700,000 of Playstation 2s and digital cameras to a mall in Paraguay identified as a funding source for Lebanon-based terrorist organization Hezbollah.
Together with two alleged accomplices, Khaled Safadi, a Paraguyan national and resident of Miami's Doral district, was accused of terrorism-related smuggling charges by Federal authorities on Monday.
Quoted in the Miami Herald, Safadi's lawyer said, "It's a children's toy...he is being accused of shipping a children's toy to Paraguay." He called the charges a "trumped-up" Customs violation.
The FBI, which has been working on the case since 2007, alleges the PS2 shipments used falsified invoices and fake names to evade detection, and claims payments were bounced through several recipients to hide their origin.
No comments:
Post a Comment