39 indicted in four money transfer schemes

Suspects used more than $5 million from undercover agents, U.S. attorney say

By Nick Madigan, Sun reporter

Federal officials today indicted 39 people, some of them Pakistani operators of convenience stores in Eastern Shore communities, with a host of charges that include money laundering, conspiracy to bribe public officials and operating unlicensed money transferring businesses that dispatched cash around the world.

One of the defendants, Saifullah Ranjha, who lives in Laurel, was also charged with attempting to finance al-Qaida.

During a news conference this afternoon at his office in downtown Baltimore, U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said most of the defendants were under arrest -- at least 16 of them in Maryland -- and that an additional six had been arrested last night. Rosenstein said all the indictments were the result of sting operations going back four years, during which suspects illegally used a total of more than $5 million provided by undercover agents.

The sting operations, collectively called Operation Cash-Out, yielded evidence of four separate criminal schemes involving at least 46 people in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Belgium, Britain, Australia and other countries, as well as in Maryland, Wisconsin, New York and New Jersey. The result was the four separate indictments unveiled today.

"These are carefully choreographed investigations," said Rosenstein, who was flanked by officials from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service, all of which worked in concert with law enforcement agencies in the other countries involved. "Our goal is to send a pretty strong message: that we'll disrupt these operations and that these money pipelines are being monitored."

In most cases, the money laundering schemes used hawala, a system under which funds are transferred from one place to another, often different countries, through an informal network of people using codes. Although the system is not illegal, U.S. law demands that large money transfers to overseas locations be reported to federal officials and that such businesses have commercial licenses. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the hawala system has been suspected of playing a role in financing some terrorist activities.

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