13 Arrested In Joint Terrorism Task Force Raid

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By By KOMO Staff & News Services

Summary

Agents arrested 13 Seattle-area residents on charges of bank and immigration fraud, saying they were part of a conspiracy to illegally bring Gambians into the country.

Story Published: Nov 18, 2004 at 9:25 AM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 1:47 AM PDT

13 Arrested In Joint Terrorism Task Force Raid
SEATTLE - Terrorism task force agents arrested 13 Seattle-area residents Thursday on bank fraud, immigration fraud and weapons charges.

Some were involved in a conspiracy to illegally bring Gambians into the country while others were defrauding banks of thousands of dollars, court papers said. At least two men are accused of weapons violations.

"This is one investigation that grew into three," said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office.

A federal court clerk confirmed that the men were scheduled to make appearances Thursday afternoon on charges ranging from conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and bank fraud to weapons charges.

A search warrant obtained by KOMO 4 News said agents searched the Crescent Cuts barber shop in South Seattle looking for training documents on urban warfare. That search warrant was filed in King County Superior Court; King County prosecutor's spokesman Dan Donohoe said the results were to be filed later in the day. City police referred questions on the matter to the FBI.

Scheduled to appear Thursday in U.S. District Court on charges of conspiring to assist immigrants from the West African nation of Gambia were Souleymane Camara, Muhamed Njolo Tunkara, Bubacarr Tunkara, Muhammad Fofana and Mohamed Jawara.

Those to appear on a charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in association with the case were Karim Abdullah Assalaam, Attawwaab Muhammad Fard and Ali Muhammad Brown. A fourth man, Herbert Chandler Sanford, was not yet in custody, the clerk said.

In addition, at least two men were being charged as felons in possession of a firearm: Ahmad As-Sidiq and Zaid Mumin.

The multijurisdictional terrorism task force is comprised of representatives from state, federal, county and city law-enforcement agencies, said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs.

In the bank fraud case, Assalaam is alleged to have led a scheme to deposit more than $10,000 worth of bad checks into various accounts over the past several years.

The charging papers said federal agents had been aware of the scheme since 2002, when a confidential informant alerted them. The informant at times wore a wire to tape conversations with Assalaam. In one such conversation, Assalaam said he was raising funds not only for personal gain, but because, "You can't go to war broke." He said his "whole Muslim crew," was involved in the scheme.

The FBI investigation of the case involved setting up fake accounts and businesses to trick Assalaam into believing that his scheme was successful, the charging documents said.

The immigration scheme involved providing Gambians with fraudulent passports and other immigration documents, indicating they were from Sierra Leone. Prosecutors said it is easier to gain asylum in the United States as a resident of Sierra Leone, because the country has been racked by war.

The five people charged in the immigration scheme each face eight counts of conspiracy and immigration fraud, plus one count of unlicensed money transmitting.

In a related case, King County prosecutors have filed assault and extortion charges against three men accused of bullying a man and his sister into letting them use the family's Janaale Restaurant for meetings.

Aziz H. Abdullah, Ruben L. Shumpert and Michael William Greene Jr. were charged in early October with first-degree extortion and two counts of third-degree assault, accused of roughing up Bashir Hussein and his sister, Lul Omar, with "a metal object like a meat tenderizer."

The men were arrested after Hussein called police Oct. 4 to say they'd attacked him and his sister. Hussein had told police two weeks earlier that the men had threatened to kill him if he did not allow them to use his restaurant "as a meeting place for their illegal activity," court papers said.

Shumpert operated the Crescent Cuts barber shop - where the search warrant was executed - upstairs in the same building, the documents said.