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Doctor's money trail traced to Iran
The Plain Dealer ^ | November 20, 2004 | Amanda Garrett

Posted on 11/20/2004 8:12:05 AM PST by WmShirerAdmirer

Ohio gynecologist calls it an investment; federal officials call it a crime

Fostoria- A miniature U.S. flag poked through the curtains of Dr. Mohammad Anvari's front window this week, as if to wave off anyone questioning his patriotism.

He bought a modest brick rambler near the cornfields at the edge of town.

He launched a women's clinic in an old, white clapboard Victorian nearby. And he spent his career delivering babies to the 14,000 people still trying to make ends meet in this struggling Northwest Ohio town even though industry abandoned them decades before.

Yet in the months before and after the Sept. 11 attacks, prosecutors contend, Anvari's true interests - and his money - lay elsewhere, thousands of miles away in the desert sands of the Middle East.

The 70-year-old doctor is accused of illegally funneling more than $4 million to Iran, a country that is part of President Bush's Axis of Evil.

What happened to the money is a mystery.

Anvari says he was investing in a new convention center in Tehran. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Karol declined to speculate. A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement - a division of the Homeland Security Department - said agents are still trying to track the money down.

Regardless, if convicted, Anvari could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Among other things, he is charged with routine white-collar crimes - money laundering and filing false tax returns.

But he also faces more-serious allegations of violating a 1977 law against doing business in a country deemed to be a threat to national security. Federal officials seldom used the law before the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, they have cited it to seize the assets of terrorist suspects and their organizations.

Karol has repeatedly emphasized that the grand jury indictment against Anvari includes no terrorism allegations. Anvari, who pleaded not guilty, declined to comment through his lawyer, John Czarnecki of Toledo.

Czarnecki said last week that he believes this is the first case of its kind in Ohio. "I wouldn't call this rare, but it is unusual," he said.

Authorities have declined to say how or when the investigation began. But an affidavit unsealed this month revealed that the investigation of Anvari's finances began shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The affidavit - filed by a U.S. customs agent - along with a grand jury indictment shows the case unfolded like this:

After Sept. 11, financial investment giant Merrill Lynch began searching its records for suspicious wire transfers, presumably looking for any U.S. connections to terrorist financing.

When Richard Flasck and Mary Tieland - he is first vice president of investments in the Merrill Lynch Toledo office, she is a sales associate - scrutinized Anvari's accounts, they didn't like what they saw.

Between June 19, 2001, and Aug. 21, 2001, Anvari wired more than $500,000 from his Merrill Lynch accounts to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

U.A.E., some international banking experts say, was an unregulated, secret haven for Middle Eastern money.

Flasck and Tieland said they notified Merrill Lynch's legal department in New York. Flasck, who worked with Anvari's money for 20 or 25 years, then called Anvari and asked him where the money was going.

To the U.A.E. to be converted to Iranian currency, Anvari told him. Anvari said he was investing in a new convention center in Tehran. It would be a good investment "because there are not such facilities there," Flasck recalled Anvari saying.

Within days, on Sept. 24, 2001, Anvari asked Merrill Lynch to wire $150,000 to Dubai.

On the advice of legal counsel, Merrill Lynch declined, worried that the Iran investment could violate U.S. law.

The United States has imposed sanctions against Iran since the 1970s. More than a decade later, President Clinton strengthened the embargo, citing Iran's support of terrorism, and forbade new U.S. investment under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

When Flasck told Anvari why Merrill Lynch declined his transfer request, he also told him the investment company was closing his account.

In the end, Anvari moved his account to McDonald Financial Group, a subsidiary of KeyCorp in Cleveland.

But Anvari didn't heed Merrill Lynch's warning about the legalities of what he was doing, according to the indictments.

In coming months, Anvari found new ways to send millions more to Iran.

It's unclear how he accomplished this, but the indictment shows at least five transfers from a Dubai bank account between Nov. 2, 2001, and March 14, 2002, totaling at least $570,000.

But by far, Anvari's biggest Iranian investments arrived in British pounds. The indictment says Anvari moved more than 1.8 million pounds - about $3.3 million U.S. dollars - to an Iranian bank account.

At the same time, Anvari moved smaller amounts to Iran through hawala, an ancient and informal Muslim banking system used to transfer money. The underground network has been used by immigrants who send money to relatives in their homelands, but also by terrorists.

Anvari, the indictment said, moved about $170,000 to Iran this way. It did not specify where the money went.

By the time U.S. officials launched an investigation in the spring of 2002 - based on Merrill Lynch's obligation to report suspicious banking activity to the feds - Anvari had invested a fortune in Iran.

Investigation also revealed Anvari sent about $19,000 worth of water purification equipment and $21,400 worth of diesel engine parts to Iran in July 2001, according to the indictment.

Karol declined to answer questions about what the equipment was used for but said it wasn't necessarily nefarious. Czarnecki said his client was puzzled by the allegation and never knowingly purchased such equipment.

According to the indictment, Anvari bought the purification equipment from Clearwater Enviro Technologies, based in Florida, and the engine parts from Doowon Co. of South Korea.

Federal agents arrested Anvari Nov. 3. The next day, he surrendered his passport and pledged $1 million remaining in his McDonald Investments account to get out of jail pending trial.

Anvari - who immigrated to the United States in 1964 - has since returned to his home on a dead-end street in Fostoria, about 40 miles south of Toledo and 6,419 miles west of Tehran.

© 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: iran; jihadinamerica; money; moneytrail; southwestasia; terroristfunding; usdoctor
It took September 11th to start this investigation.

If Clinton was as worried about "terrorist activities" threatening this country on his watch as he says, why weren't there any investigations and measures taken before?

1 posted on 11/20/2004 8:12:06 AM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
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To: WmShirerAdmirer

Virtually all Iranians who came to the US were/are strong supporters of the Shah and vastly pro-US. I doubt this is anything other than the weasel trying to make money and send it home to family.


2 posted on 11/20/2004 8:18:41 AM PST by freedom44
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To: WmShirerAdmirer
I was beginning to think that we were "using" this guy to get more info out via his eventual plead for a lesser sentence; but after reading on...attempts, then warnings, then action on his part...

Book 'em, Danno!

3 posted on 11/20/2004 8:21:25 AM PST by NordP (Proud Member of God's GOTV)
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To: freedom44

This is part of the reason we NEVER want foreigners for President. Our own home grown candidates are bad enough.
Sorry, Ahnold.


4 posted on 11/20/2004 8:32:44 AM PST by dimmer-rats stealvotes
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To: freedom44

Good point, hadn't thought of that.

I guess what was on my mind when I posted this was, how much other "terrorist funding activity" was going on right under the Fed's noses. There were money laundering scheme indicators in place I assume, why didn't any alarm bells start ringing anywhere about any activity such as this doctor's?

Also the fact that this is happening here under our noses, are people aware of what occurred in Dearborn, Michigan recently with a big US hate fest going on amongst American Islamist. There's a Freerepublic posting during the last week about this event, article is from www.frontpagemagazine.com.


5 posted on 11/20/2004 8:37:08 AM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
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To: dimmer-rats stealvotes

Yes, another good observation! Thank you for this.


6 posted on 11/20/2004 8:49:22 AM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
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To: WmShirerAdmirer
The 70-year-old doctor is accused of illegally funneling more than $4 million to Iran, a country that is part of President Bush's Axis of Evil.

Remeber that the good doctor came to the US in 1964. He could have lived simply and had a very profitable practice saving his money for retirement and decided to try to invest big on a changing Iranian political climate or he could have been funneling money from others in the US back to Iran. Being a doctor can be profitable, but $4million in disposable after tax income for a practice in a poor community........?

The article goes to great length to discuss his frugal home, the impoverished community he works in, etc. What isn't discussed is if the good doctor's money transfers to Iran were from slowly accummulated wealth of a hard working professional or from someone chosen as a "frontman who might avoid suspicion" by a group of others.

My feeling is that there is much more to the story, I would want to know about, before I came up with an opinion on this guy.

7 posted on 11/20/2004 9:07:35 AM PST by Robert357 (D.Rather "Hoist with his own petard!" www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1223916/posts)
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To: freedom44
Raging Islamofascist's told me that immigrant U. S. physicians contribute hundreds of millions of dollars annually to terrorists. They bragged that they come here and bilk the system and then send the money to the families of Pallie. suicide bombers.Notice the part of this article which charges the physician with tax fraud. Include Medicare & Medicaid fraud and you get the whole story.

When I told the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in Chicago about these nutjobs and their fanatic comments, he just brushed it aside. Thousands of muslims come here on H1B visas and act to finance their terror by becoming American physicians. These two resident physicians were very excited about doing their part. We are asleep at the wheel, IMHO!

They have direct access to radiologic materials where they work for use in "Dirty Bombs" Find out how many of these jerk-offs have become radiologists, that will keep you up all night!

DrMike

8 posted on 11/20/2004 10:37:28 AM PST by STD (Last Action Hero)
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To: STD

Didn't get to your reply until Sunday night, yours makes a lot of sense, as does the response just before yours. I would have to agree more with you both now, more so than my agreeing with the reply that the doc was most like an an old Shah loyalist-holder over.

"When I told the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in Chicago about these nutjobs and their fanatic comments, he just brushed it aside."

Why aren't the Feds giving a damn about this (especially in a major city?


9 posted on 11/21/2004 7:54:41 PM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
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