Posted on 08/23/2005 10:29:19 AM PDT by KeyesPlease
NEWARK - Nearly four dozen leaders and associates of an international criminal enterprise have been charged in six indictments - forty-three of them were arrested over the weekend in New Jersey and other states - with running a smuggling ring that brought large quantities of counterfeit cigarettes, millions of dollars in high-quality counterfeit U.S. currency and drugs into the United States through Port Newark and other domestic ports, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced.
The indictments, including three racketeering indictments, charge 57 individuals. Of those, several were arrested beginning on Friday as they arrived in Atlantic City to attend a wedding, which was actually a ruse established by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to draw the defendants to the United States for arrest.
The rest of the defendants were arrested in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Los Vegas and Cincinnati.
The "wedding" was scheduled for Sunday off the coast of Atlantic City and Cape May aboard the luxury yacht "Royal Charm," which is also the operational name for the investigation. The yacht, in fact, did not exist. The targets had responded to a wedding invitation that purported to announce the marriage of a co-conspirator who was actually an undercover federal agent.
(Excerpt) Read more at usdoj.gov ...
On the other hand, it is scary that all of these various counterfeit itmes and drugs can be shipped with relative ease right into our port facilities.
Somebody got behind on their bribe.
Wanna bet the containers had "COSCO" on them?
use to be back in the 60's, almost 80% of containers/pallets from overseas were inspected by US Customs agents
Chi-Com and TROP® involvement - who would have guessed?
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