Posted on 10/13/2001 7:37:55 PM PDT by knuthom
INS detains student 27-year-old allegedly acting suspicious near natural-gas plant
NEOSHO, Mo. — A Crowder College student from Central Asia was detained recently for a possible visa violation after he was spotted allegedly acting in a suspicious manner inside a fenced-off compound of a local natural gas service company.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service reportedly detained Radik A. Abdrafigin, 27, on Sept. 26.
Newton County Sheriff Ron Doerge said the detention followed an investigation by his department of a report of a suspicious incident on or about Sept. 21.
He said employees of a natural gas service company in northern Newton County reported an encounter with a male of “Middle Eastern appearance.”
“He was actually inside their compound area driving a vehicle and acting strange enough that they took down his tag number,” Doerge said.
The sheriff said it took a few days to locate Abdrafigin because he was no longer living at the address listed for his license plate number.
FBI and INS agents accompanied sheriff’s investigators to a Neosho address where they found him on Sept. 26, and the INS detained him for possible visa violations, Doerge said.
“It is my understanding they will be having a hearing to determine if he should be deported,” the sheriff said.
Doerge declined to provide the identity of the natural gas company or the address where Abdrafigin was staying most recently.
The sheriff said Abdrafigin was not charged with any crime in Newton County. He said Abdrafigin had entered the natural gas company’s compound through gates that are left open during certain business hours.
The sheriff said that people with whom Abdrafigin had been staying in Neosho have contacted the Sheriff’s Department to express concern over what will happen to him.
“They thought he was an excellent student and someone they apparently took a liking to,” the sheriff said.
Doerge said the Sheriff’s Department contacted the FBI because of alerts issued by the federal government in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and because “we have no way of knowing if he is connected with any group that might be engaged in subversive activities.”
Kelly Meadows, a sheriff’s investigator familiar with the case, said Abdrafigin identified himself as a Russian national and a Muslim who lived somewhere east of the Ural Mountains.
Meadows said Abdrafigin had been in the United States three to four years and had entered on a one-year visa that had long expired.
He is enrolled this semester at Crowder College and was a student there all of last school year, Meadows said. Before that, Abdrafigin told investigators that he’d lived for a while in Joplin.
Meadows said the investigation also revealed that Abdrafigin received truck-driver training in the U.S. and had a current Missouri chauffeur’s license with certification to haul hazardous materials.
Lisa Adams of the registrar’s office at Crowder College in Neosho said Abdrafigin was majoring in business administration.
She said he first enrolled in the fall of 1998, studying in the college’s English as a Second Language program for a year.
He did not return the following school year but did re-enroll in the fall of 2000.
Adams said the college’s records show his passport is current.
She said college records also show he has F1 status, or student status, with the INS. She said that normally allows aliens to legally remain in the country even though their visas have expired.
Adams said such persons would need to update their visas if they wished to leave.
A spokesman for the INS office in Kansas City, did not get back to the Globe on Friday after saying he would check to see if any information about Abdrafigin’s detention could be released.
Jeff Lanza, spokesman for the FBI office in Kansas City, said such detentions are an INS matter and that the FBI does not comment on them.
Meadows said two employees of the natural gas service company approached Abdrafigin’s vehicle after spotting him inside the compound.
He reportedly told them he was trying to find Seneca and they provided him directions.
“But rather than looking at them or paying attention to the directions they were giving him, he seemed to them to be looking around the plant,” Meadows said.
Abdrafigin drove off in a direction opposite that they had provided for getting to Seneca, he said.
They interviewed his previous landlord's wife, who commented that he was very messy. Her husband had complained bitterly about the three days it took him to clean the white powder off of everything in the apartment. That was just before he got sick and died, she said. A search of his current residence turned up nothing suspicious, however, merely boxcutters, confetti, J&J Baby powder, 757 training manuals, plans of the state capitol in Jeff City, materials on how to build your own nuclear bomb, and tiny stars of David stapled to pictures of J-Lo. Nothing incriminating like signed orders from Bin-Laden, so they have to let him go...
LOL -- And the second thing you as a "student" in a foreign country should do is drive out to some farm in the middle of nowhere and insist the owner instruct you in flying a crop duster though you've never once met.
IF MY LISCENCE HAD BEEN EXPIRED FOR TWO OR THREE YEARS I WOULD BE IN JAIL. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE??
We just don't let Middle Easterners back in until the war on terrorism is over. Also, incidents like this have to go on their visa records whether it involved illegal activity or merely suspicious activity. I am not sure what it is going to take to fully wake up our government to the realization that if they are going to permanently lower the risk of terrorism and hence "PROTECT" our "CITIZENS" they have to do some serious deportation of Middle Eastern visitors. These budding terrorists are all over the place probing around for soft spots for new terrorist attacks. Enough is enough.
What about DC and NYC?
Have a good evening.
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