This is interesting.
24 arrested for mortgage fraud schemes (Chicago)
FBI agents have made 24 arrests today in connection with a mortgage fraud investigation they dubbed “Operation Madhouse,” authorities said.....
...
In each of the transactions, the defendants were told that a prospective buyer intended to purchase a property and then default on the mortgage when the deal closed. In reality, undercover agents from the FBI and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development posed as the buyers and as paralegals who helped move the transactions along....
...
The U.S. Attorney’s office has filed mail and/or wire fraud charges against the following defendants:
Mohammed Ali Moallem, 68, Bahidad Javid, 66, Donna Brooks, 41, Louis L. Javell, 36, Aysha M. Arroyo, 32, and Juan Gil, 45, Hakim A. Jaradat, 65, and Robert Goldberg, 88, Babajan Khoshabe, 68, and Sunil Kaushal, 48, all of Chicago;
Abe Karn, 50, and Khalil Qandil, 45, of Oak Lawn;
Hichem Julani, 40, of Palos Park;
Daniel Lietz, 39, of Channahon;
Marwan Atieh, 35, of Tinley Park;
Ruwaida Dabbouseh, 58, of Glen Ellyn;
Khaja Moinuddin, 64, of Bloomingdale;
Mohammed Nasir, 52, of Glendale Heights;
Michael Salem, 63, and Oscar Paredes, 28, of Park Ridge;
Maryam Khan, 29, of Hickory Hills;
James Kotz, 48, of Munster, Ind.;
Siamak Safavi Fard, 50, of East Dundee;
Sunil Kaushal and Noel Parmar, 39, of Skokie.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/03/fbi-makes-arrests-in-mortgage-fraud-probe.html
(no link)
Man who helped CIA in Iran gets probation
Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Monday, February 12, 2007
Author: Frank Main, The Chicago Sun-Times
In an unusual bid for mercy, a Skokie man awaiting sentencing for smuggling cigarettes recently told a judge that he negotiated with Iran for the release of U.S. hostages in the 1980s.
Habib Moallem , 70, received a sentence of a year’s probation and a nearly $48,000 fine for smuggling untaxed Marlboros from northwest Indiana to Illinois. The sentence was at the low end of federal guidelines, U.S. District Judge Allen Sharp said.
Sharp said his Jan. 11 sentence took into account a written statement by the Iranian exile that he “served his adopted country during the Reagan and Bush administrations negotiating with a hostile Iranian government for the release of hostages and the normalization of relationships between Iran and the United States.”
The judge also considered a letter from W.A.N. Craven, a retired police superintendent of Scotland Yard, who met Moallem 20 years ago in London.
Moallem had been involved in “strategic matters on behalf of the United States related to its relationship with Iran,” Craven wrote.
Jed Stone, the Waukegan attorney who represented Moallem , said his client “paid the price for listening to a family member who went wrong.”
FLED IRAN IN 1979
Moallem ‘s brother, Mohammed “Frank” Moallem , was sentenced to a year’s probation, including six months of home confinement. The 10-member ring reaped $5 million in illegal profits, prosecutors said.
(snip)
20 indicted in cigarette smuggling // Allegedly bought smokes in Indiana to sell in Illinois
Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Thursday, May 19, 2005
Author: Frank Main
A two-year federal investigation culminated Wednesday in charges being unveiled against 20 people accused of reaping about $5 million in profits by smuggling untaxed cigarettes into Illinois from Indiana.
Undercover agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made their first deal with the ring in December 2002, allegedly selling 3,000 cartons of Marlboros to Mohammed “Frank” Moallem , 65, of Chicago, for $6,000. They were transported from Indiana to a liquor store on Irving Park Road, an indictment said.
(snip)