Three men charged in Islamic-based Ponzi scheme

Sharia banking fails again. So should the perps be sentenced under Islamic law?  But wait: doesn’t their “Religion” permit them to lie, cheat, and commit fraud, as long as the victim isn’t of their faith?  Questions, questions…. so what if most of their victims are Muslims? In that case, should the perps be stoned, hanged, quartered or beheaded?

Most important, what would Muhammad do?

(Chacago Business)

Three owners of a Chicago-based real estate development firm have been charged with fraud for allegedly cheating investors out of $43 million while claiming to be compliant with Islamic law.

A federal grand jury returned a 14-count indictment against the owners of Sunrise Equities on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a Wednesday statement. Federal officials said Salman Ibrahim, the majority owner and president of the now-bankrupt firm, and Mohammad Akbar Zahid, senior vice president of investor relations and a 10-percent owner, told clients that their investments would comply with Shariah law.

Islamic law prohibits interest, so Ibrahim and Zahid told investors they would receive monthly pay-outs of profits from real estate development. According to Fitzgerald’s office, the men promised annual returns of between 15 and 30 percent.

Federal officials said the three owners actually operated a Ponzi scheme between January 2003 and September 2008, selling promissory notes and using the proceeds to make fake profit payments to earlier investors. The men are accused of cheating hundreds of individual investors as well as making false statements to get loans from Mutual Bank, Cole Taylor Bank and Devon Bank. They allegedly misused investors’ funds, operating projects unrelated to real estate that were not disclosed to clients, and spending money on themselves.

Robert Grant, special agent-in-charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago office, said this case marks the first time in the city “that an alleged fraud scheme has been uncovered that used a pillar of Islam” as a lure.

“A key element in securing the charges was the extraordinary cooperation provided by members of Chicago’s Pakistani community, who were the primary victims of this alleged fraud scheme,” Grant said in a statement.

Federal officials said 37-year-old Ibrahim, a Pakistani national, and 59-year-old Zahid, a U.S. citizen, are believed to have left the country after Sunrise went into bankruptcy. Their whereabouts are unknown. The third owner, 47-year-old Amjed Mahmood of Des Plaines, will be arraigned at a later date. Mahmood was a 10-percent owner and senior vice president of Sunrise.

“Phantom Students” Not Found

With Islamic migration,  phantoms, jinn’s and genies it will certainly liven up many courtroom proceedings in the future. The existence of jinn is taken for granted in the Qur’an, so we will be seeing more of this in the West……

Thanks to elle

Angie Raphael, who reports this for Ninemsm,  thinks we should feel sorry for him:

A Muslim school director has had his livelihood ruined by a guilty verdict handed down in a Perth court, his lawyer says.

Anwar Sayed was remanded in custody on Thursday after a jury in the District Court found him guilty on two counts of fraud, having deliberated for nearly four hours.

“Phantom students” ruined his life: Anwar Sayed

The 50-year-old had been accused of falsifying student numbers at the Muslim Ladies College of Australia in Kenwick, in Perth’s south to obtain a portion of government grants worth $1.125 million.

The school received about $164,000 from the state government and about $961,000 from the federal government.

Sayed, from Canningvale in Perth’s south, is the director of Muslim Link Australia, which runs the school.

The court heard that he signed a declaration that in the 2006/07 census year, more than 180 students were enrolled in the school when there were 80 to 100 fewer than that.

On Thursday, Sayed’s friends and family in the court appeared visibly upset at the conviction while he remained calm as the verdict was delivered.

His lawyer, Andrew Skerritt, argued he was not a flight risk, but Judge Shauna Deane said imprisonment was “very much on the cards” for Sayed because the offence was a “serious” matter and she could not grant him bail.

He is due to be sentenced on November 30.

Outside court, Sayed’s solicitor Swaran Ludher said he was surprised by the verdict because the defence was strong.

“The way the prosecution, the police, went about their investigations, clearly there are many areas they forgot to tackle,” he said.

“They never contacted the so-called phantom students, so how can you say that a roll is falsified and has got phantom names on it unless you contact the so-called phantom students?”

Since when do Australian courts have a duty to chase after ‘phantom students?’

Mr Ludher said his client’s livelihood had been destroyed by the conviction.

“It’s ruined his college, it’s ruined his school. He will not be able to open another school now, so what is he left with?” he said.

Sayed’s trial came to prominence when one of the witnesses asked the court if she could wear a niqab, or full burqa, while giving evidence.

Judge Shauna Deane ruled that the woman had to remove her niqab but said she could give evidence via video link and ordered men leave the court room while the woman gave her evidence.

We reported:

• “This isn’t an Islamic Court” —
• No burqa in court — W
• Perth: Muslim school director guilty of fraud —
• Are Aussie Journo’s the Dumbest in the World? —

Sharia enforced: court throws out male journalists

Andrew Bolt

And the journalists accepted this court-enforced segregation?

A MUSLIM woman who sparked a national debate when she asked to give evidence in court wearing a niqab has uncovered her face to testify in a fraud trial.

Tasneem, whose last name has been suppressed by the Perth District Court, gave evidence for just 15 minutes today in the trial of Anwar Sayed…

Tasneem, 36, has worn a niqab since the age of 17 and wanted to wear it while giving evidence in the trial. But Judge Shauna Deane in August ruled she must remove the face-covering garment so that the jury could see her facial expressions…

Judge Deane last week ruled that to make it easier for Tasneem to give evidence comfortably, men would be removed from the court.

The only men allowed in the courtroom while she gave her evidence today were male jurors, the judge’s usher, Mr Sayed and the lawyers. While female journalists were allowed to stay in the court to report on Tasneem’s evidence, male journalists were ejected.

I’m shocked none of the male journalists or their employers protested against this segregation.

UPDATE

Apologies – the fault is the court’s:

A lawyer representing Network Ten and the Seven and Nine networks made an application on Friday to alter the order so that male journalists could remain in court, but the application was rejected.

2nd Update from Ezra Levant:

Canada takes the sharia one step further

It is illegal for a woman wearing a face-obscuring veil to board a plane in Canada. But a unanimous ruling last week by the Ontario Court of Appeal says it’s just fine for that same woman to give testimony in court with her face covered.

There’s more. Ontario’s highest court says veiled women can ask for an order to clear men out of the courtroom — any men in the public gallery, any male court staff, even her opponent’s lawyer, even the judge himself — in return for taking off her veil. It’s paragraph 85 of the ruling.

Shariah law has come to Canada.

Face-obliterating veils called niqabs are a medieval tool for gender apartheid. They destroy a woman’s identity. They turn her into an object, a chattel owned by her master — which is why they’re the norm in Saudi Arabia, where women have fewer rights than men and only slightly more than animals.

Burkas — an even more prison-like shroud, with just a tiny beekeeper’s screen to peek through — are the Taliban variety. Those are now allowed on the witness stand in Canada, too.

Rip the Ten Commandments off the wall, because we must have separation of church and state. But when the most un-Canadian expression of radical Islam walks in the court, our judges follow the Qur’an.

But that’s not fair to the Qur’an. No verse in that book requires face-covering. But our judges now say it’s a Charter right.

To their shame, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association intervened to support this. They have demanded Bibles be removed from schools and the Lord’s Prayer be banned from legislatures. But Muslim veils — a chastity belt for the face — have their support in a secular court.

The CCLA has found religion. And LEAF, the feminist law organization built with Canadian tax dollars, has a new view on a woman’s proper place. They argued for the niqab, too.

As National Post columnist Barbara Kay points out, a survey of Muslim women in France found 77% wear the veil out of fear of men.

Australian Imam Taj Din al-Hilali put it another way, in a sermon about rape: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street … and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.”

LEAF supports covering up “the meat.” Now our courts do too.

The Ontario ruling came about because a Muslim woman alleged she was molested as a child by her uncle and her cousin in the 1980s. It’s a horrendous accusation and, if true, the woman deserves our sympathy and the accused deserve our most punitive punishment. But before we get there, there’s the matter of a trial.

In Canada, even accused rapists have the right to question their accuser and the court has the right to observe her demeanour. It’s why we don’t allow testimony from someone wearing a mask.

But this accuser didn’t want to take off her mask.

“It’s a respect issue, one of modesty and one of — in Islam, we call honour,” she told the judge at the preliminary inquiry “It’s to conceal the beauty of a woman.”

She had only been wearing a veil for about five years and the judge found her religious belief was “not that strong.” But “I would feel a lot more comfortable if I didn’t have to, you know, reveal my face.”

Sure, she took the veil off to get her driver’s licence. But that was important, you see. Not like accusing a man of a horrendous crime.

The judge told her to take off her veil. That’s what was over-ruled last week.

This could be great, says the Court of Appeal. The reliability of her veiled testimony could actually be better.

“Without the niqab … one could not expect her to be herself on the witness stand … her embarrassment and discomfort could be misinterpreted as uncertainty and unreliability.”

But it’s more than law. It’s politics, they say. Allowing the niqab “could be seen as a recognition and acceptance of those minority beliefs and practices.”

That’s exactly the problem.

In heaven, Aqsa Parvez is screaming again.

Update:

The coffee-filter should be screwed or nailed to his head. That would be a far more appropriate punishment.

Abdallah Saad Magar/Islam Monitor

Most Islamic “private” schools are nothing but fraud as they charge their student less than standard public school fees and exist only because of the Australian taxpayer forced jiziya.

H/T Mullah

Click to enlarge

The injustice! The humiliation! How dare these filthy kafirs apply man made law to the sons of allah who only helped themselves to what they are entitled to! If that doesn’t call for jihad, I don’t know what will!

KATE CAMPBELL, The West Australian

Two Islamic college leaders were this afternoon found guilty of fraudulently claiming millions of dollars from the State and Federal governments to help get the school out of financial trouble.

A District Court jury convicted Australian Islamic College founder Abdallah Saad Magar of 14 out of 15 fraud charges. Principal Aziz Magdi was found guilty of five out of nine fraud charges. A third man, another principal, Mark Brian Debowski, was acquitted of his three fraud charges.

Related links:

• Australia: College Employee Defrauds Govt. of $1 Million…
• Australia: Islamic school on fraud charges
• ‘Islam push for Australian-bred leaders’
• Perth: Muslim School Closed, Director Charged With Fraud
• Perth Islamic schools raided in fraud probe

During the three-week trial, the prosecution told the jury that Magar was the “driving force” behind the fraud from 2005 to 2006. The prosecution also told the jury the fraud involved inflating student numbers at the college’s three campuses at Dianella, Kewdale and Thornlie in order to obtain extra money in government subsidies and that Magdi and Mr Debowski had knowingly signed off on the claim forms.

The court was told the money was not used for personal gain, but rather went into the college because many of its students were not paying fees. Prosecutor Paul Yovich said during the trial that the college claimed government money for students who never went to the college or had left to go to another school or move overseas.

He said the trial was not about religion in any way.

The three men were charged in June 2008 following a police raid on the college’s campuses and headquarters in January 2007.

After the verdicts were handed down today, Mr Yovich said he would be seeking a significant term of imprisonment for Magar.

Magar and Magdi were released on bail and will be sentenced on April 27.

Neil Waldron comments on Islam Monitor:

Yep, they are all “good” muslims, running a “good” muslim school, running it under “good” islamic codes of conduct, mohummad was the “best” of all muslims and is the “best” example of conduct by muslims, but it has absolutly nothing to do with islam. PLEASE GIVE ME A BREAK, they were following islamic principals and teachings, it has EVERYTHING to do with islam.

Only when these animals turn up at parlament house armed to the teeth and take over by shooting all the dhimmie polies will people finally sit up and take notice, but by then it will be too late.1

Dereliction of Duty:

Growing number of Muslim men and multiple wives exploiting loophoole for taxpayer handouts

A GROWING number of Muslim men and their multiple wives are exploiting a loophole to get taxpayer handouts.

Centrelink has confirmed it has investigated up to 20 cases of multiple relationships, including polygamy, in the past two years for payment irregularities.

It has forced some families to pay money back.

Polygamy is illegal in Australia, but a Centrelink spokeswoman said it was not the welfare agency’s job to police polygamy laws.

Other News from the RoP:

• (US) Food Stamp Scam: Muslim Immigrants Amply Represented
• Women Objecting to Polygamy ‘Insulting Prophet Muhammad’
• Saudi Woman to Get 300 Lashes for Filing Harassment Claim…

“It’s not our concern if they are a member of a polygamist relationship,” the spokeswoman said.

“We look at whether they are receiving the correct rate of payment. We treat each couple independently.”

But Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria director Joumanah El Matrah said some men were exploiting Australia.
“It (polygamy) was a minority but it’s certainly a growing minority because Muslim men realised it was possible to get away with it,” she said.

She said Muslim men who took more than one wife and relied on Centrelink payments to support their families were not following Islamic law, which dictated they could only take multiple wives if they could afford it.

“What these men are doing is exploiting Islam and they are exploiting the system in Australia,” she said.

A 2008 report by the women’s group found Centrelink payments had encouraged polygamy in a small section of the Islamic community.

“Community workers who have provided support to women whose husbands took another wife religiously, said that women blame the availability of Centrelink benefits … since one or the other wife will be claiming it, relieving the husband of the responsibility of supporting two families,” the report stated.

Centrelink general manager Hank Jongen admitted the agency was making payments to people in multiple-couple relationships.

“There’s nothing preventing them from being in more than one ‘member of a couple’ relationship at a time,” he said. “In these cases, Centrelink pays each person the relevant income-tested payment at the partnered rate.”

Some Muslim men have married several wives in their country of origin or at local mosques so they are not recognised under Australian law by state-based births, deaths and marriage registries.

Islamic Friendship Association of Australia president Keysar Trad said he believed “not many more than 50″ Muslim families in Australia were polygamist. But he said he also knew of non-Muslim men who had more than one de facto wife who claimed Centrelink payments.

Mr Trad agreed only those who could afford a second wife, without reliance on Centrelink, should marry more than one woman.

“Marriage, whether they are single or plural, I believe in the old adage, they are made in heaven,” he said.

Black Magic Lost

Even the Germans realize that the Muslim POTUS is a monumental fraud….

Ralph Peters: “Setting up our military to fail”

Ralph Peters: “Just plain nuts. That’s the only possible charaterization for last night’s presidential declaration of surrender in advance of a renewed campaign in Afghanistan.”

“Pres. Obama will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan — but he’ll ‘begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.’ THEN WHY SEND THEM?”

“If you’re going to tell the Taliban to be patient because we’re leaving, what’s the point in upping the blood ante? For what wil come down to a single year by the time the troops hit the ground?”

“Does Obama really expect to achieve in one year what we haven’t been able to do in more than eight?”

“Adding to the confusion, Obama qualified his timeline by insisting that ‘we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.’ “

“If conditions on the ground are key, why announce a pullout date?”

“OUR PRESIDENT IS SETTING UP OUR MILITARY TO FAIL — BUT HE’LL BE ABLE TO CLAIM THAT HE GAVE THE GENERALS WHAT THEY WANTED. FAILURE …..

George Will: “This Will Not End Well”

Weasel Zippers:

Even Soros-Funded Lefty Tools From Media Matters Left Speechless Over Tingles “Enemy Camp” Remark…..

Simon Jenkins: “Obama has no stomach for this fight”

“Obama has no stomach for this fight. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy oozes with desperation not to be there — and the Taliban will bide their time until the exit.”

Simon Jenkins:”… Afghan ‘surge’ is his frantic bid to rescue what promises to be a stumbling re-election campaign that must start in 2011. It oozes with his desperation not to be in Afghanistan.

Germany’s Der Spiegel reports that Israel is losing patience.

Still not dead:

Terror victim’s husband runs over terrorist

Last Thursday, a ‘Palestinian’ terrorist stabbed a Jewish man and woman in a gas station outside of Kiryat Arba next to Hebron. Both victims were lightly wounded. The terrorist was shot and wounded by a passing soldier and lay in the middle of the road.

Watch what happens next. The Jewish woman’s husband drives up and drives over the terrorist several times. The terrorist is now in critical condition (the narrative is Hebrew only – sorry). More from Carl in J’lem

No, madam, it’s you who have offended MY values

• Scaring infidels into submission with black shrouds?

   

Burkha rage: The “traditional dress” can does make officials back off

(More multiculti befuddlement: the burkha is not “traditional dress” - its a nightmare for us and them. Besides, its meant to spook us…/ed)

Allison Pearson/Mail Online, thanks to Davey

On a train to London, a young woman wearing a burkha, with only her heavily made-up eyes peeping out, did not have a valid ticket. 

Challenged by the guard, the young woman gave a litany of excuses. She had left her bag at her boyfriend’s, he had bought the ticket, she had no money on her…

My friend Jane, who was in the same carriage, noticed how the guard became nervous as the Muslim girl presented herself as an innocent in a society she didn’t understand.

Instead of issuing a penalty fine, the guard backed off, shrugging his helplessness at the other passengers. 

So imagine my friend’s surprise when she got off at the same station as burkha girl and saw this ‘penniless innocent’ whip out a credit card from under the folds of her dress with which she promptly bought a Tube ticket.

Jane was so incensed she sent me a text message, explaining what she’d witnessed. It ended: ‘Attack of Burkha Rage. Grrr.’

Jane is not a BNP voter. She is a university lecturer who specialises in the developing world. 

Yet Burkha Rage has become our personal shorthand for someone taking the mickey out of our country and its tolerant ways.

Despite a growing acceptance that multi-culturalism has been deeply damaging to race relations, there are still almost weekly opportunities for a fit of Burkha Rage.

Look at Fata Lemes, the Muslim bar waitress who won £3,000 compensation this week for quitting her job after she objected to wearing a red cocktail dress.

Apologies if I find it hard to keep a straight face, but my jaw keeps dropping open. Miss Lemes took the job in a bar and left after eight days, claiming managers asked her to wear a dress that made her look like a prostitute.

Actually, the frock is conservative by London bar standards – more Petersfield garden party than Peter Stringfellow. But fair enough if Miss Lemes didn’t like it.

What was not fair enough was her demand for £20,000 compensation. 

An employment tribunal found that Miss Lemes had ‘overstated her trauma’. You can say that again. Her compensation claim was ‘manifestly absurd’. 

   

Double standard: Fata Lemes in the dress she objected to wearing for her job as a waitress and right in a revealing picture posted on Facebook

Yet instead of telling the 33-year-old to grow up and accept that a British city bar is not readily confused with a convent, the tribunal awarded her £2,919.95.

As a Bosnian Muslim, it said, she ‘holds views about modesty and decency which some might think unusual in Britain in the 21st century’.

They might think it was unusual if they had spotted that modest flower Miss Lemes on Facebook wearing a vest top with a gaping cleavage. But that image was not produced in court. 

How exactly are British employers supposed to avoid hurting the feelings of grievance-mongers like Fata Lemes?

Imagine a job interview where a bar manager dared to suggest that a Muslim woman might not feel at ease in their uniform. Before you could say ‘Mine’s a Cosmopolitan’, Miss Lemes would have sued for discrimination.

I’m afraid Fata Lemes is no better than the girl dodging the train fare. Both are quick to hide behind their religious identity and play the victim. Both are happy to embarrass their host nation into ignoring common sense.

Let me be clear: there are millions of British Muslims who respect our cultural norms. (?)  It’s the minority of opportunists who provoke Burkha Rage. (what a claim! Where are these “millions of Muslims who respect our cultural norms? The majority doesn’t, they want sharia. And that’s a fact/ed)

You see it from time to time: the Muslim shop assistant who refused to serve a woman buying First Bible Stories for her grandson because it was ‘unclean’. 

And the disgraceful capitulation of Sainsbury’s to Islamic checkout staff who refused to sell alcohol.

Gordon Brown, a recent convert to Britishness, has promised that the emphasis for immigrants must be on fitting in, learning our ways and our language. 

Yet, only yesterday, a Metropolitan Police chief admitted the bill for translation services for criminals and victims was set to soar to a staggering £20million by 2012.

Scotland Yard blames a growth in 50 distinct communities of more than 10,000 people and having to deal with more than 300 languages.

At no point in the statement is there any mention of compulsory English lessons. 

No suggestion of people needing to fit in with our ways, rather than us with theirs. I feel a small attack of Burkha Rage coming on.

• What’s your interest in this, Mr Gore?

Update:  Prince Charles gasses on too…

• Charles blows out yet more hot air

Mirror UK

* Newsflash: Saddam’s Tariq Aziz Applies for British Asylum…

* Asylum from what? Was he persecuted by his fellow Muslims? Unlikely.  Is seeking fertility treatment for your wife an entitlement to seek asylum in an infidel country? Something doesn’t add up here:

A failed asylum seeker was jailed for 18 months yesterday after admitting dishonestly receiving more than £100,000 in state handouts.

BMW-driving Huseyin Akbulut, 48, came to the UK from Turkey in 1993 to get fertility treatment for his wife.

He unsuccessfully claimed asylum in 2001 and, when appeal rights were exhausted, began fiddling benefits.

The UK Border Agency, who plan to recoup the cash from his assets, said: “He abused the country’s hospitality for his own greed.”

Doncaster crown court heard the local dad-of-one made false claims for six years despite holding key positions in four businesses.

Akbulut was given £66,957 in accommodation payments and £33,225 in cash.