CAIR Oklahoma's Board Chair charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering in connection with fraudulent mortgages

Michael Aziz Gipson, CAIR Oklahoma's Board Chair up until just a week ago, was in court to plead not guilty to charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering in connection with fraudulent mortgages.

CAIR Oklahoma quickly removed Gipson's name from their website, and appointed someone else to that position, Dr. Amir Khaliq, is a professor at OU's College of Public Health.

July 29, 2010
Defendants plead not guilty in real estate scheme
Case involves 2 homes in Edmond

Mark Schlachtenhaufen
The Edmond Sun

OKLAHOMA CITY — Three defendants, including an Edmond man, indicted in an alleged scheme involving local real estate pleaded not guilty in federal court Thursday.

Derrick Reuben Smith, 46, of Edmond, Michael Aziz Gipson, 60, of Oklahoma City, and Trina Tahir, 54, of Oklahoma City, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Bana Roberts and all pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering in connection with fraudulent mortgages.

A $5,000 unsecured bond was set for each defendant, and the case is currently scheduled to be on the Sept. 13 trial docket of U.S. District Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti.

In short, the defendants are charged with allegedly inducing lenders to fund mortgages based on inflated real estate prices and misrepresenting the distribution of excessive loan proceeds to Smith as commissions and bonuses paid to Tahir.

According to the indictment, Smith allegedly recruited two individuals to buy two new homes in Edmond in mid-2006 and early 2007 for $425,000 and $435,000, respectively.

The builder of both homes agreed that Tahir’s real estate brokerage, T&T Realty, would receive large commissions and bonuses totaling $51,950 and $77,950, respectively.

The indictment alleges that after the closings, Tahir caused T&T Realty to write checks to Gipson, an agent at T&T Realty, for $27,059.86 and $58,000, respectively.

Gipson then allegedly bought cashier’s checks in those same amounts payable to “MP Services,” a business that Smith operated. Smith allegedly paid $20,000 to the person who served as the buyer of the first house and used the rest of the money for his own purposes, according to court records.

The indictment also charges Gipson and Tahir with fraudulently misrepresenting the source of funds used as a down payment on a house that Gipson bought in Midwest City and charges Tahir with fraudulently disguising the payment of $9,295.52 to a buyer of a house in Oklahoma City as a real estate bonus.

The four wire fraud counts are based on interstate wires from lenders to fund the purchases of the four properties.

In addition to the conspiracy count and the four wire-fraud counts, the indictment includes nine counts of money laundering. In each of these, one of the defendants is charged with engaging in a financial transaction designed to conceal and disguise the nature, source and ownership of the proceeds of the mortgages, according to court records.

The indictments stem from an investigation conducted by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office.

Iran attempting to censor what the 21 million Iranian web users

While the population, largely unhappy with three decades of religious dictatorship, is not rebellious, it is becoming a lot more unruly.

The lifestyle police continue to struggle against women dressing provocatively (that is, by modest Western standards), illegal (locally made) alcohol consumption, people who do not pray, and Internet users who say what they think.

The women, drinkers, impious and bloggers are being arrested, in selective cases, to try and intimidate everyone else. But it isn't working, and never has. The people become bolder and more unruly.

Iran is attempting to censor what the 21 million Iranian web users can access. Using China as a model, Iran is importing special software and training "Internet Police" to make it all work.

Iran is particularly incensed with bloggers, and has accused some of them of being spies. Iran is particularly angry about Iranian bloggers that point out the reality of the armed forces, and the incompetence of civil servants.

The military is generally a sham, with poor equipment, training and leadership. This is very contrary to the government propaganda, which regularly announces new weapons (which are never actually seen in action) and military exercises (which are mainly propaganda events, with little training value.)

Meanwhile, Iran tries to use the media, both at home and internationally, to push its warped view of reality. Internally, this is ignored by the majority of the 70 million Iranians. But a significant minority (20-30 percent of the population) does eat it up, and provides essential support for the dictatorship. Externally, IRNA (Iran Republic News Agency) is largely a joke, providing fodder for speculation about what the Iranian spin masters are trying to do.

This year, there has been marked increase in announcements of new high tech weapon systems. The systems described are usually mockups, prototypes or imaginary.

Iran does produce weapons that work, but these are simple things like rifles, mortars, unguided rockets and some licensed stuff (missiles, rockets) from China and North Korea. Iran has scientists and engineers, but not many (the religious dictatorship is not kind to anything modern, and most Iranian professionals have fled to the West). A lot of these Iranian "new weapons" appear to use students, and recent graduates, for the technical work. Lots of inspiration, but little that can be built and function reliably. The best Iranian technical talent are working on ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Both of these projects are using lots of technology imported from China and North Korea.

While Iran makes a lot of noise about the need for Israel to be destroyed, Israeli intelligence officials (from the Mossad, and other agencies) have successfully conducted a global media and information campaign to make it clear that Iran was trying to build nuclear weapons, and where the components and technology was coming from (especially Western firms that were helping out illegally). All this may not stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon, but it is certainly delaying it considerably. This gives Iran yet another reason to dislike Israel.

Pretty much out of sight, a most crucial war is being fought to cripple the Iranian smuggling operation that supplies their weapons programs, especially nuclear weapons.

For the last five years, the U.S. has been systematically cutting Iran off from the international banking system. This has forced Iran to engage in more illegal access to banking services. This puts Iran's money at risk, as funds can be seized when illegal transactions are detected. Iran has also used the banking system to support terrorist operations (currently for Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and several groups in places like Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan), and this makes Iranian bankers even more vulnerable.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recently remarked that the country could survive if the price of oil went below $10 a barrel. Now, as expected, he has admitted that the country is in big trouble with the price of oil under $40 (down from over $140 earlier this year.)

Government officials have earlier said that if the price of oil fell below $60 a barrel (which it has) and stays there (which it may, at least until the current recession is over), the nation will not be able to finance foreign trade (which is already having problems with increasingly effective U.S. moves to deny Iran access to the international banking system), or even the Iranian economy itself.

The latter problem is largely self-inflicted, as president Ahmadinejad desperately borrows money to placate his few (heavily armed and fanatical) followers (about 20 percent of the population).

The rest of the population has been in recession for years, and is getting increasingly angry over Ahmadinejad's mismanagement. Some 80 percent of Iran's exports are oil. Ahmadinejad is being openly blamed for squandering oil revenue when the price of oil was high. This created high inflation (nearly 30 percent) and unemployment (over 20 percent). Now, the falling price of oil will make things worse.

In the north, fighting with Kurdish separatists continues. In addition to patrols, the Revolutionary Guards regularly use artillery to hit locations believed occupied by armed Kurds. Sometimes the shells land across the border in Iraq, and most of the casualties are civilians.

A similar war goes on in the southeast, where Baluchi tribesmen battle border police, regular police and revolutionary guards who try to keep smugglers from moving heroin, opium and consumer goods across the border from Pakistan. So far this month, over three dozen Baluchi have been killed, and in the last month, Iranian security officials have arrested nearly a thousand Baluchis. Armed Baluchi groups base themselves across the border in Pakistan (which refuses to crack down on this). The Baluchi separatists have recently enraged Iranians by killing 16 Iranian policemen, who were captured last June, and held to try and obtain the release of jailed Baluchis. The Iranians refused.

Terror in Oklahoma

Coming on the back of the terrorism conviction of the 'Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development', One has ask what other Terrorism links are in OKC ?

Holy Land Retrial Ends in Sweeping Guilty Verdicts

It took 15 years and two trials, but the government has won a terrorism conviction against what had been the nations largest Muslim charity and five of its leaders for funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

A federal jury in Dallas found 'Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development' and its officials guilty of funneling more than $$12 million to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"It involves a conspiriacy that spanned a 13-year period of an effort," U.S. Attorney Richard Roper said. "A sophisticated effort to support the terrorist organization Hamas."

"This is a real victory for all of us in the sense that the funding for terrorism is essential for its continuation and we have done many things to weaken their operational capacity," Deputy Director MIPT David Cid said.

The convictions carry sentences up to 15 or 20 years on each count.

Ghassan Elashi, Holy Lands former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, Holy Lands chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud.

Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted of three counts of conspiracy.

Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted of one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization.