Feds can't find (300) Somalis they say Va. man smuggled into U.S.

[darrels joy]

Feds can't find Somalis they say Va. man smuggled into U.S.

By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer

April 12, 2010


Federal authorities say they're certain nearly 300 Somalis allegedly smuggled into the United States by a Virginia man who admitted contacts with an Islamic terrorist group are in the country, but they can't find them despite a worldwide search for leads.

The search, first reported by the Washington Examiner, started in early February after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Anthony Joseph Tracy on charges that he helped smuggle the Somalis into the United States from Kenya. The 35-year-old has since been indicted on charges of conspiring with Cuban Embassy officials in Kenya to help the Somalis illegally enter the United States. ICE Agent Thomas Eyre has testified that authorities are "concerned" about the contact Tracy admitted having with the Somali terrorist organization Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda ally.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema questioned Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeanine Linehan about the status of the government's search for the illegal immigrants.

"We have not identified anyone," Linehan said. "We believe all the individuals are present in the United States. But by the virtue of [Tracy's] successful smuggling scheme, we are having difficulty finding them."

Eyre indicated in his testimony that authorities are trying to determine whether any of the Somalis are associated with Al-Shabaab.

In a court filing, Linehan said agents and prosecutors have "issued numerous subpoenas, reviewed Department of Homeland Security records, and conducted witness interviews throughout the United States, as well as in Australia and Africa."

According to court documents, Tracy helped the Somalis move to the United States by getting them travel visas to Cuba through contacts he had at the Cuban Embassy in Kenya. Tracy's attorney declined comment for this story.

The Somalis are believed to have entered the United States through the border with Mexico after making a circuitous trip from Kenya to Dubai to Moscow to Cuba to South America then to Mexico and northward, Eyre testified.

In March, federal prosecutors requested an extra month to indict Tracy because of investigation delays caused by the February snowstorms that battered Washington. Even with the indictment now in hand, Brinkema said the government's case could be "shaky" without authorities locating the Somalis.

Tracy has been held without bail and his case has been scheduled for trial on May 17.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Feds-can_t-find-Somalis-they-say-Va_-man-smuggled-into-U_S_-90381114.html#ixzz0kwbc4G40

[darrels joy]

Man charged with helping Somalis enter U.S. illegally

Reuters US Online Report Domestic News | 2010-02-24 12:41:17

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities have arrested and charged a Virginia man with trying to help nearly 300 people illegally enter the United States from the war-torn country of Somalia where al Qaeda militants have been active.

The man, Anthony Joseph Tracy, admitted to law enforcement officials he helped some 272 Somalis obtain fraudulent visas in Kenya with the goal of landing in the United States, according to an affidavit filed in a federal court in Virginia earlier this month.

In addition, Tracy, 35, said during a lie-detector test that he had been approached by the militant group al-Shabaab in Kenya, "but he claimed that he refused to assist them," said Thomas Eyre, special agent in the U.S. Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations.

The United States has accused al-Shabaab, an Islamist militant group, as being a proxy for al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa nation. It has been designated a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" by the U.S. State Department.

Tracy, who was arrested on February 5, told authorities in interviews he spent months in Kenya where he helped the Somalis obtain visas from the Cuban embassy as well an unnamed South American country, according to the affidavit.

"Tracy stated that he knew that the final destination for the Somalis for whom he obtained visas was the United States, with the visas fraudulently obtained in Kenya being the first step in the process," Eyre said in the affidavit.

Authorities did not state in the court documents how many Somalis may have entered the United States with Tracy's help.

While prosecutors portrayed Tracy as a young man who converted to Islam while in a U.S. prison in the 1990s, his lawyer said in a court document that he simply was a 35-year-old American citizen with a wife and five children, and that he "has every intention to remain here and contest these charges."

In Minnesota, U.S. authorities have charged 14 people with recruiting, training or financing travel for young Somali immigrants to travel to Africa to fight for al-Shabaab.

About 20 young men, all but one of Somali descent, have left the Minneapolis area since September 2007 to train with and fight for al-Shabaab, authorities have said.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by Philip Barbara)

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