Missouri CDL Case Demonstrates Feds Are On The Job

By Bill West

Yesterday the Department of Justice announced the indictment of fifteen defendants in Federal Court in Springfield, Missouri on a sixty-two count mail fraud, false document and conspiracy indictment. The case stemmed from a multi-agency Federal, State and local investigation targeting several business entities training and testing persons for the purpose of obtaining Commercial Driver Licenses (CDLs). The indictment alleges the defendants were involved in a scheme to fraudulently provide CDL testing to unqualified Somali and Bosnian immigrants and those efforts allowed those immigrants to unlawfully obtain CDLs. As many as seventy to eighty such immigrants may have received such licenses, according to the press release and indictment.

An AP report in the Kansas City Star yesterday noted one of the principal defendants is a previously convicted felon who was also a "prison convert" to Islam while serving time for robbery and was one of the owners of a truck driver training school called the "Muslim Brothers and Sisters." This particular defendant was also charged with being a convicted felon in illegal possession of a firearm.

Federal authorities have indicated they do not believe there are any terror connections to this case at this time. However, given the Somali and Bosnian nationalities of the CDL recipients, persons from war-torn countries known to produce radical Muslim extremists and known to have al-Qaeda presence, a principal defendant who is already a convicted felon and believed to be a prison convert to Islam (interestingly this on the heels of the just released report from George Washington University and the University of Virginia about US prison radicalization, especially among Muslim inmates and converts, and US Congressional hearings on this same topic), and the significant threat potential for misuse of CDLs, this case was ripe for investigation by the authorities.

In fact, given the apparent scope of the investigation and indictment, it seems the Federal authorities did precisely what they should have done in this matter. Even if no terror connections are developed in this particular case, given the circumstances, the aggressive, innovative, preemptive and cooperative multi-agency investigation and prosecution of the case is exactly the kind of post-9/11 law enforcement action Americans expect and of which they can be proud. Congratulations to the law enforcement professionals who have brought the case to this point.

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