Another Indictment Shows Sophistication of Charity Operations

By Douglas Farah

The Justice Department's announcement of the indictment of an Islamic charity for financially aiding a terrorist tied to al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as a former U.S. congressman for lobbying on behalf of the group with money stolen from the U.S. government, presents several interesting facets. The indictment is here.

If the government is right, an Islamic "charity," headqurarted in sleepy Missouri and directed by those with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood-led regime in Sudan, stole U.S. money aimed at humanitarian relief and then used that money to lobby the U.S. government in order to be able to raise more money.

That would not be the random operation of unsophisticated people, but a complex operation that demonstrates knowledge of how the U.S. system works, and how to exploit the holes in the system.

First is that the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), with ties to Sudan, morphed over the years, using different names, while retaining essentially the same people and same organization. This is standard among charities seeking to avoid scrutiny of the IRS and others.

Second, the IARA allegedly felt it was worth a significant amount of money (allegedly pilfered from a USAID project that the IARA failed to complete) to be removed from a Senate Banking Committee list of suspect charities. My full blog is here.

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