The government says Saifullah Anjum Ranjha thought he was helping out al Qaeda. Unfornuately for Ranjha he wasn’t helping himself out much. Now it’s off to prison.
By Tricia Bishop
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — A Pakistani national with homes in Laurel and Washington, D.C., was sentenced to nine years in prison yesterday in a Baltimore federal court for financing people he believed were terrorist al-Qaida operatives and laundering $2.2 million in what he was told were illegal funds through an ancient currency-transfer system that avoids financial institutions.
Saifullah Anjum Ranjha, 45, was one of nearly four dozen people indicted last year after a four-year global sting – dubbed “Operation Cash-Out”- revealed multiple schemes that stretched from Maryland to Belgium, Spain and Canada. They included three money-laundering systems and a plan to bribe public officials to get green cards.
About 30 defendants have pleaded guilty in the cases so far, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney’s office; a handful are proceeding to trial, and several others are fugitives.
According to a plea agreement, Ranjha, who was born in Pakistan and became a U.S. resident in 1997, was running a money-remittance business in Washington called Hamza Inc. when he was approached in 2003 by an undercover law enforcement witness who operated a phony import/export company.
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