ShareThisKNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Unable so far to mount a terrorism case against a Knoxville convenience store operator captured on audiotape discussing vague plans of jihad, federal authorities are now revealing the major stolen cigarette smuggling operation they say he headed.
In a series of documents unsealed in the past two weeks in U.S. District Court, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Theodore allege four Middle Eastern men were involved in a network peddling cigarettes stolen in Tennessee, affixed with fake tax stamps and then hawked to convenience stores and small grocers in Detroit.
Heading up the operation, they contend, was Hazam Ali Ahmed, 35, who operated the Central Convenient Store on Keith Avenue.
Ahmed was arraigned earlier this month on federal gun charges after authorities said they found two weapons inside his store. But testimony at that hearing revealed that the FBI had been patiently tracking Ahmed after an informant in the alleged cigarette-smuggling network netted the agency audiotapes of Ahmed allegedly trying to recruit the informant to join al-Qaeda and revealing a desire to target a shopping mall in an act of a holy war.
Three years later, however, FBI Agent Mark D. Murphy said the task force had been unable to produce evidence to back up a terrorism prosecution beyond Ahmed's vague threats -- which his attorney, Barbara Clark, insists were jokes.
Authorities now are turning back to the 2006 cigarette smuggling case that apparently put Ahmed on their radar screen. Court documents unsealed in recent days show that Jack S. Yacou and Ala Abed Asmaro have struck deals with the U.S. Attorney's Office to plead guilty to their respective roles and provide evidence against Ahmed.
Another man, Bahi Aziz Khoshiko, is accused in a complaint filed by FBI Agent David Bukowski of being a member of the smuggling operation but a records search netted no formal charges filed against him. It's unclear which of those three, if any, is the informant who agreed to secretly tape Ahmed.
According to Bukowski's complaint, Asmaro met Ahmed in Knoxville in early 2006. Ahmed allegedly boasted that he could supply Asmaro with thousands of cartons of untaxed, stolen cigarettes.
Asmaro made a few test purchases and eventually brought Yacou and Khoshiko with him to Ahmed's store to strike a deal "to obtain large quantities of stolen cigarettes" to be resold in Detroit, Bukowski wrote.
In April 2006, the agent alleged, Ahmed sold the men 600 cartons of cigarettes for $13,800. The cigarettes bore a bogus Tennessee tax stamp, Bukowski alleged. The men then resold the cigarettes to unnamed stores in Detroit, they admit in plea papers.
In June 2006, Asmaro and an unidentified man bought another 1,170 cartons from Ahmed, Bukowski wrote. He did not list a price.
Asmaro apparently was nabbed by federal authorities at some point because Bukowski said he later interviewed Asmaro about Ahmed at a federal prison in Pennsylvania. Ahmed has a prior smuggling conviction in that state.
Ahmed has not yet been charged in Knoxville's federal court system in the cigarette smuggling operation. However, he remains jailed in the gun case.
(Jamie Satterfield is a reporter for The Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee.)
