Lake Effect News

By LORRAINE SWANSON

Editor

Neighbors reported 30 cars filled FBI agents descending upon Tahawwur Rana's West Ridge home where he was taken into federal custody on Oct. 18.

For the second time in a year, the Shariah Board of America has found itself fielding media calls in another scandal involving a prominent businessman from West Ridge’s Muslim community.

In August 2008, one of the board’s founders, Salman Ibrahim, CEO of a Shariah-compliant, West Ridge investment firm called Sunrise Equities, vanished leaving hundreds of local investors with personal losses estimated at $80 million.

The subject of an ongoing FBI investigation, Muslim investors, many with businesses on Devon Avenue, entrusted their life savings to Ibrahim and his Sunrise partners to invest in real estate developments in exchange for monthly disbursement checks,.  The investments were set up according to Islamic finance laws that prohibit interest bearing loans. Investors claim they were promised “huge returns.”

Ibrahim has not surfaced since disappearing last year. Some believe he has left the United States. Ibrahim was immediately removed from the Shariah Board  when directors were flooded with calls from worried investors. The Shariah Board has not been accused or charged with any wrongdoing.

Now, another West Ridge businessman with ties to the Shariah Board, faces federal charges that he allegedly helped finance an international terror plot targeting the office and employees of a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2005, deemed offensive by many of the world’s Muslims.

Tahawwur Huessein Rana, 48, was arrested at his home on the 6000 block of North Campbell early in the morning of Oct. 18. That same day, 100 FBI agents from the U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Customs and Immigration Enforcement raided a slaughterhouse owned by Rana in Kinsmen, Ill..

Rana engaged Islamic scholars from the Shariah Board at 7045 N. Western to certify that his meat was slaughtered and prepared in accordance with Islamic dietary laws. In addition to his First World Management Services meat processing plant in Kinsmen, Rana owns First World Immigration Services at 2809 W. Devon, and Chicago Grocers, 1t 2122 W. Devon, that sells halal meat and other food products to Muslims. Rana also has business interests in New York and Toronto.

“I am really shocked. This is two shocks two years in a row,” said Syed Mohammed Ali Farid, the former secretary of the Shariah Board. “You don’t know what is sitting beside you anymore. Who do you trust now?”

Rana, a native of Pakistan and a citizen of Canada, has been charged with two counts of providing material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy that involved another West Ridge man, David Headley, 49, and at least three other specific individuals in Pakistan with ties to Al-Queda.

Headley, a U.S. citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani, was arrested on Oct. 3. Rana and Headley attended military school together in Pakistan, according to court documents. As of late 2008 and up until this month, Headley allegedly made two trips to Denmark to scout out the newspaper offices of Jyllands-Posten, and reported on his efforts to other conspirators in Pakistan. Rana allegedly helped arrange Headley’s trips under the guise of business on behalf of Rana’s First World Management companies.

Rana is said to have discussed potential targets for the attack with Headley in coded e-mails and cell phone exchanges that referred to the alleged plot as “the Mickey Mouse project,”  according to copies of the complaints posted by the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday. Some the e-mails are alleged to have originated from computers at Rana’s First World Immigration Services office on Devon Avenue.

The day after Rana’s arrest, his neighbors recounted for Lake Effect News how 30 cars filled with federal agents circled the West Ridge street of single family homes early Sunday morning Oct. 18, hiding in alleys before taking Rana into custody. One neighbor described the site of armed FBI agents as making him feel “very nervous.”

A competing Halal butcher down the street from Rana’s Chicago Grocers speculated that the raid on Rana’s Kinsmen slaughterhouse might have been conducted by U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors because of unsafe meat processing practices, prior to Tuesday’s unsealing of a federal criminal complaint by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Chicago Grocers, Rana's Halal meat market located at 2122 W. Devon Ave., received good online reviews posted by customers for the store's courteous service and cleanliness. One customer wrote that the store did not smell unlike other meat markets.

Ali Farid said he met Rana two or three years when Rana came to the Shariah Board seeking certification of his meat processing plant in Kinsmen. The Shariah Board certifies dairy and meat products to ensure that Islamic laws are being followed. Retailers and meat processors that pay a $250 certification fee and pass an inspection, are able to display a certificate demonstrating they are Shariah-compliant.  Stores and processing plants are also subjected to ongoing surprise inspections.

The certification of Rana’s slaughterhouse was conducted by Islamic scholars associated with the Shariah Board.

“There were no problems with his certification,” Ali Farid said. “Mr. Rana didn’t get any special favors. The certificate has nothing to do with person; it has to do with the trust of the Muslim community that we would enforce Islamic rules.”

He described Rena as “a very nice guy” who often talked about what the Shariah board should be doing for the West Ridge neighborhood, not just the Muslim community.

“He wanted to donate meat to the homeless and poor people,” Ali Farid said. “He wanted to start a café to feed the homeless.”

The Shariah Board also purchased a building from Rana last year at 6201 N. California, giving him a $200,000 deposit in donations from Muslim community members, which it now rents out for professional offices.

Ali Farid said he resigned from the Shariah Board earlier this year to devote more time to his travel agency, but still volunteers at the board.  On Tuesday, when the Department of Justice unsealed its criminal complaint against Rana and Headley, he started receiving calls from the media.

“My last communication with [Rana] was three or four months ago at his office,” Ali Farid said.

Rana and Headley are being held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center downtown. During Rana’s bond hearing Wednesday morning, his attorney, Patrick Blegen, stated that Headley duped Rana into funding his overseas trips to Denmark by concealing the true nature of his trips.

The federal criminal complaint outlines an alleged detailed terror plot based on intercepted e-mail and telephone communications between the two men.

A federal judge put off setting bond for Rana until next Tuesday after U.S. prosecutors argued that Rana is a possible flight risk.  If convicted, Rana and Headley face possible life sentences.

Blegen said there were rules about what can be said about ongoing federal cases when contacted on Wednesday and could not comment on details of the case outside of court proceedings. He did read a prepared press statement.

“Mr. Rana is a well respected businessman in the Chicagoland community.  He adamantly denies the charges against him and eagerly awaits the opportunity to contest the charges in court to clear his and his family’s name. We request that the community respect the fact that these are merely allegations and not proof,” Blegen said.