Federal agents raided two offices in Dearborn (which is in Wayne County, right under where I live) today, acting on the suspicion that they had terrorist ties to Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). These offices, which were owned by two charitable groups (Goodwill Charitable Organizations and Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization), were cleaned out by the FBI, IRS, and the Secret Service, who were seen to be hauling away files and placing them into a van outside.
Here's an excerpt of the Detroit Free Press article, which covered it by the way:
Federal agents are raiding today the Dearborn offices of two charities suspected of having ties to terrorist groups in the Middle East.
A Dearborn police officer guarded the entrance to the office of the Goodwill Charitable Organization, a fund-raising office established by the Martyrs Foundation in Dearborn, on Warren Avenue, tucked between a grocery store and an import store.
The charity is not affiliated with Goodwill Industries, said Christine Bragale, spokeswoman for Goodwill Industries International.
Goodwill Industries International has sent the Muslim charity a letter in the past to get it to stop using the Goodwill name, Bragale said.
In Dearborn, several uniformed and plainclothes law enforcement officials shuttled in and out of the office, while bystanders and neighbors stood by watching.
The Treasury said in a news release that it "targeted Hizballah's support network by designating the Iran-based Martyrs Foundation, including its U.S. branch, and the finance firm Al-Qard al-Hassan."
The government also has frozen the assets of the Goodwill Charitable Organization, according to the news release.
"We will continue to target those who form the financial backbone of Hizballah, Hamas, PIJ and other terrorist groups that are attempting to destabilize Lebanon and target innocent civilians," said Stuart Levey, under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in the news release. "We will not allow organizations that support terrorism to raise money in the United States or to evade our measures and continue to operate simply by changing their names."
A search warrant was executed at the Goodwill Charitable Organization office, according to Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
According to the Treasury, the Martyrs Foundation "channels financial support from Iran to several terrorist organizations’’ including “Hizballah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)."
Federal agents are also raiding the Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization, which has a Dearborn office on Schaefer Road, north of Warren Avenue.
Agents with the FBI, IRS, and the U.S. Secret Service were seen hauling away files and placing them into a van outside the office. Al-Mabarrat, whose headquarters is based in Lebanon, has held fund-raisers in metro Detroit in recent years.
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