DETROIT - A Federal Grand Jury in Detroit charged nineteen individuals with operating a global racketeering conspiracy in an indictment unsealed today, announced United States Attorney Stephen J. Murphy. The indictment alleges that portions of the profits made from the illegal enterprise were given to Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization. Nine of the individuals were arrested this morning...

...The indictment charges that between 1996 and 2004, a group of individuals worked together in a criminal enterprise to traffic in contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig Zag rolling papers and counterfeit Viagra, to produce counterfeit cigarette tax stamps, to transport stolen property, and to launder money. The enterprise operated from Lebanon, Canada, China, Brazil, Paraguay and the United States. The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury on April 14, 2004, was sealed pursuant to a court order until today.

Arrested this morning by members of the Detroit Joint Terrorism Task Force (“JTTF”) were: Karim Hassan Nasser, 37, of Windsor, Ontario; Fadi Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, 33, of Dearborn; Majid Mohamad Hammoud, 39, of Dearborn Heights; Jihad Hammoud, 47, of Dearborn; Youssef Aoun Bakri, 36, of Dearborn Heights; Ali Najib Berjaoui, 39, of Dearborn; Mohammed Fawzi Zeidan, 41, of Canton; Imad Majed Hamadeh, 51, of Dearborn Heights; Adel Isak, 37, of Sterling Heights

Also named in the Indictment, but not arrested today because they currently reside outside of the United States were: Imad Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, 37 of Lebanon, formerly of Dearborn; Hassan Ali Al-Mosawi, 49, of Lebanon; Hassan Hassan Nasser, 36, of Windsor, Ontario; Ali Ahmad Hammoud, 64, of Lebanon; Karim Hassan Abbas, 37, formerly of Dearborn; Hassan Mohamad Srour, 30, of Montreal, Quebec; Naji Hassan Alawie, 44, of Windsor, Ontario; and Abdel-Hamid Sinno, 52, of Montreal, Quebec.

Theodore Schenk, 73, of Miami Beach, Florida was not arrested today but will be voluntarily surrendering himself for arraignment on April 10, 2006.

The indictment alleges that Imad Hammoud, along with his partner, Hassan Makki, ran a multi-million dollar a year contraband cigarette trafficking organization headquartered in the Dearborn, Michigan, area between 1996 and 2002. Makki pleaded guilty in 2003 in federal district court in Detroit to racketeering and providing material support to Hizballah. Some of the cigarettes were supplied to the organization by Mohamad Hammoud, who was convicted in 2002 in federal district court in Charlotte, North Carolina, of, among other crimes, racketeering and providing material support to Hizballah. Makki and Mohamad Hammoud, who were not charged in the indictment unsealed today, were identified as unindicted co-conspirators. They both are currently serving prison sentences relating to their activities in this matter...

...The indictment charges that portions of the profits made from the illegal enterprise were given to Hizballah. Some members of the enterprise charged a “Resistance Tax,” being a set amount over black market price per carton of contraband cigarettes, which their customers were told would be going to Hizballah. Some members of the enterprise also solicited money from cigarette customers for the orphans of martyrs program run by Hizballah in Southern Lebanon to support the families of persons killed in Hizballah suicide and other terrorist operations...