Guyanese Haleem Khan, 38, yesterday pleaded guilty in a Chicago court to participating in a bribery conspiracy with a former US Embassy official stationed in Guyana to sell United States visas, according to the Justice Department.
He also pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of alien smuggling.
Khan admitted in court and in a written plea agreement that he was a broker who obtained paying customers to purchase non-immigrant visas from his co-defendant, Thomas P. Carroll, a former career US State Department Foreign Service Officer until both men were arrested on March 17, 2000.
At that time, state and federal agents executed search warrants that resulted in the seizure of more than $1 million in US currency and ten gold bars, each weighing 100 ounces, from safe deposit boxes controlled by Carroll at Chicago area banks. The agencies involved in the operation were: the US State Department Diplomatic Security Service and the State Department Office of Inspector General, other US federal and local law enforcement agencies, the Justice Department Public Integrity Section and the US Attorney's Office in Chicago. Carroll agreed to forfeit the gold, US$2.5 million in cash and additional items, including most of the seized property to the United States.
In yesterday's plea, Khan agreed to the forfeiture of an additional US$250,000 to the United States. In the agreement he made with the prosecutors, Khan implicated a "uniformed police inspector" and a Guyanese employed at the US Embassy as being part of the conspiracy in the visa ring.
In the alien smuggling charge, Khan implicated a local promoter and a number of Guyanese living in Guyana and Canada.
Khan, who was arrested in Miami and now remains in federal custody in Chicago, is scheduled to be sentenced on February 8, 2002. Carroll, 34, who was arrested at his parents' home in the suburban Palos Hills, Illinois area, where he was visiting, also remains in federal custody. He is scheduled to be sentenced on January 22, 2002. The case is pending before US District Judge Blanche M. Manning.
Khan, also known as "Keith" and "Noel," admitted that beginning in December 1998, he recruited numerous individuals willing to pay him to obtain non-immigrant visas at a cost of approximately US$12,500 each. Khan then provided the names of these individuals to Carroll, who, in turn, agreed to issue the non-immigrant visas in exchange for approximately US$8,000 each. This arrangement continued through March 2000, when both men were arrested while plotting to sell an additional 250 visas.
On April 6, 2001, Carroll pleaded guilty "blind", that is, without a written plea agreement with the government, to an indictment that charged him with one count each of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, visa fraud and bribery. Carroll admitted to conspiring with Khan and others between 1998 and March 2000 to sell non-immigrant visas. Another broker, who Carroll used as an intermediary between himself and the purchasers of US visas, Hargobin Mortley, of Georgetown, Guyana, previously pleaded guilty to bribery of a public official. He was sentenced in January 2001 by a federal judge in Chicago and was released after serving nine months and 22 days.
From March 1998 to March 1999, Carroll's duties included those of vice-consul and chief of the Non-Immigrant Visa Section of the US Embassy in Guyana, giving him sole responsibility for reviewing and adjudicating applications for US visas by Guyanese nationals and other foreign nationals. In March 1999, Carroll was routinely transferred within the US Embassy and became the Economic/Commercial Officer, ending his responsibility for regularly adjudicating visa applications. Carroll admitted that in February 2000 he solicited another employee at the embassy, who has been cooperating throughout the investigation, to approve US visas of designated individuals in exchange for money. Carroll and the other official engaged in numerous conversations, many of which were secretly recorded, in Guyana and elsewhere, concerning the illegal sale of US visas, according to court documents.
In an unrelated matter, Khan also pleaded guilty yesterday to alien smuggling, resolving charges filed here that could have been brought against him in the Northern District of New York. He admitted that, beginning in 1996 and continuing until October 1997, he recruited citizens of Guyana who were willing to pay him $10,000 each in exchange for being transported illegally into the United States. Khan and others arranged for these aliens to be transported from Guyana to Canada. The aliens were then transported covertly across the border between the United States and Canada.
On the bribery conspiracy, Khan is facing a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and a maximum of ten years in prison and a $250,000 on the alien smuggling count. As an alternative, the court may impose a maximum fine on either count totalling twice the gross gain to the defendant or twice the gross loss to any victim, whichever is greater. However, the court will determine the appropriate sentence to be imposed under the United States Sentencing Guidelines.
United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and Acting Chief of the Justice Department Public Integrity Section, Andrew Lourie, announced Khan's guilty plea. With them were Special-Agent-in-Charge of the State Department Diplomatic Security Service in Chicago, James D. Lemarie; Special Agent-in-Charge of the State Department's Office of Inspector General, Alan R. Jones; and Special-Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Thomas J. Kneir. They commended the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the US Secret Service, the US Customs Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Palos Hills Police Department, which were the other agencies involved in the investigation.
Representing the government in court were Senior Trial Attorney Nancy J. Newcomb of the Public Integrity Section and Assistant US Attorney Carolyn F. McNiven.