As reported in today’s Oregonian, the ever-vigilant anti-terror forces have caught another imminent threat in Portland, who’s been scamming the state unemployment fund:
FBI inquiry leads to fraud case
A Muslim faces charges over jobless aid while he worked in Qatar, a lead developed by the Portland joint task forceA former Intel engineer and board member of the Portland Islamic School faces federal charges that he defrauded Oregon’s unemployment compensation system.
A federal grand jury in Portland indicted Soubhi Fakher Abdulkarim, 40, on 32 counts of wire fraud and one count of stealing public money.
The FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force found in April 2003 that the Syrian-born naturalized U.S. citizen was living and working in Qatar, in the Persian Gulf, when he applied for and received benefits from the Oregon Employment Department.
–snip–
For more than a year the state made electronic payments to Abdulkarim’s Wells Fargo bank account in Oregon totaling $12,960, the indictment states. He reciprocated, prosecutors say, by filing weekly eligibility reports by e-mail.
But the JTTF discovered that Abdulkarim was being paid $9,000 a month as an Internet technology manager for Aspire, Qatar’s new sports academy. The feds notified the state, and the payments to Abdulkarim stopped.
–snip–
I feel safer. I mean, I’m glad the state’s not paying Abdulkarim any more undeserved unemployment compensation (and I’m looking into those Qatar job offers a little more thoroughly) but I also wonder how much money the FBI spent investigating this guy, and what the heck they’re doing, since this is their big Oregon success since the Brandon Mayfield fiasco.