Ongoing border security prosecution efforts: 23 extraditions in one month

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Border-crime related prosecutions are ongoing with extraditions playing a key role in prosecutions. The latest extradition to Texas was the 23rd in one month, FBI Director Kash Patel said. The extraditions represent an “historic run for this FBI in returning and repatriating alleged criminals to face American justice,” he said.

Three most recent extraditions are of men from Quatar, Brazil and Mexico for prosecution in California and Texas.

The 23rd extradition this month was of Abdullah Anwar, extradited from Qatar after he was indicted in 2021 by a federal grand jury on multiple money laundering, mail and wire fraud charges. While on pretrial release, he fled the U.S. for Pakistan but was arrested in Qatar. He was extradited to the U.S., arriving in Texas last week, and remains in custody in Collin County.

Anwar is accused of being connected to a fraud network that has caused more than $1 billion in losses over five years involving “fraudulent identity production operations, counterfeit device factories, transit/cargo theft rings,” according to the charges.

The indictment details the alleged operations of a multi-layered criminal organization that stole personal electronics, including cell phones, tablets, laptops, and smart watches in the North Texas area. The stolen items were then exported overseas for resale. The scheme involved “runners, suppliers, device traffickers, and exporters” who allegedly also stole electronics through armed robberies.

The investigation began in late 2020, after 23 armed takeover-style robberies occurred at AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon retail cell phone stores in the Dallas area. By December 2020, four individuals were arrested in Fort Worth on robbery charges, prompting a multi-agency investigation. The investigation led to a Dallas-based Global One Wireless company run by two brothers, Abdul Basit Bhangda and Arsalan Bhangda, who acted through a parent corporation, RJ Telecom, to sell stolen products abroad by shipping the merchandise to foreign import companies located in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, according to the charges.

In 2021, an estimated nearly $100 million worth of products were sold to foreign importers; approximately 20,000 products were acquired by identity theft. Overall initial losses exceeded $42 million, authorities allege. The scope of losses has since exceeded that amount.

More than 100 people of different nationalities were indicted. Their addresses span 10 states including Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee. If convicted, they each face up to 25 years in prison.

In another case, Bangladeshi national Saifullah Al-Mamun appeared in federal court in Laredo on Monday after he was extradited to Texas from Brazil earlier this month. He was previously indicted on human smuggling charges accusing him of “facilitating the travel of scores of aliens from São Paulo, Brazil, and other locations in South America, Central America, and Mexico so that the aliens could illegally enter the United States.”

Al-Mamun “housed aliens in São Paulo and arranged their travel.” His Bangladeshi coconspirators “housed aliens in Tapachula, Mexico, and facilitated their transportation to Monterrey, Mexico,” according to the charges. They also housed them in Monterrey, instructing them on how to cross the Rio Grande River into Texas. “Many of the aliens had difficulty safely crossing the Rio Grande River” and “paid as much as tens of thousands of dollars to individuals in Bangladesh to help them travel illegally to the United States,” according to the charges.

Two of his alleged Bangladeshi coconspirators pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to 46 months in prison. He was arrested in Brazil in 2019 but wasn’t extradited until this month.

If convicted on all human smuggling counts, he faces up to 15 years in prison. If convicted “of conspiracy to bring and/or conspiracy to encourage and induce an alien to enter the United States,” he faces up to 10 years in prison.

In California, fugitive Genaro Lopez was arraigned Monday after he was extradited from Mexico on drug trafficking charges. He pleaded not guilty and was denied bail after a federal judge agreed he “posed a serious risk of flight from prosecution.”

The attorneys prosecuting the case, argue Lopez is a “powerful drug trafficker operating on both sides of the border,” with a base of operations in a Chula Vista. An investigation into his operations began in 2021 when authorities executed a search warrant and first seized large quantities of cocaine, as well as guns, ghost guns, a bulletproof vest, ammunition, high-capacity magazines, and nearly $40,000 in cash, according to the complaint.

In 2022, investigators made major busts connected to the operation and seized nearly 1,800 pounds of cocaine, 163 pounds of methamphetamine and 3.5 pounds of fentanyl. They also found a cross-border tunnel near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection San Diego Sector. The latest Border Patrol tunnel bust led to the arrest of four and enough cocaine seized to kill 34 million people, The Center Square reported.

In Lopez’s case, investigators say they found a nearly 1,800-foot-long tunnel stretching from Tijuana, Mexico, to a warehouse in Otay Mesa, with reinforced walls, a rail system, electricity and a ventilation system. Of the six people arrested in the scheme, five have pleaded guilty and been sentenced. Lopez remained a fugitive until Mexican authorities arrested him in March at the request of the U.S.