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NRI admits laundering $86,000 for Lakhani
Raja is the third person to plead guilty in the Hemant Lakhani illegal missile deal case, reports Nabanita Sircar.
A London financier of Indian origin has admitted to laundering $86,000 for UK-based Indian, Hemant Lakhani, who was arrested last year in New Jersey for selling shoulder-fired missiles to an FBI informant who had posed as a terrorist.
At a US federal court hearing in Newark, Manthena "Vijay" Raja, who has agreed to testify against Lakhani when the trial begins in November, said he knew the money was payment for a missile.
Since the 18-month FBI sting operation that led to the arrest of Lakhani in August 2003, Raja, 44, is the third person to plead guilty in the case. Prosecutors said Lakhani, 69, arranged the $5 million sale of 51 shoulder-fired missiles to an undercover informant who said he wanted them to bring down US jetliners.
Lakhani was arrested after the delivery of the first missile, which was actually a harmless replica sold to him by undercover Russian agents as part of the sting operation. Lakhani has maintained that he is not a terrorist. His lawyer Henry Klingeman has said Lakhani was a victim of entrapment by government operatives.
Raja told the court that he had met Lakhani four years ago and in 2002 he agreed to help facilitate the missile purchase. He admitted faxing weapons brochures and accepting money for Lakhani from a man in the US known to him as "Mr Haji". The payment for the first missile came in two transfers. Raja said he gave the first $30,000 to Lakhani and deposited the second amount, $56,500, in a Swiss bank account.
Claiming to be a financial services and asset management professional, Raja said he was aware the money was part of an illegal arms deal between Lakhani and Haji. According to an American media report earlier this year, Haji is allegedly a paid FBI informant named Mohammed Habib Rehman. He is expected to be the key witness at Lakhani's trial.
Raja, who faces between 37 to 46 months in prison, made a plea bargain to a single money laundering count and agreed to forfeit the total sum of $86,500. Prosecutors agreed to ask the judge for a lighter sentence based on his assistance in the case. Raja will be allowed to return to London after posting $100,000 cash bail. His defense attorney Paul Brickfield said his client is a businessman and a born-again Christian who harboured no ill will toward the United States.
Two other defendants, Yehuda Abraham, a New York jeweller, and Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, an Indian national, await sentencing. They have pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting service in connection with the arms plot, and admitted they arranged to secretly transfer thousands of dollars for Lakhani. But both men maintained that they did not know the money was part of a missile deal. Lakhani is held at the Passaic County Jail in Paterson. His trial is expected to last at least two months.
