For smuggling money to his homeland:Yemeni in USA given five-year term [Archives:2003/644/Local News]

New York, June 20 (YT / News Services) – A Yemeni expatriate working as shopkeeper in Brooklyn, NYC was sentenced Friday to more than five years in prison for smuggling money to Yemen. According to the Associated Perss, a scheme uncovered during the hunt for terrorists and their supporters after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mohamed Alriany, 49, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Yemen pleaded guilty to federal charges of illegal money remitting to Yemen.
“Alriany, also known as Abdo Kassim, was among more than a dozen Yemeni immigrants rounded up last year for allegedly smuggling more than $100,000 to Yemen through his gift shop in Brooklyn. The men claimed the money was going to their families; most have pleaded guilty.” AP said.
Meanwhile, the lawyers for Alriany had asked for the minimum of a 51-month term. But the judge, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson, imposed the maximum allowed under a plea deal 63 months. “This was a sophisticated crime by a sophisticated criminal,” Gleeson said.
Prosecutors had quickly rushed into accusing Alriany of having a history of raising money for “extremist causes” related to terrorists. But after Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Dayton refused to detail the allegation, Gleeson noted for the record that the government offered “no evidence connecting (Alriany) with acts of terrorism.”
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