Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Arrest Of Pakistani Man For Heroin Importation Offenses

Shahbaz Khan Allegedly Conspired to Send Hundreds of Kilograms of Heroin to the United States for Distribution in New York City

  Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Schrant, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) Special Operations Division, announced today the arrest of SHAHBAZ KHAN for conspiring to import and attempting to import heroin into the United States.  KHAN was taken into custody by Liberian authorities on December 1, 2016, and expelled to the United States later that same day.  He was presented before United States Magistrate Judge James L. Cott today. 

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara stated: “Shahbaz Khan allegedly had designs on establishing an international narcotics smuggling empire.  As alleged, Khan sought to arrange for five kilos of ‘100% pure’ heroin to be imported to New York from Asia, promising to supply hundreds of kilograms more.  Thanks to the work of the DEA, Khan’s plans have changed dramatically, from arranging massive shipments of heroin to American cities to defending federal narcotics charges in a Manhattan courtroom.”       

According to the allegations contained in the Complaint,[1] which was unsealed today:

Between at least in or about August 2016 and October 2016, KHAN participated in a series of telephone calls and in-person meetings in countries in Southwest Asia with individuals who KHAN believed were heroin traffickers interested in purchasing kilogram quantities of heroin for importation into the United States.  Those individuals were, in fact, working at the direction of the DEA, including an undercover law enforcement officer (the “UC”).  During those meetings and telephone calls, which were recorded, KHAN agreed to supply hundreds of kilograms of heroin from Southwest Asia for importation into the United States and distribution in New York City.  KHAN represented that he could send heroin to the United States, Canada, and “anywhere else in the world,” and that he was able to send the narcotics by plane or ship.  

In late September 2016, KHAN traveled to a country in Southwest Asia where KHAN met with the UC, among others.  During the meeting, KHAN agreed to provide the UC with an initial shipment of five kilograms of heroin for importation into the United States.  KHAN informed the UC that, once the five kilograms of heroin successfully arrived in New York City, KHAN would begin supplying the UC with larger quantities of heroin on a regular basis.  KHAN further assured the UC that the heroin KHAN would provide was 100% pure.

In early October 2016, one of KHAN’s employees, acting at his direction, delivered the five-kilogram initial shipment of heroin in the same country in Southwest Asia.  Through a series of recorded telephone calls, KHAN confirmed with the UC that the heroin his employee had provided was KHAN’s, that the heroin was to be transported to New York City, and that KHAN would be paid for the heroin once it arrived in the United States.

The Complaint charges KHAN, 68, a citizen of Pakistan, in two counts:

KHAN is charged with one count of conspiracy to import heroin into the United States, and one count of attempting to import heroin into the United States.  If convicted of Count One or Count Two, the defendant faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.  The statutory minimum and maximum sentences are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by a judge.

Mr. Bharara praised the outstanding investigative efforts of the DEA Special Operations Division’s Bilateral Investigations Unit; the DEA Accra, Canberra, Dubai, Islamabad, Kabul, Nairobi, and New Delhi Country Offices; the DEA New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force Financial Investigative Team; the Government of Liberia; and the Maldives Police Service.  The defendant’s arrest and subsequent expulsion are also the result of the close cooperative efforts of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.

The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Shawn G. Crowley and Rebekah Donaleski are in charge of the prosecution.

The allegations contained in the Complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the text of the Complaint and the description of the Complaint set forth below constitute only allegations and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.

International Arms Trafficker Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison For Conspiring To Kill Americans And Provide Material Support To A Foreign Terrorist Organization

Virgil Flaviu Georgescu, a Dual U.S.-Romanian Citizen, Agreed to Provide Military-Grade Weapons to be Used to Shoot Down American Aircraft in Colombia

  Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that VIRGIL FLAVIU GEORGESCU was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to sell large quantities of military-grade weaponry to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the “FARC”) – a designated foreign terrorist organization – to be used to kill Americans in Colombia.  GEORGESCU was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said:  “Virgil Flaviu Georgescu was convicted by a unanimous jury of conspiring to sell the FARC military weapons, including anti-aircraft cannons and rocket-propelled grenades, to be used against American personnel and aircraft.  Having sought to profit from the murder of U.S. officers abroad, Georgescu will now spend years in a U.S. prison.”

According to the allegations in the Indictment, other documents publicly filed in Manhattan federal court, and the evidence introduced at trial:

Between May 2014 and December 2014, GEORGESCU, a Romania-based weapons broker, conspired with his co-defendants, a former Romanian government official and a former member of the Italian Parliament, to sell an arsenal of weapons, including machine guns and anti-aircraft cannons, to the FARC, with the understanding that the FARC would use the weapons against United States personnel in Colombia.  During a series of recorded telephone calls and in-person meetings, GEORGESCU and his co-conspirators agreed to sell the weapons to three confidential sources (the “CSs”), who represented that they were acquiring these weapons for the FARC but were, in fact, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”).  GEORGESCU and his co-conspirators agreed to provide these weapons to the CSs with the specific understanding that the weapons would be used to kill Americans and, in particular, to shoot down American helicopters and airplanes.

GEORGESCU first spoke with a CS in May 2014.  Thereafter, GEORGESCU recruited both of his co-conspirators to help obtain the weapons for the CSs, with the understanding that the former Romanian government official would provide weapons expertise and the former Italian member of Parliament would help secure fraudulent end-user certificates, in order to make the illegal sale of weapons look legitimate.  GEORGESCU instructed his co-conspirators and others involved in the deal to use encrypted applications when communicating about the weapons deal to avoid detection by U.S. authorities.

Over the course of five consensually recorded meetings with the CSs in Romania and Montenegro, GEORGESCU and his co-conspirators provided the CSs with catalogues of weapons that included anti-aircraft cannons, rocket-propelled and thermobaric grenades, and other high-powered weapons, as well as military-grade optical equipment.  During these meetings, the CSs explained that the arms would be used to kill Americans and GEORGESCU offered his thoughts on what weapons would best suit the FARC’s needs.

Between September 2014 and December 2014, GEORGESCU and his co-conspirators traveled to Romania, Montenegro, Italy, Germany, Albania, Poland, and Bulgaria to advance the weapons deal.  During this period, the co-conspirators met with weapons suppliers, obtained sample fraudulent end-user certificates, and test-fired military-grade rifles.  In December 2014, GEORGESCU and his co-conspirators secured a signed contract from a European weapons supplier to provide more than $17 million dollars’ worth of weapons to a straw purchaser.  After obtaining the signed contract, GEORGESCU and one of his co-conspirators secretly altered the document in order to increase the conspirators’ personal profits from the weapons sale.  On December 15, 2014, GEORGESCU met with the CSs, showed them the contract, and discussed means of payment and transportation of the weapons to Colombia.

GEORGESCU, 43, was arrested by Montenegrin authorities on the charges in the Indictment on December 15, 2014, and extradited to the United States on February 25, 2015.  On May 25, 2016, following a 10-day jury trial in Manhattan federal court before Judge Abrams, GEORGESCU was convicted of one count of conspiracy to kill United States officers or employees and one count of conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.  In addition to the prison term, GEORGESCU was sentenced to three years of supervised release.

Mr. Bharara praised the outstanding investigative efforts of the DEA’s Special Operations Division’s Bilateral Investigations Unit, the DEA’s Bucharest Country Office, the DEA’s Rome Country Office, the Montenegrin National Police, and the Romanian Authorities.  Mr. Bharara also thanked the Counterterrorism Section of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark’s Statement On Impaneling Of Grand Jury In Fatal Police Shooting Of Deborah Danner

    “I will ask the Administrative Judge of the Supreme Court to impanel a special grand jury to investigate the fatal shooting of Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old woman, in her apartment on October 18, 2016, and to determine whether, and to what extent, criminal charges should be brought in connection with that incident. 

   “I have pledged to the people of the Bronx to conduct a thorough, fair investigation into this matter and I believe that presenting the evidence to a grand jury will best accomplish that goal. It is important to determine exactly what happened in this tragic incident. 

   “There is no timetable for the grand jury to be impaneled or for it to reach a determination.”

BRONX MAN SENTENCED TO MAXIMUM FOR MURDER, DISMEMBERMENT OF HIS MOTHER

Defendant Took Photo With Victim’s Severed Head 

  Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Bronx man has been sentenced to the maximum of 25 years-to-life in prison for killing his mother and dissecting her body. 

  District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant fatally stabbed his mother and then chillingly took photos with her mutilated corpse. A jury found him guilty of murder for these horrific acts and now he will serve the maximum sentence in prison.” 

  District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Bahsid McLean, 26, of 645 Westchester Avenue, was sentenced today, December 5, 2016, to 25 years-to-life in prison for the murder, to run consecutively with 1 1/3 to four years for the dissection, by New York Court of Claims Justice Jeanette Rodriguez-Morick. McLean was convicted by a jury on November 4, 2016 of second-degree Murder and one count of Public Health Law 4210-A (Unlawful dissection of the body of a human being) after a nearly month-long trial.

  According to trial testimony, on February 25, 2013, McLean stabbed his mother, Tanya Byrd, 45, to death in her Morrisania apartment. He proceeded to dissect Byrd’s body and took a “selfie” photo with her severed head. He discarded her remains in garbage bags inside suitcases, which he dumped in his neighborhood after telling a friend he wanted to take the trash out. 

  The case was investigated and prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Aaron Kaplan, Deputy Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau, and Amy Omens, under the supervision of Amy Litwin, Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau.

MAYOR DE BLASIO, COMMISSIONER O’NEILL DISCUSS NOVEMBER CRIME STATISTICS

  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much, Commissioner. I want to offer my congratulations to the men and women of the NYPD – another fantastic month. I want to thank, of course, First Deputy Commissioner Tucker, all the members of the leadership who are here – a lot to be proud of.

It is also a pleasure to be here at the 1st Precinct, where this good work is done every day, keeping the people of this community safe.

What we’re seeing now is precision policing in action. We’re all seeing every single month more and more of the impact of neighborhood policing and the closer bonds between police and community. And that story will continue to grow and make an impact on this city.

Now, I wanted to start by saying one thing that is truly unusual that we’ve experienced in the last month – and it’s something I know is on everyone’s mind. Last month was the first time we had NYPD taking such a crucial role and huge role in providing security around Trump Tower. I know there’s been, legitimately, a lot of concern about how that’s going to play out. And one of those concerns of cost – of course is about the cost of providing the security. And as I’ve said, even though there’s work to be done with the federal government, I remain hopeful because when you look at the history of how the federal government has handled a number of other situations where NYPD has provided extraordinary efforts, such as the papal visit last year, there’s actually a pretty good track record on reimbursement. But we’ve got a lot of work to do.

Today, I’m sending this letter to President Obama to formally initiate the reimbursement process. We are going to be continuing very aggressively in the course of the next few days calls and meetings with members of the Obama administration and members of the Congress to nail down the reimbursements for the time between November 8th and January 20. That will be the responsibility of course of the current administration. So, this letter, and detailed budgetary letters, will go out today. A series of calls and meetings with administration officials and members of Congress will occur in the course of this week.

Further, as I said previously, we have become the process of dialogue with the incoming administration. I called Treasury Secretary-designate Steve Mnuchin to congratulate him, and we had a good conversation, including the fact that he fully understood that there was a real, important discussion to be had on how we deal with reimbursement issues going forward. He’s a native New Yorker. So, I think that is a very helpful reality. But this is the time now to really lean in to nailing down the reimbursement, particularly for the period up to January 20. Let me also note that what we will be asking in the letters today to the President, to the administration officials, to the Congress – we will be asking for up to $35 million in reimbursement for the period November 8th to January 20. That’s, again, up to $35 million for November 8th to January 20.

So back to the situation – November – really again so much for the NYPD to be proud of. Dermot Shea will go into details. But here’s what I want to emphasize. Just looking at this month of November – this 30-day period in 2016 versus the equivalent period one year ago – overall major crimes down 9.9 percent – almost exactly 10 percent decrease in overall major crime. And when you look at it numerically, it is striking. That is the difference between 9,094 major crimes versus 8,194. Hundreds and Hundreds of crimes stopped by the NYPD, meaning a real tangible impact on people’s lives.

Rape is down 20 percent. Robbery is down almost 16 percent. Burglaries are down 22 percent. There are definitely areas where we have to do better. And homicide is one of the them when you look at the month of November. But we know that this approach the NYPD is taking – the precision policing, plus neighborhood policing is more and more paying off, and these numbers are extraordinary. 

Let me also note that we have not yet felt the full effect of the new officers coming on the job. We will get to that full complement – the 2,000 officer increase in terms of real patrol strength won’t be fully felt until January. And then I think you’ll see more and more impact from that addition to that police force – again, the first major addition to our force in 15 years. That’s going to play out more and more after January.

Finally, since it’s been such a part of the national discussion, I want to emphasize this simple fact. Since the height of the previous use of stop-and-frisk – 2011 – stop-and-frisk is now reduced 97 percent. Let me say it again – stop-and-frisk is down 97 percent since the high-water mark in 2011. And what we have seen is consistent drop in crime, and particularly this year – consistent increases in gun seizures by the NYPD. I think that says it all.

Deputy Commissioner for Operations Dermot Shea, NYPD: Good morning, everyone. When we look at November’s numbers, I’m going to be quoting statistics to you as of December 1st. Public Information Office will have all these numbers for distribution. November continued the year-long trend of reduced crime in New York City. Which just under four weeks left to go in 2016, we’re poised to have really historic levels of both index crimes, as well as gun violence seen in New York City. We are not finished. Just as we sit here today, we’re reviewing across the Department – deputy commissioner officers, different bureaus and divisions, all units – to look forward to 2017 – how we can push crime down even further. And we believe that we can.

Issues of data collection, analysis, deployment – with Terry Monahan sitting next to me – with patrol, with Bob Boyce’s detectives and cases, as well as outreach – all areas examined to how we can even push crime further down.

In terms of overall index crime for November, as the Mayor alluded to, we were down nearly 10 percent, or over 900 crimes.

Murder – we recorded 23 murders, versus 22 the prior year. Three of those 23 were re-classifications, which leaves 20 actually occurring this November. The re-classifications – one was from 1993, one from 2003, and one from 2011.

Rape – down 20 percent.

Robbery – 233 fewer robberies this year – down over 15 percent.

Felonious assault – down six percent.

Burglary – down over 22 percent.

And this is across broad sections – different boroughs, different precincts. We’re seeing dramatic crime decreases.

Grand larceny – down nearly five percent.

Stolen vehicles – 54 fewer in New York City. Pushing the record down even further – down 8.8 percent for November.

We saw reductions in transit crime. We saw reductions in housing crime.

In terms of shooting incidents – if you remember last November, we recorded 80 shooting incidents – that was a record at the time, never before seen in New York City since we’ve recorded shooting incidents. Versus that 80, this November we recorded 67 shooting incidents – a reduction of 16.2 percent.

Where does that bring us? Through the first 11 months of November – through November of 2016 – we’re down 3.8 percent overall in index crime. It’s a reduction of over 3,600 index crimes. When you look at shooting incidents, and again, this is through the end of November – we’ve actually gained on these leads.

But through the end of November, we’re down 107 shooting incidents – over ten percent shooting reduction. 936 shootings, which is a lot, and we’re going to push it even lower. But where were we last year? 1,043. We are shattering the prior record in 2013, in terms of shooting incidents in New York City. Murders – down 15 through the end of November for a 4.6 percent reduction.

And I’ll just end quickly as a frequently do mention the enforcement efforts that’s leading to this. Arrests through November 30th – down over 23,500 – just this year. Over two years, we’re down over 21 percent in arrests – far greater number. Something I’ve mentioned before with this reduction in arrests, felony arrests up, gun arrests up over nine percent. We’re not doing this alone. The most important party in all of this is the community and the tips that we are receiving, whether it’s 3-1-1, 9-1-1, whether it’s attending a community council meeting, whether it’s showing up and following up at court with an arrest, so I praise the work that the public and all our prosecutors have in these numbers. We are really, truly not doing this alone. And those are the biggest part. Thank you.

Rep. Engel Wants Bronx Residents to Know Postal Boxes Are Being Replaced Throughout the Borough

  Congressman Eliot L. Engel wants to inform Bronx residents that post office boxes throughout the borough are being replaced with new boxes that are cleaner and cannot be fished for mail – an act of pulling mail out of the box through the slot. Older postal boxes have already been uprooted which may cause an inconvenience for residents, especially during the busy holiday season. Postal officials have told Rep. Engel’s office that the new postal boxes should be in place soon.

“Many of my constituents have been in for a surprise lately as they went to drop letters off at the mail box only to find it wasn’t there,” Congressman Engel said. “The timing of this move is less than auspicious, but in order to protect our mail during the busy holiday season this change had to be made. I will continue to keep in contact with postal officials throughout this process to ensure the boxes are replaced as soon as possible.”

STATEMENT FROM MAYOR DE BLASIO ON THE MURDER OF CORRECTION OFFICER ALASTASIA BRYAN

  Mayor Bill de Blasio made the following statement on the murder if Correction Officer Alastasia Bryan.

  “On behalf of all New Yorkers, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of Alastasia Bryan – a rising member of New York City’s Department of Correction who was senselessly murdered yesterday in Brooklyn. The NYPD is working aggressively to find the person responsible for this heinous act and will maintain its pursuit until they are brought to justice.”

Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, Community and Business Leaders Announce Holiday Lights for Morris Park Avenue and Williamsbridge Road

  It was a Big Deal outside the Big Deal Supermarket located on Morris Park Avenue as Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj along with local community activist, local business owners, and members of Community Board 11 announced that there would be holiday lights along Morris Park Avenue and Williamsbridge Road. 

Above - Assemblyman Gjonaj reads from the many contributors to allowing Morris park Avenue to have holiday lights this year. The list includes  State Senator Jeff Klein, Assemblymember Mark Gjonaj, Assemblymember Michael Benedetto, the Morris Park Community Association, and local business owners.

Below - Mr. Al D'Angelo of the Morris Park Community Association says a few words of thanks to the elected officials for their help in the placement of the holiday lights this year.