A man who authorities say was a key member of drug smuggling and money laundering operations has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and ecstasy.
Mohammed Alazzam, 34, admitted in federal court in Alexandria to conspiring to distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs.
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Prosecutors said Alazzam, a naturalized citizen from Jordan, was an important figure in criminal enterprises that resulted in federal indictments in Virginia, Connecticut and West Virginia.
Alazzam was the protege of Fares Abulaban, a nightclub owner described by prosecutors in court documents as the “linchpin of a broad sweeping conspiracy.”
The Virginia case began when Abulaban unknowingly introduced Alazzam to an undercover federal agent who was posing as a high-level Colombian cocaine source and money launderer. Alazzam first met with the undercover agent at the Daily Grill in Tysons Corner. From that first encounter sprang a series of illegal activities, prosecutors said, including the introduction of two significant cocaine purchasers in North Carolina on a $1.2 million deal, a 50-kilogram deal in South Carolina and Abulaban’s attempt to buy 20 more kilograms.
Less than two weeks after Alazzam was indicted in Virginia on the drug charges, federal authorities in Connecticut indicted him in a $500,000 cash smuggling sting operation. Prosecutors said Alazzam and another man concocted a scheme to move the money from the U.S. to Jordan.
Alazzam expected to be paid 5 percent of the money being smuggled as their fee. The $500,000 in cash came from an illegal credit card fraud scheme known as a “bust out” scam.
In “bust out” scams, the identity of a person is used to max out credit cards without ever intending to pay the card companies. But Alazzam did not know the man in the bust out scheme was already under federal indictment in a financial fraud case and had struck a deal to cooperate with federal prosecutors, according to court papers.
In 2008, Alazzam pleaded guilty to conspiring to engage in money laundering. Abulaban, his mentor, was sentenced to 19 years in prison after he tried to buy 20 kilograms of cocaine from the undercover agents.
