A dual citizen of the United States and Syria who evaded arrest for more than two decades pleaded guilty today in the District of Columbia to his role in a conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay a bribe to a federal public official.
According to court documents, between 1993 and 1998, Ammar Kanaan, 61, of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, while working as a private sector contractor providing transportation engineering services to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) a, engaged in a scheme to provide illegal cash payments and money orders to an FHWA official. In order to reimburse themselves for the funds paid to the public official, Kanaan and other contractors—with the official’s permission—submitted false invoices through which they received FHA funds to which they were not entitled.
Shortly after federal agents questioned Kanaan about this behavior in 1998, he fled to Syria and then the United Arab Emirates. Kanaan successfully challenged extradition in both countries. However, thanks to the efforts of federal law enforcement, Kanaan was eventually located and arrested by Italian authorities while traveling in Italy in August 2022. Italian authorities extradited Kanaan back to the United States on January 5.
Kanaan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and paying bribes. The sentencing is scheduled for May 19, and he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine each sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The Office of International Affairs of the Ministry of Justice and the Italian Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Appeal in Milan and Italian law enforcement authorities provided invaluable assistance. The US Marshals Service transported Kanaan back to the United States, with valuable support from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.
Assistant State Attorney Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, Assistant Director David Sundberg of the FBI’s Washington Office, and Special Agent Craig Miles of the DOT Office of Inspector General (DOT-OIG), Mid-Atlantic Region released it is.
The FBI Washington Field Office and DOT-OIG are investigating the case.
Trial attorney Jonathan E. Jacobson of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section is prosecuting the case.
What is conspiracy after the fact?
What does conspiracy mean after the event? Under Penal Code 182 PC, California law defines the crime of conspiracy as a scenario in which: the defendant agrees with one or more other persons to commit a crime, and one of the parties takes an action to achieve that agreement.
What does it mean to go to jail for conspiracy?
Conspiracy Charges A conspiracy is a crime involving two or more people working together to achieve a common outcome. Even if they do not commit the crime to completion, they can be charged with conspiracy if they plan and take actions to move their plan forward.
What is an example of a conspiracy charge?
Conspiracy applies to both civil and criminal offenses. Read also : Why China’s Influence in the Freely Associated States Matters to the United States. For example, you can conspire to commit murder or conspire to commit fraud.
What’s the difference between conspiracy and accessory?
This requires more involvement in the offense. Conspiracy requires that the conspirator must have been part of the decision to commit the crime. See the article : A joint statement on the strategy of the United States and Uzbekistan …. Being an add-on can happen without being part of the planning phase.
Is collusion illegal in the us?
Price-fixing, bid-fixing, and other forms of collusion are illegal and subject to prosecution by the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice. To see also : No need for a ‘pivot’: the US can secure Europe and Asia at the same time.
Is collusion with competitors legal? A bare agreement between competitors to fix prices is almost always illegal, regardless of whether the prices are set at a minimum, a maximum, or within a range. Illegal price fixing occurs whenever two or more competitors agree to take action to raise, lower, maintain or stabilize the price of any product or service.
What type of collusion is illegal?
An example of an illegal collusion is a collusive agreement between companies to fix prices. Such agreements can be reached in a completely informal way. Indeed, enforcement of a competitive practice may not even require proof that the companies had any contact.
Is tacit collusion illegal in the United States?
A tacit agreement, also known as knowing parallelism, does not violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Collusion is illegal only if it is based on an agreement.â Id. at 879. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also been active in developing the interpretation of tacit agreement under US law.
What is collusion in simple words?
Collusion is a non-competitive, secret, and sometimes illegal agreement between rivals that attempts to disrupt market equilibrium. Collusion involves people or companies that would normally compete against each other but conspire to work together to gain an unfair market advantage.
What is an example of collusion? Examples of collusive agreements are: Several high-tech companies have agreed not to hire their employees, thereby reducing the cost of labor. Several top watchmaking companies have agreed to limit their production on the market to keep prices high.
What is collusion how is it used?
Collusion is a fraudulent agreement or collusion between two or more parties to restrict open competition by misleading, deceiving, or deceiving others as to their legal rights. Collusion is not always considered illegal.
What is another term for collusion?
1 intrigue, agreement, complicity.
Which is a defense for conspiracy?
Effective conspiracy defense strategies can rely on proving the following: You did not participate in any agreement to commit the crime, so there was no conspiracy. You had no intention of committing a crime. You didn’t know the plan involved criminal activity.
What are the 4 types of defense? When it comes to criminal cases, there are usually four main criminal defense strategies used by lawyers: innocence, constitutional violations, self-defense, and insanity.
What are the three defenses to a crime?
Generally, defenses to crime fall into three main categories: negative, affirmative, and procedural. Negative Defenses: A negative defense is when the defendant relies on the lack of sufficient evidence necessary to prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
What are three potential defenses to a conspiracy charge?
There are 3 main legal defenses defendants can raise against a conspiracy charge: there was no agreement, there was no overt act in furtherance of the agreement, and the defendant withdrew from the conspiracy.
What are the four elements of a conspiracy?
Those elements are: 1. You must have 2 or more persons who 2. Intentionally 3. enter into an agreement 4. to violate federal law or defraud the United States, and then 5.
