Northern Virginia Business Owner and Wife Sentenced in Immigration Fraud Scheme

WASHINGTON—A Northern Virginia business owner, Golam Razaul Karim, 43, and his wife, Naureen Moin, 32, have been sentenced following their convictions for immigration fraud and Karim’s conviction for money laundering, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Joseph Persichini, Jr., Inspector General for the Department of Labor Gordon S. Heddell, C. André Martin, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Washington Field Office) Special Agent in Charge Mark X. McGraw jointly announced today.

Late yesterday, April 15, 2009, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan sentenced Golam Razaul Karim, owner of Peoples Pest Control of Fairfax, Virginia, to 24 months’ imprisonment and a $50,000 criminal fine. The Court also ordered Karim to forfeit $17,162 in illegal proceeds. Moin was sentenced by Judge Sullivan on April 1, 2009, to three years’ probation and a $20,000 criminal fine, and was also ordered to forfeit $17,162 in illegal proceeds. The charges against Karim and Moin related to their roles in a wide-ranging immigration fraud scheme led by former D.C. immigration attorney Mohamed Alamgir, a naturalized United States citizen originally from Bangladesh, who pled guilty on April 23, 2004, to a 164-count criminal Information charging immigration fraud and money laundering, and was later sentenced to serve 40 months in prison and forfeit over $2 million in illegal proceeds. The scheme called for myriad small-business owners to support the fraudulent labor-based immigration applications of aliens who were never intended to, and never did, work for the employers, or for non-existent aliens whose approved documentation would be used by real persons seeking immigration status. Among those employers were Karim and Moin, both also originally from Bangladesh, who owned and operated Peoples Pest Control between 2001 and 2002.

In announcing the sentences, U.S. Attorney Taylor, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Persichini, DOL Inspector General Heddell, IRS Special Agent in Charge Martin, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge McGraw expressed appreciation for the outstanding investigative work of Special Agents William Jones and Derek Pickle of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General; the FBI Special Agents who worked the investigation; Special Agents Nicole Pompei and Andrea Gonzalez of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation; and Special Agent Katherine Menhart of ICE. They also noted the significant contributions of U.S. Attorney’s Office personnel who supported the prosecution, including paralegals Valencia Philyaw and Melanie Howard, supervisory paralegal Elizabeth Barns, litigation services specialist Joseph Calvarese, victim-witness specialists Dawn Tolson-Hightower and David Foster, and legal assistant Tiffany Walker. They also commended the work of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Laura A. Ingersoll and Jonathan M. Malis, who prosecuted the case, and John D. Crabb and William Cowden, who assisted.

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