FBI Raids Halal (Muslim) Slaughterhouse in IL

[SF-TX]

Kinsman, IL - FBI Raids Halal Slaughterhouse
Published on: October 20th, 2009 at 08:31 AM
News Source: CBS Chicago
Last updated on:

Kinsman, IL - Federal agents conducted a raid Sunday afternoon at a goat meat processing plant near Morris, Illinois. The secretive operation was led by the Chicago FBI office, the Feds are being very tight-lipped on what they found and why they were even there.

Spokesman Ross Rice confirms agents were at 6260 Kinsman Road, in Kinsman, Illinois. The business is called First World Management. Rice would not say why agents were there but said nobody was taken into custody.

The FBI said the raid began Sunday morning and ended in the late afternoon. They were at the plant about nine hours total.

According to sources, the plant provides goat, beef and lamb meat which is prepared in the Halal way in accordance with Muslim custom.

The government workers inside First World Management meat packing plant in Kinsman Monday wouldn't say why they were there or why scores of FBI agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were there Sunday.

The trouble is the FBI isn't saying much about what happened at this rural Grundy County plant. A spokesman confirms that the plant, which has a Muslim prayer room, was raided as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

Several witnesses reported that the Grundy County Sheriff's office was involved, as well, saying sheriff dept. vehicles were visible at the scene. The Sheriff's department denies it was present.

When asked if the raid had something to do with undocumented aliens, the person wouldn't say. A neighbor suggested that undocumented immigrants live in a trailer behind the facility and work there.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the agency assisted in the raid, but had no further comment. According to sources, many of the FBI and ICE agents were armed.

Several USDA criminal investigators were on site at the plant on Monday, but they would not comment on the situation.

One man who was talking about the raid was Jim Cavaness. He's a handyman who occasionally works at the plant where goats, sheep and cows are slaughtered. On Sunday, he witnessed the raid and says he was questioned by FBI agents.

Cavaness says the FBI asked him if he had seen anything unusual at the plant. He says he's never seen anything unusual, but, he says, judging by the amount of firepower on the scene, the FBI wasn't just working an immigration case.

"Way too much overkill for immigration," Cavaness said.

Neighbors who saw the raid on Sunday told CBS 2 it was a huge operation, involving more than 100 agents, police officers and even what one believed to be National Guard troops.

Sources say during the raid, the driveway was filled with more than 50 government vehicles. There was a helicopter flying overhead and a command center set up. On top of it were government sharpshooters with rifles at the ready.

George Jackson III is an attorney hired by one of the plant operators, Dr. Syed Hamid. Jackson and Dr. Hamid spoke briefly while on their way to a meeting with the federal prosecutor Monday.

Jackson says it's too early to say why there was such a huge show of force at the plant.

"Obviously, it was more than what was needed here, but why they felt the need to come forward with that much manpower allegedly, it's too early to say," Jackson said.

Jackson said federal agents confiscated the company's computers, effectively shutting down the business. Dr. Hamid chose not to weigh in Monday.

"I don't want to comment at this point," Dr. Hamid said.

Link

[Utah Bob]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

Kinsman, IL - FBI Raids Halal Slaughterhouse
Published on: October 20th, 2009 at 08:31 AM
News Source: CBS Chicago
Last updated on:

Kinsman, IL - Federal agents conducted a raid Sunday afternoon at a goat meat processing plant near Morris, Illinois. The secretive operation was led by the Chicago FBI office, the Feds are being very tight-lipped on what they found and why they were even there.

Probably not pork.

[Ret10Echo]

Ya think!??

According to sources, many of the FBI and ICE agents were armed.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. It may be something much less sinister than the press is leaning toward....but FBI as the lead and ICE as an "also attended" makes me think this is less about immigration and more about something else.

[Dozer523]

"One man who was talking about the raid was Jim Cavaness. He's a handyman who occasionally works at the plant where goats, sheep and cows are slaughtered. On Sunday, he witnessed the raid and says he was questioned by FBI agents. Cavaness says the FBI asked him if he had seen anything unusual at the plant. He says he's never seen anything unusual, but, he says, judging by the amount of firepower on the scene, the FBI wasn't just working an immigration case.'

Another liberal reading of the Patriot Act? hope it's not " Rag-headed Ay- Rabs, got's to be up to something. Lets get us a "John Doe warrant" and take a little look.

[Warrior-Mentor]

Hopefully, it's not related to this case!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0UKlGgES2





READ MORE HERE:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/a...bab-meat-.html







.

[Richard]

Well...conjecture being what it is nowadays...did they find OBL or not?

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by Warrior-Mentor

Hopefully, it's not related to this case!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0UKlGgES2

READ MORE HERE:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/a...bab-meat-.html

.

Don't be messin' with my "Doner"....because it's the shiznit in the wee morning hours..

[Chris Cram]

Originally Posted by Richard

Well...conjecture being what it is nowadays...did they find OBL or not?

Wow... Jimmy Hoffa flash back..

[SF-TX]

100+ agents for a business with 5-6 employees? What were they expecting?

Massive FBI Raid on Islamic Slaughterhouse Mystifies Tiny Illinois Town

Thursday , October 22, 2009
By Joseph Abrams

At 8 a.m. Sunday the population of Kinsman, Ill., stood at 109. An hour later it nearly doubled, as upwards of 100 federal agents and police swooped in on the tiny, rural community. And no one seems to know why.

The law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, immigration officials and state police, surrounded an Islamic meat plant in Kinsman, cordoning off the area and briefly detaining the plant's handful of employees.

The FBI isn't saying much, and the county sheriff is mum too, leaving Kinsman's residents mystified. The bust, in a town that has no local police force, involved dozens of vehicles, a pair of snipers and a helicopter flying overhead, witnesses said — but it ended without even a single arrest.

"We're all baffled," Mayor Mark Harlow said. "You know, stuff like this doesn't happen in a small community."

The unusual show of force has residents spooked and has left the mayor searching for answers.

"The public reaction is ... are they safe? We don't know," Harlow said. "What are they doing? We don't know. Are they making bombs? We don't know."

Harlow said residents of the town rarely see the five or six employees of the First World Management butcher shop, which provides ritually slaughtered and processed lamb and goat meat for Muslims living in Chicago, 50 miles to the northeast.

Some of the workers were handcuffed during the raid, but they were eventually released, Harlow said. He said the workers are foreign-born and live in a trailer on the property behind the plant's meat locker, and they have never harmed anyone in town.

"I've never seen them do anything out of the ordinary," he told Foxnews.com. The workers' residency status is unknown.

Kinsman is a sleepy town carved out of a patchwork landscape of farms in the heart of the Grain Belt. Its few square blocks are home to a post office, church and bar, and there isn't a restaurant or gas station in sight.

But the two men listed as the proprietors of the business appear to be under scrutiny. A staff member at the First World Management office in Chicago identified Syed Hamid, 51, as an employee, and confirmed that Tahawara Hussain Rana, 48, is the owner of the business.

Residents believe Hamid lives in a house adjoining the shop in Kinsman and runs the slaughterhouse. Hamid, a doctor, has been in talks with a Chicago lawyer, George Jackson III, who told Foxnews.com he doesn't anticipate Hamid will be charged with a crime. Jackson said he and Hamid had spoken to investigators since the raid.

Rana's case isn't so clear. Jackson said he could not comment, and phone calls to the Rana household in Chicago went unanswered.

Law enforcement officials declined to comment on whether the massive raid was connected to a series of high-profile arrests orchestrated by the FBI in recent weeks that focused on terror suspects.

"No one is in custody, no charges have been filed," said Cynthia Yates, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Chicago office. "There's not much to say."

The sheriff of Grundy County, Ill., where Kinsman is located, said he was informed of the impending raid about two weeks ago, but his officers did not play a tactical role.

"The only thing I can tell you is that it's an ongoing criminal investigation, and basically everything that's being done is through the FBI," Sheriff Terry Marketti said.

The presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at the raid suggests it may have been related to immigration violations. But the Department of Homeland Security has issued a moratorium on workplace raids targeting illegal immigrants.

And unlike the targets of similar sweeps that were the norm in the Bush administration, the Kinsman shop employed only a handful of workers, a fraction of the size of other plants that have drawn the attention of ICE officials. Also unlike in past immigration raids, no workers were brought into custody.

"It was crazy," said Grundy County Board Chairman Francis Halpin, who lives in nearby Morris, Ill. "I never thought I'd see anything like this in Kinsman."

Link

[Warrior-Mentor]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

100+ agents for a business with 5-6 employees? What were they expecting?

Overwhelming firepower to ensure they avoid another WACO?

Or was there something really nasty going on there?

The lack of info leads you to wonder????

Will be interesting to see what evolves over the next few days.

Wonder how many lawsuits will be filed on behalf of the accused...

[Richard]

Musta been suspected of violating the local school district's no tolerance rules and someone tipped them off that one of the worker's had brought a 2" knife to work.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

[SF-TX]

Originally Posted by Richard

Musta been suspected of violating the local school district's no tolerance rules and someone tipped them off that one of the worker's had brought a 2" knife to work.

Or, they failed to pay their taxes.

[Five-O]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

100+ agents for a business with 5-6 employees? What were they expecting?

Based on experience, not specifically this job:
Possible Reasons: (in no particular order)
1. On occasion the FBI likes to crush a fly with a sledgehammer
2. Mabye some agents had nothing else to do...ie.. they were bored. Seriously
3. Multi agency warrants usually bring a lot of people to the game. They need trigger pullers, evidence techs, lawyers etc..oh yeah lots of supervisors, prisoner transport, medical as well
4. Maybe they were expecting resistance

[ES 96]

Or the USDA was investigating a rash of local pet disappearances in connection to the plant and needed backup....

[Razor]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

What were they expecting?

Max per diem?