Ohio treasurer held at Lahore airport for fake documents

Shahid Aslam

A former Ohio Deputy Treasurer arrested by FIA authorities at Lahore International Airport for travelling on fake documents was also wanted by the FBI USA on charges of fraud, bribery, money laundering and conspiracy.

Amer Ahmad, 38, a US national who landed at Allama Iqbal International Airport from Mexico on Monday at around 8:00 am through flight EK 624, was held by FIA Immigration officials on charges of holding fake Pakistani visa and passport.

FIA authorities also recovered $ 176, 000 and 12, 4000 Euros from him. During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused was also wanted by the FBI authorities on different charges. Immediately after his arrest by FIA, the FBI authorities contacted the FIA authorities for his deportation. Nevertheless, the FIA authorities apprised them of adopting proper legal procedure for the deportation. FIA registered an FIR 417/14 under different sections 419, 420, 468 and 471. The investigators have also got a three-day remand of Amer from a court on Tuesday. Sources in the Immigration staff revealed that, during the course of initial investigation, Amer did not disclose his identity and kept quite.

Initially he recorded his statement to the authorities: “I love Pakistan and came back to settle down here for good”.

Suspicious of his statement, FIA authorities decoded his laptop which revealed his conversation with his wife Samar Kaukab Ahmed that he was a US national and had fled from the State after committing fraud worth millions of dollars at Ohio, Chicago. It was also revealed through his laptop that he had crossed the US/Mexico border on foot. He got a fake Pakistani passport and visa from an agent named Eduardo Le Meridien against $ 600 in the name of Faisal Sami.

According to American media reports, in May 2008, Amer left an investment banking career in Chicago to work for the then state treasurer Richard Cordray. He served second-in-command in the Ohio treasurer’s office from May 2008 to January 2011 under Richard Cordray and Kevin Boyce. Boyce kept him on staff when he was appointed as a treasurer in 2009.

While in the Boyce administration, Ahmad authored a confidential investment strategy that called for the treasurer’s office to make five to 10 trades a day, using seventy million trading partners, including Hampton Capital Management. Hampton made 360 trades, earning $3.2 million in commissions.

He then disguised $523,000 in kickback money as legal fees and a loan for his two co-conspirators Noure Alo Joseph Chiavaroli’s landscaping business, Green Landscapes and Lawn Care, which Ahmad co-owned.

When Boyce lost the election to Republican Josh Mandel in 2010, Ahmad moved on to be controller for the city of Chicago in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration. He quit his Chicago job in July just weeks before he was indicted.

Amer Ahmad was pleaded guilty in December 2013 in the federal court to conspiracy and bribery. Amer, Doug Hampton, Noure Alo and Joseph Chiavaroli, all four had pleaded guilty but have yet to be sentenced. Under the charges, Ahmad is facing up to 15 years in prison, $500,000 in fines, plus $3.2 million in restitution.

Samar Kaukab Ahmed, wife of Amer Ahmad, had also submitted a protective order petition in Ohio on Friday, April 25th that Ahmad attempted suicide multiple times. She claimed that he had threatened to kidnap the children and take them to Pakistan. She also alleged that Ahmad had become physically and verbally abusive in recent weeks and attempted to run over her and her father with a car.

The FBI started investigating the whole issue in May 2010 and it was investigated by the FBI’s Central Ohio Public Corruption Task Force, which includes special agents from the FBI and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas W. Squires of the Southern District of Ohio and Trial Attorney Eric L. Gibson of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section.

It is also learnt that Amer Ahmed’s parents, both US nationals, were residents of Samanabad, Lahore, and had shifted to Ohio for good along with him and his two sisters some 35 years back when he was just two years old. Ahmad grew up in Canton, Ohio. He got a bachelor degree from Columbia University and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University.

Amer got married with Samar Kaukab Ahmed, a US national of Pakistani origin (Faisalabad) who works at the University of Chicago. The couple have two daughters, ages 6 and 7, and a son, 2. They live in Chicago but they have family ties in Ohio as well. When contacted on Tuesday, FIA Punjab Director Dr Usman Anwar said that Amer Ahmed was arrested by the agency as per law of the land and was preceded over forged documents. As far as US request or his red warrants by the Interpol are concerned, Usman added that FIA would proceed as per directions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Interior.

Source: thenews