We knew the Left didn’t love this country. But this goes beyond the pale.
And now Biden lined the pockets of terrorists according to this bombshell report.
Here’s the rewritten version:
Mahmoud Al Hafyan, a Syrian national, faces serious charges for defrauding the U.S. government by funneling over $9 million in humanitarian aid to a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, as detailed by the Department of Justice.
On November 19, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia revealed that funds meant to provide food and medical relief for Syrian refugees were instead used to bolster the Al-Nusrah Front, a known terrorist organization, and to line Al Hafyan’s pockets.
According to the Washington Times, “Court documents didn’t name the NGO but listed the federal grant numbers involved. Those grants were traced back to Catholic Relief Services.”
Despite mounting allegations, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has remained silent, neither responding to the Washington Times nor CatholicVote, which has also reached out for comment.
“Not only was Al Hafyan supporting violent terrorists, but he was stealing money from the U.S. government that was meant for humanitarian efforts,” said Sanjay Virmani, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Counterterrorism Division, in the DOJ’s press release.
Al Hafyan, tasked with managing the NGO’s operations in Syria, allegedly falsified records, inflated beneficiary lists, and redirected food supplies to Al-Nusrah Front operatives.
An estimated 380,000 meal kits — valued between $9.3 million and $10.1 million — were misappropriated, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Inspector General and the NGO.
The Washington Times noted that the fraud surfaced thanks to whistleblowers within the NGO who flagged suspicious activity. Witnesses reported seeing Al-Nusrah Front militants displaying their flags and seizing food kits meant for refugees. USAID’s on-ground inspections eventually confirmed the scam, leading to the program’s shutdown in late 2017.
Though Al Hafyan claimed coercion and staged a fake kidnapping to deflect suspicion, investigators uncovered spreadsheets detailing food allocations directly to Al-Nusrah Front members.
Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, sharply criticized USAID and the NGO’s lack of oversight in Syria.
“The NGO that received the USAID grant is reported to be a large international aid agency and, as with others like it, apparently had no independent oversight on the ground in Syria,” Shea said in an email to CatholicVote.
“It presumably unwittingly relied on a man it didn’t know very well to distribute millions of dollars of US taxpayer funds, and he funneled the money to the local al-Qaeda branch franchise — the very terrorists American troops have been fighting in the Middle East.
“So this is a double travesty,” she added. “Innocent Syrian refugees were deprived of the US aid, and our enemy was strengthened.”
Shea pointed out that this isn’t the first time U.S. aid has been diverted from those in need in the Middle East.
“We saw this as a big problem in Iraq eight years ago when the U.S. gave generous aid to the UN, which diverted it away from Christian and Yezidi victims of ISIS,” Shea noted.
“The latest Syria case is yet another outrageous example of USAID handing over massive sums of our money to large international agencies without them having adequate oversight on the ground. This is counterproductive and hurts American interests.”
Shea called for a change, urging USAID to prioritize partnerships with local civic groups, including churches, to ensure that aid reaches its intended recipients rather than being exploited by those who seek to harm American interests.
Meanwhile, CRS has yet to address the accusations or its role in the oversight breakdown. Although its grant allocations were intended for humanitarian relief, the absence of rigorous monitoring allowed Al Hafyan to manipulate the system.
The Washington Times reports that Al Hafyan remains at large, with his last known location being Gaziantep, Turkey.
Stay tuned to Prudent Politics.
