Drug Traffickers Sentenced to 12+ Years in Prison

 Las Vegas Men Responsible for Providing Methamphetamine to Shreveport/Bossier City Area

SHREVEPORT, La. – Acting United States Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook announced that two men from Las Vegas, Nevada, responsible for distributing large quantities of methamphetamine to the Shreveport/Bossier City area have been sentenced by United States District Judge S. Maurice Hicks, Jr.

Rodolfo Baires, a/k/a “Seiko,” 33, of Las Vegas, Nevada, was sentenced to 151 months (12 years, 7 months) in prison followed by 5 years of supervised release for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine with intent to distribute.

James Lee Logan, 59, of Las Vegas, Nevada, was sentenced to 63 months (5 years, 3 months) in prison, followed by 5 years of supervised release for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.

According to evidence introduced in Court, during the month of May 2017, agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration learned that an individual from Las Vegas with the nickname “Seiko” was planning to send a large quantity of methamphetamine to the Shreveport/Bossier City area sometime during that month. Law enforcement agents learned that someone named “James” would be delivering the narcotics, as well as a description of the vehicle he would be driving.

During the early morning hours of May 26, 2017, a Louisiana State Police Trooper conducted a traffic stop of a vehicle for a traffic violation. The vehicle was being driven by James Lee Logan. Logan advised law enforcement officers that he was traveling from Las Vegas to Shreveport. An open-air search was conducted by a K-9 officer which resulted in a positive indication of the presence of narcotics on a spare tire located in the rear of the vehicle. A search of the spare tire revealed eight packages of suspected methamphetamine wrapped in cellophane and brown tape, weighing 6,100 grams. The narcotics were sent to the DEA Crime Lab and tests confirmed that it was in fact methamphetamine.

Utilizing an informant after Logan’s arrest, agents received several recorded phone calls from “Seiko” inquiring as to the whereabouts of “James.” Agents were able to confirm that “Seiko” was in fact Rodolfo Baires and he was living in Las Vegas. Agents obtained a photo of Baires and a confidential source confirmed that Baires and “Seiko” were in fact one in the same and he was the individual responsible for sending 6,100 grams of methamphetamine that was seized from James Lee Logan in the Western District of Louisiana.

The DEA and Louisiana State Police conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon B. Brown prosecuted the case.

Government Auditor and Restauranteur Sentenced in Operation Zenith

United States Attorney Donald J. Cazayoux, Jr., announced today that Chief U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson sentenced the final two defendants in Operation Zenith, a long running investigation into fraud and corruption involving the payment and collection of sales and payroll taxes. The Operation resulted in the convictions of five prominent businessmen, the president of an accounting firm, and a government auditor.

ROSTOM H. LAYMON, age 53, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was sentenced to 33 months’ imprisonment, a term of supervised release following imprisonment of two years, restitution to state and local governments in the amount of $140,000, and a fine of $70,000. The sentence stems from LAYMON’s pleas of guilty to two counts of mail fraud and three counts of bribery based on criminal activity involving his restaurants, including Arzi’s Express in the Mall of Louisiana, Cajun Café in the Mall of Louisiana, and Arzi’s Restaurant on Government Street. Because of LAYMON’s cooperation with the government and acceptance of responsibility, his sentence was significantly reduced from what it would have otherwise been.

LAYMON’s criminal activity included (1) defrauding his customers and state and local governments as part of a sales tax scheme in which the sales from his restaurants were fraudulently under-reported by millions of dollars, resulting in $140,000 in losses to state and local governments; (2) paying multiple bribes to individuals he believed to be officials with the East Baton Rouge Parish Auditor’s Office in connection with sales tax audits, including offers of prostitutes and foreign travel; and (3) defrauding the State of Louisiana of payroll tax revenue by fraudulently under-reporting the amount of wages paid and individuals employed by approximately fifty-percent, including the concealment of numerous illegal aliens employed in his restaurants.

JEROME R. SHORE, age 57, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was sentenced to two years’ probation, four months in a half-way house, and restitution to East Baton Rouge Parish in the amount of $60,000. The sentence stems from SHORE’s plea of guilty to bribery. While an auditor with the East Baton Rouge Parish Auditor’s Office, SHORE took a bribe in connection with an audit of certain restaurants owned by Jamal Roman. As a result of the bribe, SHORE assessed Roman $60,000 less than he should have. SHORE faced a significant sentence, but his extensive cooperation with the government and his acceptance of responsibility resulted in a substantial lessening of his sentence.

Today’s sentences are part of Operation Zenith, which uncovered evidence that business owners and the president of an accounting firm had been under-reporting the sales from various businesses by over ten million dollars ($10,000,000) in order to avoid remitting sales tax to the state and local governments. In an attempt to conceal this massive scheme, the business owners and the accountant paid bribes to officials within the East Baton Rouge Parish Auditor’s Office and agreed to bribe an auditor with the Louisiana Department of Revenue. The Operation also uncovered systemic defrauding of the State of Louisiana through the fraudulent underpayment of payroll taxes.

The status of the five other Operation Zenith defendants is as follows:

■Humam S. Al-Alousi: Convicted of mail fraud involving sales tax fraud, bribery involving a federally-funded entity, and making a false statement to the FBI. He was sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment, two years’ supervised release, a $100,000 fine, and $220,401 in restitution.

■Jamal M. Roman: Convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and bribery, mail fraud, and bribery involving a federally-funded entity. He was sentenced to 53 months’ imprisonment, two years’ supervised release, a $20,000 fine, and $726,476 in restitution.

■Khoa Dinh Chau: Convicted of mail fraud involving sales tax fraud and bribery. He was sentenced to 37 months’ imprisonment, two years’ supervised release, a $30,000 fine, and $98,695 in restitution.

■Mohamed H. Ruman: Convicted of mail fraud involving payroll tax fraud. He was sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment, 4 months in a half-way house, two years’ supervised release, and $56,000 in restitution.

■Hassan S. Abousoayd: Convicted of bribery and using an interstate facility in aid of racketeering. He was sentenced to three years’ probation, 8 months home detention, a $20,000 fine, and $134,000 in restitution. He received a substantially reduced sentence based on his extensive cooperation with the government, including participation in covert operations, and acceptance of responsibility.

Operation Zenith is the result of the combined efforts of the United States Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Louisiana State Police Criminal Intelligence Unit. The investigation has also been assisted by the East Baton Rouge Parish Auditor’s Office, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Louisiana State University Police Department, the Louisiana Department of Labor, the Louisiana Department of Revenue, the Ascension Parish Sales and Use Tax Authority, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Government of Lebanon.

United States Attorney Donald J. Cazayoux, Jr. stated, “Operation Zenith demonstrates the willingness of this office and our law enforcement partners to commit the resources necessary to root out fraud and corruption wherever found. Fraudsters who seek to undermine the fiscal and moral integrity of our local governments will continue to be dealt with aggressively.”

FBI Acting Special Agent-in-Charge, Todd B. Cox, stated, “Today’s sentencings in this matter reflect the commitment of the FBI and our law enforcement partners to follow fraud and corruption when anyone chooses to disobey the laws and play by their own rules.”

Operation Zenith was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Corey R. Amundson, who serves as the Senior Deputy Criminal Chief, Alan A. Stevens, and Reginald Jones.

ICE seizes more than $250,000 worth of counterfeit items at New Orleans flea market

NEW ORLEANS - More than $ 250,000 worth of counterfeit goods was seized at an Algiers, New Orleans flea market on Saturday by special agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Louisiana State Police (LSP) troopers.

The agents and troopers seized 16,171 pieces of counterfeit merchandise, 3 DVD burners, and a 2006 Nissan Titan truck worth a total of $256,171. Additionally, 4,572 pieces of counterfeit merchandise worth $59,000 were abandoned during the operation and turned over to on-site trademark representatives.

"The trade in counterfeit goods costs legitimate businesses billions of dollars in lost revenue. These illicit proceeds also support other criminal activities in the United States and around the world," said Raymond R. Parmer, Jr., special agent in charge of ICE HSI in New Orleans. "ICE investigations focus not only on keeping counterfeit products off U.S. streets, but also on dismantling the criminal organizations behind this activity."

The flea market is located on the corner of

Marr Avenue

and the Old Behrman Highway.

The flea market has been previously identified as openly selling counterfeit items in the past. ICE HSI agents had conducted surveillance and made undercover purchases at the site. Items purchased through the undercover operations were determined to be counterfeit by industry representatives.

Some of the counterfeit items seized include: t-shirts, polo shirts, jeans, purses, hats, jackets and sweatshirts.

The counterfeit brands include, but were not limited to the following trademarks: Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren, Oakley, Ray Ban, Coach, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

As the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE HSI plays a leading role in targeting criminal organizations responsible for producing, smuggling, and distributing counterfeit products.

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Center in Washington is one of the U.S. government's key weapons in the fight against IPR theft. The IPR Center offers one-stop shopping for both law enforcement and the private sector to address the growing transnational threat of counterfeit merchandise. The IPR Center coordinates outreach to U.S. rights holders and conducts domestic and international law enforcement training to stem the growing counterfeiting threat as well as coordinating and directing anti-counterfeiting investigations. To learn more about the IPR Center, read tips for holiday buying, and see the Intellectual Property Rights Seizure Statistics for FY 2009, go to http://www.ice.gov/iprcenter/

The public is encouraged to report information on counterfeiting and trademark violations at the IPR toll-free hotline: (866) IPR-2060.

NOPD, IRA, IAD

Police-Writers.com, a website dedicated to listing state and local police officers who have authored books, added three authors who have written on the separate subjects of the New Orleans Police Department, the Irish Republican Army and government corruption.

Lieutenant Don Brewer retired from the New Orleans Police Department in 1993. St Charles Nights is a fictional work based on his twenty-three years of experience, which included such assignments as Deputy Commander Internal Affairs, Deputy Commander of the Second and Seventh Police Districts, Traffic Fatality Commander and Commander of the New Orleans Police Academy. His final tour, prior to retirement, by choice, was the Sixth Police District, which is the actual inspiration for his book, St. Charles Nights.

James Wong spent over thirty years in law enforcement. He retired from the Louisiana State Police as a sergeant. While with the state police, he served as the in their intelligence division, criminal investigations division, as well as their uniform division.

After leaving the state police, he joined the U.S. Customs Service, where he worked in the areas of money laundering, narcotics and arms trafficking, as well as child pornography. He has held management positions at the first line and senior management. In 1999 he was transferred to the Internal Affairs Division, where he remained until the merger of the Customs Service into the Department of Homeland Security. There the Internal Affairs Division morphed into the Office of Professional Responsibility.

James Wong’s book, Corporate and Government Corruption, “defines the aspects of corporate and government corruption. The elements, motives, and causes, as well as the role of the investigator will be presented. Ethical issues and corporate considerations will be examined. Case studies from a civil, criminal and internal perspective are reviewed.”

Born into an English family with a military heritage dating back to the Boer War, Bill Heard was almost destined to pursue a military career. Resisting at first, a combination of the worst economic depression in recent English history and a sense of true Churchillian patriotism, quickly found him fighting a vicious terrorist war in the claustrophobic streets and alleys of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Years later, after immigrating to the United States first joining the US Army, then the Los Angeles Police Department, he found himself in yet two more armed conflicts.

His novel, Bravo November 283, is the first in a series of books and is about the struggle against global terrorism as seen through the eyes of someone who fought it from the trenches. The Book description says, “Long before Osama bin Laden gave terrorists all over the world a bad name, the Provisional Irish Republican Army was laying the foundation for what would be the future of many global insurgencies.

The almost thirty-year terrorist conflict in Northern Ireland, aptly called the troubles, was a brutal war that brought the province to the edge of a civil war. Readers will come to understand the longstanding animosity between the British government and Irish Republicans, yet will have to make their own minds up as to whether the terrorists ends justified the means. This novel is a ten-year personal account of one man fight against terror.”

Bill Heard is currently working on his second novel, 7 Zebra 7, in which he writes about his career with the LAPD. Bill was also added to the listing of authors at LAPDAuthors.com.

Police-Writers.com now hosts 315 police officers (representing 135 police departments) and their 736 books in six categorys, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.