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Columbus man arrested in three-state job-fraud ring
By Matthew Marx
The Columbus Dispatch
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 1:43 AM
A Tanzanian-born North Side resident has been linked to a three-state, $5.3-million job-fraud ring involving hundreds of illegal immigrants, authorities said.
Abdulrahman Ali Mtumwa is accused of helping provide more than 300 illegal immigrants with false identification, commuter transportation and housing so they could pass themselves off as credentialed workers.

He was one of nine employees from two temporary-job agencies named in a federal-court indictment yesterday.

The agencies, HV Connect and TN Job Service, both operated in Canton, Ohio and New Philadelphia, Ohio, as well as in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

They also were named as defendants in the nine-count, 48-page indictment filed in United States District Court's Northern District.

The indictment accuses the group of conspiring to employ and harbor illegal immigrants as well as mail fraud, wire fraud and money-laundering.

"They knowingly and willfully hired these people, knowing they were illegal aliens," said Dean Boyd, a spokesman from the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in Washington, D.C.

The temp agencies and their operators are accused of providing fake state identification and other false credentials as well as phony payroll tax documentation, Boyd said.

"And they provided housing and transportation to and from work and made substantial money off of this operation," he said.

Boyd said Mtumwa also was in this country on an expired visa, though state computer records show he married Mary R. Davis of Columbus in 2002. Those same records showed his age is closer to 45.

Dispatch archives show he filed for divorce late last year. Davis couldn't be reached for comment last night.

Federal officials in Columbus caught Mtumwa, whose last known address was 4594 Northtowne Blvd., Apt. 105, Boyd said. Neighbors there said they had never heard of him.

Mtumwa was in federal custody last night, Boyd said. Five others named in the indictment were arrested in Philadelphia and New York City; the other three employees remained at large.

Under current law, being an undocumented immigrant is a civil offense, though Congress is considering legislation to stiffen the penalty to a felony while at the same time providing an amnesty opportunity to immigrants who have been working and living in the United States for a long time.


mmarx@dispatch.com