F.B.I. Arrests Man Said to Be a Front for Donations
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said that the government of Pakistan, including elements of its intelligence service, has been secretly funneling campaign contributions for years to members of Congress, presidential campaigns, and federal campaign committees, often through an activist working on Kashmiri issues who was arrested by the F.B.I. on Tuesday.In court documents, prosecutors accused the arrested man — Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, 62, a United States citizen from Virginia — of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of the government of Pakistan. He is the director of the Kashmiri American Council, a nongovernmental organization in Washington that is also called the Kashmir Center. Founded in 1990, the center issues press releases and seeks to persuade government officials to adopt foreign policies promoting the end of Indian rule in Kashmir, a region claimed by both India and Pakistan. Another man, Zaheer Ahmad was also charged in the alleged conspiracy, but he is believed to be in Pakistan, officials said.
“Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose — to hide Pakistan’s involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government’s position on Kashmir,” said Neil MacBride, the United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. “His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences, and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.”
Pakistan has spent more than $4 million over the past two decades in its covert effort to influence the United States to adopt a more critical stance toward India’s control of Kashmir, the government asserted.
A spokesman for the Pakistani embassy said, “Mr. Fai is not a Pakistani citizen, and the government and embassy of Pakistan have no knowledge of the case.”
An affidavit cites budget requests that the council’s director is alleged to have sent to handlers in Pakistan for money to lobby Congress and the executive branch, and for campaign contributions, including $100,000 for donations in 2009 alone. While the affidavit says that lawmakers were unaware of the true origins of the campaign funds they were receiving, the allegations could nonetheless add to mounting tensions between the United States and Pakistan.
The court papers do not name any of the lawmakers who received contributions. They suggest that a network of people could have served as straw donors, both to the Kashmiri Center and to political campaigns, who were reimbursed, or whose families in Pakistan were reimbursed. The affidavit mentions 10 unnamed straw donors, as well as Mr. Ahmad and members of a medical group that includes several physicians.
It affidavit also notes that on at least one occasion a nephew of Mr. Fai may have made a straw donation to an unnamed lamwaker a month after Mr. Fai did so.
Federal Election Committee databases show that Mr. Fai has made more than $20,000 in campaign contributions in his own name. The bulk of them went to two Republican congressmen — Representatives Dan Burton of Indiana and Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania — who have been outspoken in their criticism of India’s handling of Kashmir. But Mr. Fai also made smaller contributions to several Democratic representatives, including Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Jim Moran of Virginia and Gregory Meeks of New York.
He also donated $250 to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and another $250 to Barack Obama’s in 2008, and he gave thousands to both the Democratic and Republican senatorial committees, the databases show.
It is against the law for foreigners to contribute, directly or indirectly, to candidates for federal office. But Mr. Fai was not charged with campaign finance violations. A Justice Department spokesman said the investigation of his activities was continuing.
While the center he runs portrays itself as independent, the affidavit says that it — and two similar centers in London and Belgium — have long been secretly financed by the Pakistani government as propaganda outlets. If so, federal law would require Mr. Fai to register as an agent of Pakistan, something he did not do.
In a 44-page affidavit unsealed on Tuesday, Sarah Webb Linden, an F.B.I. special agent who worked the case, said the Kashmir Center was largely financed by Pakistan using straw donors, and that while Mr. Fai had day-to-day latitude, he was ultimately a Pakistani agent for more than two decades.
She said a confidential witness told the F.B.I. about his own participation in funneling money to the center in 2005 in order to get a reduced sentence.
She also alleged that Mr. Fai has communicated more than 4,000 times since 2008 with four people the F.B.I. believes are Pakistani government handlers, based on intercepted communications.
Ms. Linden cited documents that Mr. Fai allegedly sent to Pakistan containing annual strategy plans and budget requests, including a request for $100,000 for contributions to members of Congress in 2009. Her affidavit said there was no evidence that any candidates knew that Pakistan was the source of the campaign contributions.
Government agents have repeatedly questioned Mr. Fai about over the past four years about connections with the government of Pakistan, and the Justice Department sent him a letter last year notifying him that he might have an obligation to register as an agent. The affidavits said Mr. Fai repeatedly denied working for Pakistan.
Law enforcement officials denied that the timing of his arrest was related to souring American relations with Pakistan and the I.S.I. in the wake of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in a residential compound in Pakistan. One senior law enforcement official said the case against Mr. Fai had been ready for some time, and that investigators had been waiting to see if an alleged co-conspirator would travel to the United States.
