African Man Pleads Guilty to Smuggling Aliens for Profit

An international man is pleading guilty to smuggling unauthorized aliens into the United States from East Africa.

Sampson Lovelace Boateng, 53, of Ghana is charged with conspiracy and alien smuggling, as part of a large effort to bring a sizeable number of people from Africa into the United States between June 2006 and February 2007.

Boateng pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and three counts of bringing aliens into the United States for profit.

The U.S. Attorney's Office claims Boateng worked with others to provide the aliens with fraudulent Mexican visas, so they could enter the United States. The U.S. Attorney's Office states Boateng sold the illegal visas for $500 per person and was able to obtain the visas from someone working inside the Mexican Embassy in Belize.

The U.S. Attorney's Office further contends that Boateng would smuggle the aliens in to the United States by housing them for days or weeks in Mexico then hiding them in bus luggage compartments. Each alien was charged about $5,000 as smuggling fees to sneak them in to the country.

Boateng will be removed from the United States at the completion of a five-to-15-year prison term and after paying a fine of $250,000. Boateng's co-conspirator, Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, is awaiting extradition and prosecution in the United States.

Also, an unrelated man is now charged with disclosing U.S. defense documents to the government of Israel without any authorization.

Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested today. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Kadish worked in conjunction with others to borrow classified U.S. defense documents from the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center in Dover, New Jersey and took them to his personal residence in New Jersey. Kadish was employed at the Center as a mechanical engineer at the time, between 1979 to 1985.

The U.S. Attorney's Office claims Kadish would provide the documents from his residence to an employee of Israel's Consul for Science Affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in Manhattan.

The U.S. Attorney's Office claims one of the documents contained data regarding nuclear weaponry and was classified by the U.S. government as "Restricted Data," a designation provided by the U.S. Department of Energy due to its sensitive atomic-related information that it contained. Another document reportedly contained information about a major U.S. weapons system for the F-15 fighter jet.

Kadish is charged with four total counts, including conspiring to disclose documents related to the national defense of the United States to the Government of Israel.