Kurds found guilty
Immigrants fined $11,000 for illegal money transfer
By Rachana Dixit, news editor
Posted on August 28, 2006

The sounds of children singing and dancing filled the Harrisonburg District Court on June 26 after three out of four Kurdish men were given their sentences for illegally transferring money overseas.

Ahmed Abdullah, Amir Rashid and Rasheed Qambari were issued fines of $3,000, $1,500 and $6,500, respectively, for sending money overseas without a license. The USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law on Oct. 26, 2001, made it illegal to run a money-transferring business without proper documentation.

The three aforementioned men and Fadhil Noroly had allegedly sent about $3 million abroad from multiple Kurdish families in Harrisonburg. Noroly was the last of the four men to plead guilty. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 26.

As convicted felons, the men could have received a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison and roughly $250,000 in fines. The men and the greater Kurdish community of Harrisonburg were relieved when the decision was made.

 “I was happy,” Qambari said. “My freedom doesn’t have any price on it. Plus, nobody’s happy to go to jail.”

Qambari, who received the most in fines, had been sending money since 1998 to Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region north of Iraq. Initially, he said, the money was for his family so they could also relocate to the United States. and escape oppression under Saddam Hussein’s government. Shortly afterward, he began sending money for other Kurdish families in the Harrisonburg community. Qambari said banking systems were virtually nonexistent in Iraq and Kurdistan.