From: "Rich Gauszka" 

I don't have a problem with what the Wal-Mart cashier did. It's been
reported that in some of these incidents the suspects purchasing the cell
phones were questioned by law enforcement multiple times  over a week prior
to the headline making arrests.  It just seems that in this day and age of
Bush's information gathering steamroller that there is still no smooth flow
of information between agencies. This is looking like an incident that
wasted time for those actively pursuing terrorists.



"Mark"  wrote in message
news:44e12722$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Well, however this whole brouhaha turns out, I'm glad the Wal-Mart cashier
> called the cops, I'm glad the cops followed-up and detained the guys. If I
> got pulled over with lots of cash and 100s of pre-paid cell phones bought
> in a variety of Wal-Marts thousands of miles from my home, I'd expect to
> be taken in too.  to overlap a couple of different arrests in the thread>
>
> "Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:44e12329{at}w3.nls.net...
>> Rich, the claim below they are being sold to local gas stations, etc.
>> seems completely insane to me.  Why buy from gas station when you can buy
>> the same phone for less at Wal-Mart.  If the phones were being converted
>> to something not sold at Wal-Mart or being shipped overseas, then at
>> least the "its just an innocent business" claim might
make some sense,
>> but it makes no sense at all that Arabs in Dearborn would rather pay
>> higher price to gas station than buy from the Wal-Mart next door.
>>
>> Gary
>>
>> "Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
>> news:44e11943{at}w3.nls.net...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Mike N."  wrote in message
>>> news:7452e2dfqdtfhug4v0oc9cd4hrfbapn4r5{at}4ax.com...
>>>> On Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:34:47 -0400, "Gary Britt"

>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Where are these cell phones sold, USA or overseas? 
Whose buying them
>>>>>rather
>>>>>than go to the local Wal-Mart themselves?  Why only
Arabs exploiting
>>>>>this
>>>>>"opportunity"?
>>>>
>>>>  And if they are indeed reselling them, what a bunch of dummies as
>>>> businessmen!   Why buy in qty 1,000 retail when they could get a
>>>> significant break on that quantity by buying directly from Tracfone.
>>>>
>>>>  More likely, they are just adding a level of obfuscation for
>>>> purchasing
>>>> and reselling untraceable cell phones.
>>>
>>> But I thought Gary Britt  loved the entrepreneur spirit?
>>> 'An independent entrepreneur will buy the phones for, say, $8 each. He
>>> will sell them to a distributor for $12, making a $4 profit. Multiply
>>> that by a thousand -- about the number of phones the three men arrested
>>> in Caro bought in total -- and you have a $4,000 profit.'
>>>
>>>
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060814/NEWS05/608140339/1
007/NEWS05
>>> It may seem unusual for someone to buy hundreds of cell phones at a
>>> time, but metro Detroiters of Middle Eastern descent say that practice
>>> is part of a long tradition of entrepreneurship in Arab-American
>>> communities.
>>>
>>> From Dearborn to Troy to Sterling Heights, Arab Americans are a major
>>> part of the cell phone business in southeastern Michigan. At least half
>>> of the cell phone businesses in the region are owned by metro Detroiters
>>> of Arab or Chaldean descent, say business owners in the industry. Many
>>> new immigrants or emerging businessmen earn money by buying the cell
>>> phones and then selling them to gas stations, distributors or stores.
>>>
>>> It's called capitalism, Arab Americans say.
>>>
>>> In Michigan, "you can talk to almost any family in the
Arab-American
>>> community, and they all have some relative in the cell phone
business,"
>>> said Warren David, a Lebanese American from Northville.
>>>
>>> If police knew that, perhaps five Arab Americans would not have been
>>> arrested last week on terrorism charges after they bought hundreds of
>>> cell phones, said David, who recently sold his cell phone business to an
>>> Iraqi American.
>>>
>>> "If they understood us a little more, they might not jump
the gun so
>>> quickly," he said.
>>>
>>> In Ohio on Tuesday, a store employee called police after two 20-year-old
>>> Arab-American men from Dearborn bought a large number of cell phones at
>>> a Wal-Mart. The same thing happened Friday in Caro after three
>>> Arab-American men bought 80 phones at one store.
>>>
>>> In the Ohio case, Osama Abulhassan and Ali Houssaiky were just trying to
>>> make money by buying cell phones so they could sell them to a
>>> distributor for a profit, family members said.
>>>
>>> "The two young men were engaged in a perfectly legal
practice based on
>>> the most fundamental principles of our free market economy," the
>>> Abulhassan family said in an e-mail.
>>>
>>> Here's how the practice sometimes works, said Nasser Beydoun, head of
>>> the Dearborn-based American Arab Chamber of Commerce:
>>>
>>> An independent entrepreneur will buy the phones for, say, $8 each. He
>>> will sell them to a distributor for $12, making a $4 profit. Multiply
>>> that by a thousand -- about the number of phones the three men arrested
>>> in Caro bought in total -- and you have a $4,000 profit.
>>>
>>> The distributor then will sell the phones at a higher price to gas
>>> station owners, who in turn sell them at a marked-up price.
>>>
>>> Many people of Arab descent "are traders by nature,"
Beydoun said. "That
>>> entrepreneurship should not be linked to terrorism just because they are
>>> Arab American."
>>>
>>> For more than 100 years, the Arab-American community has tried to turn a
>>> profit on everything from trinkets to watches to electronic goods.
>>>
>>> In the 1980s, David recalled, blue jeans were the hot item. And his
>>> Lebanese immigrant grandfather often bought and sold hosiery to make a
>>> living.
>>>
>>> In metro Detroit, Arab Americans are believed to dominate the cell phone
>>> industry not only on the retail level, but also when it comes to
>>> wholesale dealers and accessory stores. Two of the area's biggest cell
>>> phone chains --  Wireless Toyz and Wireless Giant -- are owned by Iraqi
>>> Chaldeans.
>>>
>>> This practice also occurs with other goods. In Dearborn, for example,
>>> Arab-American entrepreneurs buy and sell incense, lighters and flowers.
>>>
>>> There's a concern that what happened in Ohio and Caro could hurt
>>> Arab-American business owners.
>>>
>>> Abed Ayoub, 26, a Dearborn resident who often works on legal issues,
>>> said he knows of at least two cases in recent months in which FBI agents
>>> questioned Arab Americans after they purchased large numbers of cell
>>> phones from stores.
>>>
>>> "They're just doing business, nothing more," Ayoub said.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

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