From: "Gary Britt" 

You can't buy brass knuckles and stolen OTC medication (which I assume is
selling for less than Wal-Mart prices), crack pipes etc at Wal-Mart.  It
makes sense there would be a market for these items somewhere.  What
doesn't make sense is for us to believe that Abdul is buying cell phones at
the gas station for a higher price than they can buy the same cell phone at
Wal-Mart.  To believe that you have to believe Abdul doesn't shop at
Wal-Mart for anything.

Gary

"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:44e127c8{at}w3.nls.net...
> Many of the local gas stations are owned by the Middle East immigrants so
> the phones are being sold out of their stores. It's really a gray
> area/sometimes shady  market that they serve and local media in the past
> has exposed everything from brass knuckles, stolen OTC medication, to
> crack pipes sold from the gas stations and party stores. We are talking
> small entrepreneurs looking the other way while they make a buck.
>
>
>
>
> "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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