Mahmoud Al Hafyan, a 53-year-old Syrian national, has been charged in a 12-count indictment for major fraud against the U.S. He is accused of diverting over $9 million in humanitarian aid intended for Syrian civilians to armed groups, including the Al-Nusrah Front, a terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaida. The indictment was unsealed in the U.S. District Court.
U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, along with officials from USAID-OIG and FBI, announced that Al Hafyan not only defrauded the U.S. government but also directed aid to a terrorist organization, causing suffering to the civilians who were supposed to benefit from it.
Al Hafyan, aka Abu Abdo Al-Homsi, was the head of a non-governmental organization (NGO-1) in the NGO’s regional office in Syria. Al Hafyan managed 160 NGO-1 employees and allegedly sold food kits on the black market to ANF commanders for personal profit. Al Hafyan and his co-conspirators are alleged to have falsified beneficiary logs and inflated the number of food kits received by war-affected families in Syrian villages where NGO-1 operated to fraudulently make it appear that NGO-1 was dispersing the kits according to NGO-1’s guidelines.
The case is one of the most significant diversions of USAID-funded aid, investigated by USAID-OIG and the FBI.
Read the press release here.
