The Hunt for Maan Singh

by Hipólito Acosta

  Despite this snafu, Sunil Patel went back to Maan Singh and Ramesh Patel to give Tubbs another chance and set up another two aliens. Singh acquiesced but warned Sunil that Tubbs was an FBI agent.

  “And stop using the commercial flights to Miami. That was the plan the feds used before and you’re falling into it again!” yelled Singh.

  So Tubbs was in business again. Once the next two aliens were in the stash house in Santo Domingo, they confided in Tubbs that Maan Singh was going to send them to Canada, and they balked. They wanted Tubbs to take them directly to the United States. He agreed and followed A. J.’s protocol through Miami and up to New York. All along, Tubbs was getting the goods on Maan Singh, identifying the enablers and the hawala dealer and the sponsors paying for the smuggled bodies. The case was coming together.

  Tubbs knew he was getting close, but was aware that Maan Singh would not give him any more aliens if he used commercial airlines, so A. J. and Tubbs came up with an alternative route. A. J. knew that ICE had seized numerous boats in Puerto Rico, including “fast boats,” that possibly could be used to ferry the aliens from Santo Domingo to San Juan. Under the new Homeland Security rules, much bureaucracy had been cut or streamlined, and A. J. and Tubbs did not have to present the undercover operation to a committee, not even the commissioning of ICE boat captains and crews were used for this op.

  In mid-January, 2005, Tubbs was able to smuggle four aliens via fast boat to San Juan, and from there on to New York on commercial airlines. Feeling good, confident that the case was wrapping up, Maan Singh came up with another monkey wrench and heaved it into the works. Singh “stole” the route. Instead of following through with Tubbs, Singh “jumped” Tubbs and opened up a fast boat route from St. Maarten to San Juan and commercial flights to New York, thus cutting Tubbs completely out of the deal. Tubbs’ undercover operation had to be shut down: Maan Singh was no longer providing him with aliens. Tubbs, knowing he had the goods on Maan Singh, flew to New York, swore out a criminal complaint and obtained a warrant for the arrest of Singh, the Patels and Gurdial Singh, the hawala broker in Los Angeles who had moved the money. New York was the logical venue for the warrant because, even though Maan Singh had never set foot in the Empire State, there were proven violations there and, as an added factor, the local U.S. attorney was willing to take the case, whereas the Miami office often resisted dealing with immigration cases.

  Warrant in hand, Tubbs set to work immediately with the U.S. Homeland Security attaché in Caracas, Venezuela, to arrange for Maan Singh to be expelled.

  “The last time I was here, your people got some shady locals involved and they kicked me out,” complained Tubbs, hoping to stave off a similar experience.

  “Look, Tubbs, I work with a very select group of law enforcement officers. They can be trusted. Don’t worry.”

  “Okay, let me know how things develop.” With that, Tubbs went back undercover.

  After numerous phone calls with Sunil and Ramesh Patel, in February of 2005 Maan Singh agreed to meet Tubbs in Caracas. At the appointed time, Tubbs proceeded to go after Maan Singh, with the attaché and Venezuelan police providing surveillance and security for him. And in a move reminiscent of Poli Acosta, insisted that he be arrested with Maan Singh and Ramesh Patel in order not to expose his undercover identity. And that is the way it went down, without a hitch. All were placed behind bars, instead of taking them to the airport for expulsion. This gave time for Maan Singh and Ramesh Patel to request a formal written notice from the U.S. State Department explaining the criminal charges and substantiate that there was a warrant for both individuals issued in the United States. Then the Venezuelan police explained to the Homeland Security representatives that they needed written permission from President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez to expel the two smugglers. Tubbs had to retreat to Santo Domingo, fully aware that the fate of Maan Singh was held in the hands of President Chávez, no friend of the United States.

  Sixty days later, President Chávez finally signed the expulsion orders. Maan Singh and Ramesh Patel were on their way to England, via Miami. They could only be expelled to their country of origin; both were citizens of the United Kingdom. When their flight landed in Miami, Homeland Security agents were waiting to place them in handcuffs and interrupt, if not end, their careers as smugglers. The strategy and practice that Poli had developed starting with Navtej Sandhu’s arrest in 1997 was now a common practice at Homeland Security and used here to bring Maan Singh to justice.

  When the agents took the pair into the interrogation room, both remained silent. The agents, thus, went out to meet with Tubbs, whose identity had not been exposed, and informed Tubbs that Singh and Patel were not talking. Tubbs decided not to settle for that and came out from undercover. When Tubbs entered the interrogation room, Maan Singh blanched.

  “I knew all along you were with the FBI,” Singh blurted out.

  “You know me, right? You know I got the goods on you. You know what, you don’t need to say anything. You’ve been recorded, photographed, documented, we got you comin’ and goin’.”

  Faced with that, Maan Singh began admitting his involvement, but deflected by spilling the goods on his competitors. It was all valuable information that would lead to other investigations and other arrests. In all, Maan Singh knew that this was all a temporary blip—not many years to serve—and that he’d eventually get back to dealing, perhaps with fewer competitors. All of the people who had been sentenced under Seek and Keep, and who had actually worked for him, were all out of prison, not having spent more than thirty months behind bars. It turned out that Maan Singh only spent five and one half months in jail—much to the chagrin of A. J. and Poli. The hunt for Maan Singh had lasted from 1996 to 2005. Just as Maan Singh was placed in a cell in March, 2005, Hipólito Acosta began his retirement from the agency.

  Epilog

  As of this writing, although Niranjan Maan Singh served little time, he never reconstituted his smuggling empire. In fact, he retired when he was released from prison and decided to enjoy his money and his family back in London. The “cessation of the criminal activities” was the standard used by the government for the successful closing of a case. Under those terms, the hunt for Maan Singh was an unbridled success, despite his not having been the guest of a federal institution for more years. Many years back, Maan Singh had been the subject of a Canadian warrant because of the interdiction of a ship transporting 200 aliens that he had arranged. He had been the target of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Interpol and, of course, INS, and had moved to several other countries to continue his criminal enterprise and reportedly had lost human beings who died along the way, but no efforts had ever been successful in shutting down his operation until Seek and Keep, that is, until Jake Jacobson in McAllen back in 1996 ordered a warrant for his arrest. It took all of nine years from the day that A. J. and Poli had partnered up in South Texas until the successful rendition that occurred in 2005 in Venezuela that brought Maan Singh into the arms of the U.S. justice system. Singh’s mistress, Mónica Jaramillo, who had functioned as his “secretary-treasurer,” moved to Switzerland, to be close to Maan Singh and receive his occasional visits from his home in London. His other mistress, Karina Jaramillo, her sister, got married and currently lives in Spain with her husband. Maan Singh’s son Surinder, who had been a co-conspirator, evaded charges and remained safe in London, where he awaited his father’s release.

  Nick Díaz was convicted of smuggling and money-laundering, and sentenced to twelve years in prison at the federal penitentiary in Texarkana. Even though he had pled guilty, he teamed up with a jail-house lawyer and filed an appeal to his conviction—which went nowhere. The worst off of those indicted, Díaz ended up serving almost ten years. While behind bars, Díaz continued his thuggish behavior, threatening fellow defendants and even attempting to put a contract out on Poli and A. J. This was after Díaz had asked Poli to return the $50,000 to him that he had paid “Fernando” to move aliens. At one point, Díaz transferred $2
50,000 to his cell mate’s wife in Mississippi for an escape plan involving hiring a helicopter to break him out. Incredibly, Díaz was not aware that all prison phone calls were monitored, and the authorities came down on him like a ton of bricks, which only added to the time he would eventually serve. Also, while still in prison, Díaz sent a trusted associate in India to retrieve $2 million from a Dubai hawala bank; he needed the funds to pay for legal representation and the kill-for-hire scheme and other sundries. His anointed confederate did Díaz’s bidding, except that he kept the money and was never heard from again. After his release from prison, Díaz moved to Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he changed his named to “Sunny” and resumed his smuggling activities. In an ironic turn to the never-ending problem of human trafficking, “Sunny” took up Maan Singh’s strategy of using forged Venezuelan passports to move the South Asian aliens from Ecuador to the United States. A. J. and Poli have offered Homeland Security to go get the goods on Nick again; Homeland has never taken them up on the offer. On November 24, 2015, A. J. and Poli were informed that Díaz had died in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

  Isan Chaudry pled guilty in 1998 and served a little over one year in federal custody and was deported from the United States to Ecuador. Upon his return to Quito, he discovered that his lady friend had relieved him of some $10,000 he had kept in his apartment. Chaudry, under the code name of “007,” lived up to his agreement to provide information on “special interest alien smuggling,” ie. exotic aliens, throughout Central and South America. Among the smugglers he helped to take down was Abdullah Ashraf, an Egyptian based in Guatemala who was suspected of smuggling aliens with terrorist ties. Chaudry never resumed criminal activity. A. J., now retired, still talks to Chaudry at least once a month, and has also maintained a relationship with Chaudry’s two children. Chaudry’s wife, children and granddaughter reside in Orange County, California. Despite all of the help he has rendered the government in taking down smugglers, the State Department has never renewed his application for a visa to travel to the United States.

  Margarita was successful in having her whole family brought to the United States with visitor’s visas. They settled in Long Island, New York. Her brothers became long haul truck drivers and she married a U.S. citizen and obtained legal resident status for herself and her daughter. Soon after their marriage, her husband was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and they moved for medical treatments to Dallas, Texas, where Margarita nursed him back to health. But years later, his cancer returned and he passed away. Margarita to this date is a productive resident on the verge of naturalization. Her daughter is currently studying health sciences in college. Having worked in Maan Singh’s clothing boutique and facilitated his smuggling, Margarita’s dream had always been to own a business; she is now assistant manager of a hair salon and has been “Employee of the Year” for the franchise, two years in a row. Her goal is to own a franchise, her stake in the American Dream.

  Navtej Sandhu was a two-time loser, having been arrested twice. Following his first arrest, he was deported to Great Britain, where his family resided. Despite reportedly having a very ill child, he returned to smuggling. This was his milieu and where he could have the Latin women that attracted him. He re-established his smuggling operation in Central America, where he ended up working with the same undercover agent that had taken him down the first time—and Carlos Martínez was his co-defendant. Sandhu had the distinction of being the first INS rendition of a human smuggler outside the United States; his was the model for the strategy used by Seek and Keep to take down the other smugglers operating outside the United States. The model was used to take down an additional hundred or so smugglers. While in prison, Sandhu sent A. J. one letter per week, offering to give him information. A. J. never followed up because he mostly wanted to inform on Carlos Martínez. He was unaware of Martínez’s undercover work for the very same A. J.

  Ishwar Barot, Díaz’s money handler in Newark, cooperated with the Seek and Keep task force, leading the agents to Nick Díaz. The deal he cut on pleading guilty was only for smuggling, not money laundering, and he received probation rather than confinement and he would not be deported to India. The Newark office, nevertheless, began proceedings to deport him, but only hours from being placed on a plane, A. J. intervened in time to stop his deportation. Today, Brahmbatt is a law-abiding family man, living in New Jersey. Had he been deported to India, it is almost a sure thing he would have been terminated as a snitch—or accused of stealing Díaz’s money.

  Gunvantla Shah served some three years at Williamsport Federal Penitentiary. While a resident there, his wife died, and A. J. arranged for him to be temporarily released to attend the funeral. After his release, he was about to work for A. J. informing on all of the hawala brokers in the United States, but the Newark INS office stepped in and deported him. That was the end of that.

  Gulu Farooqi, Nick Díaz’s right-hand man, served a few years and returned to India, never to be heard from again.

  Francisco Mera, the owner of the Hostal Bavaria, escaped arrest and prosecution. The United States did not have an extradition treaty with Ecuador, and he was spared. He never agreed to meet “Andrés” or “Fernando” in another country. To this day, A. J. and Poli suspect that Carlos warned him because of their close friendship and Carlos’ feeling that he used Francisco to get Maan Singh.

  Dr. Humberto León Duque, the man entrusted to transport the aliens on “El Almirante” fishing boat, escaped prosecution for Seek and Keep, but was arrested in Guatemala with 165 pounds of cocaine. After buying his way out of custody, he was reportedly shot to death by the owner of the dope he was suspected of stealing.

  Doña Cristina’s family still operates her stash house in Tecun Uman, but she has retired in Houston, Texas, where she receives medical treatment for diabetes.

  Amer Sultan, the young pilot, never served a day in jail and he fulfilled his dream of becoming a commercial pilot. Sultan moved to Houston with his mother and has applied at every airline in the United States, but has not been offered a job. Instead, he went on to fly private Lear Jets for wealthy Saudis. Currently, he has been able to fly 747s and other wide-bodied jets for overseas airlines in Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey and others. His permanent residence is in Houston, Texas.

  A host of other bad actors in the Bahamas, Ecuador, Venezuela and Central America are still free and active. For instance, Larry Ferguson, Assistant Chief of Intelligence for the Bahamas, despite all of the evidence gathered and testimony from Nick Díaz and other defendants, continued in his position with impunity.

  Carlos Martínez, aka “Babaco,” and his family resided without papers in the United States. After having completed an undercover case against Darío Espejo, one of the top five human smugglers operating out of Mexico, Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Houston refused to renew his permit to reside legally in the United States. Martínez was made a scapegoat for INS screwing up the Espejo trial, and he and his family had never been able to leave the United States to visit their family, they could not work legally and they continued to live in the shadows. This was Martínez’s reward for having served as a valuable undercover agent for the United States for more than ten years. Indeed, he was instrumental in the case that U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said was “the greatest case in INS history.” Martínez died in Houston on October 8, 2015, from renal failure. Upon learning of his demise, Poli stated, “He had many faults, but his admiration for A. J. and me was without question. We trusted him with our lives in Tecun Uman, the streets of Quito and Guatemala. He was always willing to undertake whatever project we needed him for. He was a great asset for the U.S. government with a phenomenal amount of knowledge on human smuggling. He was not afraid of going anywhere and, had he been given the support he needed and that had been promised, he had the potential to have been a great citizen for our country.”

  Every year at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the commissioner would hold a conference f
or district directors and senior-level managers from throughout the world. A major highlight at the conference was the commissioner’s awards ceremony for INS outstanding employees. In 1999, A. J. and Poli were invited to the conference to receive commissioner’s awards. Poli received an award for his foreign interdictions, and A. J. was there on behalf of the Dallas district to receive the award for Seek and Keep, which was a way of recognizing A. J. indirectly, although Seek and Keep was never a Dallas operation. And, then, to A. J. and Poli’s surprise, when Mike Beecraft prepared to announce the “Officer of the Year” award and stated, “I am proud to recognize two outstanding officers for their excellent work and their participation in the agency’s first wiretap and money laundering case during Operation Seek and Keep,” A. J. and Poli were about to stand up and pick up their award checks for several thousand dollars, when Beecraft called Bill Riley and John Connolly to the stage.

  That evening, Poli and A. J. regrouped and, amid disappointment and anger, decided to return their piddling awards the next day, when Poli was scheduled to open up a forum with Commissioner Meissner. They called around to field agents and advisors for support and planned to take the trophies and return them to Meissner in front of the whole convention.