FBI wedding sting busts crime ring

[emad]

FBI wedding sting busts crime ring

Jamie Wilson
Wednesday August 24, 2005
The Guardian


It should have been such a happy day. The wedding presents had been bought, a luxury yacht hired for the ceremony, and the guests - some from as far away as China - had all arrived. But then the bride and groom went and ruined it all by having everybody arrested.

In fact the "wedding" on the yacht moored just off Atlantic City in New Jersey was an elaborate FBI sting to lure members of an international smuggling and counterfeiting ring. The bride and groom, who had been working with the accused smugglers for several years, were undercover agents.

Operation Royal Charm - named after the yacht - led to the arrest of 87 people in raids across Canada and the US. Authorities said they had seized $4.4m (£2.4m) in high-quality fake $100 bills and more than 1bn counterfeit cigarettes worth $42m, as well as ecstasy, methamphetamine and Viagra worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Eight of those arrested were on their way to the fake wedding, due to begin at 2pm on Sunday, and were dressed in their finest when they were taken into custody. "Invitations were sent out, a date was given and RSVPs were received from different points from around the world," Christopher Christie, a prosecutor in New Jersey, told reporters. "One guest even bought a pair of gold Presidential Rolex watches."

The authorities would not disclose the identities of the two undercover agents who had posed as the bride and groom, but said the pair had spent years gaining the trust of dozens of the alleged key figures at the highest level of the smuggling operation. Their cover story worked so well that the authorities decided to incorporate their "relationship" into their plans to close down the syndicate, Mr Christie told the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1554974,00.html

[benburch]

1. Good law enforcement!

kudos!