Must be Groggy's Cousin. Send him to Alcatraz, I hear it may reopen. Or Guantanamo.
A Springfield man will serve more than three decades in prison for his reported efforts to collect and send funds to the Islamic State group.
Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa, 35, was sentenced to 30 years and four months in prison Wednesday by a U.S. District Court judge in Alexandria after a jury convicted him in December on multiple charges of providing material support to a terrorist organization.
“Those who fund and facilitate terror bear the same responsibility as those who carry out attacks,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert said in a press release from the Department of Justice. “Mohammed Chhipa knowingly and persistently collected and provided a considerable amount of money to fund the violence of an organization bent on forcing their extremist ideology on others. That he did so from a nation that holds individual freedom sacrosanct is unconscionable.”
According to prosecutors, Chhipa sent more than $185,000 to members of the Islamic State group from October 2019 through October of 2022….
According to the DOJ, Chhipa solicited donations for the Islamic State group through social media with the goal of supporting its fighters and helping female members escape prison camps. After collecting the funds either electronically or in person, he converted the cash to bitcoin and transferred it to bank accounts in Turkey, where it was then smuggled to militants in Syria.
Chhipa was ultimately arrested after meeting an undercover FBI agent multiple times in 2021 and 2022 to accept funds “earmarked for a Syrian woman and Islamic State group member known as Umm Dujanah,” the Associated Press reported from the weeklong trial in December.
According to the AP, lawyers representing Chhipa argued during the trial that the FBI’s operation followed a decade of baseless investigation and “played on his clear desire to find a wife by using undercover operatives who, among other ruses, pretended to be marriage brokers or even a willing bride.”…
A Springfield man will serve more than three decades in prison for his reported efforts to collect and send funds to the Islamic State group.
Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa, 35, was sentenced to 30 years and four months in prison Wednesday by a U.S. District Court judge in Alexandria after a jury convicted him in December on multiple charges of providing material support to a terrorist organization.
“Those who fund and facilitate terror bear the same responsibility as those who carry out attacks,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert said in a press release from the Department of Justice. “Mohammed Chhipa knowingly and persistently collected and provided a considerable amount of money to fund the violence of an organization bent on forcing their extremist ideology on others. That he did so from a nation that holds individual freedom sacrosanct is unconscionable.”
According to prosecutors, Chhipa sent more than $185,000 to members of the Islamic State group from October 2019 through October of 2022….
According to the DOJ, Chhipa solicited donations for the Islamic State group through social media with the goal of supporting its fighters and helping female members escape prison camps. After collecting the funds either electronically or in person, he converted the cash to bitcoin and transferred it to bank accounts in Turkey, where it was then smuggled to militants in Syria.
Chhipa was ultimately arrested after meeting an undercover FBI agent multiple times in 2021 and 2022 to accept funds “earmarked for a Syrian woman and Islamic State group member known as Umm Dujanah,” the Associated Press reported from the weeklong trial in December.
According to the AP, lawyers representing Chhipa argued during the trial that the FBI’s operation followed a decade of baseless investigation and “played on his clear desire to find a wife by using undercover operatives who, among other ruses, pretended to be marriage brokers or even a willing bride.”…
looks like I hit a nerve.
