Rana's firm's operations may help track terror links: Officers

Yoshita Singh
Chicago, Jan 10 (PTI) US sleuths probing the operations
of an immigration business run by Pakistani-Canadian LeT
operative Tahawwur Hussain Rana feel that allowing the firm to
continue to function will help monitor its clients for
"possible terrorist ties".

49-year-old Rana's immigration consultancy firm First
World Immigration, located in the Indian-Pakistani street
Devon Avenue here, is being probed for possible acts of
immigration fraud as part of wider investigation into an
international terror plot against India and Denmark.
"Despite the firm's alleged ties to terror, there is
value in allowing First World Immigration to continue doing
business as normal since it made it easier for the FBI to
monitor its clients for possible terrorist ties. If you shut
it down, those people are lost to the wind," NBC Chicago
quoted a senior law-enforcement official as saying.
It said the case against the businessman based in Chicago
is especially troubling because it is a rare example of how a
seemingly legitimate American business — in this case, Rana's
visa-processing firm — may have been used as a front for an
overseas terrorist network that targets Americans.
The FBI has said Rana's accomplice David Coleman Headley,
charged with criminal conspiracy in the Mumbai attacks, used
the immigration firm as cover for his travels to India and
Denmark as he scouted for terror targets.
Rana is under investigation for links to the Mumbai
strikes that killed 166 people. His First World has offices in
Chicago, New York and Toronto. (More) PTI YAS
AHM