Orthopedic Surgeon Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Take Fraudulent Tax Deductions for Money Transfers That Helped Conceal Lobbying Efforts Funded by Pakistan Government

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Abdul Razaq, an orthopedic surgeon in La Plata, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the United States Department of Treasury by taking fraudulent tax deductions as part of a decades-long scheme to conceal the transfer of at least $3.5 million from the government of Pakistan to fund lobbying efforts in America related to Kashmir.

Dana J. Boente, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; John P. Carlin, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; Kathryn Keneally, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division; and Thomas J. Kelly, Special Agent in Charge, IRS-Criminal Investigation, Washington D.C. Field Office, made the announcement after the plea was accepted by United States District Judge Liam O’Grady.

Razaq faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison when he is sentenced on July 18, 2014.

In a statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, Razaq, a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for International Help, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity based in New York, admitted to taking charitable deductions for money that he routed through the Society for International Help, as well as another charity—the Kashmiri American Council (KAC)—even though he was reimbursed at least in part for these deductions in Pakistan. Razaq also admitted to being part of Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai’s financial network of donors, which Fai used to conceal that the KAC was funded with at least $3,500,000 from the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, Pakistan’s military intelligence service. Fai was sentenced to serve two years in prison on March 30, 2012.

This investigation is being conducted by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the IRS-Criminal Investigation’s Washington Field Office. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, Trial Attorney John Gibbs of the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Ickovic from the Justice Department’s Tax Division.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae.