A few weeks ago I wrote about a botched background investigation of a former FBI and CIA Intelligence Analyst who entered into a sham marriage to gain citizenship. It turns out that she had ties to Hezbollah.
Now a US Marine Captain has plead guilty of helping the potential Hezbollah operative gain citizenship in the same way she herself did. Read Hezbollah: Signs of a Sophisticated Intelligence Apparatus to see how an incompetent background investigation can have far-reaching implications.
the cases demonstrate that the FBI, CIA and Marine Corps all failed to detect this web of sham marriages when they conducted background investigations on the women in question, especially since the marriages were within the seven-year investigative window required for Prouty’s FBI clearance and Spinelli’s enlistment in the Marine Corps. A full field background investigation should have been able to determine the nature of the sham marriages, given that the women never lived with their purported husbands.”
An ex-FBI & CIA agent with a brother-in-law linked to Hezbollah pleads guilty to database searches, raising questions about the security of top secret files in the war on terror.
The case raises questions about hiring practices and background checks by two of the nation’s most security-sensitive and secretive agencies… “It’s hard to imagine a greater threat than the situation where a foreign national uses fraud to attain citizenship and then, based on that fraud, insinuates herself into a sensitive position in the U.S. government.”
It seems she got somebody to marry her so she could become a citizen. The background investigation did not uncover this, nor did the polygraph examination that the US government places so much trust in.
Since this news broke it seems she held some very responsible positions and her brother, along with Prouty’s sister and others, was charged in 2006 by the U.S. attorney in Detroit with tax evasion in connection with a scheme to conceal more than $20 million in cash… and to route funds to persons in Lebanon with links to Hezbollah.” The sister is currently serving 18 months in a federal prison.
