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Simply 5 years in the past, Wael Hana was reeling from a string of dangerous enterprise offers in New Jersey, having tried to launch a truck cease, an Italian restaurant, a limousine service and different firms with out ever hitting it large.
Then, his pal began relationship Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, some of the highly effective Democrats in america Senate. Quickly, Mr. Hana launched Mr. Menendez, the chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee, to a rising circle of Egyptian officers, and Mr. Hana’s fortunes took a outstanding flip: He received sole management over certifying all halal meals being imported into Egypt, incomes sufficient cash to bribe Mr. Menendez with gold bars and wads of money, prosecutors mentioned.
Mr. Hana, Mr. Menendez and others are actually dealing with prices in what prosecutors have described as a wide-ranging corruption scheme — one which threatens to place an finish to the senator’s 5 many years in politics. However the allegations, if true, additionally increase a urgent query about Mr. Hana: Was he an agent of the Egyptian authorities all alongside, or only a fortunate opportunist who stumbled right into a place of worldwide affect?
The F.B.I. is investigating this very query. However a New York Occasions examination of a whole bunch of pages of courtroom filings, enterprise information and interviews with almost a dozen individuals who knew or handled Mr. Hana provided insights into the trail he traveled throughout his bumpy begin — and meteoric rise.
Throughout the span of some years, he would rework from a debt-laden businessman who couldn’t afford even a $2,000 emergency room invoice to a world energy dealer who boasted about his Rolex watch assortment to a diplomat in Cairo.
Along with the corruption investigation into Mr. Menendez, the F.B.I. has been conducting a parallel counterintelligence inquiry, based on 4 folks conversant in the matter, who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate an energetic investigation. The overview, first reported by NBC Information, is in search of to find out whether or not Egypt’s intelligence service sought to acquire info from Mr. Menendez via Mr. Hana’s pal Nadine Menendez, who married Mr. Menendez in 2020.
Federal brokers are additionally in search of to find out Mr. Hana’s relationship with Egyptian intelligence businesses and when that relationship could have began, two folks with data of the matter mentioned.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Hana mentioned in a press release that he was harmless of all prices and that he has cooperated with federal prosecutors by offering them “unfettered entry to paperwork and to his staff.” She added that he voluntarily booked a flight to New York from Egypt “inside minutes of studying about this indictment,” leaving his spouse and three younger daughters behind.
“Wael Hana’s background is a traditional immigrant story,” the spokeswoman mentioned. “He has been an entrepreneur who has constructed a number of companies, and he has at all times acted ethically and legally.”
Mr. Hana, an American citizen, has been on regulation enforcement’s radar for no less than 4 years. In November 2019, the F.B.I. raided his residence and workplace in New Jersey with a search warrant indicating prosecutors had been gathering proof of potential crimes, together with illegally appearing as an agent of a overseas authorities, based on a courtroom submitting.
Nonetheless, Mr. Hana, 40, was not charged with that offense. Within the indictment unsealed this September, prosecutors mentioned he was the dealer who helped to orchestrate an settlement for Mr. Menendez to steer extra American assist and weapons to Egypt. Mr. Menendez can be accused of sending delicate details about U.S. Embassy staff in Cairo to his spouse, who forwarded it to Mr. Hana, who despatched it on to an Egyptian authorities official.
In return, prosecutors mentioned, Mr. Hana and his circle of enterprise associates showered the Menendezes with a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} in money and gold bars, and bribes that included a mortgage fee for Ms. Menendez, a “low-or-no-show” job for her at Mr. Hana’s halal firm and a brand new Mercedes-Benz convertible.
Mr. Hana, the Menendezes and the others charged within the case have pleaded not responsible. Final week, Mr. Menendez rebuffed requires his resignation and predicted he could be exonerated.
In August, a month earlier than their arrest, Mr. Menendez and his spouse traveled to Egypt, the place the senator met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, based on two folks with data of the matter.
The Egyptian authorities has not commented publicly. On YouTube, some pro-government influencers praised the details of the investigation, saying that it confirmed how Egypt was doing a great job of defending its personal pursuits.
A humble starting
Mr. Hana was 22 when he arrived in america via the visa lottery system in 2006, a number of years after the dying of his father, based on an individual conversant in Mr. Hana’s background. He began working for a cleansing firm and enrolled in English language lessons at a neighborhood faculty, the particular person mentioned.
Straight away, he confirmed an entrepreneurial hustle, making a trucking enterprise referred to as Elmanhry LLC — the primary in a protracted checklist of companies that would seem beneath his title.
He purchased a house in Bayonne, N.J., for $450,000 from a vendor who attended the identical Egyptian church as he did, the vendor mentioned. He appeared to purchase the house and not using a down fee, securing a mortgage for the total buy worth, property information present.
By 2011, Mr. Hana had moved on to the posh automobile enterprise, and he approached a Chinese language businessman with a proposal. Mr. Hana would negotiate with Porsche and Mercedes-Benz dealerships in New Jersey to buy new vehicles on behalf of the businessman, who would then promote them to clients in China. They hashed out the main points over dinner at a seafood restaurant in Flushing, Queens, based on courtroom information.
However after the businessman’s firm, Bosto New York, wired $3.6 million to Mr. Hana and his companions, they offered solely $2.9 million value of vehicles, the businessman mentioned in a lawsuit filed in 2012.
Bosto New York received a judgment in opposition to Mr. Hana and his companions for the lacking $705,000, however Mr. Hana by no means appeared in courtroom or paid off what he owed, information present.
Quickly, Mr. Hana’s authorized troubles started to snowball. He was accused in lawsuits of writing dangerous checks, amongst different issues, ultimately racking up a complete of no less than $890,000 in judgments, courtroom information present.
In 2014, Mr. Hana was charged with driving whereas intoxicated after law enforcement officials mentioned they discovered him handed out within the driver’s seat of a parked automobile in Oradell, N.J. When Mr. Hana was taken to the hospital, the police mentioned he threatened them a number of instances, based on a neighborhood police blotter.
The lawyer who represented him in courtroom, Andy Aslanian, would ultimately introduce Mr. Hana to the tangled net of pals and enterprise associates that may give rise to the indictment in opposition to Mr. Menendez.
In interviews, Mr. Aslanian mentioned he took Mr. Hana beneath his wing after studying that Mr. Hana was alone within the nation. At one level, Mr. Aslanian shared his workplace area with him, and so they spent some vacation dinners collectively.
“I thought-about him my No. 1 son,” Mr. Aslanian mentioned of Mr. Hana.
At the moment, Mr. Aslanian had trigger for concern. A hospital had sued Mr. Hana in 2017 for 1000’s of {dollars} in unpaid medical payments. And he had missed years of mortgage funds and taxes, based on courtroom information, in the end ensuing within the lack of his Bayonne residence to foreclosures in 2018.
Though he struggled financially in america, Mr. Hana appeared to have a detailed tie with the federal government in Egypt.
He really useful Mr. Aslanian for a job representing Egypt in a 2016 zoning dispute over a constructing — meant as a residence for Egyptian navy representatives and their households — in East Rutherford, N.J., Mr. Aslanian instructed The Report, a newspaper in Bergen County.
Mr. Aslanian, who met Mr. Hana round 2009 and launched him to the longer term Ms. Menendez, Nadine Arslanian, quickly after, additionally made different connections for Mr. Hana. Mr. Aslanian mentioned the three of them would typically hang around after work at a French restaurant owned by the developer Fred Daibes — who would even be charged within the corruption case alongside Mr. Hana and the Menendezes.
In November 2017, Mr. Aslanian and Mr. Hana created an organization referred to as IS EG Halal, whose objective was to certify meat as halal, or ready in adherence with Islamic regulation. Mr. Daibes would lend monetary backing to the venture.
Three months later, based on the indictment, their pal Nadine started relationship Mr. Menendez.
A sudden rise
Douglas Anton first met Mr. Hana in 2017 via Ms. Menendez, who was relationship Mr. Anton on the time. She launched Mr. Hana as somebody who was a relative of “any person excessive up within the Egyptian authorities,” Mr. Anton recalled.
Mr. Anton was by no means fairly certain what Mr. Hana did for work, aside from that “he was some form of liaison with Egypt,” Mr. Anton mentioned.
Behind the scenes, based on prosecutors, Mr. Hana was texting immediately with Egyptian navy and authorities officers. All through 2018, Mr. Hana was busy establishing conferences to introduce them to Mr. Menendez. The senator started to make use of his place to profit Egypt’s pursuits, the indictment mentioned, together with by ghostwriting a letter for an Egyptian official who was attempting to steer different U.S. senators to launch a maintain on $300 million in navy assist to Egypt.
Mr. Hana’s efforts got here as Egyptian officers had been aggressively lobbying members of Congress to carry restrictions on the help, which lawmakers imposed in response to the federal government’s poor human rights document. Officers in Cairo considered the restrictions as an affront to a nation that has been a accomplice to america on counterterrorism, commerce and regional safety for years.
Mr. Hana’s connections paid off handsomely within the spring of 2019.
The Egyptian authorities abruptly awarded his firm, IS EG Halal, the unique proper to certify all American meals imported into Egypt as halal, prosecutors mentioned.
The choice induced concern all through the trade. Mr. Hana, a Christian, had no expertise in halal certification. By his personal admission, the corporate was not even working till it was awarded the monopoly.
In a courtroom submitting in 2020, Mr. Hana defined that he received the approval as a result of the Egyptian authorities needed to take any halal certification energy away from the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist motion that Egypt has vilified as a terrorist group, to deprive it of monetary assets.
As a result of he had no experience in Islamic regulation, Mr. Hana wrote, the Egyptian authorities offered him with imams and veterinarians to coach him.
Earlier than securing the monopoly, Mr. Hana wrote, he had one other firm that was already transport items into Egypt on the federal government’s behalf, taking bid requests from the Egyptian Ministry of Protection’s workplace in Washington. Mr. Hana mentioned he was additionally within the technique of beginning one other firm that may deal with the transport of the whole lot offered by the U.S. Military to Egypt.
Mr. Menendez would later be accused by prosecutors of calling a high-level official within the U.S. Division of Agriculture to cease the united statesD.A. from interfering with Mr. Hana’s import enterprise, which had raised costs for meat suppliers worldwide. Beforehand, the certification in america had been carried out by a handful of firms.
Prosecutors allege that the senator was motivated to assist Mr. Hana as a result of Mr. Hana was utilizing his halal firm to wire bribe cash to Ms. Menendez.
After the monopoly, Mr. Hana was dwelling giant. The corporate was headquartered in Edgewater, N.J., down the road from Mr. Hana’s new luxurious house overlooking the Hudson River, in a constructing owned by the household of Mr. Daibes.
The person who had simply misplaced his residence to foreclosures now had sufficient cash to assist his pals with their mortgages. In July 2019, prosecutors mentioned, Mr. Hana used his halal firm to pay about $23,000 to deliver Ms. Menendez present on her mortgage throughout her personal foreclosures proceedings.
However quickly, an F.B.I. raid threatened to torpedo all of it. In November 2019, federal brokers searched Mr. Hana’s residence and workplace, seizing digital units, papers, notepads, a photograph album and even a gold cigarette.
Through the search, federal brokers questioned Mr. Hana about contacts he had in Egypt, together with with an embassy worker, Mr. Hana mentioned in a courtroom submitting. He mentioned his complete household lived in Egypt.
Federal brokers additionally found that Mr. Hana’s cellphone contained 1000’s of textual content messages with Ms. Menendez, prosecutors later mentioned.
After a number of months, with no prison prices in sight, Mr. Hana requested the prosecutors to return his belongings. Among the many seized objects had been a series he purchased in Italy, two Rolex watches that he mentioned had been presents and a pair of earrings he mentioned he designed for his mom that had been value about $15,000.
“I don’t perceive why the federal government would take my jewellery, which I want to put on,” he wrote in a courtroom submitting. It was unclear whether or not he obtained his jewellery again.
Below indictment
By 2020, federal officers mentioned Mr. Hana’s halal firm had primarily turn into an Egyptian state entity, successful an expanded monopoly to manage the certification course of for all meals and drinks shipped to Egypt from anyplace on the earth.
As his enterprise prospered, prosecutors mentioned, Mr. Hana made time to make sure that Ms. Menendez was placated. In June 2021, he purchased 22 gold bars with distinctive serial numbers, valued at a complete of about $40,000, based on prosecutors. Two of the gold bars had been later discovered within the Menendez residence by federal brokers, prosecutors mentioned.
The fast enlargement of his enterprise led Mr. Hana to journey regularly, opening places of work in Uruguay, India, Brazil, Egypt and New Zealand. Photographs posted on the web present him assembly with ambassadors and dignitaries world wide to debate commerce with Egypt.
Final yr, Mr. Hana made a memorable impression on one former Western diplomat in Cairo. The diplomat, who spoke on the situation of anonymity, mentioned Mr. Hana was an hour late to their lunch with no rationalization or apology. They mentioned the halal certification course of, and Mr. Hana talked about international locations that had been complaining concerning the costs he was charging.
The diplomat thought Mr. Hana was such a personality that he wrote about it in his diary: He was “sporting an absurdly costly swimsuit, gold Rolex, gold rings. Spoke confidently, however softly, so that you needed to actually pay attention.”
“In our second lunch,” he added, “he spent about twenty minutes telling me about his Rolex assortment.”
After he was indicted, it was a decidedly much less flashy Mr. Hana who appeared earlier than a decide in Federal District Courtroom in Manhattan this previous week, wearing a saggy blue shirt and slacks.
He was launched the identical day after securing a $5 million bond — and agreeing to put on a GPS monitoring gadget.
Vivian Yee, Julian Barnes, Adam Goldman and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed analysis.
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