Thursday, November 01, 2007
A years-long federal investigation involving a truck-driving school in southern Missouri resulted Wednesday in its first guilty plea.
Abdiwahab Mohamud Mohamed pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Springfield to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Mohamed, a Somali citizen living in Minneapolis, was among 15 defendants named in a 62-count indictment unsealed in September 2006. Federal officials said the defendants conspired to help more than 70 Somali and Bosnian nationals illegally obtain commercial driver’s licenses from the South Central Career Center Truck Driver Training School in West Plains, Mo., which is now closed.
According to the plea agreement:
Mohamed traveled from Minnesota to Missouri to obtain a commercial driver’s license. He was informed that a program in Missouri, run by Ernest White of Kansas City, would cost only $800 as opposed to the $5,000 from a legitimate school in Minnesota.
Although he had never driven a tractor-trailer before, Mohamed drove a rig for about 10 minutes and received a document saying he had passed the test, which normally takes two hours to complete.
A copy of that fraudulent documentation was mailed to the Missouri Department of Revenue.
Source: Kansas City, November 01, 2007