Don’t Worry, It’s Not Like This Is Critical Infrastructure Or Anything

Looking on the bright side, one also could say that the system worked:

A fugitive wanted by federal immigration and customs agents somehow slipped through background checks and got a job making repairs inside the Midtown Tunnel, authorities said yesterday.

Carlos Amaya was busted only after an MTA Bridges and Tunnels officer noticed Amaya’s work ID had expired and checked his name for outstanding warrants, authorities said.

“This guy could have easily slipped through the cracks and gained entry to very sensitive areas,” said Joe Mauro, president of the Bridge and Tunnel Officers Benevolent Association. “This may seem inconsequential, but imagine the implications if this guy was a terrorist.”

Officer Christopher Schatz stopped the 44-year-old construction worker as he tried to use an expired work ID to get into a ventilation room, where air is pumped into the tunnel.

When Schatz asked Amaya for another ID, Amaya gave him a photocopy of a driver’s license and then a forged driver’s license, police said.

Schatz — who is assigned to a counterterrorism post created after 9/11 — quickly discovered that Amaya was wanted by the feds for unspecified crimes. The feds are now planning to deport Amaya to his native El Salvador.

Imagine His Disappointment When He Learned That JFK Wasn’t Actually The Plane’s Final Destination

Eleven Egyptian students on their way to a month-long cultural exchange to Montana are now unaccounted for somewhere in the U.S.:

Eleven Egyptian students who were supposed to travel to a Montana university after flying to JFK airport late last month disappeared in New York, spurring federal authorities to issue a nationwide alert, officials said yesterday.

The students — who were traveling with six classmates from Mansoura University in Egypt — had their student visas revoked for failing to show up at Montana State University in Bozeman, the officials said.

The other six students made it to the college.

“The FBI and ICE [Immigration and Custom Enforcement] would like to locate these 11 students in order to speak with them,” said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko after the “be-on-the-lookout” alert was issued to all police in the United States.

No offense to Big Sky Country, but when you think about it, is it all that strange that some of the students may have bagged out? The program doesn’t sound like something you’d want to travel halfway around the world for:

Montana State University Provost David Dooley said 17 Mansoura University students signed up for a 32-day cultural-exchange program to intensively study English, learn about Montana history and go on several field trips.

Meanwhile, Peter King is saying what you’re thinking:

Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the situation “has to be taken very seriously.”

“Having a number of students from an Arab country arriving on student visas and disappearing is cause for concern,” he said.

Civilians Probably Don’t Understand The Pleasure Of Shooting Heavy Artillery At The Neighborhood Firing Range

Further proof that there is a fine line between “gun collection” and “weapons cache”:

Prosecutors said Gregory Brozski, 56, kept more than 50 guns in his home and garage at 65-32 223rd Place, the second-floor co-op where he has lived with his mother since he was 16. He was arrested July 25, along with a West Islip man also charged with illegally possessing heavy artillery, after an investigation by Suffolk County police led them to Bayside, the Suffolk district attorney said.

Investigators said they found more than 50 weapons in Brozski’s home, including four AK-47 assault rifles, four UZI submachine guns, eight AR 15 semi-automatic rifles and a grenade launcher. He was charged with one count of criminal possession of a weapon. Brozski pleaded not guilty in district court in Central Islip and was released on his own recognizance, a spokeswoman for the DA’s office said.

The person who answered the phone at his apartment said Brozski was not available for comment. But neighbors said he was a quiet man who liked to collect guns but would only use them on trips to a firing range in Pennsylvania.

One neighbor, who declined to give her name, said she knew about the weapons but was never afraid he would use them.

“He looks mean but he’s not,” the neighbor said. “He’s a pussycat.”

She said Brozski had lived in the co-op with his mother for some 40 years and he took care of the elderly woman, who was recently hospitalized. He is a Vietnam War veteran who rarely talked about his time in the service. The neighbor said Brozski may have taken some weapons home from the war.

“The man’s a collector,” she said. “He would never use any of those weapons on anybody.”

Meow.

Khat Red Handed*!

A United Nations employee has been indicted for his part in a smuggling ring that brought large quantities of a narcotic plant into the country, the proceeds of which funded Somali warlords. Somewhere, John Bolton’s self-righteous pushbroom quivers with rage:

A U.N. employee used U.N. diplomatic pouches to smuggle illegal drugs as part of a ring that brought 25 tons of contraband into New York in the past year and a half, federal prosecutors and the FBI said yesterday.

The shipments of khat — an illegal stimulant grown in East Africa — were received by a mail clerk employed by the United Nations, Osman Osman, who sent them across America, according to an indictment unsealed yesterday.

Prosecutors say Mr. Osman, a Somali citizen who had been employed at the United Nations for 29 years, was an important cog in the largest khat trafficking enterprise America has known. Forty-four defendants were named in yesterday’s indictment, and 14 were still at large, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

Khat is an evergreen shrub grown along the Horn of Africa. Chewing the leaves has long been a custom in the countries of the region. Immigrants have brought the habit to America, where the active chemical in the leaf is as illegal as heroin. The trafficking ring exposed yesterday was responsible for importing more than $10 million worth of khat since the end of 2004, according to the indictment. A portion of the proceeds were sent back to Europe and the United Arab Emirates, in order to repay khat producers, according the indictment.

At a press conference yesterday, an FBI agent, Mark Mershon, said law enforcement officials hoped those arrested would cooperate with efforts to track down exactly where that laundered money went. The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Michael Garcia, said that the khat trade is a known source of funding for Somali warlords.

*The Post’s headline was actually “Feds’ Khat Nip”.

Moral Of The Story: Refrain From Lighting Up, No Matter How Long You Have To Wait For The 7

Smoking on the subway platform is dumb* but doing it when your name is on the terrorist watch list is just dumb luck:

A man on the national terrorist watch list was smoked out by a sharp-eyed undercover cop yesterday, The Post has learned.

Ashish Nayyar, an Indian national, was spotted puffing away on a cigarette by the plainclothes cop on the elevated No. 7 train platform at Queensboro Plaza around midnight Thursday, law-enforcement sources said.

The officer issued him a ticket for smoking. When he did a warrant check on the smoker’s name, he discovered Nayyar was on the terror watch list.

Nayyar had a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association card on him from a relative who is on the force, police sources said.

He was brought first to a Transit Division holding area, where NYPD counterterrorism detectives and FBI agents interrogated him, the sources said. It was determined that the FBI in Texas had put Nayyar on the list.

Sources said Nayyar’s relative on the NYPD came down to the interrogation and got “huffy,” but left when he was told what the situation was.

Authorities had no photo or fingerprints on file to compare with Nayyar’s but were able to conclude he was the man on the watch list because he gave police information — his mother’s name and his hometown in India — that matched the data on the watch list.

After investigators confirmed his address and his employment, they decided that he was “not a player” in terrorism, a law-enforcement source said.

And it didn’t end there:

He was released into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for being in the United States illegally, sources said.

*You’d be surprised how many undercover cops seem to be looking out for this.