Md. man sentenced in money laundering scheme

BALTIMORE - The U.S. Attorney's office says a Pakistani national living in Washington and Maryland has been sentenced to more than nine years in prison for money laundering plot and concealing terrorist financing.

Forty-five-year-old Saifullah Anjum Ranjha was sentenced to 110 months in prison on Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in August.

U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis also ordered Ranjha to forfeit $2,208,000.

According to his guilty plea, Ranjha operated a money remitter business in Washington known as Hamza.

Cooperating witnesses posed as drug smugglers, cigarette smugglers and other criminals, and in one case as a terrorist who wanted to send money to al-Qaida.

From October 2003 to Sept. 19, 2007, the cooperating witness gave Ranjha and his associates $2,208,000 in government money to transfer the funds abroad through an informal money transfer system called a hawala.

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