Ahmad Barred from travelling …shipped 29 tons building supplies to State House

Jul 29, 2011 News

By MELISSA KLEIN, ISABEL VINCENT and MITCHEL MADDUX

A Queens real estate broker who loaned money to Rep. Gregory Meeks today was denied permission to travel to South America – one week after his arrest on mortgage fraud charges.

Edul Ahmad, who loaned Meeks $40,000 in 2007, had sought to visit his native Guyana to transact an important real estate deal there.

The businessman – who faces currently charges in New York that he used straw buyers to defraud a bank of hundreds of thousands of dollars – has political friends in high places in Guyana, too, his attorney told Brooklyn federal Magistrate Judge Steven Gold.

“He’s personal friends with the current president and the past president,” said Ahmad’s attorney Steven Kartagener.

Indeed, Ahmad is a frequent visitor to Guyana and is known in the country as a friend of President Bharrat Jagdeo, who has been in office since 1999, sources told The Post.

The relationship appears to transcend friendship to involve business interests.

In 2009, the Ahmad Group sent 29 tons of building supplies – including roof tiles and kitchen sinks – to Jagdeo at the state house in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital city, according to shipping records.

Ahmad’s “close ties” with Guyana were among the objections raised today by Assistant US Attorney Alexander Solomon in opposing the businessman’s request during a hearing in Brooklyn federal court.

Despite posting a $2.5 million bond, Ahmad – if granted permission to travel out of the country – could choose to remain in Guyana to avoid a New York fraud trial, Solomon told Gold.

The judge agreed, and denied the 43-year-old businessman’s request to travel – citing the fact that Guyana has no extradition treaty with the US.

Allegations of predatory lending, forged documentation, falsified mortgage information and missing records have dogged Ahmad for years, The Post reported last week.

State officials have investigated the real estate broker five times since 2006, referring two of those probes to the Queens District Attorney’s Office for review, according to state Department of State records.

Another probe by the state Banking Department and Department of State in 2007 turned up home buyers who said they were given mortgages for more than they could afford and allegations that their names were forged on documents.

Last week, Ahmad was arrested by FBI agents on mortgage fraud charges for allegedly bilking a lender, Countrywide Home Loans, in connection with the purchase of properties in Queens in 2007.

Ahmad immigrated to the U.S. in 1983 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Baruch College in 1988. He started his company, the Ahmad Group, in 1993, according to the company’s web site.

Among his diverse business interests are Century 21 Ahmad Realty, a mortgage brokerage and the Chateau Royale catering hall in Richmond Hill.

At least one of the alleged straw purchasers in the federal mortgage fraud case was identified as an employee of Ahmad realty firm, according to papers filed by Brooklyn federal prosecutors.

Ahmad plans to fight the feds’ charges.

Kartagener declined to comment after today’s hearing.

Meeks, who is under federal probe for his role in a Queens charity, repaid Ahmad’s personal loan with 12.5 percent interest — after the FBI questioned Ahmad about it.

New York Post

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