A former Texas police officer faces more than 10 years in prison for using his job to smuggle drugs and launder money after federal prosecutors say he tried to claim he was operating undercover and used a police vehicle to transport drugs across state lines.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal recently sentenced 50-year-old Mohammed “Alex” Ahmed Kasem to 121 months in prison for drug possession and money laundering charges in Houston, Texas.
A federal jury convicted Kasem after a brief trial earlier this year. Kasem had previously served as an investigator for the Waller County district attorney’s office and tried to argue he was working undercover during his trial. Waller County is just west of the Houston metropolitan area.
According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, during a sting operation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Qassem was found to have driven in a police vehicle from Louisiana to Houston and San Antonio on three separate occasions to collect what he believed to be loads of heroin. Authorities obtained video recordings of the drives, conversations leading up to the drives, and financial documents showing that Qassem collected $31,000 during the drives and deposited it in his own bank account. During the drives, Qassem would hide the cash in his bulletproof vest and place the drug loads in evidence bags to evade detection.
“Qasem intended to use his badge for financial gain,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani said in a prepared statement. “This is an important notice to corrupt law enforcement agencies that if they overstep the line of the law and abuse their position of trust, they will be prosecuted.”
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist at Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. Twitter and FacebookContact details: email address.
