Anonymous ID: af5027 Aug. 4, 2022, 2:46 p.m. No.17038757   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8786 >>8808 >>8826 >>8880 >>8932 >>8963 >>8966 >>9031 >>9046

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This is Mind blowing anons, posting in 3 parts

 

Christian University at the Center of Federal Trafficking and Fraud Probe

By Naveed Jamali AND Tom O'Connor On 4/22/22 at 4:32 PM EDT

Part 1 of 3

 

Olivet University, aChristian college with ties to a co-owner of Newsweek, is under investigation again, just two years after it was fined in a money laundering case, federal and local officials said.

 

The new probe, conducted by the federal government, is also investigating money laundering in addition to human and labor trafficking and visa fraud, a former senior official of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Newsweek. The former official, who was briefed on the investigation, characterized it as "complex and significant."

 

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the principal investigative arm of DHS, searched Olivet's campus in Anza, California, a year ago along with police from Riverside County, officials said.

 

Newsweek confirmed the details in this story with seven current and former federal and local officials with knowledge of the Olivet case. In discussing the open investigation, most of the officials spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity; they were not authorized to speak to the media.

 

"A joint investigation by a local sheriff's office and HSI, given HSI's typical mandate, could suggest that such an investigation concerns matters beyond white collar financial crimes," Preston Burton, a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney who is not connected to the case, told Newsweek.

 

Olivet, a little-known Christian university founded by Korean-American cleric David Jang, was thrust into thenational media spotlight in 2018 when the Manhattan District Attorney charged it in a fraud and money laundering scheme. Olivet pled guilty to several charges and paid a $1.25 million fine. Tracy Davis, the president of Olivet University at the time of the guilty plea, was recently Dean for Academic Affairs.Her husband Johnathan Davis owns 50 percent of Newsweek.

 

Newsweek's CEO and President, Dev Pragad, who owns the other 50 percent, says he has left Jang's Christian sect, the World Olivet Assembly, and has no ties to Olivet University. Johnathan Davis is also CEO of IBT Media, which was Newsweek's corporate parent until 2018.

 

"The investigation included the principals of Olivet and their other corporate entities including IBT," the former DHS official said.

 

When asked whether Newsweek was a subject of the investigation, officials said the probe was focused on Olivet.

 

At leastfour federal and local agencies are investigating Olivet University, the officials said. Homeland Security Investigations confirmed to Newsweekthat the search warrant was executed on the school's Anza campus on April 21, 2021.

 

Federal agents who raided the campus in Southern California's "High Desert" region, about 90 miles northeast of San Diego, were looking for any evidence of "force, fraud, or coercion" in relation to international students who were primarily from China or South Korea, according to the former senior DHS official who was briefed on the case.

 

The former official, who retired from DHS after the search warrant was executed, told Newsweek that agents were investigating whether Olivet sponsored U.S. visas for foreign students,mostly from China, who then spent most of their time in the United States working rather than studying and who were paid well below minimum wage. The officials did not say what kind of work the students were suspected of doing.

 

https://www.newsweek.com/christian-university-center-federal-trafficking-fraud-probe-1699857