Gracious sakes! After that two pots in every chicken story from a couple days ago, there's more poultry-related malfeasance -- and it's (gulp!) in my own backyard this time. The NY Sun reports that Crown Fried Chicken, an Afghani-owned Brooklyn company that distributes ingredients and restaurant supplies to mom-and-pop chicken franchises throughout the city, has been busted by the G-men for heroin smuggling and money laundering -- with funds allegedly being funneled to... dunh-dunh-DUNH!... Al Qa'eda.

The only obvious reason for skepticism about the terrorist-link detail, I suppose, is this:

By February, the FBI had obtained enough information to include both Crown Fried Chicken and Afghan Food and Paper Products on a list circulated around the world of people, companies and organizations whose finances were being examined as part of an investigation into Al Qaeda’s finances.
 
One official cautioned there is a low threshold for making that list. [Emphasis added]

''Low threshold'' could simply mean, of course, ''owned and operated by Arabs and/or Muslims,'' which in fact describes a staggering majority of Brooklyn's mom-and-pop fried chicken joints, in my experience. (Not to mention corner groceries, which are also generally run by Middle Easterners -- specifically Yemenites, in my neighborhood -- unless they happen to have a large selection of high-quality fresh produce out front, in which case they're run by Asians.)

posted by Throbert | 9/25/2002 05:58:00 PM |

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