{"id":9801,"date":"2015-12-02T04:52:25","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T09:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=9801"},"modified":"2015-12-02T04:52:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T09:52:25","slug":"au-general-pleads-guilty-to-smuggling-cash-into-us-from-ethiopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/9801","title":{"rendered":"AU General Pleads Guilty to Smuggling Cash into US from Ethiopia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/000_Par2329206-432.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-9802 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/000_Par2329206-432-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"000_Par2329206-432\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/000_Par2329206-432-300x204.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/000_Par2329206-432-220x150.jpg 220w, http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/000_Par2329206-432.jpg 432w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>An African Union (AU) general, who also served as the transitional president of Guinea, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling over $50,000 in cash into the United States.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/World\/News\/african-general-pleads-guilty-to-smuggling-cash-into-the-us-20151202\">Sekouba Konate<\/a> was indicted in May on charges of smuggling bulk cash and making false statements. The trial of the 51-year-old in a U.S. District Court in Virginia began on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Konate reached a guilty plea deal with prosecutors that will see his sentence reduced to about five years. The AU general, who served as president of Guinea for a year after a coup in 2010, is scheduled to be sentenced in February.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say Konate, who also known in Guinea as \u201cEl Tigre\u201d due to his intensity in battle, illegally carried $64,770 into the U.S. in June 2013. He flew into Washington Dulles International Airport from Ethiopia and he went through customs without declaring the cash.<\/p>\n<p>Konate reportedly claimed to be carrying about $10,000 or less &#8211; the other stash was hidden in his luggage and undeclared.<\/p>\n<p>VOA reports that Konate\u2019s family resides in North Carolina, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voanews.com\/content\/african-general-pleads-guilty-to-smuggling-cash-into-us\/3083927.html\">where he owns a property<\/a>. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials became suspicious of Konate due to his property purchases. They also received information accusing Konate of corruption during his brief tenure as Guinea\u2019s president.<\/p>\n<p>During a pretrial hearing, Konate said he did not fully comprehend the laws of American customs due to language barrier. Guinea is a Portuguese speaking country.<\/p>\n<p>He reportedly also described the fact that he was searched as \u2018improper\u2019 due to his status as former Guinean president and commanding general of the African Union forces.<\/p>\n<p>However, a Reuters report <a href=\"http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/commoditiesNews\/idAFL1N13Q34F20151201\">indicates<\/a> that in his plea deal, Konate agreed that the seizing of his $61,770 was lawful. The deal also stipulates that $3,000 would be returned to Konate as \u201chumanitarian aid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither Konate nor his lawyer has released any public statements regarding the recently signed guilty plea deal.<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Seyllou\/AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An African Union (AU) general, who also served as the transitional president of Guinea, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling over $50,000 in cash into the United States. Sekouba Konate was indicted in May on charges of smuggling<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/9801\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,2860,1],"tags":[318,4519,4967,3493,4518,4520,282],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9801"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9801"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9804,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9801\/revisions\/9804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}