Hawaii man accused of lying to get money to allow Afghans to enter the US

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Marty Anthony Muller was arrested at Honolulu's Daniel K Inouye International Airport just after 3 a.m. Monday.

He had just arrived on a flight from the Marshall Islands, where he works as a contractor.

Agents from the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service escorted him to a waiting vehicle before taking him to the federal detention center.

Muller is a U.S. citizen and worked as a contractor in Afghanistan until moving to Hawaii in 2017.

He was the only one arrested in the state, but two men, both originally from Afghanistan, are listed as co-defendants.

Mushtaq Ahmad Habibi is a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Virginia.

Daud Kalantari is a green card holder and lives in California.

They were also arrested in their respective states on Monday.

The three are charged with document forgery, wire fraud, visa fraud and conspiracy for allegedly taking money to help hundreds of Afghans illegally obtain visas through Afghanistan's Special Immigrant Visa Program, often called SIV.

Tom Simon, a retired FBI agent, said SIV was intended to protect those who risked their lives to support the U.S. abroad. But Simon said: “Fraud in this program poses a significant threat to national security that we cannot ignore.”

Retired federal defender Alexander Silvert agreed. “You want to let people in who have actually served faithfully and well.” He said loyalties need to be checked.

According to the criminal complaint, between 2018 and August of this year, Müller wrote 368 letters of recommendation for Afghans who applied for SIV.

The letters are required by the employer to prove that the person has completed an important part of the work.

However, court records indicate that Muller was not actually associated with most of these people.

He lied in at least 208 letters, and the government claims he received $500 for each letter he wrote.

Simon said that doesn't mean 208 people entered the U.S. in error. Not everyone could have received a visa because the SIV program had different requirements with several steps before its completion.

The SIV program has recently come under scrutiny.

Earlier this month, an Afghan national who had been approved for the special visa was arrested in Oklahoma. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi is accused of planning an attack on election day on behalf of IS.

Muller and his co-defendants have nothing to do with the Oklahoma case; The only common detail is that the SIV procedure was used.

Muller's preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 12.

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