Author: Ryan Mauro
5. The Hammer Starts to Come Down On August 10, 2001, a judge signed off on warrants to search Ali Abdelaziz’s home and to arrest him. During the search, it was discovered that he and his fiancé were getting married in Egypt. They had acquired passports and booked plane tickets using false identities. She had only met Abdelaziz in the second half of June 2001, via a mutual fund who knew him from his work as a bouncer at the Celebrity’s bar. She went with him to Egypt and they got married on August 22, 2001. The police also found an Egyptian government document that identified Abdelaziz as…
4. Abdelaziz’s Associates in Colorado Tabari Malik Zahir Multiple former and current MOA associates told us they first became aware of Abdelaziz and his cousin (presumably meaning Mohammad Hassan) through a well-known MOA drug trafficker named Tabari Malik Zahir. Here is a copy of Zahir’s ID card from 1991 for the Quranic Open University, the “academic” branch of MOA. His parents were long-time members of the group in Colorado and indoctrinated him as a child. The sources say he was involved in the black market ever since he was a teenager and passed his illicit revenue to James D. Williams. The sources…
3. The Police Come Onto Ali’s Trail By Ryan Mauro Public records and source testimony show that Abdelaziz lived in New York in 1996. One MOA-affiliated source places him at a radical mosque in Brooklyn named Masjid at-Taqwa, led by a powerful extremist cleric named Siraj Wahhaj. The mosque is sometimes attended by MOA members. The records also show that Abdelaziz then lived in Georgia, where MOA has two “villages.” Abdelaziz became close to key members of MOA’s branch there. As of 1998, he was living in Colorado Springs. Russell reported that Abdelaziz married a 42-year old woman in March 1998, when he was only…
2. MOA’s Colorado Branch and the Olympic Training Center By Ryan Mauro The Colorado branch of MOA has been involved in the group’s biggest terrorist plots and crimes. MOA even once had a 101-acre terrorist training camp that was searched by the authorities and shut down in 1992. The branch used to be led by convicted MOA terrorist James D. Williams. He successfully hid from the authorities as a fugitive until he was caught in Virginia in 2000, where he was still working with MOA. Williams was involved in various terrorist plots, including the Al-Qaeda-linked assassination of moderate imam Rashad Khalifa in…
25. The Story Continues Ali Abdelaziz has refused to talk about the story ever since speaking with Mawyer. He has refused all interview requests from us since then and will not answer questions about it from MMA reporters. It is probable that he is concerned about the impact his criminal and extremist history could have on his lucrative career as the biggest manager in the UFC. He is likely also concerned that further breaking the confidentiality he agreed to with the NYPD and FBI could have legal consequences, such as a renewed effort to deport him. The story got almost…
24. The Fallout In 2011, Abdelaziz was granted asylum, arguing that he’d be imprisoned and possibly tortured or killed if he was deported back to Egypt. He was here to stay, so long as he didn’t commit any more crimes that could reopen deportation proceedings. Martin Mawyer broke the story in 2011 and released a book about MOA, including much of what Abdelaziz told him, in 2012. MOA was outraged and publicly confirmed that he was a member of their group. They released a video decrying their victimization at the hands of the U.S. government. It said that Abdelaziz lacked credibility and…
23. “MOA is Asleep. They are asleep. They are a bomb.” The concern of Ali Abdelaziz about the cult reached a new height in 2009 when something significant happened that would only be properly understood by those familiar with MOA’s apocalyptic prophecies. MOA announced that Gilani had met with a handful of senior MOA officials (called “Khalifahs”) and students (“talibs”) and introduced them to the Hazrat Imam Mahdi, a figure prophesized to appear during Armageddon. The momentous event had been kept secret for six months. Now, during the holy month of Ramadan, it was time to announce it. The announcement described…
1. Arrival in the U.S. and Entry into MOA Ali Abdelaziz has used a wide variety of alternate names and a variety of spellings and orderings of those names. He fought under the name of “Ali Ibrahim.” His student record from Egypt identifies him as Alaa Ragb Farig Abdel Aziz Ahmed. His name on other documents is some version of Alaa’eldin Ragb Fekry Abdelaziz, or “Aladdin” for short. In other cases, he stole the identities of people with completely different names. Abdelaziz is said to have first arrived in the U.S. in 1996, purportedly as an Egyptian Olympian. Independent MMA…