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Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 LOS ANGELES TIMES 2 June 1984 Pg. B-1 U.S. immigration officials said Friday that they inaugurated a major undercover inves- tigation. into a Yugoslav alien-smuggling ring last year partly because they were concerned that the organization could have been importing terrorists to the United States for. the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. They said they. are now satisfied that those fears were unfounded. But they are still puzzled over the complicated ethnic strife in Yugoslavia that may have helped spur the illegal immigration. “The up-front concern was that this organization was to be used as a pipeline for smuggling in aliens from the Eastern Bloc in great numbers for terrorist purposes or perhaps for political embarrassment during the Olympics,” said Mark Reed, assistant regional U.S. Immigration and Naturaliza- tion Service commissioner for anti-smug- giing. ; “But our worst fears did not pan out. We have no reason to believe any of these people is a direct threat to our security. We do feel we shut off a very significant pipeline of illegal alien smuggling.” _ ‘Twenty-nine suspects have been indicted in connection with the smuggling of Yugo- slav nationals into the United States: through Mexico, officials announced in. press conferences in Chicago, San Diego and: Los Angeles on Thursday. to They estimated that the ring brought in. up to 175 aliens a month over the last 142. years through two pipelines, one leading to’ Chicago and the other leading to New: Jersey. SG At a.press conference.on Thursday,’ Harold Ezell, the Western regional commis-: sioner for the immigration service, indicated: that there were ulterior political motives: behind the smuggling operation, Ezell: charged that some of the smuggled aliens, were “promoting communism in our own: country." He declined to elaborate or offer; Brian Perryman, the immigration service: supervisor’ of criminal anti-smuggling in-: vestigations if Chicago, said Friday that the: original. concern about Communist ; ties: stemmed from the fact that four of the; aliens smuggled into the United States were: “avowed Marxists.” os The. immigration service conducted a. yearlong investigation into the smuggling operation, which included the use of at least INS Cites Terrorism Fear in| Probe of Yugoslav Smuggling By LAURIE BECKLUND, Times Staff Writer ~one undercover officer. _,<“But we found absolutely no informa- tion—and at no time did anybody in the -ring indicate to our undercover peo- ‘ple—that they were bringing these peo- Jie in for political reasons,” Perryman aid. 8. . ='“Most of the aliens brought into the cguntry appeared to be coming for economic and persona! reasons, accord- ing to another immigration service offi- x¢ial, based in New Jersey, who asked not -to be identified. *“"He said many of those smuggled in had been working in West Germany but returned to Yugoslavia when they lost \their work permits during a German “recession. Unable to find work in their own country, they sought jobs in the United States. ‘Almost all the aliens smuggled into the “tihited States were ethnic Albanian Mus- lims who came from a part of Albania’ that was added to Yugoslavia about 1913 as a result.of the First Balkan War. <)anians living in that part of Yugosla- via have been protesting what they -eonsider to be political repression by the “Yugoslav government. Riots in the Alba- - nian region in 1981 left nine dead and 600 *"Some of the strife has boiled over into ethnic neighborhoods in the United States, particularly in the Chicago area, ‘where one of the suspected smuggling “pingleaders was located, immigration ‘service officials said. . ““"Oloman Selmani, 53, a restaurant own- er identified by officials as an Albanian “Muslim and the ringleader of the Chicago ‘éperation, had three loaded firearms with - “him when arrested, Perryman said. Sev- -eral were armed. ‘ The New Jersey operation allegedly was spearheaded by a Yugoslav emigre named Dragisa Terzioski, 45, a natural- ized citizen. who once had his own television show and frequently arranged U.S. tours for Yugoslav cultural and athletic groups. Officials claim that he booked most of the illegal aliens’ arrivals’ through his travel agency in Paterson, NJ. - 25 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 | lence during the games. G-men suspect that eS couldn’t protect athletes against at- - tack. SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM -- 26 JUNE 1984 U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT 11 May 1984 Pg. 21 Whether foreign nations like it or not, the FBI is making clear that offi- cial bodyguards sent to protect ath- letes at the Olympic Games will have to sit on their hands. FBI chief Wil- liam Webster says local or federal au- thorities will handle any incidents. kkk WALL STREET JOURNAL 8 June 1984 Pg. 1 FEAR OF TERRORISM at the Summer Olympics persists despite the Eastern-bloc boycott. The FBI claims it is worried that Moscow's KGB may somehow inspire vio- the Russians may believe that would justify their explanation for the boycott: that the Most Wanted Jobs “If you wanted anything in the Yugo- slay community, he was the patron,” the | New Jersey-based immigration service official said. He said most of the aliens | who took advantage of the travel service - “are just hard-working people who |. wanted jobs here.” Investigators said they are still uncertain whether Terzios- ki, an ethnic Serbo-Croatian, was direct- ly involved with the Chicago group. None of the defendants nor their attorneys could be reached for comment Friday. Lo Terzioski’s wife, a former’ actress, denied in a brief telephone interview that her husband had been involved in any ‘wrongdoing and charged that the immi- gration service had misconstrued the immigration of the Yugoslavs. She said community members and family. are making contributions to pay his $1-mil- lion bond. : “My husband never did anything to anybody,” she said. “If he did some mistake, if he did something to help, it’s because of his crazy good heart, not | pecause he’s criminal. . . . The relatives come here, we sell the tickets to them. That’s all.” i Asked about any political motives for ‘ immigration to the United States, she said in broken English, “People come because have one brother there, one sister here, and they want, they desper- ate, to have families together.”