Today, Wael Hana heads a multinational company headquartered in Edgewater. And he lives in an upscale apartment complex down the road.
That’s a dramatic shift from his position several years earlier, when the Egyptian national — who has emerged as a potential key link in the ongoing federal investigation of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez — appeared to be in serious debt.
Hana was years behind on his mortgage and taxes. He also owed hundreds of thousands of dollars for allegedly passing bad checks and falling short on a deal to procure millions of dollars of luxury cars for a New York business to ship overseas, court records reviewed by NorthJersey.com show.
Yet little more than three months after his Bayonne home was sold in a sheriff’s sale in 2019, Hana’s fledgling North Jersey business — IS EG Halal Certified — emerged as the sole entity authorized by the Egyptian government to certify meat entering the Arab nation as halal, or permissible under Islamic law.
Other longtime halal certifiers in the U.S. were dismissed by Egypt without explanation in favor of Hana’s firm, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture said had no known experience in halal certification — or any prior relationship with the beef industry or U.S. Islamic organizations.
The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service warned that the change could create market disruptions and noted that higher certification fees “will increase beef prices for Egyptian consumers.”
“All of a sudden you go over to a company that has no historical knowledge or practice in place to do this and has to be trained to do it — it does not seem logical. It raises a red flag,” said Peter P. Paradis, former deputy assistant inspector general for investigations at the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General.
Hana, 39, the president and founder of IS EG Halal, is a Christian whose previous business ventures include a truck stop and a restaurant, records show. Today, IS EG Halal has locations in other parts of the world, including Brazil, India and New Zealand. And IS EG Halal is the only entity exclusively authorized by the government of Egypt to certify halal exports from the U.S. and elsewhere to Egypt — the Edgewater company legitimized, according to the USDA, by Egyptian ministerial decree.
Paradis, who retired in January, questioned why Egypt — or any country — would hand so much control to one company for a service that is key to feeding a large part of its population.
“It doesn’t give a good appearance when a monopoly on anything in business is given to one entity. It’s just not a good, sound business decision,” he said. “Now you’re potentially held hostage to their whims.”
The U.S. government, meanwhile, approved a $2 million COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan for IS EG Halal in 2021. This type of direct loan from the Small Business Administration carries a low fixed interest rate of 3.75% and a 30-year term. A government-backed loan approved in March for another of Hana’s businesses is now listed as canceled.
Potential links among Hana, IS EG Halal and the Menendez probe didn’t begin to surface until last fall, after news of subpoenas related to the investigation broke. Federal investigators were asking about Hana and his firm. And WNBC and NBC New York reported that prosecutors want to know if Menendez or his wife received expensive gifts from Hana or others associated with IS EG Halal, including a Mercedes-Benz, jewelry and a luxury Washington apartment.
Hana and his company had been on investigators’ radar as far back as 2019, when the FBI searched his apartment and offices seven months after he became Egypt’s sole halal certifier, taking “every single piece of paper in the Edgewater headquarters,” court records show.
In addition to documents, agents seized his passport, computers, servers, cellphones, cash, four watches — two of them Rolexes — and a pair of earrings he planned to give his mother that cost about $15,000. Hana’s attorney said in court filings at the time that he was told Hana was not a target.
A closer look at Hana and his business interests through court, state and other records obtained by NorthJersey.com shows a once cash-strapped immigrant whose fortunes shifted. He has dined with Menendez, visited the senator’s office with Egyptian officials and attended an intimate fundraiser for Menendez at a Cliffside Park restaurant.
Hana did not directly respond to requests for comment from NorthJersey.com. But Ellen Davis, a spokesperson for Hana, said in a statement that IS EG Halal was awarded its contract with Egypt “without any assistance whatsoever from Senator Menendez or any other U.S. public official.”
She added that there is also no evidence the contract “was awarded based upon bribery or corruption in Egypt.”
“Any allegations about cars, apartments, cash, and jewelry being provided by anyone associated with ISEG Halal to Senator Menendez or his wife at all, let alone in exchange for any kind of favorable treatment, are totally without basis,” Davis said.
Menendez probe is expansive
Hana and IS EG Halal appear to be one piece of a multifaceted probe involving Menendez, who confirmed in October 2022 that he was the subject of a criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Menendez, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and New Jersey’s senior senator, is building a legal defense fund and has said the investigation will amount to nothing.
Jennifer Morrill, a spokeswoman for the senator, said in a statement that recent stories “create a suggestion of impropriety without any facts.”
“Such extreme and damaging claims are irresponsible and any such reporting should require legitimate and named sources,” Morrill added. “We are not going to respond to every false allegation made by anonymous sources.”
The current probe has similarities to a previous federal case against the senator, who was indicted in 2015 and stood trial on bribery charges in 2017. That case involved alleged favors in exchange for gifts — including private flights and vacations — from a longtime friend and donor.
It ended in a mistrial, and prosecutors later dropped the charges against Menendez. Supreme Court rulings have since made it more difficult to prosecute public corruption cases.
The latest investigation is expansive.
In May, state Sen. Nicholas Sacco, D-Hudson, received a subpoena requesting correspondence related to Menendez, his wife and Fred Daibes, the prominent Edgewater developer who is awaiting sentencing for banking crimes.
It also sought correspondence on legislation Sacco co-sponsored called the “Palisades Cliffs Protection Act.” The bill, which languished in Trenton, would have restricted construction along the waterfront of Hudson and Bergen counties. That could have affected a high-rise development Daibes has long planned for the Quanta Superfund site he owns on River Road in Edgewater.
A Sacco spokesman has said he is not a target of the investigation.
The sale by Daibes of a nearly 24% share in that site and adjacent properties for $45 million to the London-based firm of a Qatari sheik is also reportedly under the scrutiny of federal investigators, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The headquarters of Hana’s IS EG Halal Certified are in an office building on one of those properties at 125 River Road, sharing the third floor with Daibes Enterprises. Hana lives in The Alexander, a luxury apartment complex that Daibes owns. And one of Daibes’ businesses purchased some of Hana’s debt.
Davis said Hana “has created a successful business which is in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.” It has “performed flawlessly” under the contract with Egypt “without any issues or complaints.”
She did not comment directly when asked about Hana’s past financial difficulties, but said, “Events that occurred years ago are being taken out of context and have absolutely no bearing on the current investigation or the awarding of this contract.”
Hana met Menendez’s wife and Daibes through lawyer
Hana came into Menendez’s orbit through longtime Bergen County attorney Antranig “Andy” Aslanian.
Aslanian, who acknowledged being subpoenaed by federal prosecutors last year, has done legal work for Hana. And at one time, Hana worked out of a building Aslanian owns in Fort Lee, where he has his law office.
Aslanian, 83, said he has known Menendez’s wife, Nadine Arslanian, a fellow Armenian, for two decades.
“Wael Hana and I used to leave my office almost every night, at least four nights a week, and go up the street and have a couple of drinks,” Aslanian recalled. “And sometimes, Nadine would be there, and I knew Nadine, and we would sit down. So, when Nadine started seeing Menendez, there was a natural progression.”
Hana also met Daibes through Aslanian, who said they sometimes went for drinks at a restaurant the developer used to own. Aslanian said he’s known Daibes for many years, and since he is a pilot, he once helped Daibes with the purchase and management of a plane.
Aslanian said federal prosecutors asked him if he knew Hana, Menendez and his wife, but also a host of other people from his life and decades of legal work, including an Egyptian man who had been a driver for Hana. Aslanian repeatedly scoffed at the federal investigation and bribery allegations that have surfaced.
He thinks federal authorities are linking Menendez and Hana because “they’ve seen him go out to dinner with him on many occasions.”
Aslanian said he knows Menendez casually, enough to say, “Hey, Bob. How ya doin’?” if they crossed paths. During Menendez’s last Senate campaign, he helped put together a small fundraiser for the senator at Villa Amalfi in Cliffside Park — the owner is a client — attended by about 25 people, including Hana.
“As I understand it, he went to the after-election parties,” Aslanian said of Hana. “They developed a relationship, and that’s how.”
Aslanian helped Hana incorporate IS EG Halal Certified in New Jersey in 2017 — it didn’t start operating until 2019 — and shows up on state documents as being on its initial board of directors.
“He considered me a very good friend,” Aslanian said. “I helped him out, and he wanted to do something. He gave me stock also. I gave it back. I do not want to have anything to do with it now because I know nothing about it.”
Aslanian adds another layer to Hana’s background, saying he comes from “a prominent family” in Egypt. “His father was apparently politically pretty well connected,” he said.
When Aslanian handled a zoning matter in East Rutherford for the Egyptian government in 2016 — it wanted to renovate a building for diplomatic use — he said it was Hana who recommended him for the job.
Trucking business, limo company, restaurant
Hana is a U.S. citizen who has lived in the United States since 2006, he said in court papers related to his efforts to reclaim items seized by the FBI. He would have been in his early 20s when he emigrated, based on his birthdate in voter registration records.
He bought a house on Lord Avenue in Bayonne the next year for $450,000, signing a mortgage for the full amount.
A former business associate thought he worked for a cleaning agency when he arrived in the U.S. If that was the case, he quickly expanded his array of business endeavors.
Hana shows up on state documents for at least 18 New Jersey business entities over the years, among the earliest a truck stop on Route 440 in Jersey City, as well as trucking businesses, a limo company and a restaurant. It is unclear to what extent many of the businesses operated.
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“He tried this, tried that,” said Aslanian. “I have a feeling his family was pretty well-to-do, because every time he was running low on money he would call up and they would wire him substantial sums.”
In 2008, about two years after his arrival in the U.S., Hana had a 50% interest in an Italian restaurant in Mahwah, state business records show.
The partnership did not end well.
The restaurant owner, who asked not to be named, said it was “a bad experience.” The partnership lasted about two years and he ultimately bought Hana out, a deal negotiated through their lawyers.
He said Hana was not reliable, didn’t know what he was doing and was condescending to staff.
“I didn’t like the guy,” he said. “I take care of my employees. He thought of himself bigger than — better than — people.”
He said Hana had bought out his previous partner, recalling that it took him a while to get the cash together. He said he talked as if his family in Egypt was of substance, that his father was “a big shot, a somebody in the community.”
He said Hana — whom he called “a pretty smart kid” — was also focused on a trucking business at the time.
“He was always a businessman in his mind. That’s how he portrayed himself,” the former partner said. “He had this drive to be somebody.”
Delivering Mercedes-Benz, other luxury cars
In 2011, Hana and a partner entered into a deal with a New York business to purchase and deliver dozens of Mercedes-Benz and other luxury cars to a Newark warehouse to be shipped to China, earning a commission on each car. They were sued the next year.
Over the course of five months, more than $3.6 million was paid to the two and their companies in cash and wire, it was claimed in court papers. The money eventually outpaced delivery of cars, and very few bills of sale were provided, Xue Di Huang, the CEO of Bosto New York, claimed in an affidavit.
A list in the court record shows that 40 cars were delivered — Mercedes-Benzes, Porsche Cayennes and BMWs — valued at $2.9 million, inclusive of commissions, leaving $705,000 unaccounted for.
Neither Hana nor his partner in the deal, George Morcos, answered the complaint filed against them or showed up in court. A judgment against them was issued in 2014 for the $705,000.
Morcos later tried unsuccessfully to the get the judgment against him vacated, claiming he had gained no profit in the transaction and “was defrauded by the other defendants.”
Passing bad checks
In a separate case, Hana was sued in 2013, this time by a check cashing business in Kearny, which claimed he had passed six bad checks totaling more than $150,000. The complaint, which also named the half-dozen companies on the checks as defendants, was referred to in court papers as a “fraudulent check kiting scheme.”
Three checks were written to two of Hana’s trucking concerns by a company that state records show was owned by Morcos — his old partner in the luxury car deal.
Another was written from one of Hana’s businesses to himself.
And two were written to Hana companies by yet another trucking company. That business was owned by a third party — but used the same Jersey City address as one of Hana’s businesses, state records show.
Hana tried unsuccessfully to fight the suit, with Aslanian as his lawyer. Morcos again split from Hana, claiming in court papers he told Hana not to cash his checks after he reneged on a business deal.
In a certification filed in the case, Lawrence Ammaturo, the president of the check cashing firm, said he understood that Hana owned local businesses including a trucking company, truck stop and gas station. Hana had been a good customer for several years and they developed a friendly relationship because of the frequent transactions.
After the checks bounced, Ammaturo said in the court filing, he contacted Hana, who said he “would recompense me for the bounced checks if I gave him time to resolve the financial difficulties he was facing.”
He said Hana continued to say he would make good — until the suit was filed in 2013.
Later that year Hana bounced three checks to a Harrison fuel company. It sued in 2014 and won a $38,000 judgment.
By 2015, foreclosure action on Hana’s Bayonne home was underway.
During the lengthy process, again handled for him by Aslanian, Hana accused the bank of “predatory lending,” claimed the house was worth a third of the value of the mortgage and said that “his income was such that he could not be reasonably expected to meet the obligation.”
Hana owed mortgage and tax payments as far back as May 2010, court papers show, but continued to live in the property free of charge.
A final judgment was issued in 2018, and the house was sold by the sheriff at the beginning of 2019, which would be a pivotal year for Hana.
IS EG Halal Certified
A team led by the head of the Egyptian Veterinary Services visited slaughterhouses and eight halal certifiers in the United States in March of 2019 for food safety and halal audits.
That April, the Egyptian Veterinary Services notified the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service that “only one of the eight U.S. halal certifiers was approved to certify shipments to Egypt. The remaining seven were suspended or rejected without explanation,” according to a report by the FAS.
The surviving company was Hana’s IS EG Halal Certified.
U.S. certifiers said they were taken aback by the sudden turn. The Egyptian officials had reviewed documents. They “wanted copies,” one certifier noted. “It wasn’t enough to see them.” The officials interviewed personnel. And they never provided any feedback. Another certifier said it had to learn of the decision from the USDA.
Timothy Hyatt, vice president of certifier ISA — Islamic Services of America — called it a “deep detailed audit of our process and procedures.” He said most of his organization’s business is non-meat, but they were no less “surprised and disappointed by the outcome within such a short period of time.”
“It was really a data mining, you might say,” Hyatt added. “They came and gleaned everything they could about us. And then used it to presumably build and or to finalize whatever they had in process.”
The Egyptian Embassy in Washington did not respond to an email with questions about the move to a single certifier and the selection of Hana’s Edgewater firm.
Hana had acknowledged his lack of experience in a declaration filed in 2020 when he sought the return of items seized by the FBI.
“As I am a Christian, I am not experienced in halal certification, so the Egyptian government has provided imams and trained veterinarians to assist me,” he said.
And he described why he thought his company was favored.
He said the Egyptian government “took away the Muslim Brotherhood’s authorization to certify halal products in order to deprive the group of financial resources.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is an international Islamic organization that the Egyptian government has labeled a terrorist group. Hana said it previously “oversaw halal product certification for foods imported into Egypt.” There is no apparent evidence that other certifiers have such connections.
Hana called himself an “entrepreneur” and said the Egyptian officials chose him because they know he’s “not associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and because they trust my work.”
“I own other businesses,” he said, “which import things into Egypt on behalf of the government.”
He said his company Loundes Express Group “takes bid requests from the Egyptian Ministry of Defense’s office in D.C. The requests ask me to ship goods and materials into Egypt on behalf of the government.” The company was incorporated in New Jersey in 2015, state records show.
At the time, Hana said he had another business in the works that “will be in charge of shipping everything sold by the United States Army to the Egyptian Army.”
A Daibes company buys Hana’s debt
The awning outside the entrance to Hana’s Edgewater offices has IS EG Halal and its trademarked miter-shaped crown at the center.
It also includes the name Medi Trade EG, a New Jersey corporation started in 2019 with Hana as the sole member of its board of directors. State records do not show a specific business purpose.
There is an Egyptian import firm, Medi Trade Co., whose website says it is one of the largest trading companies in Egypt, providing food services to the Egyptian market, both governmental and private. Hana’s spokesperson did not answer a question about the relationship between the businesses.
Medi Trade EG is among a half-dozen business entities incorporated in New Jersey since IS EG Halal Certified was created with Hana listed as a member or on the board of directors, usually the only name. One is for real estate; another is a consulting company formed with a relative of Fred Daibes that was later dissolved. There’s the entity for “trading commodities” and another to “assess quality of products.” The most recent is a holding company.
Since IS EG Halal began operating, many of Hana’s old debts have been satisfied.
East-West Funding LLC, a company owned by Daibes, assumed the debt from the check cashing case for $50,000 in 2019. An attorney for the check cashing company said Aslanian contacted him to make an offer to acquire the judgment — initially for even less. The debt had been viewed as uncollectable.
It’s unclear why Daibes stepped in, or how much Hana may have paid Daibes’ firm to discharge the debt. Hana personally owed more than $150,000 — the value of the checks cashed — and each company involved was also cited in the judgment for its share of the losses.
That judgment and another, related to thousands of dollars in fuel bills, were satisfied in 2020, on the same day.
Other smaller medical bills have also been resolved. And there was an inquiry made on the large debt from the luxury car deal gone bad.
A lawyer for the firm that brought the suit, Brian Levine, said he got a call in 2021 from Aslanian, claiming to represent people interested in purchasing judgments, looking to pay much less than the $705,000 value of the debt. Levine said when he did a Google search, he saw that Aslanian and Hana were connected.
Aslanian says he was indeed representing a third party, and made clear his connection to Hana. But he said the other attorney wouldn’t budge.
“It seemed very sketchy,” Levine said.
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