Reuters
May 11, 2014
New York City police have been recruiting immigrants, most of them Muslims, in the years following the attacks of September 11, 2001, to act as informants eavesdropping in cafes, restaurants and mosques, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
Citing documents it had obtained and interviews with former and senior police officials, the newspaper said the department had sought to enlist the help of immigrants such as a food cart vendor from Afghanistan, an Egyptian-born limousine driver and an accounting student from Pakistan, most of whom were arrested for minor infractions.
Detectives working for a unit known as the Citywide Debriefing Team conducted 220 such interviews in the first quarter of this year, the Times said, citing police officials, and conducted many hundreds of interviews in other years.
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