Crime/Courts
Ex-cable guy accused of 10,000 hookup thefts
By TOM ALEX
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
06/11/2004
Des Moines police say a former cable television installer is responsible for more than 10,000 illegal hookups in the city over the past 15 years.
Luqman Abdul-Aziz, 58, allegedly charged $80 to $100 per hookup. The initial fee covered customers for six months, sometimes longer, police said. Many were then asked to pay more.
Abdul-Aziz was charged Thursday with five counts of second-degree theft and ongoing criminal conduct, both felonies.
Detectives, police officers and intelligence officers spent most of the day at 3815 Boston Ave., where Abdul-Aziz sometimes stayed. They carried out journals, documents, computers and computer records.
Detective Richard DeJoode said the journals could serve as a shortcut for Mediacom cable officials who are eager to stop service theft.
"Unauthorized service that people receive hurts everyone," company spokesman Todd Behrends said. "It's a very serious crime."
Abdul-Aziz was in the Polk County Jail late Thursday on $75,000 bond. The charges carry a maximum term of 50 years in prison.
Behrends would not say how many illegal cable hookups the company thinks Abdul-Aziz created. He declined to say how many Mediacom customers live in Des Moines, but industry experts estimate about 100,000 in central Iowa.
"One of the things we've heard is he's been taking advantage of some of the immigrants who have come to Des Moines and maybe aren't totally familiar with how the system works over here," Detective Sgt. John Meeker said. "When Mediacom found out about this, they did their own investigation and identified him as being the source of it."
It was unclear who tipped off the company or why.
Abdul-Aziz reportedly worked for the local cable provider sometime in the 1980s, officials said.
"He's been doing this for quite some time, according to Mediacom," Meeker said. "They said he was making very good connections."
The house police raided Thursday had been under surveillance all this week. Meeker said investigators were looking for "tools of the trade" such as connectors, special tools, filters and cables.
"This is just where this starts. Where it will end up, I don't know," Detective Ronald Foster said, adding that it appears Abdul-Aziz "was a very good bookkeeper."
Abdul-Aziz was the main target of the investigation, but "we'll have to go through" the records and documents "and see what we've got," Meeker said.
Mediacom "feels that he's maybe taking advantage of some people," Meeker said. "There were probably some who did know what they were doing, too."
Ex-cable guy accused of 10,000 hookup thefts
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