Marathon Pundit: ILL-inois: IRS raids politically-connected scrap metal firm

Graft is so endemic in Illinois that it even permeates the scrap metal business.

From Chuck Goudie of ABC 7 Chicago:

A large, politically-connected company in Chicago is the target of federal investigation.

Federal agents and Chicago police had search warrants when they showed up at Bridgeport scrap metal recycler Acme Refining Wednesday afternoon and investigators stayed through the night according to witnesses, gathering evidence for a criminal investigation that is being run by the Internal Revenue Service.

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Company executives are currently before the city of Chicago Zoning Board with plans to build and operate a giant auto shredder on 15 acres along the Chicago River in the 25th Ward.

State election records show numerous political donations to the 25th Ward Democratic Organization, but it is not known whether political considerations have anything to do with the feds interest in Acme.

The alderman of the 25th Ward is one of the key figures who seems to be preventing 200 jobs from being created on Chicago's North Side. A Michigan firm wants to open up a Ford dealership there, but the alderman, who is chairman of the powerful City Council Zoning Committee is creating a road block.

From Automotive Week:

But as long as we're talking about "sensitivity," you ought to be sensitive to a particularly Chicago twist to this tale. Solis and the caucus have been talking to Ford not just about a dealership for any Latino but for one in particular: Jose Diaz, whose family used to own a Chrysler dealership in Miami and who, according to friends, maintains dual residences here and in Florida.

2014 Ford Mustang

Diaz, who didn't return a call for comment, has been talking to Latino aldermen about running a franchise 5 miles west of the 32nd Ward location. And, in the Chicago tradition, he not only has been talking but giving, donating $6,800 to Solis' 25th Ward Regular Democratic Organization in the past three years, and a few hundred to a couple of other Latino aldermen. That's major coin in their world.

Solis says there's no connection and that some of the money arrived before Fox submitted its zoning application.