For Menendez codefendant, curious business fortunes

FBI investigates ties to Egyptian government

Just five years ago, Wael Hana was reeling from a string of bad business deals in New Jersey, having tried to launch a truck stop, an Italian restaurant, a limousine service, and other companies without ever hitting it big.

Then, his friend started dating Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, one of the most powerful Democrats in the US Senate. Soon, Hana introduced Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to a growing circle of Egyptian officials, and Hana’s fortunes took a remarkable turn: He won sole control over certifying all halal food being imported into Egypt, earning enough money to bribe Menendez with gold bars and wads of cash, prosecutors said.

Hana, Menendez, and others are now facing charges in what prosecutors have described as a wide-ranging corruption scheme — one that threatens to put an end to the senator’s five decades in politics. But the allegations also raise a pressing question about Hana: Was he an agent of the Egyptian government all along, or just a lucky opportunist who stumbled into a position of international influence?

The FBI is investigating this very question. But a New York Times examination of hundreds of pages of court filings, business records, and interviews with nearly a dozen people who knew or dealt with Hana offered insights into the path he traveled during his bumpy start — and meteoric rise.

Within a few years, he would transform from a debt-laden business owner who could not afford even a $2,000 emergency room bill to an international power broker who boasted about his Rolex watch collection to a diplomat in Cairo.

In addition to the corruption investigation into Menendez, the FBI has been conducting a parallel counterintelligence inquiry, according to four people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation. The review, first reported by NBC News, is seeking to determine whether Egypt’s intelligence service sought to obtain information from Menendez through Hana’s friend Nadine Menendez, who married Bob Menendez in 2020.

Federal agents are also seeking to determine Hana’s relationship with Egyptian intelligence agencies and when that relationship may have started, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

A spokesperson for Hana said in a statement that he was innocent of all charges and that he has cooperated with federal prosecutors by providing them “unfettered access to documents and to his employees.” She added that he voluntarily booked a flight to New York from Egypt “within minutes of learning about this indictment,” leaving his wife and three young daughters behind.

“Wael Hana’s background is a classic immigrant story,” the spokesperson said. “He has been an entrepreneur who has built several businesses, and he has always acted ethically and legally.”

Hana, an American citizen, has been on law enforcement’s radar for at least four years. In November 2019, the FBI raided his home and office in New Jersey with a search warrant indicating prosecutors were gathering evidence of potential crimes, including illegally acting as an agent of a foreign government, according to a court filing.

However, Hana, 40, was not charged with that offense. In the indictment unsealed in September, prosecutors said he was the broker who helped to orchestrate an agreement for Menendez to steer more US aid and weapons to Egypt. Menendez is also accused of sending sensitive information about US Embassy employees in Cairo to his wife, who forwarded it to Hana, who sent it on to an Egyptian government official.

In return, prosecutors said, Hana and his circle of business associates showered the Menendezes with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars, and bribes that included a mortgage payment for Nadine Menendez, a “low-or-no-show” job for her at Hana’s halal company, and a new Mercedes-Benz convertible.

Hana, the Menendezes, and the others charged in the case have pleaded not guilty. Last week, Bob Menendez rebuffed calls for his resignation and predicted he would be exonerated.

In August, a month before their arrest, Menendez and his wife traveled to Egypt, where the senator met with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.