TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Over several months, Troy police along with their Community Services Bureau interacted with a local business at 71 Congress Street in Troy regarding many concerns that were brought to their attention. Officers conducted an in-depth investigation leading to two arrests to reduce the quality-of-life issues occurring at the business, including verbal/physical disturbances, illegal drug activity and general code enforcement issues.

Police report after many weeks of the business owner failing to correct the requests by Community Police Officers, the officers met with internal partners from the Detective Bureau, City Code Enforcement and other agency partners from the NYS State Liquor Authority & local businesses to develop an enforcement plan. After an investigation that involved several search warrants over several days, police found not only was the business failing to correct any known issues, the owner and employees were facilitating many other illegal actions. As a result of the search warrants, nearly two thousand dollars of stolen product were recovered, and two individuals were arrested.

Charges

Iskander J. Ali, 35 of Albany: Fifth degree criminal possession of stolen property, counterfeit cigarette tax stamp, selling unstamped cigarettes, unlicensed liquor storage, and sale of unlicensed alcohol.

Ali A. Al Jamal, 51 of Troy: Fifth degree criminal possession of stolen property, selling unstamped cigarettes, unlicensed liquor storage, and sale of unlicensed alcohol.

Troy police explain the criminal acts included encouraging other suspects to steal specific products from other local area businesses which could then be sold at the convenience store. The owner and employees also sold alcohol in violation of NYS ABC law, manipulated tax stamps on cigarettes in violation of NYS law, marketing/selling flavored vape cartridges in violation of NYS law amongst a variety of other code enforcement violations.