Owner of sandwich shop busted by Feds

Alaa Qasawa charged with attempting to receive, possess, conceal and store stolen explosives

Alaa Qasawa's Orion Township Tubby's was open Thursday after being raided Wednesday night by the FBI.  Qasawa's home was also raided and weapons and computers were confiscated.  

Qasawa now charged with attempting to receive, possess, conceal and store stolen explosives and doing so without a permit. A long complaint shows Qasawa contacted a company in Scranton, Pennsylvania that provides replica explosives for military training and the movie business.

---An employee of Inert Products notified the feds about conversations with Qasawa

An employee of that business called the feds after several phone conversations with Qasawa.

He'd allegedly asked to buy a crimping tool used to make explosives. The complaint says "the confidential witness asked Qasawa what the purpose of the crimping tool would be used for. The witness reported that Qasawa 'stammered' a little bit in answering the question, and then stated that he was going to use it to cut wires for work."

Later the employee called Qasawa with the feds recording offering illegal non-electric detonators – or blasting caps - Qasawa allegly previously asked to buy.

Mitch Ribitwer is Qasawa's attorney. "On the face I know it looks bad but this man is a collector. He has no evil intent, he has no malicious intent and none of these products here is or was intended to be used for any evil purpose."