Two Glock handguns turned up inside a New York apartment rented by convicted Chicago extortionist Jawad Fakroune, and federal prosecutors say the weapons belonged to a Chicago police officer who claimed they had been stolen. More than a year after that revelation reached the Chicago Police Department, Internal Affairs closed its investigation without ever identifying the officer.
The FBI recovered the two Glocks from Fakroune's New York apartment on December 18, 2024, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, which first reported that the department failed to identify the officer whose firearms were found during the raid. Prosecutors say a person referred to in court filings only as Individual A told federal investigators he had left the guns at one of Fakroune's Chicago homes and never got them back, then reported them stolen. Defense attorney Damon Cheronis, who represented Fakroune, told the Sun-Times that Individual A was a police officer but declined to name him.
Fakroune, described as a politically connected Chicago businessman, was already facing federal extortion charges by the time the guns surfaced. In November 2024, he confronted restaurateur Adolfo Garcia inside a River North restaurant over a disputed $405,000 loan, physically assaulting him and threatening his family in an incident federal prosecutors captured on video and audio surveillance. Prominent Chicago restaurateur Phil Stefani had originally introduced Fakroune to Garcia before the loan dispute turned violent.
A Fugitive Caught in Northwest Indiana
Fakroune fled after being charged with extortion and was ultimately arrested at a home in Northwest Indiana. In June, U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah sentenced him to 78 months — six and a half years — in federal prison following his conviction for threatening a restaurant owner over what prosecutors described in that case as a $1.5 million debt, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal prosecutors argued in June 2025 that Fakroune posed a danger to the public.
The case has exposed Fakroune's taste for invented personas as much as his financial schemes. He used multiple aliases, including “Angelino Escobar,” and falsely claimed to be the son of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, who died in 1993 — a claim Hoodline detailed in its earlier report on his fraud indictment. A federal grand jury indicted him in August 2025 on 15 counts including wire fraud and tax evasion, alleging he defrauded investors out of $2.6 million for personal luxuries — including a 2022 Cadillac Escalade, luxury watches, and a leased Indiana residence secured by deceiving an investor — while failing to file tax returns from 2020 to 2023, per the Internal Revenue Service. He is now facing a separate federal tax trial in October.
Political Ties and a Lemont Estate
Fakroune's network extended into Illinois political circles. Lisa Duarte, a former top aide to Gov. JB Pritzker, had relationships with Fakroune, and Will County Treasurer records reported by Second City Cop showed she paid $19,947 in property taxes on the $2.5 million Lemont estate where Fakroune resided before his federal arrest.
Internal Affairs Hits a Wall
Chicago Police Department officials said in June 2025 that they did not know about the accusations involving the missing guns before federal prosecutors disclosed the officer's statements in a detention filing against Fakroune that month. The department's Bureau of Internal Affairs subsequently opened an investigation into the guns and a possible officer false-report violation.
An Internal Affairs investigator filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI and sent certified letters to both Fakroune and Cheronis in July 2025 seeking information about the mystery officer. Fakroune's lawyer at the time responded that he could not disclose the information to the investigator, and Cheronis never named the officer to Internal Affairs either. Neither Fakroune nor Cheronis responded to requests for comment from the Sun-Times. The FBI, for its part, refused to confirm or deny information involving confidential human sources.
The investigator ultimately said the probe could not proceed without cooperation from Fakroune or independent corroborating witnesses, and the Bureau of Internal Affairs closed the case in February without identifying the officer. The Sun-Times reported it was unable to independently identify the officer either, even after reviewing 2025 reports filed by Chicago cops who said their guns had been stolen — none of which appeared to match Fakroune's case, according to the paper's review. The department released the investigator's reports in response to a public records request, though it redacted portions of them, and a CPD spokesperson declined to comment.
What Rule 14 Says
Under Chicago Police Department Rule 14, officers are strictly prohibited from making false written or oral reports, an infraction that can serve as direct grounds for termination. The rule carries real teeth: internal records obtained from the Bureau of Internal Affairs and analyzed by The TRiiBE showed that between 2011 and 2022, Chicago police sustained Rule 14 false-report violations against 140 officers, resulting in 87 separations or resignations.
Whether the officer at the center of the Fakroune case remains on the force, and what relationship he had with the convicted extortionist that led him to leave two service weapons in Fakroune's care, remain unanswered. The officer, identified in court records only as Individual A, remains unidentified more than a year and a half after the guns first surfaced in New York.
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