It appears that Barack Obama’s step-grandmother, Mama Sarah Obama and his uncle Sayid Obama have connections to an organization that has engaged in suspicious activity at best and potentially fraudulent activity at worst. This is not to say either is involved but when allegations are made, in Arabic, by Barack’s cousin Musa Ismail Obama, that the Mama Sarah Obama Foundation (MSOF) has been secretly directing donations toward scholarships of Kenyan students to attend virulent wahhabist schools in Saudi Arabia, the cloud of suspicion darkens a bit.

Via George Russell at Fox News:

A controversial organization with tenuous ties to the United Nations — and which counts Kenyan relatives of Barack Obama among its good-will ambassadors — is supplying its officials and advisers with travel documents designed to look much like U.N.-affiliated diplomatic passports. The problem is, they aren’t.

The documents, known in diplomatic parlance as “laissez passers,” or LPs, ask national authorities to grant privileges and immunities to their holders on official business for the grandly named International Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition (IIMSAM), which claims that it will solve the world’s hunger problems through the cultivation of algae as food.

Photocopies of IIMSAM documents examined by Fox News show that bearers have titles such as “special adviser,” and “special envoy,” as well as good-will ambassador, and that the documents have been issued to people born in a variety of countries, including Iran, Jordan, India and Germany, as well as Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region of China.

That Barack Obama’s Kenyan relatives would be involved with an organization focused on turning algae into a nutritional cure-all is interesting in one regard. President Obama himself, with a straight face, touted algae as a cure-all for future energy concerns:

An interesting figure in the IIMSAM organization is Remigio Maradona, Secretary General. What Russell’s article appears to reveal most is that IIMSAM really wanted to exploit its connections to the U.N. The use of suspicious and potentially illegitimate travel documents seems to underscore this. When this began to happen is also potentially noteworthy, as it seemed to start about one year into Barack Obama’s tenure as a U.S. Senator. It is interesting that the photos of the Obama family featured on the IIMSAM website appear to have been taken that year, which would indicate the Obamas’ involvement at about the same time as the increase in press releases.

Russell continues:

IIMSAM has reinforced its claim of U.N. affiliate status with a voluminous but erratic flow of press releases since 2006, urging support for its work; extolling the health and nutritional advantages of spirulina platensis, a common algae that is used as a dietary supplement and fish food; issuing elaborate statements on various U.N. issues; and announcing partnerships and projects involving various organizations, corporations, international institutions and individuals — including the Kenyan branch of the Obama family.

On an official U.N. website, IIMSAM lists as its address a suite on the 23rd floor of offices at 211 East 43rd Street in midtown Manhattan, but the offices there have been ripped out; nothing remains but raw building space. Secretary General Maradona is now said by dissident former IIMSAM members to be spending most of his time in Dubai.

Some might remember that President Obama’s half-brother, who works as Executive Secretary for the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO), is the head of a foundation that lists a UPS Store as its address. The Obamas and questionable addresses is apparently nothing new.

As Russell points out, Mama Sarah, Sayid, and President Obama are still featured on the IIMSAM website. In fact an entire page focuses on Obama family involvement, to include a video of Mama Sarah touting Camp Maradona, named after IIMSAM’s Secretary General. Here is a screen shot from part of the page.

Interesting, IIMSAM also has a Fraud Alert page that seems to warn people to be on the lookout for behavior that – as Russell’s article indicates – IIMSAM itself appears to be engaged in:

It appears that someone with IIMSAM was “falsely stating” that the U.N. was issuing them diplomatic passports.

Russell reports that Sayid and Mama Sarah allegedly left IIMSAM last year but they do still appear on IIMSAM’s website as ‘goodwill ambassadors’.