Did a Chicago cop hand over two guns to a now-convicted extortionist and then lie to the police department about what happened to them?
That explosive question arose in federal court filings in the case of Jawad Fakroune, a politically connected Chicago businessman who was convicted in June and is now serving a six-year prison sentence for threatening a restaurant owner over a $1.5 million debt.
But the officer’s identity still remains a mystery.
The Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs opened an investigation into the matter but came up empty, according to records released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The Chicago Sun-Times was unable to independently identify the cop.
The gun mystery emerged in June 2025 as federal prosecutors fought to keep Fakroune locked up while he was awaiting trial. They argued that he posed a danger to the public.
Fakroune had gone on the run after being charged in late 2024 with extortion.
When FBI agents raided his New York apartment, they found two Glock handguns. But Fakroune was gone. He’d slipped away. He later was arrested at a home in northwest Indiana.
Fakroune’s case attracted attention because of his relationships with political and business figures including Lisa Duarte, a former top aide to Gov. JB Pritzker, and Phil Stefani, a well-known Chicago restaurateur.
To bolster his tough-guy reputation, Fakroune told people he was a son of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord who died in 1993.
According to prosecutors, a man they identified in court papers only as “Individual A” told federal investigators that he had left guns at one of Fakroune’s Chicago homes and never got them back.
Individual A identified the weapons as the same two Glocks recovered by the FBI in New York, prosecutors said. They said he had reported the guns stolen.
Then, in a failed bid to spring Fakroune on bail while he awaited trial, Damon Cheronis, his lawyer, dropped a bombshell: Individual A was a cop.
“Individual A is an admitted heavy drinker who, regarding the ‘firearms,’ walked into a police station and filed a false police report claiming the guns were stolen,” Cheronis wrote. “This should give the court pause in relying on anything proffered by the government as it relates [to] Individual A.”
Cheronis didn’t name the officer.
At the time, the Sun-Times asked the police department about the lawyer’s revelation. But officials said they didn’t know about the accusations.
The internal affairs bureau then began an investigation into a possible violation of the police department’s Rule 14, which prohibits officers from making false reports.
An investigator sent certified letters to Fakroune and Cheronis in July 2025, seeking information about the mystery cop. A lawyer for Fakroune responded that he couldn’t disclose anything to the investigator.
The investigator also filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI. But the FBI wouldn’t cooperate. It responded that it could neither confirm nor deny information involving “confidential human sources.”
The internal affairs bureau closed the case this February without identifying the officer.
“Without cooperation from the victim [Fakroune] or having any independent witnesses come forward to provide corroborating evidence, the Reporting Sergeant cannot proceed with this investigation,” the internal affairs investigator told his bosses.
Fakroune was sentenced to prison in June. He’s still facing trial in October on separate federal tax charges.
In response to a public records request, the police department released the internal affairs investigator’s reports but with parts blacked out.
Fakroune and his lawyer didn’t respond to requests for comment. A police spokesperson declined to comment.
Last year, in an attempt to identify the officer, the Sun-Times reviewed reports filed by Chicago cops who said their guns had been stolen. None of those records appeared to match the circumstances described in Fakroune’s case.
So the identity of the cop known as Individual A — and the full story of how his Glocks wound up with a now-convicted extortionist — remain a mystery.
Contributing: Tim Novak