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Tobacco Road Sports Café owner arrested on charges of embezzling $1.6M in state tax money

The president and owner of the Tobacco Road Sports Cafe locations in the Triangle was arrested 10 days after charges against him were first announced, according to authorities.

Raed Abdel Karim Amra, 47, of Apex, was charged with 15 counts of embezzlement of state property. He was arrested Monday, the North Carolina Department of Revenue said in a news release.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said on March 10 that Amra was indicted by a Wake County grand jury for allegedly embezzling around $1.6 million in state tax money from the popular sports bars.

Indictments allege that Amra, a shareholder and the president of Tobacco Road Sports Café, aided and abetted his businesses to “embezzle, misapply and convert to its own use” approximately $1.7 million in state sales tax from Oct. 1, 2012, through Dec. 31, 2019.

The felony tax charges were filed by the Department of Revenue related to the sports bar locations in downtown Durham and downtown Raleigh, as well as a former location in Chapel Hill.

Tobacco Road Sports Cafe has a Durham restaurant near the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, and a restaurant and brewery in downtown Raleigh near Glenwood South.

Raed Amra and his brothers opened the Raleigh restaurant on Glenwood Avenue in 2008, The News & Observer previously reported. It moved to West Jones Street.

Amra was placed under a $200,000 secured bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on March 27 in Wake County Superior Court in Raleigh.