Sprawling US narco case tied to SA — drug trafficking ‘Sultan’ Muhammad Asif Hafeez pleads guilty

22 Nov 2024

Muhammad Asif Hafeez of Pakistan has pleaded guilty in the US to drug trafficking. He was accused in a global case also implicating Vicky Goswami, a Mandrax mastermind from India who once detailed how he and his allies were hell-bent on dominating South Africa’s drug trade.

An accused in the United States, who once claimed to be an informant for that government and who may hold key information about South Africa’s narco trade, has pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges.

This suggests Muhammad Asif Hafeez, 66, originally from Pakistan and also known as “the big boss’ and “number one in the world” in terms of certain drugs, may indeed be linked to this country’s narco-trafficking arena which is saturated with political suspicions.

Daily Maverick has previously referred to a 2019 Vrye Weekblad report that said Mandrax trafficker Vicky Goswami of India, in sealed grand jury testimony in the US, alleged that members of the Gupta family were involved in money laundering on behalf of Hafeez.

Read more: SA’s Narcos Capture – the Mandrax trafficker and ‘wanted terrorist’ matrix haunting the ANC, Zuma, Guptas

A Gupta lawyer previously failed to respond to Daily Maverick questions about this, while a lawyer for Hafeez had said his client denied knowing the Guptas.

‘Global drug kingpin’

On Monday, 18 November 2024, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that Hafeez had pleaded guilty in Manhattan to conspiring to import heroin, methamphetamine and hashish into the US.

Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: “For more than two decades, Muhammad Asif Hafeez played a leading role in a sophisticated international drug trafficking network that was responsible for manufacturing and distributing ton quantities of dangerous narcotics to the US and throughout the world.

“Today’s plea ensures that one of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers will be held accountable for his crimes.”

Read more: SA’s drug dons — where are they now plus the political suspicions surrounding them

Monday’s statement about Hafeez’s guilty plea said that from around 2013 to 2017, he had conspired with, among others, Goswami. This indirectly ties Hafeez to South Africa.

Daily Maverick has reported extensively on Goswami. He operated in Zambia – coincidentally where former president Jacob Zuma became the ANC’s intelligence chief during apartheid – in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

‘ANC associates’

According to a 2014 Sunday Times article that appears to no longer be available online, Goswami once said: “I knew some of the ANC leaders and ministers when I was in South Africa from our days in Zambia.

“I gave money to the ANC and contributed to the struggle.”

Goswami was based in South Africa in the early 1990s. He later ended up in Dubai and in 1997 he was jailed there for dealing in Mandrax. Goswami was released from a Dubai prison in 2012 and headed to Kenya.

Read more: Can South Africa close the net on lethal narcotics trade linked to web of global crime?

According to US authorities, a year later, drug trafficking webs around Goswami expanded.

This is where Hafeez fits in.

The US attorney’s office statement issued on Monday, about his guilty plea, said that aside from Goswami, from around 2013 he conspired with others including two Kenyan brothers, Baktash Akasha Abdalla and Ibrahim Akasha Abdalla, better known as the Akashas.

According to the US, Baktash had headed an organised crime group known as the Akasha Organisation.

Murder in the Netherlands

“[It] was responsible for the production and distribution of ton quantities of narcotics within Kenya and throughout Africa and maintained a network used to distribute narcotics for importation into the US,” the US attorney’s office statement said.

“For years, Hafeez served as one of the primary suppliers of narcotics to the Akasha Organi[s]ation, including to Bakash Akasha Abdalla’s father [Ibrahim senior], who helmed the Akasha Organi[s]ation before he was murdered in the Netherlands in 2000.”

This journalist’s book, Clash of the Cartels: Unmasking the global drug kingpins stalking South Africa, details some of the Akasha brothers’ background and refers to what happened to Akasha senior.

“Ibrahim Akasha senior was walking along Amsterdam’s rather prophetically named Bloedstraat (which translates to Blood Street) with his second wife when he was ambushed in 2000.

“A cyclist came up behind the couple and rang the bike’s bell. Akasha senior did not turn around and the cyclist lifted a gun, aimed it at him and pulled the trigger,” the book says.

“The cyclist then rode ahead and emptied four more bullets into his body.”

https://youtu.be/DaGf-UkLo_k?feature=shared

Back to Hafeez.

The US statement on his guilty plea said that between 2013 and 2016, Hafeez and some co-conspirators planned to set up a methamphetamine production facility in Mozambique.

But the plan fell apart when a factory in Solapur, India, was raided and law enforcement authorities seized tons of ephedrine meant for the manufacture of the methamphetamine in Mozambique.

Ephedrine is used to make crystal methamphetamine, known as tik in this country.

Ephedrine for SA

South Africa crops up again here.

Goswami testified in the US in 2019 about drug trafficking involving South Africa.

He had referred to the 2016 Solapur ephedrine factory.

A transcription of Goswami’s testimony said he had previously met people, including representatives from the factory, at a hotel in Kenya.

Goswami testified that the representatives had offered tonnes of ephedrine and in return “needed some financial help” in the form of about a million dollars.

Read more: Ex-Bollywood actress off the hook in Indian drug bust case involving SA-linked trafficker Vicky Goswami

Asked in the US court what the factory representatives were supposed to provide in exchange, Goswami replied: “In tonnes, around 3.5 tonnes [of ephedrine]. We were to bring it into South Africa.”

Goswami had also testified about his activities with the Akashas.

‘Not here to play’

He said they were collectively dominant in South Africa’s drug trade – and that they masterminded a murder in this country to reinforce that position.

According to Goswami, a rival trafficker’s sidekick known as Pinky was shot 32 times somewhere in this country around 2014 “so we can put an impression in South African drug market [that] we are not here to play”.

Read more: Goswami’s SA mandrax secrets

Their drug trafficking empire began caving in several years ago after several arrests.

Authorities in Kenya provisionally arrested Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha, along with Goswami, in November 2014.

They were extradited to the US in 2017. That year, Hafeez was provisionally arrested in the UK, where he was based at the time.

Rejected spy claim

He tried preventing his extradition from the UK to the US. Hafeez turned to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and argued that issues including his health and poor US prison conditions were factors that should halt his extradition.

But Hafeez failed in his bid – Daily Maverick reported that in April 2023, the ECHR found his application to quash the UK’s extradition order inadmissible.

Read more: Pakistani ‘spy’-accused in major SA-linked drugs case stumbles in bid to halt UK extradition to US

According to the ECHR decision, Hafeez had claimed to be a US government informant.

But it said: “The US Government had denied that the applicant was an informant and, while he may have had contact with law enforcement agencies, the District Judge did not consider that he had done so out of a sense of moral duty.

“Rather, he was someone who had brought to the attention of the authorities the criminal conduct of others who he knew to be actual or potential rivals to his substantial criminal enterprise.”

Inmates and a cooperating witness

Hafeez was extradited to the US in May 2023. As for his co-conspirators, the Akasha brothers, Baktash was jailed in the US for 25 years in 2018, while Ibrahim was sentenced to 23 years’ imprisonment in 2020.

Goswami, meanwhile, became a cooperating witness for the US government. He is still wanted in India over the Solapur ephedrine factory case.

Daily Maverick has previously pointed out that the case involving Goswami and those accused of drug trafficking alongside him, including Hafeez, is remarkable in that it is lodged in the US even though it largely focuses on South Africa’s drug trade.

Yet this country has not acted against figures including Goswami and Hafeez.

Read more: US digs deeper to reveal South Africa’s links to global drug trafficking networks

Monday’s statement by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on Hafeez said that each of the counts he pleaded guilty to carry a minimum jail sentence of 10 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison.

While the statement did not outright refer to any drug trafficking ties to South Africa, among those praised for their efforts in dealing with the case was “the [Drug Enforcement Administration] Pretoria Country Office.”

This suggests US law enforcement agents based in South Africa were involved. DM

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

World