4 detained in narco-terror case abroad

The Manhattan US Attorney’s office has unsealed two indictments today announcing the arrests of four men for their involvement in alleged drug deals in which proceeds were intended to be used to provide material support to Hezbollah and the Taliban. In a case that took federal informants across the globe from Europe to Afghanistan, the indictments highlight the close ties that terror organizations have with the drug trade.

The first indictment, which names Siavosh Henareh, Bachar Wehbe, and Cetin Aksu, alleges that since June 2010, the three men met with undercover DEA sources in Turkey, Romania, Greece, and Malaysia with the intention of purchasing military-grade weapons for supply to Hezbollah. In these meetings, the purchase of Stinger missiles, AK-47’s, M4 assault rifles, .50 caliber sniper rifles, and ammunition was discussed with the informant. On June 13, 2011 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Aksu and Wehbe signed a contract and transferred $100,000 as a down payment for the procurement of thousands of such weapons. On July 25, 2011, Henareh and Aksu were arrested in Bucharest, Romania; and on the same day, Wehbe was arrested on the small island nation of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

The second indictment names Taza Gul Alizai, an Afghan national who was also detained in the Maldives on July 25. Alizai had been under investigation for over three years, beginning in May 2008, when he sold approximately five kilograms of heroin to a DEA confidential source in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Two years later, Alizai maintained contact with the undercover informant, who posed as a representative for the Taliban; at this time Alizai facilitated the sale of six AK-47’s and 10 kilograms of heroin for $31,000. The confidential informant and Alizai discussed that the heroin would be sold in the US and that the proceeds, along with the AK-47’s, would be supplied to the Taliban. A co-conspirator of Alizai’s, who was not named in the indictment, told the informant that the Taliban protected the heroin laboratories in Afghanistan.

“Today’s indictments provide fresh evidence of what many of us have been seeing for some time: the growing nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism, a nexus that threatens to become a clear and present danger to our national security,” Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said.

All four men will be brought to the US to face various narco-terror and drug trafficking charges that could lead to life imprisonment.

The arrests shine a light on an aspect of the the war on terror that is less visible and rarely reported on. While the connection between drug trafficking and the funding of terrorists is well known, it is rare to see DEA operations such as this that expose the direct links between the two.

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Tags: hezbollah, Taliban