Juma Khan
ArrestedUSA
DEA
CitizenshipAfghanistan
Charge(s)Charges, if any, were never made public
StatusKhan disappeared, once in US custody

Juma Khan, an ethnic Baluch from Afghanistan's Nimroz Province, is a drug lord with links to the Taliban.[1]

Juma Khan was an illiterate provincial drug smuggler from southwestern Afghanistan in the 1990s. He suddenly rose to national prominence after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan. He was briefly detained by American forces after the 2001 fall of the Taliban and released, even though American officials knew that he was involved in narcotics trafficking.[2] After being released, he inexplicably seized control of the town of Bahramcha in the Chagai Hills on the Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan border in late 2001 and turned it into a hub of drug smuggling and gun running into Pakistan and Iran. Later Juma Khan allegedly went on to run the Taliban's opium and heroin distribution network, selling worldwide and using the profits to equip Taliban forces militarily.[3]

His organization was designated as a Narcotics Kingpin under the SDN by the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, with addresses in Pakistan and Afghanistan.[4]

In 2008, he was detained for unknown reasons in Indonesia and transported to New York. He was quietly released on April 20, 2018 without any pending charges or a trial.[5][6] No official explanation was provided.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Walsh, Declan (August 16, 2008). "Flower power". The Guardian.
  2. ↑ Risen, James (December 11, 2010). "Propping Up a Drug Lord, Then Arresting Him". The New York Times. p. A1. Now, plea negotiations are quietly under way. A plea bargain might keep many of the details of his relationship to the United States out of the public record.
  3. ↑ McGirk, Tim (August 2, 2004). "Terrorism's Harvest". Time.com. Archived from the original on January 13, 2005.
  4. ↑ "HAJI JUMA KHAN ORGANIZATION". sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov. Retrieved 2022-09-09.
  5. ↑ "Inmate Locator".
  6. ↑ Dwyer, Jhonny. "The U.S. Quietly Released Afghanistan's "Biggest Drug Kingpin" From Prison. Did He Cut a Deal?". The Intercept.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.