A United States court sentenced an Afghan national to 30 years in prison for trying to traffic tonnes of heroin into the U.S. and hand the proceeds over to the Taliban.
Haji Abdul Satar Abdul Manaf was convicted after a two-week trial back in August 2024, in which a jury found him guilty of attempting to smuggle heroin into New York to raise funds for known terrorist organizations, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement.
According to court files made available to OCCRP, Manaf implemented his drug trafficking scheme back in January 2018, in which he would import large quantities of heroin into the U.S. and paid the benefits back to his Taliban contacts. His work also contributed to financially supporting the Haqqani Network, identified by the U.S. as a violent branch of the Taliban that operates in eastern Afghanistan.
Manaf “donated thousands of dollars to the Taliban to support Taliban activities in Afghanistan and has distributed funds to the Taliban,” the DOJ said. Prosecutors also commented that his work contributed to aiding “the Taliban’s fight against Coalition Forces.”
To facilitate his drug trafficking network, he networked with contacts in-person, and via telephone and electronic communications. Unbeknownst to him at the time, no less than five individuals he conducted business with were actually undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents and confidential sources.
In August 2018, Manaf sold a DEA undercover officer several kilograms of heroin, after the officer lied to Manaf by saying that the narcotics would ultimately be sold on the streets of New York. Manaf assured the officer that future deals would be delivered by heavily armed Taliban fighters.
Subsequent to their first successful deal, the undercover DEA officer was able to negotiate with Manaf multiple multi-ton heroin loads to be imported into the United States, the DOJ said.
In the aftermath of his arrest and extradition, Manaf reportedly ordered members of his family in Afghanistan to kidnap and silence a DEA source who could incriminate him at trial. Recorded phone calls in February and March 2019 showed that Manaf told his brothers to bring the DEA source to their family home, to “not let him go even for a minute,” and to hand him off to a “security chief” for interrogation.
Following his 30-year sentence, Manaf will face five years of supervised release and will forfeit all proceeds from his drug trafficking operations.
