VSurrounded by vast voids, convoys of Baloch smugglers quietly cut through the mountains of Zarghun Ghar and Safed Koh on the banks of the Makran, out of sight of the Three Kingdoms. Liquor, opium, automobile parts, sewing machines and silk flowed from the North West Frontier of British India to Persia and Afghanistan. Local traders even refused to buy legally imported sugar. In a single week in the summer of 1932, one million silver pieces were sent from Zahedan to settle accounts, British administrators recorded.
Even though smugglers could face the death penalty, imperial law was defeated by native cunning. Sardar Idu Khan’s nephew worked for the British Customs Frontier Guards, Historian Mikiya Koyagi writes, while his son-in-law was employed in the Zahedan Road Guards department of the Persian king.
A century later, the modern successors of those networks are sending a tidal wave of Afghan-made drugs over the Indian Ocean. Last week, a french battleship A multinational mission operating in the Gulf of Oman reported the seizure of drugs with an estimated street value of $108 million. Earlier this month, 2,500 kg of methamphetamine and heroin were seized in Indian naval operations.
tons of narcotics seized Afghan Cartel Trademark—Pegasus, the winged horse; rampant eagle; Scorpion – showing up in European ports such as Felixstowe, Antwerp and Rotterdam, simply packaged in legitimate container shipments.
Like their colonial-era ancestors, smugglers are the economic backbone of impoverished communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned that, despite an apparent Taliban ban, Afghan opium planting has declined. reached record levels, Tied up in the political system, and guarded by Pakistan’s intelligence services, the cartels responsible for bringing that crop to ports in Balochistan and the wider world.
pirate harbor
mostly featured in history’s footnotes – its pirate navy once attracted the wrath of Portuguese Royal Army In 1582, and a sack by tribal rebels in 1898, the small Baloch fishing town of Pasni turned its obscurity into an asset. Elite clans such as the Bizenjos and Kalamati, serving as key elements of the slave trade operated by the Sultan of Oman, long ruled the city, which has a population of just 35,000. Later, they had fishing boats plying the rich estuary of the Shadi River.
The fishing fleets of Pasni and Lasbela, led by gangster Seth Ganj Bakhsh and his brothers Seth Murad Jan and Imam Bakhsh Fauji, form the backbone of the Afghan drug trade today. Heroin and methamphetamines coming from Afghanistan are stored in Pasni, and then transferred by fishing boats to larger ships, or delivered to smaller ports in the Indian Ocean rim.
Gujarat police last year arrested ten people on a fishing boat Al-Sohili carrying 40 kg of heroin, all of them workers of the fishing fleet from the nearby settlements of Pasni. police records show, Zubair Drakshashandeh is accused of arresting Indian naval operations last week To get Some ₹5 lakh per trip—a tiny fraction of the ₹2,500 crore street value of the methamphetamine he took.
For many poor people in the region, heroin trafficking is part of a larger network of trafficking that forms the backbone of the local economy. Kiya Baloch and Niyaz Lashari write, Eleven million liters of fuel are estimated to be smuggled from Iran to Pakistan every year. In 2021, after several fuel smugglers were killed, large-scale riots broke out in Iranian Sistan-Baluchestan, with angry residents storm on government buildings and police station.
Every piece of narcotics shipments from Afghanistan involves low-grade but credible economic activity. Cartels that provide advances to farmers growing opium and ephedra work with the Taliban, their dollar revenue sustaining its jihadist proto-state. The cartel also has to arrange for the purchase of chemicals such as acetic anhydrite, ammonium chloride and sulphur, from Pakistan. drug makers,
Turbat’s overseas colony – home to dozens of havelis covered with shiny tiles – is home to several top smugglers, journalists Umar Farooq told, His guests, police discovered during the raid, held Tanzanians, Nigerians, Yemenis and Iranians hostage as human collateral until his cartel paid for the delivery of the drugs. Terrorist groups often provide protection to cartels in exchange for a fee.
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narco-state
Even though low-grade opium smuggling has been a part of border areas for centuries, industrial production of heroin began after 1979, when Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate began encouraging jihadi groups to raise cash by running the drug . Reign of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Expert David Winston Records“fostered an ecosystem of government protection of heroin dealers, government officials who profited from the heroin trade, and the heroin syndicate’s significant political influence in government.”
After the rise of the first Taliban emirate, the cartels became institutionalized. Mujahideen commander Mullah Naseem Akhundzada, expert Gretchen Peters reportsHe even threatened farmers who refused to sow opium.
Smuggling lines from Europe went north, through Iran into eastern Turkey, and through Central Asia to Russia. Fugitive gang leader Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar’s cartel pioneered the use of Indian Ocean routes, often passing through East Africa, to reach European markets.
exposed in the media, revealing the existence of ISI-backed heroin laboratories in Pakistan’s north-west, called for action against heroin claiming the lives of young people in the West. Although little was done. The then Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto occasionally threw a bone to Washington, extradition of notorious smugglers Like Mohammad Anwar Khattak and Mirza Iqbal Baig. However, some of the larger cartel operators were touched.
Mir Imam Bizenjo—better known as Imam Bhil—an ally of former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf—would later be named head of one of the world’s premiers. top four cartel, Waris Khan Afridi, appointed minister for tribal affairs by Prime Minister Bhutto, was later Arrested for smuggling Heroin. Second Haji Ayub Afridi notable drug lordNawaz became a prominent figure in Sharif’s Islami Jamhoori Ittehad.
Despite Imam Bhil’s international narcotics designation, he remains an influential businessman, investing in army-linked real estate projects in Kalamat Khor near Pasni. Journalist Maqbool Ahmed Found out.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif later alleged that he was approached by Army Chief Lieutenant-General Mirza Aslam Baig and ISI Director General Asad Durrani to authorize it. mega drug deal In dire need of funds to fund “a series of covert military operations”.
The culture of impunity is still deeply ingrained in Pakistan. Karachi-based businessman Jabir ‘Motiwala’ Siddiq has alleged to invest The cartel funds property and the stock market, gaining the support of the Pakistan government for its efforts to avoid extradition to the United States.
Read also: Hidden ‘lab’, plant-based ephedrine, Afghanistan link – why meth is rich junkie’s new heroin
A serious future?
Attempts to destroy the drug industry through military force have generally been ineffective. economist david mansfield calculated Airstrikes targeting Afghan drug processing plants in 2019—raw facilities using little more than a few metal pots and a heat source—rarely cause significant damage. However, air operations against narcotics often cost millions of dollars. Main methamphetamine trading hub in Abdul Wadud Bazaar expanded after the bombing The raids, revealed by satellite imaging.
The explosion of the state in Afghanistan and Pakistan, work of the scholar Shahryar Fazli showed, may further complicate anti-narcotics efforts. He points out that formal policing in Balochistan is already extremely limited, as the state sub-contracts operations to tribal groups—many embroiled in the drug trade.
As imperial officials discovered a century ago, markets are hard to fight—even for harmful goods like drugs. In countries such as Portugal, authorities have recorded success by reducing the use of drugs for personal use and focusing on demand reduction. Economists Sonia Felix, Pedro Portugal and Ana Tavares show the effort to depress demand, causing reduction in smuggling,
Charles Kogan, director of Afghanistan operations for the Central Intelligence Agency, later told Journalist Loretta Napoleoni The United States sacrificed its war on drugs to win the Cold War. The hundreds of thousands of young lives still being destroyed by methamphetamine and heroin show how tainted that victory was.
Thoughts are personal.
(Editing by Therese Sudeep)