The East African
A Tanzania-flagged vessel intercepted by the French navy carrying cannabis in international waters between Italy and Algeria.
Tanzania is East Africa’s biggest hub for drugs trafficking, a US government agency has said, putting Dar es Salaam on the radar of international anti-narcotics spies.
A new report released by the US department of State says that Tanzania-based drug trafficking organisations and courier networks operate globally and play a prominent role in the Southwest Asian heroin trade, using Dar es Salaam as the launchpad to control the trade in East Africa.
Dar es Salaam has been fingered as the region’s key transit point for illicit drugs, facilitating the movement of multi-million-dollar narcotics to Kenya, Uganda and Europe as a result of its porous borders and poor policing.
The US Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs report says Tanzania’s location, porous borders, and persistent corruption present challenges to drugs interdiction.
“Traffickers exploit Tanzania’s 1,300km coastline and inadequate port security. Heroin is transported by small vessels southward along Africa’s east coast to Zanzibar and the mainland and in large quantities via land borders from Kenya, through Tanzania, and onward to Mozambique for trans-shipment to Europe and North America. Smaller quantities are trafficked to Europe, India and North America largely via commercial air,” the report released on Monday reveals.
The South American cocaine enters Tanzania by air for further international distribution, the report says, while the country also produces cannabis and khat for domestic consumption and regional distribution, even though they remain illegal in the country.
Drug trafficking routes from Eastern Africa
New landing points
The US also says Dar es Salaam and Mozambique have become the new landing points for the narcotics brought through the Indian Ocean, after the enhanced enforcement efforts undertaken by Kenyan authorities in recent years.
“This has seen ocean-going dhows transporting heroin into East Africa to bypass Kenya in favour of less protected Tanzanian and Mozambican shores, with subsequent land transport to Kenya or neighbouring Uganda,” the report says.
The drugs then find their way back to the Kenyan Coast via the porous borders it shares with Tanzania.
In January, a US court sentenced Ibrahim Akasha, once a member of Kenya’s Akasha drug trafficking empire to 23 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to trafficking heroin and methamphetamine and other crimes.
Baktash Akasha, the Akasha organisation’s former leader, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last August.
This assertion confirms a September 2018 Interpol report on narcotics trade in the region, which notes that drug traffickers were using the Eastern African coast as their open transit route for illicit drug trafficking from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, India, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru with destinations including South Africa, Europe, the US and Asia.
Ports for transit
“Eastern African ports remain strategic points for drug trafficking, while other Eastern African countries continue to be major transit points for drug trafficking from Latin America and the Middle East to Europe and the US,” the Interpol report notes, adding that Tanzania forms part of a major trans-shipment route for heroin entering the region, but is not a major end-market for consumption of the drugs.
Tanzanian authorities last year seized a large haul of drugs acting on real-time intelligence. In February, Tanzania’s Drug Control and Enforcement Agency arrested prominent businessman, Abdul Nsebo and his wife Shamim Mwasha, for alleged heroin trafficking.
In October, DCEA destroyed 120.9kg of seized heroin and cocaine, the highest ever seizure in the East African region.
In August 2019, a US federal court sentenced 10 Tanzanian citizens for their part in a transnational heroin trafficking ring, including Ali Khatib Haji Hassan, an international drug kingpin designated and sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury, who was extradited to the US with two associates in 2017.
Tanzania’s exposure has complicated the drug fight for Kenya, which bears the brunt of the narcotics being smuggled through the long common border.
In the first nine months of last year, Kenya’s narcotics enforcement agency, the Anti-Narcotics Unit conducted over 1,500 raids, seizing over 56.8kgs of heroin, 7.9 tonnes of cannabis, as well as 3.6kgs of cocaine, and over $177,000 in cash and property. Most of these seizures were done in the coastal city of Mombasa, with the drugs being traced to Tanzania, investigation sources said.
Most of the raids and seizures were made possible through the use of modern surveillance techniques and forensics, which saw the drug units of the police conduct investigations in 2019 targeting police and judicial officials involved in drug trafficking.
Washington has also pointed an accusing finger at the Kenyan judiciary for doing little to help in the fight against narcotics trade in the country, adding that it “requires further improvements to effectively prosecute drug-trafficking cases.”
“Kenya continues to face the threat of drugs flowing to and through the country and the ancillary corrupt activities associated with drug trafficking. Kenya’s government will need to remain vigilant and aggressively pursue drug traffickers and continue efforts at the grassroots level to reduce drugs demand,” the report states.
The US still puts Kenya as a significant transit country for a variety of illicit drugs, including heroin and cocaine, and states that domestic drug consumption is growing. Some chemicals used to produce methamphetamine and other illicit drugs also continue to transit Kenya, according to the report.
Heroin routes
“Heroin originating from Southwest Asia enters Kenya both from direct shipping across the Indian Ocean from launch sites along the Makran Coast in Pakistan and Iran, and, increasingly, from countries to the south, transiting Tanzania and Mozambique. Most of the heroin entering Kenya is destined for international markets across the globe, particularly in Europe. Domestic heroin abuse is a growing threat in Kenya, particularly in the coastal areas, including the main port city of Mombasa,” it notes.
The US admits that Kenya’s law enforcement continued efforts in 2019 to reduce the supply of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and other drugs entering the country through increased targeting of international traffickers.
“By targeting drug trafficking organisations instead of individual traffickers, Kenya can more effectively prevent large shipments of drugs from entering or transiting Kenya. Multi-kilogram seizures of heroin are becoming more frequent within Kenya, primarily due to the increased diligence and capability of the Kenya Police Service,” the report notes.
According to Washington, cocaine enters Kenya primarily via direct flights from South America to Ethiopia with subsequent land transport to Kenya, through the porous Northern borders. This year alone, four police officers based in the northern frontier have been arrested using government vehicles transporting narcotics, lending credence to these assertions by the Americans.
“Kenya has seen an increase in cocaine investigations over the past year. Limited maritime enforcement capabilities on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline hampers drug interdiction,” it said.
ISI’s drug nexus exposed, Tanzanian national arrested for trafficking Heroin in India
Zee News India
Oct 02, 2020,
Tanzania’s Drug Control and Enforcement Agency (DCEA) has arrested a Tanzanian woman on 17 September for her involvement in trafficking drugs to India.
James Kaji, Commissioner of DCEA made a statement at a press conference on the arrest and stated that the arrest was made during a sting operation carried out by the agency in Dar es Salaam, lasting several days.
The arrested lady, Mary Edson was detained on charges of mailing two books to India, containing 450 grams of heroin. She confessed about sending drugs to India on at least three occasions through the same method. Edson claimed that she supplied the consignment of drugs through post on the directions of her Nigerian partner, who has now moved from Tanzania to Uganda and operates a drug network from there.
Commissioner James Kaji highlighted, “according to Edson, the books she was shipping were for her boyfriend in Uganda who wanted them mailed to a friend in India. She has done this at least three other times.”
However, on investigations, a heroin weighing machine was found from Edson’s house, underlining that she was apprised about trafficking heroin and was willingly shipping them to India.
Tanzanian agencies argued that this is a ‘new tactic’ of drug trafficking in which foreign drug traffickers marry Tanzanian women and later use them as mules to transfer drugs.
However, this is not the first case that has highlighted the Tanzanian angle in drug trafficking to India. In a similar case, two years ago, Jalandhar Police arrested a Tanzanian woman with 500 grams of heroin on September 3, 2018. The arrested trafficker Dorin Edson Nejuda stayed at New Delhi’s Vikas Puri and was trafficking drugs to Punjab and Delhi.
The recent arrest made by the Tanzanian authorities reflects the pearls of a new string of heroin trafficking involving Pakistan, and African countries.
“Besides the African nations, this is a worrying trend for Indian security agencies as they will now have to keep a watch on new Southern routes, besides the traditional routes of trafficking. Indian authorities should investigate the matter and find out about the ‘Indian friend’ of Mary Edson’s partner, who was supposed to receive a heroin package” said an officer deployed in a central security establishment.
According to the UNODC’s World Drugs Report, at least 87% of the global opium is produced in Afghanistan. Most of the opium fields are controlled by the Pakistani ISI, which later transports opium poppy to Pakistan for processing into heroin and then traffics it to all over the world.
Governments of Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa have seized back to back heroin consignments, originating from Pakistan. Pakistani nationals have also been arrested in some of these cases. Earlier, the ‘Golden Crescent’ was the most prominent route used by the ISI to traffic heroin. However, these seizures highlight that a new Southern route of drug trafficking has been established comprising a well-established supply chain.
Pakistani dhows and boats carry heroin to the coastal countries of Africa including Tanzania and Mozambique. From these countries, the heroin is then trafficked downwards South of the African continent and elsewhere in the world. Due to back to back seizures of Pakistani drugs in the Indian Ocean Region and along the Line of Control (LoC) by Indian security agencies, Pakistan is now using this new route to traffic drugs to India.
Numerous ISI operatives have established their bases in Tanzania ,Mozambique and Kenya and are running a massive drug nexus from their African bases, generating huge revenue for the Pakistani agency.
On 5 February 2014, Tanzanian authorities arrested four Pakistani drug traffickers and seized around 200 kgs of heroin, valuing around Euros 10 million. Talking to the media, spokesperson of Tanzanian police Godfrey Nzowa said, “the suspects were arrested in the early hours of Tuesday from a dhow that was sailing from the island of Zanzibar to the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.” According to the Canadian media, more than 1.5 tons of heroin consignments were seized by a Canadian patrolling warship in the Tanzanian territorial waters in the year 2013 alone.
Similarly, on 22 February 2011, Tanzanian police arrested two Pakistani traffickers and seized 179 kgs of heroin from them, valuing Euros 9 million. Then talking to the press, Godfrey Nzawa of Tanzanian police said, “this is the single biggest heroin bust in the country’s history.” Very recently, security agencies of Mozambique caught a Pakistani boat at the Biera port on April 30 this year and arrested twelve Pakistani nationals. Similarly, Tanzanian agencies arrested 26 Pakistani nationals while they were carrying drugs in dhows to Tanzania. The traffickers were later released after back channel intervention by the ISI.
Dozens of news reports have emerged in the past couple of years about seizure of Pakistani origin heroin in African countries, valuing an unfathomable amount. The remaining consignments have already been trafficked to their respective destinations..
Besides India, the revelations made by arrests are problematic for Pakistan as well. This unchecked trafficking of drugs by Pakistani ISI through its proxies must have been observed by the FATF, which is supposed to review Pakistan’s performance on the FATF Action Plan in October 2020.
Interestingly, Pakistan is a party to several global conventions and agreements on drugs and is a member of multiple groups dedicated to check drug trafficking. Pakistan has been a party to the Ministerial Declaration of 2019, drafted during the 62″ Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The country, in 2018, was elected as the Rapporteur of the Intergovernmental Expert Group Meeting on International Challenge Posed by the non-medical Use of Synthetic Drugs. Pakistan is also serving as a member of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
Foreign Policy observers believe that Pakistan could soon be charged for violation of the conventions and the positions that it holds at UN and multilateral forums on grounds of its failure to check the heroin trafficking as well as sponsoring proxies to distribute drugs everywhere in the world.
Tanzania’s global drug kingpin is unmasked
The Citizen
The then head of the Anti-Drugs Unit, Mr Godfrey Nzowa heads to the one of the cars seized from drug dealers.
Dar es Salaam. Until February 2014 when he was arrested, Ali Khatib Haji alias Shkuba, 46, was the most wanted and most powerful drug kingpin in Tanzania.
A man with deep pockets who was credited with leading a powerful drug cartel operating principally in East Africa but with influence extending to as far as the US, South America, Japan and the UK, Shkuba became almost untraceable and untouchable, even as authorities relentlessly plotted his capture.
His role in the international heroin and cocaine smuggling business came to light for the first time in February 2014 when the then head of the Anti-Drugs Unit (ADU) Godfrey Nzowa, personally seized him shortly before he took a flight to South Africa.
And the move on Wednesday by the US government to list him among the world’s most notorious drug traffickers only served to reinforce the position that Shkuba would be unrivalled as Tanzania’s top drug baron, according to the charge.
The US announced it had frozen all of Shkuba’s assets that are within its jurisdiction and banned its citizens and his associates from engaging in transaction with the Tanzanian. It was not immediately clear what properties he owned in the US.
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced it had identified Shkuba and apparently his ‘Hassan Drug Trafficking Organisation’ as significant foreign narcotics traffickers.
“Today’s action imposes sanctions on Ali Khatib Haji Hassan and his illicit drug trafficking network for smuggling heroin and cocaine around the world and seeking to use their illicit profits to bribe African government officials,” said OFAC acting director John Smith in a statement posted on the official website of the State Department.
“Narcotics traffickers like the Hassan Drug Trafficking Organisation pose a significant threat to the international financial system and regional stability, and the Treasury remains committed to exposing and targeting those fuelling the global drug trade,” he added.
The US government described Shkuba as a major international drug kingpin who smuggles multi-ton shipments of heroin and cocaine to Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America via his East Africa-based drug trafficking organisation.
By the time then anti-narcotics buster Nzowa arrested Shkuba at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA), the 46-year-old had avoided arrest for long.
Upon his arrest, he was charged with trafficking 210kg of heroin worth around Sh10 billion. Anti-narcotics police seized the drugs in Lindi in January 2012 and linked him with the haul.
Shkuba reportedly flew to South Africa the same day (February 2012) the drugs were seized and remained there for two years before he returned and got arrested.
The US charge show that Shkuba was travelling around the world on five different passports issued in Zanzibar. The passports numbers included: AB269600, AB360821, AB564505, A0389018 and AB179561A0010167.
His travel document depicts him as a resident of Zanzibar and has been using different names. The names are: Hassan, Ali Khatib Haji (a.k.a. Alex, Maiko Joseph; a.k.a. Haji, Ali Khatib; a.k.a. Haji, Ali Khatibu; a.k.a. Shakur, Abdallah; a.k.a. “Shkuba”; a.k.a. “SHKUBA”).
Anti-narcotic police in Tanzania had earlier in 2007 arrested and charged Shkuba with the murder of a young Tanzania who died in China after drugs he has swallowed burst in his bowels. According to police reports, Shkuba used the victim as a courier. He was, however, acquitted after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) dropped charged against him for lack of evidence.
In 2009, ADU arrested Shkuba and bonded him over and asked the Ilala District court to place him under the watch of the police and court because they had reliable information he was a notorious drug dealer.
Big headed
A junior police officer who took part in arresting him in 2014 describe him as being “big headed and the most arrogant drug suspect we have ever arrested.” He reportedly told Mr Nzowa that he was wasting his time to deal with him for he will soon be set free. He also refused to record a statement with the police and reportedly told them he will only speak in court.
Yesterday, Lindi Regional Police Commander Renata Mzinga told The Citizen that Shkuba was still being held in the area pending conclusion of the drug trafficking case against him. This is the longest time that he has stayed in custody—exactly two years now.
According to US authorities, Shkuba’s Drug Trafficking Organisation obtains multi-ton quantities of heroin from sources in Southwest Asia as well as multi-tonne quantities of cocaine from South American suppliers.
According to the statement, since at least 2006, the man has directed members of his network to send shipments of heroin to destinations including China, Europe, and the United States.
“Hassan served as the primary distributor for Tanzania-based drug traffickers who regularly received multi-hundred kilogramme maritime shipments of heroin from the Makran coast of Pakistan and Iran. Hassan also oversaw an extensive drug network in Latin America that distributed South American cocaine into East Africa en route to Europe and China,” says the US government.
Shkuba was also among 12 people appearing on the list of notorious drug traffickers released by a Tanzanian prisoner in Hong Kong in August 2013.
He now becomes the first alleged Tanzanian drug kingpin to have his assets frozen by the US government. US authorities also made a similar order in 2011 against a Kenyan woman Naima Nyakiniwa alias Mwanaidi Mfundo or Mama Leila and Kenya’s maverick politician Haroun Mwau in a similar list to that issued against Shkuba. The woman is interestingly being held in Tanzania where she was charged with trafficking drugs in 2012.
Leila and the politician were listed in 2011 by the US as wanted suspects over drug business. US president Barack Obama also froze their assets in the US.
Commenting on the development, the now retired Mr Nzowa, said: “He (Shkuba) is the most arrogant, aggressive drug trafficker who used threats all the time.”
The African Crime & Conflict Journal 