Taliban 'drug ring'

Feds smash 'coke & weapons' plot

By ANDY SOLTIS
Last Updated: 3:36 AM, February 15, 2011
Posted: 12:47 AM, February 15, 2011

Federal investigators busted a West African-based ring of narco-terrorists who tried to sell tons of heroin and cocaine in a plot to bankroll the Taliban, authorities said yesterday.

Two of the seven men arrested are US citizens who allegedly offered to sell the Taliban anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers and other weapons -- and even provided a price list for the arsenal.

Evidence detailing the massive plot was captured on tapes of meetings with the ring members in Ghana, Benin, Romania and Ukraine, prosecutors said in documents unsealed in Manhattan federal court.

The conspiracy was uncovered by Drug Enforcement Administration sources, who posed as Taliban fighters and told the ring members that they wanted to sell drugs from the lawless Afghan regions.

At meetings that began in Ghana in June 2010, the ring members agreed to receive and warehouse tons of Taliban-owned cocaine and heroin in West Africa, the feds said. Some drugs would be shipped by commercial jet to the United States for sale.

When told that the proceeds would help finance the Taliban, ring member Maroun Saade, a Lebanese, "responded that it would please him to support the Taliban's cause," prosecutors wrote in the indictment.

The plot thickened in October 2010 when Saade, 58, introduced Alwar Pouryan, 36, to the DEA sources and described him as a weapons trafficker connected to Hezbollah, prosecutors said.

Pouryan and another naturalized US citizen, Oded Orbach, 52, allegedly discussed selling anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers and other weapons to the Taliban with the help of a Lebanese co-conspirator. An e-mail seized by prosecutors revealed a price list ranging from $120 or so for an M16 rifle to $87,000 and up for a Javelin anti-tank missile. Orbach and Pouryan were busted in Romania and are being held there while they await extradition to the United States. All seven are expected to be prosecuted in Manhattan federal court.

"This alleged effort to arm and enrich the Taliban is the latest example of the dangers of an interconnected world in which terrorists and drug runners can link up . . . to harm Americans," US Attorney Preet Bharara said.

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