Afghan Smugglers Charged With Importing Heroin Into US

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Three significant Afghan drug traffickers, including two who were arrested in Thailand, have been charged with conspiring to import heroin into the United States, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said in a press release.

“Haji Lajaward, Amal Said Said Alam Shah… and Habibullah were charged with conspiring to import heroin into the United States,” the press release read on Friday. “Lajaward and Shah were arrested in Thailand on June 13, 2015, and subsequently brought to the United States… Habibullah remains at large.”

Afghanistan is the world's largest illicit opium producer and a major producer of cannabis, according to the United Nations.

The three defendants conspired to import and distribute one or more kilograms of heroin into the United States between May 2014 and April 2015, violating US narcotics law, according to the indictment charges.

The suspects face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Last April, Chief of the Russian General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Igor Sergun said that terrorists operating in the Middle East and Central Asia earn up to $500 million annually from production and trafficking of illicit drugs.

Afghanistan produces some 90 percent of the world’s illicit opiates. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that in 2014 the drug production in the country rose by 17 percent.