HEROIN IS OUR MINERAL WEALTH (ANON)The global heroin economy, a phenomenon yet to be understood fully by all concerned, has transcended regional and national frontiers, integrating activities of strong international drug syndicates. Urban street drug markets, the problems of opium farmers and patterns of smuggling are not isolated. Compartmentalised phenomena but links in the same chain.
Understanding the Pakistan drug scene--the manufacture, the mafia, the wasted lives -- requires an in-depth study. Doing something about it requires more than proper police procedure. That is because the drug scene, at its root, is a business story.
According to one estimate earnings from international drug trade were US $13 trillion in 2006. Out of this, heroin trafficking alone is not less than 600 billion dollars. The share of Pakistani networks last year crossed the 1.2 billion dollars. This great "financial power" in the hands of the drug dealers explains the heroinisation of Pakistan since the days of General Ziaul Haq. A time came when this country was called 'Kingdom of Heroin'-- posing the most significant threat to the Western World.
Before explaining further the share and activities of Pakistani drug syndicates, it seems necessary to view the illicit drug business from a perspective which has largely been neglected. This relates to the political and economic ramifications of the business. The areas where this trade is actually concentrated are more integrated with the international market forces than they are with the national economy. Most of the tribal people directly involved in the cultivation of the poppy and its conversion into heroin are all largely autonomous.
How has Pakistan become a focal point of the activities of international drug traffickers? This is an important question. Its answer tells the story of development of our great distribution channels. In February 1979 when the Hadd Order was promulgated Pakistani poppy growers had large stocks of opium: they did not know what to do with those surplus quantities. About that time international drug smugglers came to their rescue.
First these international gangs managed to persuade their "connections" in Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore and Quetta to send for consignments of raw opium. But soon they discovered that this involved great risks. They decided to convert the available opium stocks into heroin.
Smugglers of opium in Khyber began, therefore, to stockpile all the illicit opium available from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, and set up heroin labs in Landi Kotal, Barra, Derra and many other places.
Multinational drug syndicates dealing in illicit drugs soon started negotiations with business magnates in Pakistan. Evidence of this development came to light on November 23, 1982, when an international team working with an Italian magistrate, Carlo Palermo, arrested a number of individuals responsible for running an international arms-and-drug-dealing network.
According to statements issued by Mr Palermo and other magistrates on the basis of three years investigations, it was uncovered that the Milan-based firm Stipan International Transport was at the centre of an international operation in which consignments of hard drugs, originating in the golden Crescent, were exchanged for weapons through a network which solidly interlinked the mafia, drug producers and distributors.
They further revealed that opium was purchased in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan by the Turkish underworld who refined it into morphine. The Morphine was shipped from Turkey into Milan, Italy. Part of the shipment then went to Sicily where the mafia refineries converted the morphine into heroin for trans-shipment to the United States, West Germany and elsewhere.
The Sicilian connection was largely responsible for the refining, and more importantly,the distribution of high purity heroin made from opium grown in the golden Crescent. It was established that the opium that fed the Sicilian connection came from the poppy fields of the tribal areas of North-West Frontier province of Pakistan.
That clearly showed a link between the Khyber opium smuggles and the Sicilian Maifa. However, nobody in Pakistan, especially those involved in enforcement efforts, bothered to conduct investigations in the light of these revelations or, perhaps, authorities were not aware of the trial in Sicily.
The fact is that in 1980, European chemists were installed in the NWFP and Karachi to establish refineries capable of producing high-quality morphine base. Those who established heroin labs in Pakistan, with the collaboration of some wealthy Afghan nationals, included some former members of the French Connection.
Although the French connection was broken in 1973, remnants survived and were picked up and incorporated into the Sicilian-dominated organisation. Evidence of this incorporation came after a number of very large and modern refineries were busted in 1980. Opium for these refineries was provided by the Khyber smugglers.
These were the peculiar circumstances under which this country became target of "the international imperialism of drug culture". Within four years our own business houses, politicians, leading businessmen, high officials, army officers, professionals, and people from various walks of life got absorbed into different drug cartels.
And the day came in this country when even the government was infiltrated by syndicates dealing in the production and trafficking of narcotics. This fact came to light with the arrest of a leading businessman of Karachi, Sadaruddin Gangi, in 1982 at the Frankfurt airport when the police detected three kilograms of heroin from his baggage.
During the trial, he admitted his links with an-organised international network involved in smuggling heroin from Pakistan. The activities of an international drug syndicate based in Monaco (Monte Carlo) were also unveiled when in the same year Karachi Custom's anti-smuggling staff arrested two foreigners with refined heroin weighing 95 kilograms.
The activities of international traffickers were further proved when in April 1983 an attempt to smuggle out heroin by a North American syndicate in collusion with some Pakistanis was frustrated by the Karachi Customs officials. That was just the beginning. IN 1985, according to US Drug Enforcement administration (DEA), the number of main drug traffickers was not less than one hundred __ an unbelievable growth in four years.
The culmination of that sordid beginning was the Norwegian connection where the persons involved enjoyed family terms with the Head of State. This confirms the financial strength and influence enjoyed by the Pakistani drug mafias.
The drug traffickers in Pakistan, thus, expanded their domain to all the possible areas and heights both in terms of economy and politics. This gave birth to many "uncrowned kings of underworld". The State was unable to pin them down because of the clout they wield in political circles and bureaucracy. The drug smugglers Hall of Fame contains many illustrious names.
Among these are four major syndicates. One, both powerful and well-knit, is Peshawar-based. Its chief is considered one of the richest and most influential persons of Peshawar. This syndicate started narcotics smuggling under the cover of routine export/import. Its office is in Thailand, where a Danish national was in-charge; it is clearing point.
The political influence of the chief can be measured by the fact that a high-ranking military official of Super Power is his personal friend and they have been holding frequent meetings. He owns a palatial house and is buying surrounding property, both residential and agricultural.
The man behind another syndicate is a well-known smuggler of Lahore who had been engaged in the business of real estate (which was his favourite pastime). He is a master-mind behind the most powerful and many tentacles mafia. He along with his three close associates was facing extradition requests from the United States. He was extradited and was released after plea bargain with American authorities.
He started his career in illicit business as a small fry engaged in smuggling of some contrabands to India, where he was arrested in the early 1970s. Once a business partner of the chief of the Peshawar Syndicate (referred above) he developed some differences with him and lodged a complaint against him with Interpol. Known as "King of the Indian route", he enjoyed support of many leading politicians of the Punjab. He is engaged in numerous businesses which are used as "cover".
Another man became under fire and was trying his political connections to prove his "innocence".Lodged in jail, he commented: "politicians who maligned and got me convicted under the American pressure used to come to me with a begging bowl to finance their election campaigns".
Another man in the same boat was once the most powerful overlord. His rag-to-riches rise resembles a film story. In the 1970s he was King of Gold smuggling. No smuggler in Pakistan could match his links with international trafficking network. He was one of the most powerful men during the Zia's regime due to his close personal link with the Head of State.
Besides enjoying command over the Indian route, he was one of the beneficiaries of the 'Turkish Connection'. After Indian law enforcement authorities' crackdown of 1992 and 1993, he swiftly developed the 'Balkan route' through Turkey, a road that passes from the growing centres of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan into Turkey. Now a days he is big name in real estate business.
The fourth Syndicate is enjoying patronage of some high-ranking officers and politicians. The characters behind this syndicate are the same who were partly unveiled through a case known as 'Norwegian connection'. Behind this syndicate are some 'top men' of the country.
All the above cases show the long-standing link between the drug traffickers, sections of police force and other law-enforcement officials and politicians. This is why the war against drug is difficult to win without the support of the masses.
(The writers ([email protected]) specialise in studying global heroin economy. They are author of internationally acclaimed books, Pakistan: From Hash to Heroin and its sequel, Pakistan: From Drug-trap to Debt-trap.)
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