Drug smuggling

DEA busts multi-million dollar Afghanistan heroin smuggling ring; defendant said to have Taliban ties

Two men have been convicted of charges related to what authorities call a large-scale conspiracy to smuggle heroin from Afghanistan into the United States.

One of the defendants, Shamsuddin Dost, reportedly bragged to an undercover federal agent during a meeting in San Jose that he had friends in the Taliban and Afghanistan’s government, and said he was willing to kill people who interfered with his business.

“National security people had detained their guys as part of the Taliban…. I secured their release,” Dost said, according to a DEA transcript. He later told the agent, “Don’t worry, those are people that are tied to me….They are Taliban and I know their relatives, uncles and I know their business. If they deviate, I know how to deal with them.”

On March 28, Dost’s co-defendant, Jawed Ahmadi, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison after peading guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin. He was arrested in 2016 — on the same day he flew from Kabul to San Francisco — and is facing deportation after completing his sentence.