“Sultan” of Global Drug Syndicate Guilty, Pakistani National Admits to Trafficking Charges in Manhattan Court

Muhammad Asif Hafeez, known as “Sultan,” has entered a guilty plea in Manhattan federal court. The Pakistani national faced charges of conspiring to import large quantities of heroin, methamphetamine, and hashish into the United States. His arrest and subsequent extradition from the United Kingdom to the U.S. punctuates over two decades of alleged involvement in a drug trafficking syndicate with global reach, as reported by theU.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Hafeez’s criminal endeavors reportedly date back to at least 2013, when he began working closely with Baktash Akasha Abdalla and his organized crime family in Kenya. The operations had a significant footprint, with the narcotics distributed within Kenya and extended to the global market, including the U.S. Despite his capture in London in 2017, and extradition in May 2023, the ripple effects of his network’s activities continue to be felt across continents. The Akasha family members themselves were arrested by Kenyan authorities in 2014 and have since been extradited, and sentenced in the U.S. on similar charges, which highlights the international cooperation at play in these investigations.

Damian Williams,U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, emphasized the magnitude of Hafeez’s operation stating, “For more than two decades, Muhammad Asif Hafeez played a leading role in a sophisticated international drug trafficking network that was responsible for manufacturing and distributing ton quantities of dangerous narcotics to the U.S. and throughout the world.” Hafeez’s collaboration with the Akashas included providing heroin directly to their organization, ultimately designated for U.S. streets. It has been estimated that, at one time, Hafeez and his co-conspirators were attempting to establish a methamphetamine production facility in Mozambique, though the project was dismantled following the seizure of ephedrine intended as a precursor for the drug’s manufacture.

The guilty plea entered by the 66-year-old Hafeez holds with it the weight of a potential life sentence or, at a minimum, a decade behind bars. The seriousness of the charges reflects the severity of the crimes committed, crossing borders and impacting countless lives through the spread of addiction and the feed of criminality nourished by drug profits, as per U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. Acknowledgments for the success of the long-term investigation and prosecution were given to the Special Operations Division of the DEA, Bilateral Investigations Unit, and various international partners including U.K. authorities and the DEA’s country offices in Dubai, Nairobi, Pretoria, and New Delhi.

Hafeez will wait to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero who will make the final determination on the penalties to be imposed. The outcome for Hafeez’s co-conspirators, the Akasha brothers, has already been cemented with Baktash Akasha Abdalla sentenced to 25 years and Ibrahim Akasha Abdalla sentenced to 23 years in prison.

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