‘Drug money laundering in Pakistan to the tune of $2-4bn per annum’

KARACHI: Drug money laundering in Pakistan is to the tune of $2-4 billion per annum, Dr A R Kemal, an eminent economist and former director of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) in Islamabad told The News.

The share of illicit drugs in Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) “is not known but it will be relatively small and the inflows would not exceed four billion dollars,” he says.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates global money laundering to be between $590 billion and $1.5 trillion a year, representing 2-5% of global GDP. A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade of narcotics.

Given the fact that Afghanistan today produces 92% of the world’s supply of heroin, the United Nations says that opium from Afghanistan constitutes a large portion of the world’s narcotics market, estimated to be approximately $500 billion. Also keeping in mind that the war-ravaged country has porous borders with Pakistan and the country happens to be a major exit point, one can imagine the impact of narcotics trade in Pakistan.

The very fact that Pakistan has as many as five million drug addicts indicates how ruthlessly the previous Afghan war has affected a country where the word ‘heroin’ was unknown prior to the bloody war.

“The total number of drug users in Pakistan remains unknown. The National Survey on Drug Abuse in Pakistan in 1993 estimated 2.7 million users of narcotics and psychotropic substances in a total population of 125 million. Heroin, the most prevalent drug was used by approximately 1.5 million people.

In this survey, use of drug through injection was first reported among 1.85 percent drug addicts of Karachi, a centre of commerce, the chief seaport and the largest city in the country with a population of over 10 million.

Recent estimates indicate five million drug users in Pakistan,” says Dr. Arshad Altaf, Provincial Surveillance Support Officer, Canada-Pakistan HIV/AIDS Surveillance Project, and Sindh AIDS Control Programme.

Sadly enough, top intelligence agencies have been involved in illicit drug trade that is always accompanied with the weapons trade. “The upsurge of opium production in Afghanistan during the 1980s relied on the logistical support of Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence, the cover of a CIA secret operation, and the services of Pakistani banks, just as the simultaneous expansion of the Columbian cocaine trade required capital from illicit financiers, the loose protection of the covert Contra war, and the illegal services of banks based in Caribbean free ports such as Panama City,” writes well known American journalist Alfred W. McCoy in his voluminous book ‘The Politics of Heroin CIA Complicity In The Global Drug trade’.

It’s an irony of fate that the authorities in Pakistan today say that drug money generated from Afghanistan’s massive production of opium is being used by terrorists and is hampering the ‘war on terror’. The brutalisation of Pakistan society in the wake of the Afghan war is nothing but a corollary of the Pakistani military junta’s zest, led by late General Zia ul Haq to oust Soviet troops from Afghanistan, coupled with the promotion of the so called Jihadi culture that has penetrated deep in a society that was previously immune to such ugly trends.

A police source told The News on the condition of anonymity that the major export from Pakistan is ‘crystal heroin’ and a big chain. “Usually there are three or four investors and they pay Rs100,000 to Rs300,000 to the carrier for every trip. Carriers do not know that the bag contains heroin.

The consignment is shifted in the plane through the connivance of officials at the airport and sent to another destination through a connecting flight. It is collected by somebody in the domestic lounge that the carrier does not know,” says the police official whose job is to check the flow of illicit drugs from Pakistan.

“The major part of heroin is exported from Pakistan to Bangkok. From there it is shifted to Kampuchea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore through a ferry service or by road. The route for western countries is through Thailand and Egypt. The drug mafia prefers to handle small consignments since it is easy to shift small consignments from international to domestic lounge,” he says.

The official points out that bus drivers in Pakistan are paid less, and every bus driver plying between Peshawar and Karachi makes it a point to carry around four kilograms of hashish with him besides heroin and opium. “A single kg of charas has 25 rods and every rod is sold for Rs. 250 to Rs.300. A carrier can even get a tonne of charas on credit,” the police official adds.

“Charas has become very popular in Pakistani elite youth, including girls. They prefer to smoke hash while driving a car,” he says.

If an abuser is caught with less than 10 grams of heroin he gets an imprisonment of six to twelve months under Section 6/9 (B) but if he is apprehended with over 10 grams of heroin he gets life imprisonment or death sentence under Section 6/9 (C), he says. But how many drug barons have been apprehended in Pakistan?

Though drug users in Pakistan have been estimated to be about five million, the size of drug economy is anybody’s guess. “Nobody knows that the UN or Pakistani drug control authorities will have the estimates as recently a survey was carried out,” says Dr. Kemal.

One may recall a statement by Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, who as president has been reported to have said that the drug mafia in Pakistan is powerful enough to destabilise any government.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=40522