In the first U.S. prosecution alleging direct involvement by an al Qaeda-linked group in drug trafficking, authorities have charged three alleged al Qaeda associates with conspiring to smuggle cocaine through a booming route in lawless northwest Africa, officials said Friday.
Prosecutors filed narco-terrorism charges in federal court in New York Friday against the three suspects, who are believed to be from Mali and were arrested in Ghana in a DEA sting. Although U.S. authorities have alleged that al Qaeda and the Taliban profit from the heroin trade in Afghanistan, the case is the first in which suspects linked to al Qaeda have been charged under severe laws targeting terrorist groups involved in drug activity, federal officials said.
The 18-page criminal complaint unsealed Friday also represents the first American prosecution to describe a convergence of mafias and terrorists in northwest Africa that has caused increasing alarm among European, African and U.S. investigators.
Cocaine traffic has spiked in West Africa in recent years. Exploiting weak states plagued by corruption, poverty and violence, Latin American mafias have made the region a hub for moving cocaine across the Atlantic through Africa into the booming drug markets of Europe.
Al Qaeda in the Magreb, a North African ally of Osama bin Laden’s organization, has muscled into the lucrative cocaine smuggling routes in its turf in the Sahara, according to Western and African officials. It existed for two decades under other names before declaring allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s group in 2006.
Al Qaeda in the Magreb finances itself partly by protecting and moving loads through smuggling corridors—also used for contraband and illegal immigrants—that run through Morocco into Spain and through Libya and Algeria into Italy, according to the complaint and Western investigators.
"We’ve known about this for a long time, but this is the first actionable thing we’ve done in response to it," said DEA spokesman Rusty Payne. "It’s something we have been working at for a long time and it’s the first case of its kind."
The stakes are high because of the potential for al Qaeda in the Magreb to use the cash and firepower of the cocaine trade in its war on the West. A grim harbinger cited by anti-terror investigators: the al Qaeda-connected cell of North Africans who carried out the Madrid train bombings that killed 190 people in 2004 financed the attack by dealing hashish and ecstasy.
Moreover, conversations among undercover informants and suspects suggest that the lawless region around the Gulf of Guinea is a crucible for alliances among groups united by hatred of the United States: Al Qaeda, Mexican gangsters, Colombian guerrillas and Lebanese militant groups.
"For the first time in that part of the world, these guys are operating in the same environment in the same place at the same time," said Michael Braun, a former chief of DEA operations. "They are doing business and cutting deals. What’s most troubling about this is the personal relationships that these guys are making today, between drug organizations and terror organizations, will become operational alliances in the future."
Authorities acknowledge that the three suspects are alleged associates, not members, of al Qaeda in the Magreb. The case is based largely on recorded conversations with informants posing as representatives of the FARC guerrillas of Colombia in which suspects describe the mechanics of the smuggling trade and al Qaeda’s involvement.
But in recent years, Western and African investigators have pointed to concrete signs of the convergence of drugs and terror in the region. In 2007, two accused Colombian operatives of the FARC guerrilla group, a major player in cocaine trafficking, were arrested in Guinea Bissau, described by many as Africa’s first "narco-state."
Last month, UN officials said they suspected that an abandoned cargo plane found in a desert area in Mali dominated by al Qaeda in the Magreb had been used for smuggling tons of cocaine. And last year, Morocco’s Interior Minister told the Los Angeles Times that al Qaeda in the Magreb fighters were enriching themselves by taxing the cocaine smuggling routes in Mali and Mauritania to the south.
"It is a zone where there is a lot of money circulating, with cocaine traffic that is growing fast," said Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa said. "A certain number of terror networks exploit this situation because these groups guarantee, secure the routes."
The charges filed Friday allege that the conspiracy began in Ghana in September when an accused al Qaeda associate, Omuar Issa, made contact with a DEA informant.
The informant presented himself as an anti-Western "Lebanese radical" working with the FARC of Colombia, according to the complaint. That link was not far-fetched because, Western investigators say, Lebanese mafias with a longtime presence in West Africa—and often ties to Hezbollah—play a big role in helping Latin American drug lords carve out the new African routes.
Issa was a facilitator working for a criminal organization active in Ghana, Mali and neighboring countries, the complaint says. He discussed a deal to transport cocaine from Ghana through North Africa to Spain with the protection of al Qaeda in the Magreb at a price of $4,200 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), the complaint says.
At meetings in October, Issa introduced the informant to Harouna Toure, the alleged leader of a criminal organization working closely with al Qaeda. Toure said his organization would use Land Rovers to drive the load across the desert to Morocco and described "two different transportation routes, one through Algeria and Libya and the other through Algeria and Morocco." He told the informant that his group "provides protection for planes that land in their area, including planes from Colombia," the complaint says.
"Toure also described his strong relationship with the al Qaeda groups that control areas of North Africa," the complaint alleges. "Toure stated that he has worked with al Qaeda to transport and deliver between one and two tons of hashish to Tunisia and that his organization and al Qaeda have collaborated in the human smuggling of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian subjects into Spain."
In addition, Toure told the informant that he had a Brazilian contact who could help smuggle the shipment from Morocco to Spain, the complaint alleges. At subsequent meetings a third suspect, alleged al Qaeda associate Idriss Abdelrahman, took a $25,000 down payment to smuggle a ton of cocaine by truck to the coast of Morocco. Abdelrahman described his armed group of 11 men as "warriors of God," the complaint says.
Increased involvement in the cocaine trade could benefit al Qaeda in the Magreb in several ways, investigators say. The group has carried out attacks primarily in Algeria, Mali and Mauritania, where it recently kidnapped three Spanish charity volunteers from a truck caravan in the desert.
But the Algeria-based militant group as failed so far to achieve its stated goal of waging holy war across North Africa and Europe.
The militants could use cocaine profits to better arm themselves, expand recruitment and buy off corrupt government allies in the region, investigators say. The case reveals the dimensions of a threat that has not gotten enough attention in the West, Braun said.
"The Moroccans have been pounding on the table warning about the involvement of al Qaeda in the Magreb in drug trafficking," he said. "This shows they were right. Nobody in [Washington] has been talking about this threat. The only agency that has really gone after it is the DEA."
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