How a polo-loving businessman was a secret world drug Lord

On the floor, Muhammad Asif Hafze was an individual.

The ambassador of the worldwide businessman and an iconic London Polo Club, together with the royal members of the family, rubbed the shoulders with the British aristocratic class.

He recurrently gave detailed data to the authorities within the UK and the Middle East, which in some circumstances, precipitated the obstruction of the large cargo of medicine. He was impressed, he stated, simply as what he noticed, “moral obligation to curb and expose criminal activities”.

At least, that is what individuals really feel.

In reality, Hafiz was himself described by American authorities as “one of the world's most vast drug smugglers”.

From his residence within the UK, he was a puppet-master of an enormous medicine empire, supplying a number of tons of heroin, methemfetamine and hash from bases in Pakistan and India that have been distributed worldwide. The gang that knowledgeable him was his rivals – and his inspiration was to eliminate his rivals market.

His standing within the underworld earned him Monin “The Sultan”.

But this legal energy and fame is not going to final perpetually. Following a fancy joint marketing campaign between the British and American officers, the 66 -year -old Hafze was extradited to the UK in 2023. He convicted final November.

On Friday, he was sentenced to 16 years in New York jail, conspiring to import medicine – together with ample heroin for “millions of doses” – within the US. After being in custody since 2017, Hafaz sentence will finish in 2033.

The BBC has intently adopted the Hafaz case. We have knowledgeable the court docket paperwork, company itemizing and interviews with those that knew him.

We wished to learn how he managed to remain beneath the radar for therefore lengthy – and at last how he was caught.

HAFEEZ was born in September 1958 in a center class household in Lahore, Pakistan. One of the six youngsters, their upbringing was comfy. The individuals of Lahore who knew the household tells the BBC that their father had a manufacturing unit close to the town. Hafiz later additionally informed an American court docket that he had educated as a industrial pilot.

From the early Nineties to the mid -2010s, he launched an exterior reputable umbrella firm known as Sarwani International Corporation with supporting companies in Pakistan, UAE and UK.

According to its web site – which has been closed since – it offered technical gear to terrorists, governments and police forces worldwide, together with gear for drug detection.

Other companies beneath Sarwani Umbrella had a textile firm registered in numerous nations, an Italian restaurant in Lahore that was a franchise of a well-known Nightsbridge model, and an organization named Tipmur, situated close to Windsar within the west of London, specialised in “Polo and Equestian Services”.

These companies not solely spent them the price of a luxurious way of life, but in addition achieved them to essentially the most particular circles of the UK. He was listed as a global ambassador to the Ham Polo Club for at the very least three years from 2009 to 2011. He and his spouse Shahina have been additionally interacting with Prince William, and hugging Prince Harry on the membership in 2009.

The Ham Polo Club informed the BBC that Hafze was by no means a member of the membership, that the membership now not has “ambassador”, and that the present board has no connection “. It states that the incident in which Hafiz and his wife were photographed to meet the princes, “was run by the third social gathering”.

According to their listing on the company house and equivalent global registries, separate global weapons of Sarwani were dissolved in different stages in 2010.

A former Sarwani employee located in the United Arab Emirates told the BBC that he suspected that when he worked for business, “one thing was going incorrect”, because even large projects were “paid in money”. Employees – who has asked not to identify, feared reprimand – he finally left the business because he felt uncomfortable with it.

“Was not there [bank] Transactions, no information, no existence, “he told the BBC.

Hafaz also writes letters to the officials in the UAE and the UK from time to time, who informs the rival cartel, under the guise of being a member of the public.

The BBCs have seen them, as well as the letters received by the letters received in response to the British Embassy in Dubai and UK house office and appreciated him for coming in contact with him.

The home office told the BBC that it does not comment on personal correspondence.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Government of Dubai were contacted by the BBC to comment, but they did not respond.

Hafiz's family members shared these letters with the BBC in 2018, while he was entangled in a long legal battle against the extradition of America.

He also presented him in courts in the UK and later, the European Court of Human Rights (Echr) presented him as evidence of the fact that he needed an informer and necessary security. All the courts disagreeed and ruled that it was a trick by Hafze to get rid of the contestants market.

HAFEEZ, Echr said, “There was somebody who had dropped at the eye of the authorities, who knew the legal conduct of others as actual or potential rivals for his legal enterprise”.

When Hafze was writing these letters, there was a meeting in 2014, despite not having not being with him – would lead to his collapse.

Two close associates of Hafze met a potential buyer from Colombia in a flat in Mombasa, Kenya. To show that he burnt a small amount of heroin to show that it was pure, and said they could supply it with any amount of “100%… white crystal”.

The supplier of this high -quality heroin, he told the buyer, was a person from Pakistan known as “Sultan” – ie Hafiz.

What will they soon learn that Columbia's “purchaser” was actually undercover for America's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The entire meeting was part of a detailed sting operation, and was shot secretly – the footage that is obtained by the BBC.

The US court documents suggest that the deal was coordinated by Batash and Ibrahim Akash, two brothers who led a violent cartel in Kenya. His father himself was a fearing Kingpin, who was killed in 2000 in the Red Light District of Amsterdam.

The deal also included Vijayagiri “Vicky” Goswami, an Indian citizen who managed the operation of the sky.

In October 2014, Akash was still unaware of who the buyers were really, 99 kg of heroin and 2 kg Crystal Meth were transported to fake Colombian smugglers. Akash promised to provide hundreds of kilograms of each drug.

A month later, Akash brothers and Goswami were arrested in Mombasa. He was released on bail shortly after, and spent more than two years fighting extradition in the US.

In the background, American laws were working with counterparts in the UK, who used to connect their case together against Hafze, partially used evidence collected from equipment that they seized when they arrested Goswami and Akash brothers. On him, he found many references to Hafze as a major supplier, and was able to find enough evidence to identify him as “Sultan”.

Facing allegations in the US, one of Goswami, Goswami did not stop his illegal enterprise from continuing. In 2015, during bail in Kenya, he made a plan with Hafze, which is to carry several tons of drug, called a chemical factory from a chemical factory to Mozambic in Solapur, India.

Iffedrin, a powerful drug which is a limited amount of legal, is used to create fainted. Two people – Goswami and Hafze – planned to set up a Meth Factory at the Show, Maputo, US Court Documents, the capital of Mozambique. But his plan was released in 2016, when the police raided the Solapur plant and seized 18 tonnes of Ephedrine.

Akash Brothers and Goswami finally boarded a flight to the US to face the trial in January 2017.

Hafiz was arrested eight months later in London, in his flat in St. John's wooden neighborhood. He was detained at the High Security Belmarsha Jail in South-East London, and was from there that he spent six years in extradition in the US.

There was a major development in the US in 2019. Goswami convicted, and told a New York court that he had agreed to cooperate with the prosecutors. Akash brothers also convicted it.

Bakash Akash was sentenced to 25 years in jail. His brother Ibrahim was sentenced to 23 years.

Goswami, who has not yet been punished, must have testified against Hafiz in the US, the case was lost.

From Belmarsh, Hafze was running out of options.

He tried to prevent extradition in the US – but failed to convince magistrates, the High Court in London and the ECHR he had, was actually a informer for officers who were the result “consequently” there was a risk of sick treatment from his fellow prisoners “.

He additionally claimed that the circumstances in an American jail could be “inhuman and derogatory” for him as a result of his well being standing, together with sort 2 diabetes and bronchial asthma.

He misplaced all these arguments in each part and was extradited in May 2023.

His case didn’t go into the trial. In November final 12 months, Hafaz blamed two circumstances of heroin, Menthafetamine and Hashish for building and distributing them and conspiring to import them to the US.

Pre-saints, prosecutors described the “highly lucky circumstances” of Hafaz's life, “throw their decisions for the plan hard relief … and to benefit from the distribution of dangerous materials that destroy life and entire communities”.

“Unlike many smugglers, whose drug activities arise, at least, with frustration, poverty and lack of educational opportunities,” he stated, “the defendant lives a life with privilege and choice.”