Posted on: December 15, 2024 03:34 PM

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OFAC sanctioned Afghan man sentenced to 30 years in prison for Narco terrorism and witness tampering

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Haji Abdul Satar Abdul Manaf was in the business of peddling poison.  He leveraged the help of terrorists—the Taliban—to advance his drug business and to expand his drug trafficking operation to the United States.  And he did not hesitate to order the kidnapping of a critical witness at gunpoint in an effort to silence him.  Thankfully, our law enforcement allies, in partnership with the career national security prosecutors of this Office, put an end to his years of narco-terrorism.”

In June 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned MANAF pursuant to the U.S.’s terrorism sanctions authority, Executive Order No. 13224, for storing or moving money for the Taliban.  In announcing the sanctions against MANAF, the Treasury Department stated that MANAF “donated thousands of dollars to the Taliban to support Taliban activities in Afghanistan and has distributed funds to the Taliban” and provided money “to aid the Taliban’s fight against Coalition Forces.”   

Following his arrest overseas and subsequent extradition, and while incarcerated in New York pending trial in this case, MANAF directed members of his family in Afghanistan to kidnap and threaten a DEA source—a witness to his crimes—in an effort to silence him.  Specifically, in a series of recorded prison calls in February and March 2019, MANAF directed his brothers to bring the source to MANAF’s family home, to “not let him go even for a minute,” to take the source’s phone, and to hand the source over to a “security chief” who would make the source “confess like a parrot” and “tell the whole story in two minutes.”  MANAF’s brothers did just as he directed—they kidnapped that DEA source at gunpoint in Afghanistan and threatened to kill him.

From DOJ