Muhammed Hafeez: How a polo-loving businessman used to be a secret world drug lord

On the skin, Muhammed Asif Hafeez used to be an upstanding person.

A world businessman and ambassador of a prestigious London polo membership, he rubbed shoulders with the British elite, together with participants of the Royal Family.

He additionally often handed on detailed data to the government in the United Kingdom and Middle East that, in some circumstances, resulted in the interception of large shipments of gear. He used to be motivated, he stated, just by what he noticed as his “moral obligation to curb and highlight criminal activities”.

At least, that’s what he would have had other people assume.

In truth, Hafeez used to be himself what US officers described as “one of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers”.

From his place of abode in the United Kingdom, he used to be the puppet-master of a limiteless medication empire, supplying many tonnes of heroin, methamphetamine and cannabis from bases in Pakistan and India that have been allotted internationally. The gangs he knowledgeable on have been his opponents – and his motivation used to be to rid the marketplace of his competition.

His standing within the underworld earned him the moniker “the Sultan”.

But this legal energy and status would no longer ultimate without end. After a fancy joint operation between the British and American government, Hafeez, 66, used to be extradited from the United Kingdom in 2023. He pleaded accountable ultimate November.

On Friday, he used to be sentenced to 16 years in a New York jail for conspiring to import medication – together with sufficient heroin for “millions of doses” – into the USA. Having been in custody since 2017, Hafeez’s sentence will result in 2033.

The BBC has intently adopted Hafeez’s case. We have pieced in combination data from courtroom paperwork, company listings and interviews with individuals who knew him.

We sought after to learn the way he controlled to stick underneath the radar for see you later – and the way he ultimately were given stuck.

Hafeez used to be born in September 1958 to a middle-class circle of relatives in Lahore, Pakistan. One of six kids, his upbringing used to be relaxed. People in Lahore who knew the circle of relatives instructed the BBC that his father had owned a manufacturing facility close to town. Hafeez additionally later instructed a US courtroom that he had skilled as a business pilot.

From the early 1990s to concerning the mid-2010s, he ran an outwardly respectable umbrella corporate known as Sarwani International Corporation, with subsidiary companies in Pakistan, the UAE and the United Kingdom.

According to its web site – which has since been close down – it offered technical apparatus to militaries, governments and police forces all through the arena, together with apparatus for drug detection.

Among the opposite companies underneath the Sarwani umbrella have been a textiles corporate registered in quite a lot of nations, an Italian eating place in Lahore that used to be a franchise of a well known Knightsbridge emblem, and an organization named Tipmoor, primarily based close to Windsor to the west of London, which specialized in “polo and equestrian services”.

These companies no longer best afforded him a luxurious way of life, however secured him get right of entry to to the United Kingdom’s maximum unique circles. He used to be indexed as a global ambassador for the celebrated Ham Polo Club for no less than 3 years, from 2009 to 2011. He and his spouse Shahina have been additionally photographed chatting to Prince William, and embracing Prince Harry, on the membership in 2009.

Ham Polo Club instructed the BBC that Hafeez had by no means been a member of the membership, that the membership not has “ambassadors”, and that the present board “has no ties to him”. It added that the development at which Hafeez and his spouse have been photographed assembly the princes “was run by a third party”.

Sarwani’s other world hands have been dissolved at quite a lot of levels within the 2010s, consistent with their listings on Companies House and an identical world registries.

A former Sarwani worker primarily based within the UAE instructed the BBC he suspected there were “something fishy going on” when he labored for the trade, as a result of even large initiatives have been “only paid for in cash”. The worker – who has requested to not be known, for worry of reprisals – stated he ultimately left the trade as a result of he felt uncomfortable with this.

“There were no [bank] transactions, no records, no existence,” he instructed the BBC.

Hafeez would additionally periodically write letters to the government within the UAE and UK informing on rival cartels, underneath the guise of being a involved member of the general public.

The BBC has noticed those, in addition to letters he won in reaction from the British Embassy in Dubai and the United Kingdom Home Office, thanking him and expressing their appreciation for him going in contact.

The Home Office instructed the BBC it does no longer touch upon person correspondence.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Government of Dubai have been contacted by way of the BBC for remark however didn’t reply.

Members of Hafeez’s circle of relatives shared those letters with the BBC in 2018, whilst he used to be embroiled in a long criminal struggle in opposition to extradition to the USA.

They additionally submitted them to courts in the United Kingdom and, later, to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as proof that he were an informant and wanted coverage. All the courts disagreed and dominated that this used to be a ploy by way of Hafeez to rid the marketplace of competition.

Hafeez, the ECHR stated, used to be “someone who had brought to the attention of the authorities the criminal conduct of others who he knew to be actual or potential rivals to his substantial criminal enterprise”.

While Hafeez used to be writing those letters, a gathering happened in 2014 that – regardless of him no longer being there – would result in his downfall.

Two of Hafeez’s shut mates met a possible purchaser from Colombia in a flat in Mombasa, Kenya. They burned a small quantity of heroin as a way to exhibit how natural it used to be, and stated they may provide him with any amount of “100%… white crystal”.

The provider of this high quality heroin, they’d instructed the consumer, used to be a person from Pakistan referred to as “the Sultan” – this is, Hafeez.

What they might quickly be informed used to be that the “buyer” from Colombia used to be in fact running undercover for the USA’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The complete assembly used to be a part of an elaborate sting operation, and were covertly filmed – photos that has been bought by way of the BBC.

US courtroom paperwork expose the deal used to be co-ordinated by way of Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha, two brothers who led a violent cartel in Kenya. Their father used to be himself a feared kingpin who were killed in Amsterdam’s Red Light District in 2000.

The deal additionally concerned Vijaygiri “Vicky” Goswami, an Indian nationwide who controlled the Akashas’ operations.

In October 2014, with the Akashas, Goswami and Hafeez nonetheless blind to who the consumers actually have been, 99kg of heroin and 2kg of crystal meth have been dropped at the pretend Colombian traffickers. The Akashas promised to offer loads of kilograms extra of every drug.

A month later, the Akasha brothers and Goswami have been arrested in Mombasa. They have been launched on bail in a while afterwards, and spent over two years combating extradition to the USA.

In the background, American legislation enforcers have been running with opposite numbers in the United Kingdom to piece in combination their case in opposition to Hafeez, in part the usage of proof accrued from gadgets they’d seized once they arrested Goswami and the Akasha brothers. On the ones, they’d discovered a couple of references to Hafeez as a significant provider, and have been ready to seek out sufficient proof to spot him as “the Sultan”.

Facing fees in the USA did not prevent some of the males, Goswami, from proceeding his unlawful endeavor. In 2015, whilst on bail in Kenya, he hatched a plan with Hafeez to move a number of tonnes of a drug known as ephedrine from a chemical manufacturing facility in Solapur, India, to Mozambique.

Ephedrine, a formidable medicine this is criminal in restricted amounts, is used to make methamphetamine. The two males – Goswami and Hafeez – deliberate to arrange a meth manufacturing facility in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, US courtroom paperwork display. But their scheme used to be deserted in 2016, when police raided the Solapur plant and seized 18 tonnes of ephedrine.

The Akasha brothers and Goswami in spite of everything boarded a flight to the USA to stand trial in January 2017.

Hafeez used to be arrested 8 months later in London, at his flat within the prosperous St John’s Wood neighbourhood. He used to be detained at top safety Belmarsh Prison in south-east London, and it used to be from there that he spent six years combating extradition to the USA.

A large construction took place in 2019 in the USA. Goswami pleaded accountable, and instructed a New York courtroom he had agreed to co-operate with prosecutors. The Akasha brothers additionally pleaded accountable.

Baktash Akasha used to be sentenced to 25 years in jail. His brother Ibrahim used to be sentenced to 23 years.

Goswami, who’s but to be sentenced, would have testified in opposition to Hafeez in the USA had the case long gone to trial.

From Belmarsh, Hafeez used to be operating out of choices.

He attempted to forestall extradition to the USA – however didn’t persuade magistrates, the High Court in London and the ECHR that he had, actually, been an informant to the government who used to be “at risk of ill-treatment from his fellow prisoners” in consequence.

He additionally claimed the prerequisites in a US jail could be “inhuman and degrading” for him on account of his well being prerequisites, together with kind 2 diabetes and bronchial asthma.

He misplaced all of those arguments at each degree and used to be extradited in May 2023.

His case didn’t cross to trial. In November ultimate 12 months, Hafeez pleaded accountable to 2 counts of conspiring to fabricate and distribute heroin, methamphetamine and cannabis and to import them into the USA.

Pre-sentencing, prosecutors described the “extremely fortunate circumstances” of Hafeez’s existence, which “throw into harsh relief his decision to scheme… and to profit from the distribution of dangerous substances that destroy lives and whole communities”.

“Unlike many traffickers whose drug activities are borne, at least in part, from desperation, poverty, and a lack of educational opportunities,” they stated, “the defendant has lived a life replete with privilege and choice.”