Report: Ex-Afghan Officials Smuggled Nearly $1 Billion out Before Taliban TakeoverFrances Martel 21 Dec 2022
A bombshell report citing customs reports and other documents published by Business Insider on Tuesday accused the collapsed government of Afghanistan of allowing nearly $1 billion in cash, gold, jewelry, and other valuables to be smuggled out of the country shortly before the Taliban takeover.
The report notes that customs forms and alleged Afghan government documents indicate the smuggling appeared to be happening under former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani officials and Afghan lawmakers. The items allegedly smuggled out of the country crossed the Uzbek border – where Uzbek customs documents appear to show their arrival – and largely ended up, the report claims, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On August 15, 2021, when the Taliban entered Kabul, Ghani fled via helicopter to the UAE, where he is believed to remain today.
Business Insider’s report adds to an ever-mounting body of evidence of widespread corruption in the previous, U.S.-backed Afghan government. It also indicates that Ghani may have benefitted from a corruption operation featuring many other high-profile politicians in the country in the days before his government collapsed – rather than merely smuggling money into the helicopter he used to flee, as had been previously reported.
Ghani ceased being the president of the country after fleeing. The return of the Taliban, a jihadist terrorist organization, to power in Afghanistan was preceded by leftist American President Joe Biden breaking an agreement with the group that would have seen U.S. troops leave the country on May 1, 2021. Biden extended the 20-year-old Afghan War into September 2021, but ultimately was forced to remove all troops a month earlier. The Taliban responded to pushing back the May deadline with a campaign of national conquest that ended at the city limits of Kabul. Upon the arrival of Taliban leadership there, Ghani abruptly fled.
Ghani still insisted that he is the legitimate president of Afghanistan as recently as last August, despite wielding no power in the country and living abroad.
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https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2022/12/21/report-ex-afghan-officials-smuggled-nearly-1-billion-out-before-taliban-takeover/
