OFAC designates Indian drug smuggler

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) says it has identified an Indian national, Jasmeet Hakimzada, ‘as a Significant Foreign Narcotics Trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act),’ while also designating ‘two Indian nationals and four entities registered in India or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that form part of the narcotics trafficking organization run by Jasmeet Hakimzada.’

Sigal Mandelker, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said: ‘Jasmeet Hakimzada’s global drug trafficking and money laundering network has been involved in smuggling heroin and synthetic opioids around the world. This action is a result of years of effort with our U.S. and foreign partners to disrupt the activities of this significant narcotics trafficking organization. We are leveraging extensive international partnerships to deploy a multilayered, coordinated approach to secure our borders and deny narcotics traffickers access to the United States.’

OFAC says that Hakimzada, who is resident in the United Arab Emirates, ‘runs a global drug-trafficking network that smuggles heroin, cocaine, ephedrine, ketamine, and synthetic opioids into the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom,’ and that since at least 2008 ‘has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars of illicit proceeds using his UAE-based company Maiwand General Trading Company LLC through financial institutions in the United States, Brazil, India, Panama, the UAE, and the UK.’

See:
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20190220.aspx