TANZANIAN IN GLOBAL DRUG SYNDICATE

The Vice President, Dr Mohamed Gharib Bilal (third left), Kenyan Vice President William Ruto and other leaders, including minister for East African cooperation, Mr Samuel Sitta (left), display papers of the MoU for strengthening infrastructure of the East African Community in Nairobi yesterday. PHOTO | VPO 

Dar es Salaam. A Tanzanian living in the US faces federal felony charges for allegedly being part of an international conspiracy to smuggle heroin from Tanzania in a most unconventional means.

US authorities named Mr Allen Jordan Baisi, 34, of being part of a syndicate span around the globe to smuggle drugs into US using freight parcels delivered to ‘customers’ from door to door. Only that these ‘customers’ turned out to be accomplices in the illicit trade.

The alleged conspiracy included heroin concealed inside the soles of sandals in mail parcels addressed to Muskegon County homes, according to court documents, Michigan-based MLive.com reported last week.

Mr Baisi, of Mount Prospect, Ill, was indicted in October on one count of conspiracy to distribute at least 100 grams of heroin and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. A grand jury in the US District Court’s Western District of Michigan handed down the indictment in Grand Rapids, where his case was transferred after his arrest in Illinois.

The accused is a Tanzanian according to court documents. He was arrested in a traffic stop on September 22 after he allegedly booked a seat on a flight from Chicago to Tanzania.

The case is scheduled for a final pretrial conference on December 11 and a trial starting January 6, 2015, in Grand Rapids, the publication reported.

According to the grand jury’s “true bill” filed on October 8, Mr Baisi was charged with conspiring with other people “both known and unknown.”

from around May 2013 through July 30, 2014, to distribute more than 100 grams of a mixture containing heroin.

He’s also charged with conspiring with other people to launder money involved in the alleged heroin conspiracy.

The government alleges that heroin was concealed within clothing items mailed to Muskegon County addresses and another person, referred to as “Individual A” in the indictment, would receive the heroin and distribute it in the area. Individual A would then collect payment from heroin customers and cause cash to be mailed to Mr Baisi in Illinois.

Baisi in 2013 and 2014 accepted the cash and then mailed it on to Dar es Salaam, in payment for the heroin. “The conspiracy opted to stagger the mailings, separating the passage of currency through multiple locations, in order to conceal the action from law enforcement,” the indictment alleged.

According to a Homeland Security Investigations agent’s Oct 7 application for a search warrant on two cell phones seized from Baisi after his arrest, Baisi was part of “an international heroin smuggling and money laundering organization.”

According to the report, members of that organisation live in various parts of the world, including Tanzania, India, northern Illinois and western Michigan. “They conspired together to obtain large quantities of heroin from various sources internationally, state agent said.”

CREDIT SOURCE: THE CITIZEN