Afghanistan Money Probe Hits Close to the President (The net is tightening on Karzai)

[Turborama]

Source: WSJ

KABUL, Afghanistan—When U.S.-trained agents from an anticorruption task force raided the headquarters of the nation's largest "hawala" money-transfer business, they caught many people by surprise: the company's politically connected executives, the nation's top law-enforcement officer, even Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Tens of thousands of pages of documents were carted out of the New Ansari Exchange on Jan. 14. Armed with those records, investigators have been digging into the movement of billions of dollars in and out of Afghanistan.

U.S. and Afghan officials say they have found evidence that New Ansari was helping to launder profits from the illicit opium trade and moving money earned by the Taliban through extortion and drug trafficking. The officials also say they have found links between the money transfers and some of the most powerful political and business figures in the country, including relatives of Mr. Karzai.

The New Ansari probe is now threatening to disrupt relations between the Afghan president and his U.S. allies. Last week, Mr. Karzai took more direct control of the task force that staged the raid, the Sensitive Investigative Unit, and another U.S.-advised anticorruption group, the Major Crimes Task Force. He ordered a handpicked commission to review scores of past and current anticorruption inquests.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703748904575411180243395258.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories

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The net is tightening on Karzai, at last. Very interesting article well worth reading in full.

Edited to add this graphic that gives an example of the effect Obama's focus on Afghanistan is having...

[lob1]

1. What are we doing? Our guys are dying to protect

a thieving drug cartel.

[eridani]

2. Karzai would do well to read up on Ngo Dinh Diem n/t