The three went together to a room in the hotel, where Wasifi produced 23 ounces of brown "Persian" heroin packed in a gray plastic bag from behind one of the pillows on the bed. He offered to sell it for $65,000. When the detective later handed over the money, Wasifi said he was getting 13.2 pounds of heroin within the next 20 days from Afghanistan.
The San Jose Mercury-News is getting mighty close to blowing the CIA-Afghani heroin connection wide open, and Hamid Karzai, childhood friend of this gent is living on borrowed media time. Afghan official plays down arrest in U.S. By Matthew Pennington Associated Press San Jose Mercury News 03/09/2007 03:46:27 AM PST Izzatullah Wasifi, now the Afghanistan government's anti-corruption chief, has a shady past, including a conviction in Nevada in 1987 for trafficking heroin KABUL, Afghanistan - When the deal went down in Las Vegas, the seller was introduced only as "Mr. E." In a room at Caesars Palace hotel, Mr. E exchanged a 1 1/2-pound bag of heroin for $65,000 - unaware that the buyer was an undercover detective. The sting landed him in Nevada state prison for nearly four years. Twenty years later and Mr. E, whose real name is Izzatullah Wasifi, has a new job. He is the government of Afghanistan's anti-corruption chief. Wasifi leads a staff of 84 people charged with rooting out the endemic graft that is fueled in part by the country's position as the world's largest producer of opium poppy, the raw ingredient of heroin. Childhood friend of Karzai President Hamid Karzai's office won't say if he knew about the drug conviction when Wasifi was appointed two months ago as general-director of the General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption and Bribery. Wasifi, a childhood friend of Karzai, is the son of a prominent Afghan nationalist leader. An Associated Press review of criminal records in Nevada and California revealed that the 48-year-old Wasifi was arrested at Caesars Palace on July 15, 1987, for selling 23 ounces of heroin. Prosecutors said the drugs were worth $2 million on the street. Wasifi served three years and eight months in prison before winning parole. In an interview in his modest office at the anti-corruption bureau in Kabul, Wasifi confirmed to AP that he had been imprisoned in Nevada for a drug offense, although his account of events differed from the court records of his case. He said he was arrested on the third day of his honeymoon. His then-wife, named in court records as Fereshteh Behbahani, bought cocaine for her own use in a bar of a Las Vegas hotel and brought it to their room where they were arrested, he said. "My wife made an error," said Wasifi, looking dapper in a navy suit and waistcoat. Honeymoon in Las Vegas "A lot of people go to Las Vegas for fun and for snuff," he continued, pointing to his nostril and sniffing. "This thing happened." In Los Angeles, Wasifi's ex-wife Behbahani, 50, who was sentenced to three years' probation for conspiring to traffic drugs with Wasifi, declined to be interviewed by an AP reporter. "My mother says they are all political lies. This incident happened a long time ago, and she has moved on. We are a very private family," her son Tony said. Wasifi is the son of Azizullah Wasifi, a former agriculture minister and aide to former Afghan King Muhammad Zahir Shah. Wasifi said he grew up in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, with Karzai and has known the 49-year-old president since childhood. Both men studied in India at the same time - Wasifi earning a bachelor's degree at Punjab Agricultural University. Wasifi's family went into exile after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, first in Pakistan, then in the United States. According to Wasifi, Karzai's elder brother, Qayyum, now an Afghan lawmaker, gave Wasifi his first job after he moved to the United States in 1983, working as a waiter at a hotel restaurant he ran in Maryland. Wasifi later ran a restaurant himself in Los Angeles. He and his brother Bashir had a franchise of Ameci Pizza & Pasta between 1994 and 1999, company President Nick Andrisano confirmed. Returned in 2001 Wasifi remained politically active in the expatriate community during exile, as his father sought to bring different Afghan factions together under the leadership of the aging king. He returned to Afghanistan in 2001 after the U.S.-led ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime. Wasifi is adamant his drug conviction in the United States should not affect his ability to serve in government in Afghanistan, and compares his situation to President Bush, who was once arrested in 1976 for drunken driving. "Everybody through their lifetime has done something, fallen somewhere or done some mistake," said Wasifi, who wears a neat beard and mustache and gold-rimmed reading spectacles. "That's the only thing I can say about it." He pointed to his record as governor of western Farah province, where opium production dropped 25 percent during his 14-month tenure before he took his current position. Counter-narcotics officials said the drop was mostly due to drought, but also due to poppy eradication campaigns led by Wasifi. Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium. The drop in Farah bucked an alarming nationwide trend that saw poppy cultivation rise 59 percent from 2005 to 2006 to an all-time high - producing enough for about 670 tons of heroin. U.N. officials warn that this year could see a record crop. Officials who worked with Wasifi in Farah mostly commended his work. They said he promoted development, persuaded Iran to open a border crossing to increase trade and also got on well with U.S. forces who ran a provincial reconstruction base in the Afghan province. "Roads were built during his time. He built clinics and schools. Most of the time he consulted with Farah elders to hear what they had to say. He was from Kandahar, but he would not discriminate," said Shah Mohammad Noor, the head of official archives in Farah. In his new job, Wasifi is charged with tackling bribery and administrative corruption rather than pursuing counter-narcotics cases. He is vowing to tackle graft "from the top down" and wants to place anti-graft investigators to monitor every ministry. But allegations of corruption and immorality have swirled around Wasifi, too. Such accusations are common in Afghan officialdom, where graft is endemic and many police and administrators profit from the $3 billion narcotics trade. He categorically denies any involvement. Anti-narcotics officials in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of anonymity, say there is no evidence to prove that Wasifi is still involved in Afghanistan's booming heroin trade. But Wasifi's record as a convicted felon stands out in a country just starting to re-establish its justice system. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department report that was submitted as evidence at his trial describes how an undercover police detective, posing as a drug dealer, met Wasifi in a bar of Caesars Palace on the evening of July 15, 1987 - Wasifi's 29th birthday. A confidential police informant with Wasifi introduced him as "Mr. E." Nevada arrest The three went together to a room in the hotel, where Wasifi produced 23 ounces of brown "Persian" heroin packed in a gray plastic bag from behind one of the pillows on the bed. He offered to sell it for $65,000. When the detective later handed over the money, Wasifi said he was getting 13.2 pounds of heroin within the next 20 days from Afghanistan. As Wasifi left after the transaction, he was arrested. His wife, Behbahani, who appeared to be acting as a lookout in the hallway, was also nabbed, the police report said. Court records show Wasifi pleaded guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance and was sentenced to 10 years in prison Aug. 10, 1988. That was reduced to six years after he got a new lawyer and appealed, on Nov. 4, 1991, saying he was duped by ineffective counsel into pleading to a no-parole sentence. He was freed by the end of 1991 - in line with state policies, which allow for release after about two-thirds of time served. He was also fined $50,000. The couple were rearrested on a charge of unlawful flight in March 1988 at their Los Angeles home and then tried for drug trafficking. Associated Press Writers Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Andrew Glazer in Los Angeles and Brendan Riley in Carson City, Nev., as well as Fisnik Abrashi and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.
