Akashas in US jail awaiting drug trial as lawyers protest

A video seen by the Sunday Nation shows the moment the Akasha brothers fell into the trap of United States undercover agents who claimed that they could supply them with drugs.

Taken using a hidden camera in an apartment, the video shows Ibrahim Akasha purportedly showing the agent the drugs in a small plastic bag and with the assistance of another unidentified man proving that it is authentic.

Standing at a dining table, and with the agent recording the event standing close by, Ibrahim pours the white powder onto a piece of aluminium foil and then holds a cigarette lighter under it.

As the small yellow flame from the lighter heats up the foil, white smoke begins to rise from the powder, proof that the powder is heroin.

After that is established and the agent is convinced, they then begin to discuss how two kilos of the drug that are apparently in another location an hour away can be brought back.

After discussions between Ibrahim and another man in the singsong Kiswahili spoken at the coast, they are ready for business.

The video is part of the evidence to be presented by the Drug Enforcement Agency in the case against Gulam Hussein — a Pakistani, Vijaygiri Goswami — an Indian, Baktash Akasha Abdalla and his younger brother Ibrahim Akasha.

As they went about showing they could supply the drugs in large quantities, the Akasha brothers and their associates were under the impression that the men they were dealing with were members of a drug cartel based in Colombia that would arrange for the drugs to be taken to the US.

They are currently sitting in jail in New York and will be charged in the Southern District Magistrate’s Court in Manhattan, New York on Tuesday evening and if convicted they will spend more than 20 years in prison.

THE PLAN
Their lawyers, Prof George Wakackoyah and Mr Cliff Ombeta, have been fighting among themselves but have been united in saying the extradition of the suspects to the US was illegal as their proceedings here had not been concluded.

In the video taken in September 2014, the apartment could pass for any other ordinary house in a quiet part of a city.

There is a flat screen wall-mounted TV, an ironing board with the iron sitting on top, a dinner table with a candlestick and what appears to be a holy book on a shelf.

It is dated September 22 and was taken in the morning.

After alleged proof that the heroin is real, the agent, speaking in French and Arabic on his phone, gets ready for the real business.

Agent: My guy is gonna bring the money but I think you should go bring the two, we can pay you together. I think it’s better that way.

Ibrahim: Sorry to tell you that because I prefer to take one. If I go with money for one, I can take two. Do you understand?

Agent: No I don’t. This way we don’t waste too much time, while my guy is coming, you go get it. We’re here. We’ll just give you the 20,000. Please. Make things easy, you know, for everybody.

Ibrahim: Me I can make but it’s the other guys who are the problem.

Agent interrupts: No. Just tell them there’s nothing to worry about, man. You know this guy is worth millions. He’s not worth 20,000.

Second man: I know, I know (Laughter)

He then talks to the other man in the room in Kiswahili, saying: "Kama haya basi anasema hivo (if that is what he says...)," and the response he gets is, “Mpigie simu (call him)."

The second man appears to be working with the French speaker and appears to be a go-between or a local who can converse in Swahili.

It apparently becomes difficult to get the two kilos before paying for one and the French-speaking agent eventually offers to go with the man who brought the drugs to the original supplier.

FUTURE BUSINESS
But there is still a hitch and it seems they cannot go together as the man who brought the drugs says: “Let me talk to him first because there is a chain of two or three people. Do you understand? So he cannot go with the three or four. Let me go and come back.”

After a brief conversation, it is then agreed the man would be accompanied by Ibrahim to go collect the drugs.

Still, it seems, the man would be more comfortable going to the supplier with $5,000 to build trust.

After the man has gone to get the drugs, Ibrahim uses the opportunity to ask about the future prospects of this big business.

“If this thing works out Insha’Allah, how much would you want? I can give it to you, like two million,” he says.

“Insha’Allah,” replies the French speaker, who adds, “But tell them it’s the same merchandise that you tested.”

“It’s the same thing,” he replies, “It’s just that it’s coming from different people. Those people are scared but if it was me alone they’d trust me. You understand?”

In the second video dated November 9, most of which appears to be taken in a bedroom in an apartment, the agents and one of the brothers converse in Arabic as they count a large amount of money.

Most of the clip was recorded in the dark and all that can be heard is the sound of notes being counted by hand and then put in crackling paper bags.

At one point, a man mutters, “The Old Man is here.”

The Old Man was the nickname given to Hussein, the Pakistani.

The five would later be arrested in Mombasa later that day as they had proven their “worth” by supplying 100 kilos of heroin and two kilos of methamphetamines.