Prosecutors assigned to the Office’s National Security and International Narcotics Unit work closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and other law enforcement partners to investigate and thwart domestic and international terrorism threats, respond to terrorist attacks, and prosecute those responsible, including in the following significant terrorism cases:

• In May 2026, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi was indicted in connection with terrorism-related offenses. As alleged, Al-Saadi was a longtime operative of Kata’ib Hizballah and the IRGC who worked closely with senior leaders of both terrorist organizations and, following U.S. airstrikes killing certain of those terrorist leaders, directed others to exact retribution by killing U.S. citizens and U.S. political and military leaders.  In addition, as alleged, AL-Saadi has helped plan and direct approximately 18 attacks and attempted attacks across Europe on behalf of those terrorist organizations, and in or about March and April 2026, attempted to carry out attacks in the United States, including against a synagogue in New York, New York.  Al-Saadi was arrested overseas and successfully transferred to the United States for prosecution. He remains in custody pending trial.
• Pakistani National Pleads Guilty To Attempting To Commit ISIS-Inspired Attack At Jewish Center In New York: In April 2026, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a/k/a “Shahzeb Jadoon,” pled guilty to attempting to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries for attempting to enter the United States and carry out a mass shooting with automatic weapons at a prominent Jewish center in Brooklyn. Khan planned the attack in support of ISIS and timed it to coincide with the anniversary of the October 7 attacks. Khan is scheduled to be sentenced in August 2026.
• Emir Balat And Ibrahim Kayumi Indicted For March 7, 2026, ISIS-Inspired Attack Outside Gracie Mansion: In April 2026, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi were indicted in connection with their alleged terrorist attack in Manhattan on March 7, 2026. As alleged, Balat and Kayumi drove from Pennsylvania to Manhattan with improvised explosive devices, targeted protesters and counter-protesters outside Gracie Mansion, and attempted to detonate the devices in the name of ISIS. After their arrests, law enforcement recovered a notebook containing attack plans, bomb-making instructions, and references to TATP explosive material, along with other evidence of extensive planning.
• Former Taliban Commander Haji Najibullah Pleads Guilty To Hostage Taking And Providing Material Support For Acts Of Terrorism Resulting In Death: In April 2025, Haji Najibullah pled guilty to hostage taking and providing material support for acts of terrorism resulting in death in connection with the 2008 and 2009 hostage taking of an American journalist and two Afghan nationals in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Najibullah’s leadership of Taliban fighters who carried out attacks on U.S. troops and their allies. Najibullah was a former Taliban commander who led more than a thousand fighters and reported directly to senior Taliban leadership. Najibullah is scheduled to be sentenced in June 2026.
• Cholo Abdi Abdullah Sentenced To Life In Prison For Conspiring To Commit 9/11-Style Terrorist Attack On Behalf Of al-Shabaab: In December 2025, Cholo Abdi Abdullah was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted at trial of conspiring to provide material support to al-Shabaab, conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, commit aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, and commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries. Abdullah trained at a flight school in the Philippines and pursued his commercial pilot license while planning to hijack a commercial aircraft and crash it into a building in the United States.
• Prosecution of Man Who Carried Out Machete Attack in Times Square on New Year’s Eve:  On December 31, 2022, Trevor Thomas Bickford traveled to Times Square for the purpose of killing U.S. officials in the name of radical Islamic jihad and used a machete-style knife to attack three NYPD officers working in coordination with the FBI to protect the New Year’s Eve celebration.  In January 2023, Bickford was charged with multiple counts of attempting to kill officers and employees of the U.S. Government and persons assisting them.  In January 2024, Bickford pled guilty to all counts, and he was sentenced to 27 years in prison in May 2024.
• Kidnappers of American Journalist in Somalia Convicted at Trial:  For 977 days, Michael Scott Moore, an American journalist, was held hostage in Somalia by pirates.  In February 2023, two key players in Moore's years-long captivity, Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed and Abdi Yusuf Hassan, were convicted after trial.  Tahlil, a Somali Army officer, left his post to take command of the pirates holding Moore captive and obtained the machine guns and grenade launchers used to threaten and hold Moore.  Hassan, the Minister of Interior and Security for the province in Somalia where Moore was held hostage, abused his government position and led the pirates' efforts to extort a massive ransom from Moore's mother.  Both defendants were sentenced to 30 years in prison in November 2024.
• Perpetrator of October 31, 2017, Terrorist Attack in Tribeca Convicted at Trial and Sentenced to Multiple Life Sentences:  In January 2023, Sayfullo Saipov was convicted at trial of all counts related to his terrorist attack in lower Manhattan on Halloween 2017.  That day, Saipov rented a 6,000-pound truck and drove it from New Jersey to lower Manhattan, where he targeted a bike path and struck more than 20 people, killing eight.  The attack was the deadliest in New York City since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.  Saipov committed his attack to join ISIS, a brutal terrorist organization he had spent years learning about and supporting.  After his attack, Saipov boasted that he was proud of what he had done, asked to hang an ISIS flag in his hospital room, and expressed regret only that he had been unable to murder more innocent victims.  After the jury in Saipov’s capital trial was unable to reach a unanimous verdict as to whether to impose the death penalty, Saipov was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences, two concurrent life sentences, and 260 consecutive years in prison.
• U.S. Army Soldier Convicted of Attempting to Murder Fellow Service Members in Deadly Ambush:  In June 2022, former U.S. Army soldier Ethan Melzer pled guilty to terrorism and espionage crimes for attempting to orchestrate a deadly ambush of his fellow soldiers while stationed overseas.  Melzer was a member of the extremist organization Order of the Nine Angles or O9A, an occult-based, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist group, and Melzer joined the U.S. Army to infiltrate its ranks and further his goals as an O9A adherent.  While serving in the Army, Melzer planned an attack on his unit in the days leading up to a deployment to Turkey and sent sensitive details about the unit – including information about its location, movements, and security – to other O9A members for the purpose of executing the ambush.  The plot was foiled, and Melzer was arrested, shortly before his unit deployed to the site of the planned ambush.  In March 2023, Melzer was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his traitorous crimes.       

The Office is on the front lines of combatting the wide-ranging threats to national security posed by hostile foreign states and other adversaries, including through the investigation and prosecution of entities and individuals that engage in sanctions evasion, export control violations, malign foreign influence campaigns, and transnational repression and violence against dissidents. The Office’s National Security and International Narcotics Unit and the Office’s Illicit Finance & Money Laundering Unit lead the Office’s work in this area. 

• In July 2026, Reda Maze Rida Sabassi was indicted with terrorism, sanctions-evasion, wire fraud, money laundering, and false statement offenses in connection with his efforts to divert funds raised through purported charitable campaigns to Hamas and for his personal use. Since at least in or about 2022, Sabassi has allegedly used his social media accounts, crowdfunding websites, and his putative charity called Ikram – The Arab Charity Foundation Inc. to solicit donations from around the world, including from individuals in the United States and New York. As alleged, in his online fundraising campaigns, Sabassi claimed to be raising funds to provide humanitarian aid to people in Gaza; however, Sabassi was actually raising funds for Hamas. Between in or about December 2023 and in or about February 2024, Sabassi raised a total of approximately $600,000 through online fundraising campaigns, from which Sabassi sent approximately $116,000 to a Hamas member and attempted to convert approximately $382,000 of the cash he raised into cryptocurrency to send to Hamas.
• Three Charged With Conspiring To Unlawfully Divert U.S. Artificial Intelligence Technology To China: In March 2026, the Office unsealed charges against Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, Ruei-Tsang “Steven” Chang, and Ting-Wei “Willy” Sun for conspiring to divert high-performance computer servers assembled in the United States and integrating sophisticated U.S. artificial intelligence technology to China in violation of U.S. export control laws. As alleged, the defendants used lies, fabricated documents, staged equipment, and a pass-through company to divert massive quantities of export-controlled servers to Chinese customers.
• Founder Of Tornado Cash Convicted Of Knowingly Transmitting Criminal Proceeds: In August 2025, Roman Storm, a founder of Tornado Cash, was convicted of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. As the proof at trial showed, Storm knowingly operated Tornado Cash as a money transmitting business that transmitted more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds, including hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from the Ronin hack publicly attributed by the FBI to the Lazarus Group, the sanctioned North Korean cybercrime organization.
• Prosecution of Hamas Leadership:  On September 3, 2024, this Office unsealed charges against six senior leaders of Hamas for decades of terrorist activity, including the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023.  The charges include terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions-evasion charges.  The complaint—originally filed under seal on February 1, 2024—details the defendants’ central roles in planning, supporting, and committing the October 7 attacks, involving the murder and kidnapping of countless innocent civilians, including Americans, and the decades-long campaign of terrorism against Israel and its allies perpetrated by Hamas.
• Prosecution of Two RT Employees for Covertly Funding Russian Operation in United States:  In September 2024, the Office unsealed charges against two employees of the Russian State-Controlled Media Outlet, RT, for their involvement in deploying nearly $10 million to publish RT-curated content through a Tennessee-based online content creation company.  As alleged in the Indictment, over the course of at least a year, the two defendants, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, directed the U.S. company to publish video on multiple social media channels intended to amplify domestic divisions in the United States.  The defendants are at large, and believed to reside in Russia.
• Prosecution of Leaders of a Billion-Dollar Oil Laundering Network Orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp:  In February 2024, the Office unsealed sanctions-evasion and terrorism charges against the leaders of a billion-dollar oil laundering network orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and, in a related action, seized $108 million used as part of the scheme to fund the IRGC’s Qods Force.  As alleged, the scheme involved companies in Turkey, Lebanon, Russia, Oman, Greece, India, the UAE, Cyprus, China, and elsewhere to conceal the Iranian origin of the oil, and the proceeds of the oil sales were laundered through layered transactions, bulk cash smuggling, and trade-based money laundering using agricultural commodities.  Participants in the scheme caused billions of dollars to be illegally transferred through the U.S. banking system.
• California Man Sentenced For Acting As An Illegal Agent Of The PRC: In September and November 2024, John Chen and Lin Feng were sentenced to 20 months and 16 months in prison, respectively, for acting as unregistered agents of the government of the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) and bribing an Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) agent in connection with a plot to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong — a spiritual practice banned in the PRC.  From at least January 2023 to May 2023, Chen and Feng  worked inside the U.S. at the direction of the PRC Government, including an identified PRC Government official (“PRC Official-1”), to further the PRC Government’s campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners.  As part of the PRC Government’s campaign against the Falun Gong, Chen and Feng engaged in a PRC Government-directed scheme to manipulate the IRS’s Whistleblower Program in an effort to strip the tax-exempt status of an entity run and maintained by Falun Gong practitioners, the Shen Yun Performing Arts Center.  After Chen filed a defective whistleblower complaint with the IRS, Chen and Feng paid $5,000 in cash bribes, and promised to pay substantially more, to a purported IRS agent who was, in fact, an undercover officer (“Agent-1”) in exchange for Agent-1’s assistance in advancing the complaint.
• Russian International Money Launderer Sentenced: In July 2024, Russian international money launderer Maxim Marchenco was sentenced to three years in prison for illicitly procuring large quantities of U.S.-manufactured duale-use, military grade microelectronics for Russian entities.
• Thwarting a Plot Directed by an Indian Government Employee to Assassinate a U.S. Citizen and Leader of a Sikh Separatist Movement in New York City:  In November 2023, the Office filed murder-for-hire charges against Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, for participating in a foiled plot to assassinate a U.S. citizen in New York City.  As alleged in the Superseding Indictment, an Indian government employee, working with Gupta and others in India and elsewhere, directed a plot to assassinate on U.S. soil an attorney and political activist who is a U.S. citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City.  The intended victim is a vocal critic of the Indian government and leads a U.S.-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a state in northern India that is home to a large population of Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India.  Czech authorities arrested and detained Gupta in the Czech Republic in June 2023, and he was later extradited to the United States, where he remains detained pending trial.  In 2024, charges were also filed against Vikash Yadav, the Indian government employee who directed the plot. Yadav remains at large.
• Former CIA Employee Convicted of Espionage for Leaking Classified Material:  In July 2022, Joshua Adam Schulte was convicted of one of the most damaging acts of espionage in American history.  Schulte, a former CIA programmer who had access to some of the most valuable intelligence-gathering cyber tools in the country, covertly collected these tools and provided them to Wikileaks.  In turn, this information was made available to the public, including our nation’s adversaries, and included some of the most critical intelligence tools used to thwart terrorism and other national security threats.  Schulte was fully aware of the devastating impact his espionage would (and did) have on the nation’s intelligence community.  In addition, in September 2023, Schulte was convicted of multiple counts related to his possession and transportation of child pornography.  On February 2, 2024, Schulte was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
• Thwarting Of Iranian Plots To Attack Dissident: In July 2022, Khalid Mehdiyev was arrested after traveling to the victim’s residence in Brooklyn with an AK-47-style rifle, ammunition, and a ski mask in connection with a murder-for-hire plot targeting Masih Alinejad on behalf of the Government of Iran. Mehdiyev later pled guilty. In March 2025, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov were convicted at trial for their roles in the same plot, and in October 2025, they were each sentenced to 25 years in prison. In November 2024, this Office also charged Farhad Shakeri, an alleged IRGC asset, along with Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, in a separate Iran-directed murder-for-hire plot targeting Alinejad; Rivera was later sentenced to 15 years in prison, and Shakeri remains at large in Iran.
• Russian-German National Arrested for Illegally Exporting to Russia Sensitive U.S.-Sourced Microelectronics with Military Applications in Violation of U.S. Export Controls:  In August 2023, the Office charged Arthur Petrov with export control violations, smuggling, wire fraud, and money laundering offenses based on his participation in a scheme to illegally procure large quantities of U.S-sourced sensitive microelectronics subject to U.S. export controls on behalf of a Russia-based supplier of critical electronics components for manufacturers supplying weaponry and other equipment to the Russian military.  Petrov was arrested in August 2023 in the Republic of Cyprus and extradited to the United States in August 2024, where he remains detained pending trial.
• Indictment of Vladimir Voronchenko and Civil Forfeiture Action Against Victor Vekselberg Properties: In February 2023, the Office charged Vladimir Voronchenko, a citizen of the Russian Federation and legal permanent resident of the United States, with participating in a scheme to make more than $4 million in U.S. dollar payments to maintain four real properties in the United States that were owned by Viktor Vekselberg, a sanctioned Russian oligarch, as well as to attempt to sell two of those properties.  The Indictment also charged Voronchenko with contempt of court in connection with his flight from the United States following receipt of a Grand Jury subpoena requiring his personal appearance and testimony.  Voronchenko remains a fugitive.  The Office also filed a civil forfeiture complaint against six of Vekselberg’s real properties located in New York, New York; Southampton, New York; and Fisher Island, Florida, worth approximately $75 million.  The Complaint alleges that the properties are the proceeds of sanctions violations and were involved in international money laundering in promotion of sanctions violations committed by, among others, Voronchenko.
• Indictment of Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Associates: In September 2022, the Office indicted Russian national Oleg Deripaska, U.S. citizen Olga Shriki, and Russian nationals Natalia Bardakova and Ekaterina Voronina with criminal charges including sanctions evasion and obstruction of justice.  As alleged in the indictment, Deripaska, the owner and controller of Basic Element, a private investment and management company for Deripaska’s various business interests, was subjected to economic sanctions on April 6, 2018.  On that date, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Deripaska as a Specially Designated National, in connection with its finding that the actions of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.  Following his designation, Deripaska conspired with his co-defendants and others to evade and to violate those sanctions in various ways and over the course of several years.
• Conviction of Cryptocurrency Developer for Assisting North Korea in Violation of Sanctions:  In April 2022, U.S. citizen Virgil Griffith, a cryptocurrency expert, was sentenced to more than five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.  In 2018, Griffith began formulating plans to provide services to North Korea by developing and funding a cryptocurrency infrastructure there, including technical advice on using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to evade and avoid U.S. sanctions, and to fund its nuclear weapons program and other illicit activities.  In April 2019, Griffith traveled to North Korea and presented at a blockchain and cryptocurrency conference where he and his co-conspirators instructed attendees on how North Korea could use blockchain and cryptocurrency technology to launder money and evade sanctions.  Griffith’s presentations, which had been approved by North Korean officials, focused on, among other things, how blockchain technology could be used to benefit North Korea in nuclear weapons negotiations with the United States.  After the conference, Griffith pursued plans to facilitate the exchange of cryptocurrency between North Korea and South Korea, attempted to recruit other U.S. citizens to travel to North Korea and provide similar services to North Korea, and attempted to broker introductions for North Korea to other cryptocurrency and blockchain service providers.
• Dual U.S. / Russian National Charged with Illegally Acting as a Russian Agent in the United States:  In March 2022, the Office unsealed charges against Elena Branson, who worked for years to promote Russian policies and ideology in the United States while subverting foreign agent registration laws.  Branson, among other things, received approvals from the highest levels of the Russian government in 2012 to incorporate a propaganda center in New York known as the Russia Center New York (“RCNY”).  Thereafter, through the RCNY and other entities, Branson coordinated propaganda and lobbying campaigns on behalf of the Russian government.  Along the way, Branson received orders from the highest levels of the Russian government in the United States and Moscow and received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from the Russian government.  After Branson’s residence was searched and she was interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, she left the United States for Russia and later admitted in a television interview that she fled the United States because she feared she was going to be arrested.
• Belarusian Government Officials Charged with Aircraft Piracy for Diverting Ryanair Flight 4978 to Arrest Dissident Journalist:  While on its regularly-scheduled passenger route between Athens, Greece, and Vilnius, Lithuania, on May 23, 2021, Ryanair Flight 4978 – which was carrying four U.S. nationals and more than 100 other passengers – was diverted to Minsk, Belarus, by air traffic control authorities in Belarus in response to a purported threat of a bomb on the plane.  There was, in fact, no bomb on board.  Belarusian government authorities fabricated the threat as a means to exercise control over the flight and force it to divert from its course and land in Minsk.  The purpose of the Belarusian government’s plot diverting the flight to Minsk was so that Belarusian security services could arrest a Belarusian journalist and political dissident, who was critical of the Belarusian government and living in exile in Lithuania.  The Belarusian government conspiracy to divert the flight was executed by, among others, officers of the Belarusian state security services working in coordination with senior officials of the Belarusian state air navigation authority.  The Office charged four of those Belarusian government officials, including the director of Belarus’s state air navigation authority, with aircraft piracy in January 2022, exposing the brazen scheme.  

Working closely with the DEA’s Special Operations Division and other law enforcement partners, prosecutors assigned to the Office’s National Security and International Narcotics Unit investigate and prosecute large-scale international narcotics and arms traffickers threatening national security and the corrupt foreign officials who facilitate their illicit activities.

• In April 2026, the Governor of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican officials were indicted with drug trafficking and weapons offenses. As alleged, each of the defendants has participated in a corrupt and violent drug trafficking conspiracy with the Cartel to import massive amounts of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States.  The defendants have played a variety of essential roles for the Cartel:  among other things, the defendants have allegedly shielded Cartel leaders from investigation, arrest, and prosecution; caused sensitive law enforcement and military information to be provided to members of the Cartel and allied drug traffickers to assist the Cartel’s criminal activities; directed members of state and local law enforcement agencies, such as the Sinaloa State Police, the Investigative Police for the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office, and the Culiacan Municipal Police, to protect drug loads stored in and transiting through Mexico to the United States; and allowed brutal drug-related violence to be committed by members of the Cartel without consequence.  In exchange, the defendants have collectively received millions of dollars in drug money from the Cartel. This Indictment is the latest in a series of indictments issued in this District since 2023, charging more than 30 members and associates of the Cartel, including members of the leadership of the Cartel, for their involvement in distributing massive quantities of narcotics into the United States and related crimes, which has resulted in a meaningful disruptive impact on the Cartel’s drug trafficking operations.
• Maximiliano Davila Perez, Former Director Of Bolivia’s National Anti-Narcotics Agency, Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison For Conspiring To Import Cocaine And Related Firearms Offense: In March 2026, Maximiliano Davila Perez was sentenced to 25 years in prison for participating in a cocaine-importation conspiracy and a related weapons offense. Davila Perez was the former director of Bolivia’s chief anti-narcotics law enforcement agency and abused that position to facilitate the manufacture, shipment, and armed protection of more than one metric ton of cocaine destined for the United States, including New York.
• Prosecution Of Former President Of Venezuela And High-Ranking Venezuelan Officials: In March 2020, the Office unsealed narco-terrorism and related charges against Nicolas Maduro and other high-ranking current and former Venezuelan officials for their participation in decades of state-sponsored narco-trafficking. Since then, the Office has continued to secure significant results in the case: Cliver Antonio Alcala Cordones pled guilty and was sentenced to 260 months in prison, and Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, a/k/a “El Pollo,” the former director of Venezuela’s military intelligence agency, was extradited to the United States and pled guilty in June 2025 to narco-terrorism, narcotics, and weapons offenses.
• Chinese Chemical Company and Executives Charged with Fentanyl Trafficking, Precursor Importation, and Money Laundering:  In June 2023, the Office unsealed charges against the Chinese chemical company Hubei Amarvel Biotech Co., LTD., a/k/a “AmarvelBio,” (“Amarvel Biotech”) and three executives for their role in transporting more than 200 kilograms of raw chemicals used to make fentanyl and its analogues from China to the United States, intending that the chemicals would be used to produce fentanyl and its analogues in New York.  Amarvel Biotech and its executives agreed to continue supplying multi-ton shipments of fentanyl precursors despite being told that Americans had died after consuming fentanyl made from the chemicals they sold.  Two defendants, Qingzhou Wang, Amarvel Biotech’s principal executive, and Yiyi Chen, the company’s marketing manager, were arrested in June 2023. In January 2025, after a jury trial, Wang and Chen were found guilty of fentanyl precursor importation and money laundering charges.  Multiple websites and cryptocurrency accounts, totaling approximately $900,000 in digital funds, were seized in connection with the scheme.
• Prosecution of Yakuza Leader and Affiliates for Large-Scale International Arms Trafficking:  In April 2022, working closely with our partners at DEA’s Special Operations Division, the Office charged Takeshi Ebisawa of Japan, a leader within the Japanese transnational organized crime syndicate known as Yakuza, and three Thai affiliates for conspiring to arrange large-scale international narcotics and weapons deals, including the acquisition of surface-to-air missiles.  The defendants were arrested, and their trafficking disrupted, after they traveled to Manhattan in April 2022.  On February 21, 2024, the Office unsealed new charges against Ebisawa for trafficking nuclear materials including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, as part of the alleged scheme. Ebisawa pled guilty in January 2025 to the nuclear trafficking charges, as well as certain drug and weapons charges.
• OFAC-Sanctioned Afghan Man Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison For Narco-Terrorism And Witness Tampering: In December 2024, Haji Abdul Satar Abdul Manaf, a/k/a “Haji Abdul Sattar Barakzai,” was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to import heroin into the United States, engaging in narco-terrorism for the benefit of the Taliban, attempting to engage in narco-terrorism for the benefit of the Haqqani Network, and witness tampering offenses. Manaf was convicted after a two-week jury trial that concluded in August 2024.
• Cocaine Importation Charges Filed against Chief Superintendent of Royal Bahamas Police Force and Other Officials: In November 2024, working closely with our partners at DEA’s Special Operations Division, the Office unsealed an Indictment charging 13 defendants with cocaine importation and related weapons offenses in connection with their alleged participation in a massive cocaine importation conspiracy enabled by corrupt Bahamian government officials, including high-ranking members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force.  As alleged in the Indictment, drug traffickers have smuggled tons of cocaine through The Bahamas into the United States with the help and support of these and other corrupt Bahamian government officials.  Five defendants are currently in custody.
• Targeting the Sinaloa Cartel’s Fentanyl Operations:  In April 2023, the Office announced sweeping charges against Sinaloa Cartel leadership and 25 other defendants for conspiring to manufacture and transport staggering quantities of fentanyl made from Chinese chemicals into the United States.  Since at least 2014, the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel has run a global fentanyl manufacturing and distribution operation, sending massive quantities of fentanyl – a drug that has killed unprecedented numbers of Americans – into the United States.  The Office’s indictment charges not only Cartel leadership but also top lieutenants, manufacturers and distributors of the Cartel’s fentanyl, the managers of the violent armed security apparatus that protects the Cartel’s drug trafficking operations, the sophisticated money launderers who repatriate the Cartel’s drug proceeds back to Mexico, and multiple chemical precursor suppliers in China that fuel the Cartel’s fentanyl distribution operation.