14 Somalis accused of dealing drug khat in Seattle

By Paul Shukovsky, P-I reporter
July 27, 2006

A woman holds a bundle of khat (chewing khat, in fact, inviting friends to a khat-ceremony, is a socially-accepted cultural practice in Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and other countries in the region. But the practice is considered a criminal offense in the U.S. (Photo: Washington Post Foreign Service photo)

But to the Somali Americans who live in King County, khat (pronounced "cot") is more like a strong cup of coffee, enmeshed in the social fabric of East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

Wednesday, DEA agents arrested 14 members of greater Seattle's Somali community, each on two felony counts of conspiracy to import and distribute the drug that is commonly chewed like tobacco in countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Kenya and Ethiopia. If found guilty, they could face up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine. All 14 pleaded not guilty and were held pending further court appearances.

Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge Rodney Benson said the investigation began in New York 18 months ago when couriers were found to be bringing the leafy drug into the country. Federal prosecutors there obtained indictments against 44 people. Agents in Western Washington began their inquiry about five months ago when a Seattle cell was uncovered, Benson said.

Benson's agents, with the help of police departments such as Tukwila, Seattle and the King County Sheriff's Office, raided 17 locations in King County early Wednesday. More than 1,000 pounds of khat has been seized in the course of the investigation in the Seattle area. Benson said the local cell -- believed to be led by Mahamoud Omar Jama, 36, of Kent -- moved about a ton of khat a month. Asked how much money was involved, Benson said: "Millions."

"These people charged are the ones that were making the millions and have a complete disregard for their community," said Benson, who asserts that khat has a "high tendency for abuse and no medical use."

A DEA press release says "the primary effects of chewing khat are euphoria and stimulation."

But members of the Somali community -- who watched with dismay Wednesday as friends and relatives faced a federal magistrate -- say arresting people for dealing in khat would be like criminalizing consumption of tobacco or coffee.

"It's not a crime, it's a cultural use," said Saleh Ismil, a Somali American living in Seattle. "You can invite somebody to your house and it is a social grace to offer khat. We use it here. No question about it. Just to socialize -- just like coffee."

Attorney Terry Kellogg, who represents one of those charged, asserted Wednesday: "We've got a cultural defense. It's like caffeine. If these guys go to prison, so should (Starbucks chairman) Howard Schultz."

Abdi Said, a Seattle cab driver from Somalia who is now a U.S. citizen, watched from the gallery Wednesday as friends and fellow cab drivers were ordered held.

"In East Africa, you could say that 60 percent of the men use khat. Here, maybe 5 percent use it.

"We don't think of it as a drug. Just something you have at a gathering, talking together."

Ali Ali, who has been in the United States for seven years and is a U.S. citizen, said khat use is not that common here and agreed with Said's 5 percent figure.

Khat, he said, "is sometimes hard to find and sometimes you can get it."

According to Benson, the Seattle street price for khat is about $700 per kilo (2.2 pounds). In East Africa, it can be bought for about $1 per kilo. That huge markup generates huge profits, he said. Benson said money has been shipped back to Africa and the Middle East.

Asked whether agents believe the money is being used to fund terrorism, Benson was careful to say that the indictments make no such allegation. But he said:

"When you talk about that region of the world, when you look at Somalia and Yemen and that region of East Africa where terrorism is a concern for law enforcement, we just have to thoroughly investigate the matter.

"That money is going back to that region of the world. We're talking about millions of dollars."

Asked about the potency of the drug, Benson said that it is most potent if used immediately after harvest and that it loses much of its potency over time. Nevertheless, even khat leafs that are not fresh contain a less potent, illegal substance.

Many of the Somali people present Wednesday said that by the time the khat is consumed, it has lost most of its potency and provides a buzz not unlike a strong cup of coffee.

Defendants charged in New York are accused of mailing the khat or sending it with couriers aboard commercial airliners to Washington, Ohio, Minnesota, Maine, Massachusetts, Utah, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

----- The Associated Press contributed to this P-I report.

U.N. employee face khat-smuggling charges

Meanwhile, a U.N. employee used U.N. diplomatic pouches to smuggle illegal drugs as part of a ring that brought 25 tons of contraband into New York in the past year and a half, federal prosecutors and the FBI said Wednesday, according to The New York Sun.

The shipments of khat — an illegal stimulant grown in East Africa — were received by a mail clerk employed by the United Nations, Osman Osman, who sent them across America, according to an indictment unsealed yesterday.

Prosecutors say Mr. Osman, a Somali citizen who had been employed at the United Nations for 29 years, was an important cog in the largest khat trafficking enterprise America has known. Forty-four defendants were named in yesterday's indictment, and 14 were still at large, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Khat is an evergreen shrub grown along the Horn of Africa. Chewing the leaves has long been a custom in the countries of the region. Immigrants have brought the habit to America, where the active chemical in the leaf is as illegal as heroin. The trafficking ring exposed yesterday was responsible for importing more than $10 million worth of khat since the end of 2004, according to the indictment. A portion of the proceeds were sent back to Europe and the United Arab Emirates, in order to repay khat producers, according the indictment.

At a press conference yesterday, an FBI agent, Mark Mershon, said law enforcement officials hoped those arrested would cooperate with efforts to track down exactly where that laundered money went. The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Michael Garcia, said that the khat trade is a known source of funding for Somali warlords.

Several shipments of the drug entered this country through U.N. diplomatic pouches, while other bundles of khat were carried on trans-Atlantic flights, or shipped by mail, according to the indictment. From New York, khat dealers distributed the drug across the country, according to the indictment.

In Columbus, Ohio, home to one of the country's largest Somali communities, a police officer said he had heard of yesterday's bust and was not at all surprised by the proportions of the khat trade in this country.

The sergeant with the narcotics division in Columbus, Ben Casuccio, said that the department has been interdicting khat since the mid-1990s. He noted the difficulty that police had in preventing khat from being sold in coffee houses within the tightly-knit Somali community of Columbus. But Mr. Casuccio said his primary worry was not the local effect of the khat trade.

"Here is our concern — there is an illegal government in Somalia currently and it's being run by warlords," Mr. Casuccio said, by telephone. "The funds are being sent back to facilitate those folks. We feel that some of the funds from khat are being sent back to these terrorist warlords."

Khat, which is chewed or brewed as a tea, causes euphoria, but can also lead to heart disease and violent outbursts, the indictment said.

The director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn., Omar Jamal, said that khat is taken socially in large segments of the Somali community, where it is seen as no more harmful than the "the average American buying a cup of coffee."

"This is what people do when they sit around and talk," he said.

About half the people charged in the indictment do not live in New York, according to law enforcement officials. Mr. Osman, the U.N. mail clerk, is listed in the indictment as one of four leaders of the organization. He pleaded not guilty late yesterday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. His lawyer is currently driving in from Ohio, said the attorney who represented him at the arraignment, David Gordon.

A spokeswoman for the U.N., Marie Okabe, confirmed that Mr. Osman has worked at the U.N. since 1977, but declined to provide further details of what role, if any, the mail room at Turtle Bay played in the drug trafficking. Mr. Osman, 47, lives in Rocky Hill, Conn., according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office.

The indictment suggests that "Operation Somalia Express," as the investigation was called, put an end to a well-organized criminal enterprise that was willing to use violence. One of the men charged, Bashi Muse, spoke of killing a customer who owed him money, according to the indictment. Khat trafficking charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, although five of the defendants face additional money laundering charges, which also carry a potential 20-year sentence.