Most wanted wildlife, drug trafficker with Ksh.100M bounty extradited to US

Abdi Hussein Ahmed, alias Abu Khadi, was apprehended at a rental room in Maua, Meru County, following a tip-off from area residents through the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) anonymous hotline. 

During a hearing on Wednesday August 31, according to the DCI, Milimani Chief Magistrate Roseline Aganyo ordered the extradition charging Ahmed for participating in a conspiracy to traffic in Rhinoceros horns and Elephant ivory, both protected wildlife species, valued at more than $7 million USD. 

He was charged alongside his accomplices Moazu Kromah, (aka Kampala), Man Amara Cherif, (aka Bamba Issiaka), and Mansur Mohamed Surur (aka Mansour).

The group is said to have smuggled, between December 2012 through May 2019, approximately 190 kilograms of rhinoceros horns and at least 10 tons of elephant ivory from various countries to buyers in the US and countries in Southeast Asia.  This translates to illegal poaching of more than 35 rhinoceros and more than 100 elephants.

They operated in Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania. 

"Their indictment, followed a joint investigation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), where a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York, charged Ahmed and his other co-conspirators with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment," said DCI in a statement. 

"The prosecution of this case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Sagar K. Ravi and Jarrod L. Schaeffer are in charge of the prosecution."