Narcotics smuggling in a new Afghanistan

Project Completed

PROJECT TEAM

Shehryar Fazli

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Contact: shehryar.fazli@gmail.com

Shehryar Fazli is a London-based senior policy analyst and former consultant for the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). A specialist on political and security affairs in South Asia, he has served for several organisations, including the World Bank, United Nations agencies, and several private international institutions. From 2003 to 2005, he was a South Asia Analyst for the International Crisis Group, and later its South Asia Regional Editor and Senior Analyst (2008–2018). He has delivered lectures at various US universities, such as Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Johns Hopkins SAIS, Bard College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His articles have appeared in a range of international publications, and his first novel, ‘Invitation’, was a runner-up in the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival's First Book Award.

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PROJECT SUMMARY

This research is part of the project ‘Monitoring the evolution of the illicit economy in Afghanistan’ which seeks to develop an overarching framework to better understand how a monitoring system for illicit markets in Afghanistan could operate. This will provide policy-makers in Europe and elsewhere with more advanced tools for scenario planning illicit trade developments and thereby formulate more effective policy responses against them. The research paper examines Afghanistan’s narcotics trade and smuggling patterns, which are intertwined in different ways with the economic fate of the Afghan state and society. The Taliban’s 3 April 2022 edict prohibiting poppy cultivation and the use and trade of all types of narcotics across Afghanistan could have grave implications for a collapsing economy.

Some prominent experts and commentators infer that international legitimacy and funding were the Taliban’s primary motivation in announcing the edict. If so, there are no signs yet that the move will generate the desired response. The research highlights how the poppy is the country’s most valuable cash crop, where labour-intensive cultivation employs several hundred thousand people, pushing up wages and living standards of those directly and indirectly involved. Requiring relatively little water, the poppy’s resilience in adverse agricultural conditions makes it an attractive long-term investment, especially during one of the worst droughts in decades. The new ban would affect farmers in the rural southwest region, where many Taliban leaders are from, and influential players across the opium and heroin supply chain. While exploring possible motivations for the edict, the paper argues that in the absence of significant financial incentives for these constituencies, the risks of a major backlash probably outweigh any benefits of enforcing a poppy ban.

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PUBLICATIONS

• SOC ACE Research Papers

  Fazli, S. (2022). Narcotics smuggling in Afghanistan: Links between Afghanistan and Pakistan (SOC ACE Research Paper No. 9). Serious Organised Crime and Anti‑Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE), University of Birmingham.

  The impact of Afghanistan's drug trade on its neighbours. (in press). SOC ACE Research Paper. Serious Organised Crime and Anti‑Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE), University of Birmingham.

• SOC ACE Briefing Notes

  Fazli, S. (2022). Narcotics smuggling in a new Afghanistan, and the Afghanistan–Pakistan nexus (Briefing Note No. 15). Serious Organised Crime and Anti‑Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE), University of Birmingham.

• Book Chapters

  Collins, J., Fazli, S., & Tennant, I. (2023). Opium, meth and the future of international drug control in Taliban Afghanistan. In M. Cox (Ed.), Afghanistan: Long war, forgotten peace. LSE Press.

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ENGAGEMENT

• Blogs

  Collins, J., Tennant, I., Hoang, T., Oliveira, A. P., & Fazli, S. (2022, June 16). Monitoring the evolution of the illicit economy in Afghanistan. Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, SOC‑ACE Publications.

• Conferences & Events

  • Research on the regional impact of Afghanistan’s drug trade on Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan was presented at the panel Narconomics: Transnational drug trafficking and corruption during Disruption Network Lab’s Organised Crime: A Global Business conference on November 24, 2023. The panel featured Stevan Dojčinović (OCCRP) and Floriana Bulfon and was moderated by Denisse Rodriguez Olivari (European University Institute).

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