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Why the Akashas are wanted in US for trial

The tumble of the Akasha dynasty began on November 11, 2014, when Kenyan and US agents burst into the palatial homes of the drug lord's sons in Nyali and captured them.

The sons of slain drug lord Ibrahim Akasha, Baktash and Ibrahim, were detained alongside Indian felon Vijaygiri "Vicky" Goswami and Gulam Hussein of Pakistan.

They spent close to six months seeking freedom on bond and two years fighting extradition to the US.

Also detained was Vijay's girlfriend Mamata Kulkarni, a former Bollywood actress. She was freed without charges and returned to India.

Events leading to the arrest were dramatic. A day earlier, the entire anti-narcotics unit in the Coast was transferred from the region and the skeleton that remained was not even aware that US agents and Kenyan colleagues from Nairobi were swarming on the Nyali residences to detain the suspects.

It became clear within 24 hours that the four men had been arrested on the strengths of an Interpol Red Notice and indictment/arrest warrant a New York judge on November 10, 2014.

Apparently, the Americans had conducted months of surveillance on the four men and obtained actionable evidence that led to the New York indictment.

Documents including an indictment seeking their extradition suggest that agents from the US posed as South American drug barons seeking to export heroin and metamphentamine to New York.

The documents show that the probe lasted many months between March and October and spread across Pakistan, Afghanistan and several Middle East nations and Mombasa and Nairobi.

And the indictment claims that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents met Baktash, Ibrahim, Vijay and Gulam several times or recorded them between March and June 2014 after they were duped into believing they were dealing with actual drug buyers.

"Beginning in approximately March 2014, Baktash Akasha, Ibrahim Akasha, and Vijay Goswami began negotiating a multi-hundred kilogramme shipment of heroin to be delivered to confidential sources (CS) acting at the direction and under supervision of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) posing as representatives of a South American drug trafficking organisation (DTO) intended to import the heroin to the United States for distribution, principally in New York," says the indictment and arrest warrant signed by New York magistrate-judge Gabriel Gorenstein on October 28, 2014.

The three were reportedly taped discussing the proposed importation of the drugs with the fake South Americans with Baktash maintaining "an ownership interest in the shipment until it was delivered to and sold in the US."

According to the US indictment and warrant of arrest, Vijay and Baktash introduced the US undercover agents to Gulam Hussein alias Hussein Shabakash who is described as "the largest transporter of heroin in the world."

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