The mayor of Kabul was back at his desk the day after was sentenced to four years for corruption. Afghanistan is awash in only one kind of money these days – drug money.
One of the poorest nations on Earth exports $10 million every day in drug money, most of it right out of Kabul airport, and the world’s bankers are hooked on it like junkies. In fact, this drug money probably did more to save the world’s banking system than all the government bailouts.
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.