Tanzania extradites three suspected drug traffickers to US

Three suspected Tanzanian drug traffickers have been extradited to the United States to face federal drug charges, the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said Wednesday.

A statement from the embassy named the suspects as Ali Khatib Haji Hassan and two of his associates, Iddy Salehe Mfullu and Tiko Emanual Adam, and said the trio was extradited on May 1 and arrived in the United States on May 2.

"The extradition was the culmination of close and substantial bilateral cooperation between the governments of the United States and Tanzania over an extended period of time," said the statement.

The statement said Tanzanian authorities arrested Hassan for drug smuggling in 2014 after a two-year manhunt precipitated by the seizure of approximately 210 kilograms of heroin in the East African nation's southern region of Lindi in January 2012.

On March 9, 2016, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Hassan and his organization as significant foreign narcotics traffickers under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act).

In March 2016, a grand jury in Houston, Texas, returned an indictment charging Shkuba and his associates with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin during the 2010-2015 period, said the statement.

The United States later formally requested Tanzania to extradite the three defendants. Enditem