US report: former Afghan president does not leave his homeland with ‘mountain of money’

Women and children try to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 16, 2021 to leave the country.

According to AFP news agency, the SIGAR report will be published on June 7. This is a preliminary report as the office is still waiting for an official reply from Mr. Ghani.

Information about Mr. Ghani holding a “mountain of money” leaving Afghanistan when the Taliban entered the capital on August 15, 2021, was reported by the newspaper. Politico first published. The newspaper cited witnesses and officials who were on the helicopter with Ghani as they left with the Presidential Palace in Kabul.

In the days that followed, numerous reports surfaced that Mr. Ghani and other officials had brought with them up to $169 million in embezzlement from Government of Afghanistan.

Ghani’s side vehemently denied these reports.

“Although SIGAR confirmed that some cash was taken from the Presidential Palace and loaded onto helicopters, the evidence suggests that the figure does not exceed $1 million and is only around 500,000,” the report said. USD”.

The report’s conclusions are primarily based on information from interviews with witnesses and relevant officials. All said they saw no sign of large amounts of cash on the overcrowded helicopters that were full of people wanting to leave Afghanistan.

“With $169 million in cash, if all the bills are $100 bills (the largest denomination in the United States), stacked on top of each other will also form a block 2.3 meters long, 1 meter wide, 1 meter high. 1 meter. This block will weigh nearly 2 tons,” the SIGAR report said.

According to the report, eyewitnesses all confirmed that there was only “minimum baggage” on the helicopter and that the plane had no cargo hold.

One former senior official told SIGAR there was one official with about $200,000, another with $240,000, and others with about “$5,000-10,000 in their pocket… No one has millions of dollars”.

“If true, the total cash on board the three helicopters is approximately $500,000, of which $440,000 belongs to the Government of Afghanistan,” the report said.

“SIGAR also identified suspicious circumstances in which approximately $5 million in cash is believed to have been left at the Presidential Palace,” the report added.

It is not clear where the money came from or what it was used for, the report said, “but it is believed to have been distributed among members of the presidential protective service after the helicopters departed and before the Taliban. capture the Presidential Palace”.

There appear to have been “multiple opportunities and attempts to embezzle funds from the Afghan Government’s coffers,” the report said.

However, SIGAR said it “doesn’t have enough evidence to determine with certainty whether hundreds of millions of dollars in cash was moved out of the country by Afghan officials when the government collapsed.” Furthermore, it cannot. determine whether any funds are in US currency.