Haji Bagcho sent heroin to more than 20 countries and was once responsible for trafficking a fifth of the world's heroin supply

Haji Bagcho sent heroin to more than 20 countries and was once responsible for trafficking a fifth of the world's heroin supply, prosecutors estimate. In one year alone he is thought to have traded more than 125 tonnes of the drug worth hundreds of millions of pounds, and used the proceeds to give weapons, cash and supplies to Taliban commanders fighting Nato forces. His conviction was a rare success for an international effort which has struggled to dent the Afghan opium trade, or the international drug smuggling networks it feeds. Bagcho, aged around 60, operated a family business from Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan and ran a network of laboratories along the Pakistan border. Khadi Gul, Bagcho's younger brother, told The Daily Telegraph his family had been involved in smuggling and had run a family business from a notorious smuggling bazaar in Ghani Kheyl.