US report denies Afghan President Ghani left with millions when Taliban took over Kabul

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A new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) indicates that there is a lack of evidence to support claims that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani stole millions of dollars when he fled the country last year.

To the contrary, the report says, this would have been extremely difficult from a logistical standpoint, given the conditions and the cargo capacity of the helicopters used during the escape from Afghanistan. At the same time, SIGAR notes, it does appear that a lesser amount of money was taken.

"Although SIGAR found that some cash was taken from the grounds of the palace and loaded onto these helicopters, evidence indicates that this number did not exceed $1 million and may have been closer in value to $500,000," Special Inspector General John Sopko wrote in a letter to House and Senate leadership. "Most of this money was believed to have come from several Afghan government operating budgets normally managed at the palace."

The Russian embassy in Kabul had claimed that helicopters transporting Ghani and others had $169 million in cash on board, and Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan Zahir Aghbar repeated this, although Aghbar declined to sit for a SIGAR interview or back up his claim with evidence. Ghani himself has denied such allegations.

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The SIGAR report describes how Ghani's departure was a hastily-developed plan – a result of the Taliban's swift takeover while U.S. forces were withdrawing from the country – and how in the middle of such a rush it would have been difficult to cover up a massive theft. The report noted that $169 in cash 
"would have been difficult to conceal" and "quite substantial in terms of bulk and heft[.]"

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"$169 million in hundred dollar bills, stacked end to end, would form a block 7.5 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet tall. In other words, it would be somewhat larger than a standard American three-seater couch," the report says. "This block would have weighed 3,722 pounds, or nearly two tons."

According to SIGAR, the helicopters used were Mi-17s that do not have dedicated cargo holds, meaning that any cash being transported would have been visible to those on board. The report, which was the result of interviews with more than 30 former Afghan officials, says that "no one saw anything that resembled cargo on board or being loaded into the helicopters."

"We could not have fit 40 people and all that cash," a former senior Afghan official told SIGAR.

Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's president, speaks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2021.  (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Not only that, the report says, interviews and media reports indicated that the helicopters were "already overloaded with passengers and fuel and could not have taken off with significant additional weight." Hot weather on that day – Aug. 15, 2021 – would also have made it more difficult, the report says, as "warm temperatures and high altitude make the air less dense, which reduces helicopter performance and payload capacity."

Whilte the SIGAR report makes it appear highly unlikely that $169 million in cash found its way onto the helicopters, it does note that, according to one former senior official on board, each passenger had $5,000 to $10,000 on them, which would put the total amount somewhere around $500,000. The report also says that roughly $5 million in cash was discovered by guards at the presidential palace, with one former official saying the money was split up into bags and loaded into the presidential motorcade.

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When the money was packed up and taken away is up for debate, as one source said it was loaded up before Ghani left, and others said it was not found until after Ghani left.

The nature of those funds are also in question, as multiple former senior officials said it was Ghani's own money, and others said it was leftover campaign money donated by the United Arab Emirates. Ghani's required declaration of assets that had been provided to the government's anti-corruption office did not show that Ghani had such personal funds, the report said.