US indicts Ugandan diplomat Michael Katungi over Shs 200bn arms deal with Mexican drug cartel

A Ugandan diplomat, Michael Katungi Mpeirwe, has been indicted in the US for conspiracy to supply military-grade weaponry to Mexican drug cartels.

According to the United States Justice Department, Katungi is a Ugandan national with connections to the government and works with Kenyan national Elisha Odhiambo Asumo, in acquiring end-user certificates (EUCs) and delivery verification protocols (DVPs) in exchange for bribes and kickbacks.

An EUC must be obtained by an entity that lawfully seeks to purchase military-grade. A DVP must also be obtained after the weapons transaction and purchase. Both the EUC and DVP documents catalogue the arms transactions from beginning to end to ensure that transactional criminals and terrorist organisations do not illegally acquire arms.

However, despite these controls, arms traffickers usually, through bribery, fraud, forgery, obtain EUC and DVPs

Katungi is also a policy advisor employed by the Government of Uganda and previously worked as a deputy head of mission for the Uganda High Commission and as a security logistics officer associated with the African Union Commission.

He has served as a security advisor in Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya. According to the US, Katungi, in various meetings with drug cartels in Cape Town, South Africa and London, UK, allegedly offered to acquire fraudulently acquired EUC and DVPs from various countries in Africa in exchange for 2 per cent commission off each arms deal.

In 2021, Katungi contested for a member of parliament for Butemba County in Kyakwanzi district as an independent candidate but lost. He also lost in the recently concluded National Resistance Movement (NRM) primaries. In 2024, he was appointed the diaspora head of the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), a pressure group led by General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and son of President Museveni.

In an indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia, the United States charged a Bulgarian arms trafficker and three other foreign nationals with conspiracy to distribute cocaine; conspiracy to possess firearms, including machine guns and destructive devices, in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime; and conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organisation.

According to the indictment, in September 2022, Peter Dimitrov Mirchev, along with Kenyan national Elisha Odhiambo Asumo, Katungi Mpeirwe, and Tanzanian national Subiro Osmund Mwapinga, conspired to supply military-grade weaponry to Mexican drug cartels illegally, and in particular, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most violent and prolific transnational criminal organisations.

The weaponry included machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, night vision equipment, sniper rifles, anti-personnel mines, and anti-aircraft weapons. The indictment indicates that the defendants allegedly believed that the CJNG intended to use these weapons in furtherance of the illegal trafficking of large shipments of cocaine into the United States.

On February 20, 2025, the CJNG was designated a foreign terrorist organisation. In a series of meetings with individuals claiming to represent the CJNG, Mirchev allegedly agreed to arrange, coordinate, and participate in illegal arms transactions while avoiding detection by international and US law enforcement.

Mirchev allegedly recruited Asumo to corruptly obtain an end-user certificate (EUC) from a nation that would falsely claim a different end-user for the weapons. Asumo recruited Mpeirwe, who recruited Mwapinga.

Together, they allegedly obtained an EUC from the United Republic of Tanzania authorising the importation of AK-47s. As a test shipment, Mirchev and others then exported 50 AK-47 automatic assault rifles, along with their accompanying magazines and ammunition, from Bulgaria, utilising the EUC provided by Asumo, Mpeirwe, and Mwapinga, with the intention that the weapons would be received by the CJNG.

The defendants continued to conspire to supply drug cartels with even more weaponry, potentially including surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft drones, and the ZU-23 anti-aircraft weapon system.

Mirchev allegedly created a list of weaponry for the CJNG totalling approximately €53.7 million (about Shs 200 billion). Asumo, Mpeirwe, and Mwapinga agreed to again provide arms control documents designed to obscure that these weapons were intended for the CJNG.