Kashamu May Have Been Inspiration for Hit US TV Series ‘Orange is the New Black’
After the U.S. prosecutors accused him of being a drug kingpin, he could have gone underground. Instead, he ran for the Nigerian senate — and he won.
Now, that decision appears to be backfiring. In the past week, Buruji Kashamu was placed under house arrest and faced an extradition hearing. It's still unclear, though, whether he'll lose his freedom.
That may sound like the twisted plot of a television series. Actually, Kashamu’s misadventures may have already inspired one — although he claims prosecutors are after the wrong guy.
In Piper Kerman’s prison memoir, "Orange is the New Black," which was adapted into the hit Netflix television show, she describes a shadowy Nigerian trafficker known as “Alaji.” From his base in Africa, he allegedly ran an international heroin ring. But she never met him.
"A little bit of Web research revealed that the man I knew as Alaji was a wealthy and powerful businessman-gangster in Africa, and I could certainly imagine that he might have connections that could make pesky things like extradition treaties go away," Kerman wrote in her memoir.
“When funds ran low, I was sent off to retrieve money wires from Alaji at various banks,” she would later tell Marie Claire magazine.
But viewers of "Orange is the New Black" probably don’t know that as the show was garnering awards, U.S. authorities were still working on extraditing the man they say is the real-life “Alaji."
A Chicago grand jury indicted Kashamu in 1998 on charges of conspiracy to import and distribute heroin. He was accused of running a trafficking ring that transported millions of dollars' worth of drugs from Europe and Asia through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Twelve other people confessed to involvement in the drug ring, including Kerman. But Kashamu claimed that “Alaji” is actually his dead brother.
Kashamu was arrested in Britain in 1998 (he was carrying $230,000 in cash at the time). British authorities held him for five years as extradition hearings stretched on. When they let him go, claiming that the prosecution’s witness identification was flawed, Kashamu left for Nigeria.
Kashamu initially maintained a fairly low profile at home. Even American prosecutors couldn't say definitively where he was.
"Kashamu's current whereabouts are unknown to this Court, although, as the Court has previously noted, he may be located somewhere in Nigeria" said documents filed in a U.S. district court in Illinois in 2009.
"In vying for public office, I neither seek fame nor wealth,” he told one crowd in his home state of Ogun East. “I offer myself for election so as to widen the horizon of my service to humanity,"
When reporters asked him about his past, he responded, “I was a clean businessman.”
While his political opponents slammed him as a drug dealer and an international criminal, his populist campaign appeared to resonate with voters. He was elected March 28.
But this Saturday, at about 4:30 in the morning, Nigerian drug agents National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), surrounded Kashamu’s home and placed him under house arrest.
“The operation is in line with the legal process of extradition,” said a statement from NDLEA.
Kashamu’s supporters were infuriated, calling his arrest a political stunt by the opposition.
Kashamu appeared to know that the extradition hearing was coming. In April, his team submitted a petition to Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, titled, “Abduction Plans By United States of America Agents in Collaboration with Law Enforcement Agencies in Nigeria.”
To some, Kashamu's ability to maintain a public profile as a wanted man was another example of the Nigerian government putting cronyism ahead of justice. When President Goodluck Jonathan lost the March election, Kashamu — a member of Jonathan's party — suddenly appeared more vulnerable.
After he was placed under house arrest, the NDLEA called his claims of mistaken identity "fanciful." But his supporters stood by him.
“This latest onslaught is a confirmation of the alleged plot to illegally abduct him,” Kashamu spokesman Austin Oniyokor told the Nigerian press.