The recent 40-year prison sentence handed down by a U.S. court to Pakistani national Muhammad Pahlawan for smuggling Iranian weapons to Yemen’s Houthi insurgents has cast a glaring spotlight on the persistent involvement of Pakistani actors in international arms trafficking and criminal enterprises. Pahlawan’s conviction is not an isolated incident but rather a manifestation of a broader trend, reflecting Pakistan’s entanglement in regional and global illicit arms flows, often with grave security implications for the wider world.
Muhammad Pahlawan, a Pakistani citizen was sentenced to 40 years by a federal court in Virginia, USA, on charges which included conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, violating weapons of mass destruction controls, and illegal transport of advanced conventional arms. The U.S. Justice Department revealed that Pahlawan captained a fishing vessel used to move sophisticated Iranian ballistic missile components, anti-ship missile parts, and warheads to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. This operation, intercepted in the Arabian Sea in January 2024, tragically resulted in the deaths of two U.S. Navy SEALs during the boarding action. Crew testimonies revealed many were deceived about their participation, highlighting the transnational, clandestine, and often coercive nature of such trafficking networks.
The weaponry seized was not rudimentary but included some of the most advanced Iranian systems, directly linked to attacks against commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, a region destabilized further following the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing escalation in Yemeni Houthi operations. Pakistan’s involvement in arms smuggling is neither new nor limited to the current conflict dynamics of the Middle East. As far back as the 1970s and 1980s, when Pakistan became a frontline state in the Cold War rivalry over Afghanistan, it played a pivotal role in the movement of arms. The ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, became a principal conduit for U.S., Saudi, and other foreign arms, ostensibly destined for Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets. However, a large portion of these weapons, by many credible estimates, was diverted or
skimmed off, making its way into Pakistani cities or fueling sectarian and criminal violence at home.
This illicit market was not restricted to official or semi-official flows. The region around the Durand Line, the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, became notorious for weapons bazaars, many run by families and groups with historic ties to cross-border trade and smuggling. Local armories began to manufacture lower-quality weapons, which, over decades, supplied not only criminal elements within Pakistan but also militant groups across South Asia. The so-called “Kalashnikov Culture” entrenched itself in Pakistani society and governance, contributing to lawlessness and periodic spikes in domestic violence.
Recent years have seen the modus operandi of Pakistani arms traffickers evolve. From large-scale trucking operations, the network now incorporates techniques ranging from drone drops and maritime transfers to clandestine border crossings, all often managed by organized criminal syndicates with overseas links.
Meanwhile, Pakistan-based entities have been implicated in networks trafficking arms not only into India or Afghanistan but also further afield, ranging from Iran’s supply of weapons to Yemeni Houthis, as seen in the Pahlawan case, to broader Middle Eastern and African black markets. Investigative reports and official charges in the U.S. and Europe document Pakistani nationals participating in unlawful exports of anti-aircraft ammunition and drone technology, further reinforcing Pakistan’s global reputation as a logistics and facilitation hub for arms smuggling.
One persistent complication has been the alleged complicity, or at least acquiescence, of elements within Pakistan’s security establishment. Historical investigations have documented the role of the ISI and military-backed syndicates in both arming proxies abroad and managing lucrative smuggling chains for profit and strategic gain. Some analysts argue that denial and non-interference by law enforcement allows criminal actors and militant suppliers to operate with significant impunity, boosting the resilience and reach of these networks.
So long as criminal and state actors in Pakistan possess the motive, opportunity, and network to facilitate illicit arms flows, regional and global security will remain threatened. Whether supplying weapons to state clients, proxies, sectarian groups, or criminal syndicates, Pakistan’s entanglement in arms smuggling is both a historical constant and a present danger. Efforts to sever the flow require not only international vigilance and cooperation, as demonstrated in the U.S.-led operation that apprehended Pahlawan, but also structural reforms inside Pakistan, stricter oversight of state organs, systemic accountability, engagement with marginalized border communities, and genuine political will to dismantle entrenched networks.