Mohammad Shirin Haqqani, the Taliban’s head of mines and petroleum in Kunar, announced that 687 kilograms of aquamarine stone has been sold through auction for 54.5 million Afghanis.
According to Bakhtar News Agency, 5.5 million Afghanis from this amount has been deposited into the Taliban’s treasury.
This sale comes just about ten days after the Taliban reported selling 639 kilograms of aquamarine for nearly 65 million Afghanis.
Over the past four years, the extraction and sale of mineral resources has become one of the Taliban’s most important revenue sources, with unofficial reports suggesting the group has earned millions of dollars through these activities.
Residents of Kunar province previously told Afghanistan International that local Taliban officials profit from the illegal and non-transparent looting of aquamarine mines in the province.
They claimed that these mines are being extracted by individuals with “Pakistani identification cards” and that the extracted aquamarine is transferred to Pakistan, with profits being divided between smugglers and local Taliban officials.
