Former USAID contractor arrested on embezzlement charges

Afghan police working with American agents arrested an Afghan man on charges of stealing more than a half million dollars from an agricultural development fund supported by USAID.  The suspect in custody is Abdul Khalil Qadery, a former employee of Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), a Bethesda, Maryland company.  The USAID press release can be found here.  There seems to have been no public participation or press release issued by the United States Department of Justice.  The likely explanations for this scenario, that often act in concert, are as follows: 1) the subject was an Afghan or a third party national, 2) there was insufficient evidence to charge the subject in United States courts and/or 3) there were extradition, removal or diplomacy considerations that applied.   USAID agents are pragmatic and routinely think creatively and “outside the box” to investigate and get their cases prosecuted. Afghanistan prisons are known for being particularly harsh and a maximum sentence of three years in an Afghanistan prison is considered extraordinarily “hard time”