By The United States has indicted Ugandan diplomat and retired army officer Lt. Michael Katungi Mpeirwe over an alleged $58 million (Sh200 billion) arms trafficking scheme to supply military-grade weapons to Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the world’s most dangerous criminal organisations.
The indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, accuses Katungi and three foreign nationals from Kenya, Tanzania, and Bulgaria of conspiring to deliver machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, sniper rifles, mines, anti-aircraft systems, and other battlefield hardware to the cartel. U.S. authorities say the deal relied on forged African end-user certificates to disguise the weapons’ true destination.
A “test shipment” of 50 AK-47 rifles was allegedly sent from Bulgaria under fake documents claiming they were meant for Tanzanian security forces. Investigators say the arms list also included drones, surface-to-air missiles, and autocannon systems — all in violation of U.S. laws prohibiting sales to designated terrorist groups. The CJNG was formally labelled a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in February 2025.
Key suspects include:
Peter Dimitrov Mirchev (Bulgaria) — alleged mastermind, arrested in Spain.
Elisha Odhiambo Asumo (Kenya) — accused recruiter, arrested in Morocco.
Subiro Osmund Mwapinga (Tanzania) — linked to document forgery, extradited from Ghana.
Michael Katungi (Uganda) — still at large.
If convicted, the defendants face a minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison.
Katungi, who once served in Uganda’s Defence Intelligence and as a diplomat, has dismissed the charges as “malicious,” while the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) — where he serves as a leader — called the indictment “blackmail.”
The case exposes a sprawling international arms pipeline and has sparked debate in Uganda about corruption, diplomatic immunity, and the influence of political power networks in shielding suspects from justice.
Source: US Justice Department Press Office
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