A Ugandan national, Michael Katungi Mpeirwe, has been indicted in the U.S. for conspiring to supply military-grade weapons to Mexican drug cartels.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Katungi—a Ugandan government policy advisor with ties to security operations in Africa—allegedly collaborated with a Bulgarian arms trafficker and other foreign nationals in the illegal weapons scheme.
Katungi previously served as Deputy Head of Mission for the Uganda High Commission and as a security logistics officer with the African Union Commission. He has also worked as a security advisor in Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
In 2021, he ran unsuccessfully for Parliament in Butemba County, Kyankwanzi District, as an independent candidate. Later, in 2024, he was appointed Diaspora Head of the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU), a pressure group led by Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces and son of President Yoweri Museveni.
The indictment, unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia, charges Katungi and three others with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, possess firearms (including machine guns and explosives) for drug trafficking, and support a foreign terrorist organization.
Prosecutors allege that in September 2022, Katungi, Bulgarian national Peter Dimitrov Mirchev, Kenyan Elisha Odhiambo Asumo, and Tanzanian Subiro Osmund Mwapinga conspired to arm the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), a violent Mexican drug cartel designated as a terrorist group in February 2025.
The weapons involved included machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, sniper rifles, and anti-aircraft systems. The group allegedly used fraudulent Tanzanian export documents to ship 50 AK-47s to the CJNG as a test run before planning larger deals worth over $58 million.
Investigators say the defendants believed the cartel would use the weapons to protect cocaine shipments into the U.S.
