The Taliban has been under stringent U.S. sanctions since the 1990s, and payments to the former insurgent group by an American company are prohibited by the U.S. Treasury. | Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
02/10/2022 12:13 PM EST
A top Washington lobbying shop has agreed to represent the U.S. parent company of a major Afghan telecom alleged by three former employees and four former senior Afghan government officials to have paid money and extended other favors to the Taliban as they fought a bloody insurgency over the last 20 years.
S-3 Group filed a lobbying disclosure Nov. 1 that it now represents Telephone Systems International, the holding company for Afghan Wireless, one of the largest mobile telephone operators in the country. The document, required by U.S. law, states three of its lobbyists — John Scofield, Jose Ceballos and Michael Long — will lobby on “access to wireless communication in Afghanistan.”
TSI would not specifically say why it hired S-3, but in order to operate legally in the U.S. and continue to do business in Afghanistan, the company has to undergo a thorough Treasury application process. According to a January lobbying disclosure, the company paid $50,000 in fees in the fourth quarter to S-3, a firm founded in 2011 that last year represented blue-chip clients including Facebook, Google, the American Petroleum Institute, Duke Energy and the NFL.
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