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On Thursday, a small Australian medical consulting firm was mistakenly accused of agreeing to fund a $450 million hashish manufacturing plant in Afghanistan, resulting in an unanticipated public outcry.
Representatives of Australia’s Cpharm met with counter-narcotic officials at the Ministry of Interior to explore making medicines and lotions at the factory, offering a legal use of cannabis, according to Pajhwok Afghan News.
The news was taken up by a slew of international publications, including the Times of London, which published its own piece naming the Australian firm. The storey concerning the Australians was echoed by verified Twitter accounts associated to the BBC and Al Arabybia, a Middle Eastern news site.
However, Cpharm Australia, a family-owned company with 17 employees based in Maitland, told Reuters that it has never communicated to the Taliban and has no international or cannabis-related operations.
Cpharm Australia’s chief financial officer, Tony Gabites, said over the phone from the company’s headquarters, 166 kilometres (100 miles) south of Sydney, that “we’re simply trying to find out what we’re going to do to stop it.”
“Today, we’ve received at least 40 or 50 phone calls. It’s all out of hand, and it’s all lies from the media, who aren’t doing their homework before publishing anything “He expressed himself.
Gabites suspected the allegations were based on a tweet from a Taliban-affiliated account that mentioned a corporation called Cpharm, which was a reference to another organisation with a similar name elsewhere in the world.
Cpharm Australia provides medical advise on pharmaceutical items and is not a producer, hence it would never take on a manufacturing contract. Gabites stated that it would not be able to raise $450 million.
The company may seek legal redress if it loses business as a result of incorrectly reported Taliban dealings, which might be a violation of sanctions, but it does not expect to be harmed long-term.
“Most of the businesses with whom we do business would laugh at that piece,” Gabites remarked.
