Former poker pro Salman Behbehani was sentenced to six years in prison last week for drug smuggling charges in a case that signals the downfall of a once very successful player.
Behbehani is 37 years old and is a member of one of the richest families in Kuwait. He hails from San Diego, CA, where a large number of his live tournament cashes originate.
Behbehani has over $3.3 million in career poker earnings between 2008 to 2018. He was once a regular player in both Europe and the USA, with several large cashes in WSOP Europe, WSOP, and EPT events.
His largest career score was a second-place finish for $818,799 in the 2011 Partouche Poker Tour Main Event in Cannes, France. He also finished runner-up for a WSOP bracelet in a $5,000 PLO 6-Max event in 2013.
Drug Charges
Ultimately, the details of his poker career are secondary to the main story here, where he will be spending six years in prison. On July 16, 2021, Behbehani was arrested at the airport on the island of Ibiza after traveling from Las Vegas.
The authorities in Spain used scanners to find multitudes of illegal drugs in suitcases. It was a cornucopia of drugs including cocaine, Tusi, Hashish, MDMA, and LSD.
He was convicted of the possession fairly quickly. The prosecutor determined that the intention was to distribute the drugs in Ibiza illegally. Because this is a crime against public health in Spain, he faced as many as nine years in prison and a fine of €53,000.
Behbehani was able to reduce his sentence and get the court to settle at six years after the trial period which began in February. There is still a possibility of appeal to the authorities in the Balearic Islands to see if the sentence can be reduced any more or not.