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Do you want to listen to Taliban cassette? Matiullah Matie asks as he steers his white Toyota Corolla along a narrow road surrounded by cornfields and mud huts. He keeps the tapes in the car for long drives, Matie explains, just in case he picks up a hitchhiker who looks like a Talib. They think I am such a pious mujahid man, the round, bearded businessman laughs. They dont know I am screwing them all.

We are driving to the Nawa district, just 30 minutes outside Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in the southwest corner of Afghanistan. Matie is going to show us how he first became a millionaire.

Earlier that morning, photographer Lorenzo Tugnoli and I found Matie sprawled on his office floor. Hed spent the night Facebookinguntil he passed out. In the corner, on the armrest of a brown couch, a Dell laptop flashed an error message. Stacks of blue posters for the cell phone company Salaam lay against the wall. Matie had recently bought the local Salaam distribution license. Its his latest project.

When we drive into the bazaar at Nawa, people recognize Matie immediately. Many wave at him. Hes done business here beforeand hes already brought Salaam to the district. Thats the reason one man with a neatly trimmed beard approaches the car and leans in to chat. Matie curses his luck under his breath.

I have bought 100 SIM cards but no one buys, says the guy, a retailer representing Maties franchise. Matie tells him to be patient. Its a new company, he explains, business will pick up.

Will you come back for lunch, all of you be my guests? the man asks.

Sure, Matie says. Make some chicken for lunch once we drive back from Garmsir.

Matie has no intention of going to Garmsir or lunch with the man. The bastards son still has links to the Taliban, he says as we drive on. You really cant trust anyone.

In a few minutes we reach the compound of the 1st Battalion 9th MarinesThe Walking Dead, as a yellow logo proclaims inside one of its rooms. The U.S. Marines packed up a year ago, and all thats left is a series of shipping-container offices that once housed U.S. Agency for International Development contractors. The desks and furniture are locked inside; the windows are covered in dust and cobwebs. But when the Marines ruled Nawathe district governors office was within their compoundthe Americans started Matie on his road to prosperity. In the U.S., wartime contracting is often associated with such names as Blackwater (now known as Academi), DynCorp International, Triple Canopy, and others, but on the ground in Afghanistan, the Pentagon depended on a small army of locals. And as hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money poured into the country, it created a new class of wealthy, entrepreneurial Afghans.

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Afghanistan's New Millionaires