Russia, U.S. help destroy more drug laboratories in Afghanistan
SOCHI. May 30 (Interfax) - Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) Director Viktor Ivanov has welcomed ongoing cooperation with U.S. special services in combating drug trafficking, including heroin production in Afghanistan.
"With the productive support of Russia and the U.S., special services of Afghanistan carried out a series of operations to destroy drug laboratories in Afghanistan and dismantle north-bound drug smuggling routes. The latest operation, code name Samshit, was completed just a week ago, resulting in the elimination of seven heroin laboratories active in the Russia-bound direction," Ivanov said at a meeting of the counter-drugs working group of the Russian-U.S. presidential commission in Sochi on Thursday.
The operation involved four helicopters and 70 soldiers of the Afghan Interior Ministry's counter-drug police, FSKN said in a press release. Specialists of the Russian service took an active part in all of its stages.
"Seven drug factories were destroyed in Badakhshan Province as a result of the operation. Dozens of kilograms of high-purity heroin were confiscated and technical equipment and precursors used to make drugs were eliminated," it said.
"Representatives of Russia's FSKN were actively involved in all stages of the operation. At the moment, they are taking additional measures together with Afghan and American colleagues and establishing the routes that were used to smuggle drugs from these laboratories to Central Asian republics and then to Russia," it said.
FSKN and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration also provided information and technical support during the operation, which was conducted in Afghanistan on May 22-23.
"The aforementioned examples reliably confirm the existence of close cooperation in efforts to combat drugs. It [this cooperation] is a product of the Russian-American working group," Ivanov said.
Russia is prepared to further work together with the U.S. to crack down on efforts to advertise and spread psychotropic substances via the Internet, as well as combat drug money laundering through international banking systems, he said.
