Tajik security service smashes drug trafficking route
DUSHANBE. Jan 10 (Interfax) - The Tajik National Security Committee cut off a route in the north of the country that was used to smuggle drugs into other CIS member states, the committee said in a press release.
Drugs were delivered from the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous province to the Sughd region, from which they were subsequently smuggled into Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, ending up in Russia.
"Detectives from the committee's branch for the Sughd region learned during an inquiry that drug traffickers had regularly smuggled drugs from the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous province to the Sughd region by passenger transport," the committee said.
A Tajik citizen was detained in Khujand, the capital city of the Sughd region.
"Fifty-five plastic bags containing 28.278 kilograms of drugs were confiscated from a cache, which was hidden inside his car's fuel tank," it said.
"It is the third successful operation carried out by officers of the National Security Committee in the past ten days. Up to 150 kilograms of drugs were confiscated as a result of these measures," it said.
Tajikistan, which shares a 1,344-kilometer border with Afghanistan, acts as a transit route for Afghan heroin, which then reaches Russia and countries of Eastern and Central Europe. The UN has estimated that approximately 20% of Afghan drugs are delivered via the so-called northern route - Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.