Russia offers to strike on terrorism link with Afghan drug trafficking
MOSCOW. Nov 21 (Interfax) - Annual trafficking of Afghan opiates grew by $10 billion year-on-year in 2012, Russian Foreign Ministry Department on New Threats and Challenges Deputy Director Dmitry Feoktistov said at a special meeting of the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee in New York. His speech was published on the Russian Foreign Ministry website on Wednesday.
"The problem has a truly colossal scale. Afghan opiate trafficking stood at $60 billion in 2011; it went up to $70 billion this year. About 17 million people in various countries consume Afghan drugs. Less than 1% of drug money is confiscated, and the rest freely flows into the international financial system," he said.
Plenty of the drug money feeds terrorism, the diplomat said. According to estimates of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the Taliban made approximately $360 million in drug money in the past three years ago.
"It is time to hammer a precise and resolute strike on the link between terrorism and drug trafficking. That is the goal of Russia's initiative offered to the FATF (an intergovernmental organization fighting money laundering) for exposing Afghan drug money," Feoktistov said.
The FATF had the first strategic discussion to that effect in October 2012, and detailed proposals with regard to the typological examination will be presented at the organization's plenary meeting in February 2013.
"The goal of this project is to learn details of drug money through the exposure of financial operations, shell companies and money transfer beneficiaries, as well as other information, which will help uncover and undermine the managing of drug business," he said.
The FATF involvement in the expert evaluation of this issue "will promote Russia's earlier proposals of more intensive blocking of financial operations related to Afghan opiates," he said.
