RUSSIAN DRUG TURNOVER STRIKES $10 BN MARK

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MOSCOW, June 24 (RIA Novosti) - Drugs are circulating all about Russia at an annual 8-10 billion US dollars, warns Oleg Kharichkin, deputy chief of the federal drug and mood-changer control service. He addressed a Novosti news conference on the world anti-drug day to cite alarming statistics.

Heroin and other heavy drugs make up roughly 60 per cent of all police-confiscated drugs. The amount of synthetic drugs and amphetamine stimulants is also increasing to find an easy road to casinos and youth clubs. Here, Russia shares a sweeping global trend. Medicine has not yet fully studied the hellish effect of those substances.

Police have arrested drug dealers' property-houses, cars and cash-to lump 72 million roubles, roughly $2.5 million, on 21 detected instances of drug money laundering. More confiscation may follow on cases now under investigation, said Mr. Kharichkin.

His service detected 23,000 drug deal instances in the year's first five months, and confiscated close on 600 tonnes of drugs-900 kilos of heroin included.

Aliens make up 20 per cent of total drug-related arrests and detentions-men and women from the post-Soviet area, European countries outside it, and the Americas. The geography comprises a breathtaking 190 countries.

Tajikistan is sure Russian border guards are not to pull out for now. That is general opinion of the public and involved offices. Tajiks will not cope with drug traffickers before sufficient personnel goes through training. Meanwhile, Russians make the bulk of commissioned officers, and there are three Tajik contract privates to every Russian eight along the Tajik-Afghan frontier, notorious as drug smugglers' bonanza.

As Oleg Kharichkin sees it, Russian border guards will soon stay in the area as advisers only. Meanwhile, as they remain stationed on the frontier, they guard not Tajik nationals but the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and, in the final analysis, entire Europe-suffice it to mention a 152 kilogram batch of highly purified heroin the latest team operation seized in Tajikistan. 32 kilos out of it was bound for Germany.

It will take a long time to pull Russian border guards out of Tajikistan. Meanwhile, it is too early to insist on it, the officer summed up the issue.

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