MOSCOW, August 9 (RIA Novosti) - Drug trafficking via the Afghan-Tajik border into Russia has recently grown considerably, the Federal Service for Control of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Circulation said Tuesday.
"Drug trafficking has considerably grown since Tajik border guards assumed control of the Tajik-Afghan border [in mid-2005]," spokesman for the federal service Vasily Rogozin said. He added that some Russian experts stayed in Tajikistan to help local border guards.
Rogozin mentioned specific cases that pointed to an increase in drug trafficking. Officers detained a truck driver heading to Russia from Tajikistan on the Russian-Kazakh border and carrying about 60 kilograms of opium and heroin.
"We seized 207 kilograms of drugs from Tajikistan in May in Yekaterinburg [Urals] and 142 kilograms of drugs from Afghanistan in a truck carrying vegetables from Uzbekistan in late July in Omsk [West Siberia]," Rogozin said. "These are large volumes."
