MOSCOW, March 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russian drug control officers have seized some 500 kg (1,100 lbs) of heroin since the beginning of the year, the Federal Drugs Control Service said on Tuesday.
"Since the beginning of the current year drug control bodies have made in various regions of Russia 384 successful confiscations of heroin seizing a total amount of some 500 kg," the service said.
In a large operation last week police in Russia's Orenburg Region, in the Urals, seized over 107 kg (some 236 lbs) of heroin smuggled into Russia from Uzbekistan.
Most of the heroin and hashish coming into Russia originates in Afghanistan and is then trafficked through the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Most of the drugs are then sold in Russia's largest cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg or shipped on to Europe.
