Almost three kilograms (six pounds) of heroin have been seized by narcotics police in two separate incidents outside Moscow and in Siberia`s Krasnoyarsk, police officials said on Tuesday.
According to a Krasnoyarsk police official, a Tajik national was arrested in a sting operation selling 50 grams of heroin. During a search of his apartment, officers found 1.7 kilograms of heroin stashed on a shelf in the bathroom.
In the Moscow suburb of Zheleznodorozhny, authorities arrested another Tajik national carrying more than 1.2 kilograms of heroin.
Most of the heroin and hashish coming into Russia originates in Afghanistan and is trafficked into the country through the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Most of the drugs are then sold in Russia`s largest cities, or shipped on to Europe.
In another incident in the airport of Tajikistan`s capital, Dushanbe, a Tajik was arrested early on Tuesday morning by customs officials for attempting to smuggle 400 grams of heroin into the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. The Tajik had swallowed 68 drug-filled capsules to hide the drugs.
The arrest was the second heroin bust at Dushanbe airport within a week. On March 17, a Filipino woman attempted to smuggle into Turkey some 3,300 grams (7 pounds 4 ounces) of heroin stuffed into 758 fabric buttons stitched onto 33 Tajik national robes.
During 2008, some 20 kilograms of heroin were seized on flights from Dushanbe to Istanbul, leading to the arrest of five smugglers from South Africa, Uganda, the Philippines and Turkey.
Tajikistan is a major smuggling route for heroin from neighboring Afghanistan, the world`s largest heroin producer.
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Russian News
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