Russian and Azerbaijani drug-control police held an operation to clamp
down on hashish shipments from Afghanistan to Russia in early 2011.
Approximately 400 kg of hashish was confiscated, RIA Novosti cites Victor
Ivanov, head of the Federal Drug Control Service (FDCS), as saying.
The joint operation was initiated by a special operation in
Saint-Petersburg in June, where 400 kg of hashish was confiscated.
Three criminal groups were uncovered during the operation. They were
operating in various Russian regions, including the Central Region,
the Urals and Siberia, and had no contacts. The groups were controlled from
Afghanistan.
Narcotics to the Central Region were transported along with potatoes. 53 kg
of hashish were transported.
The drug-control services stopped a truck with potatoes on February 2.
It contained 20 kg of hashish in the form of 80 packages. The police
searched through a suspect's apartment and found 52 kg of narcotics.
Five people were detained.
Narcotics were shipped to Sverdlovsk Region in the form of dates and to
Siberia in form of construction materials, Ivanov said. The police
in Yekaterinburg detained two foreign drug couriers who tried to sell
their smuggled products and Afghan hashish in the Sverdlovsk Region. Five
foreigners were detained in Novokuznetsk, suspected in drug sales, and
a leader of an international criminal group with both Turkish and Azerbaijani citizenship.
The police say that all the narcotics packages have a special golden
mark in Arabic, which means that the hashish may have been produced
at various foreign laboratories.
