DUSHANBE, May 18, Asia-Plus  -- Tajik police have stopped an attempt of smuggling a large amount of narcotics to Russia, receiving report from the DHL local office in Dushanbe.  

On Thursday May 17, a large consignment of heroin, totaling more than 17 kilograms, was found hidden in the fridge belonging to resident of the Konibodom district Munavvara Egamova, who was going to send it to Russia via the DHL local office in Dushanbe.

Colonel Haidar Mahmadiyev, the chief of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) staff, told Asia-Plus that Egamova had applied to the DHL office in Dushanbe with request to send a fridge to the Russian Federation.  “Officers from the MoI department for combating drug trafficking (drug police) received report from employees of the DHL office in Dushanbe and decided to check the fridge,” said Mahmadiyev, “When checking the fridge the drug police uncovered the hide containing 17.394 kilograms of heroin.”  The operation was carried out with assistance of employees of the DHL Dushanbe Office, according to the MoI official. 

Mahmadiyev said that Egamova is currently wanted by police.  

According to the MoI, it is not the first case when drug traffickers tried to use DHL post service for transporting narcotics.   “In March 2007, our officers stopped an attempt of transporting 10 kilograms of heroin in a form of parcel via the DHL Dushanbe Office, the source said, noting that that time the attempt was also stopped due to report received from the office employees.  

DHL (originally stood for Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn) is a Deutsche Post company that provides international shipping of documents and freight as well as contract logistics . The company was founded in 1969 by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom, and Robert Lynn: the intials D, H & L of the founders'' last names form the company name.  The trio initially provided a coupier service between the mainland US and Hawaii and expanded the business from there. In 1998 , Deutsche Post began to acquire shares in DHL, finally reached majority ownership in 2001, and completed the purchase in 2002.