DUSHANBE, October 23, Asia-Plus  -- 10 joint operations carried out by Tajik and Russian interior ministries this year have led to the arrest of 26 members of transnational criminal groups dealing with transporting drugs to the Russian Federation, Colonel Haidar Mahmadiyev, an official with the Ministry of Interior (MoI), remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe today. 

According to him, 86 kilograms of heroin have been seized from them.   

In this context, the MoI official noted that it would be wrong to consider that most drug-trafficking crimes reported in the Russian Federation had been committed by Tajik nationals.  “Thus, Tajik nationals were involved only in 951 of 212,000 drug-trafficking crimes reported in Russia in 2006,” Mahmadiyev said.

“Tajik interior ministry jointly with other country’s law enforcement agencies is taking adequate efforts to combat drug trafficking,” said the MoI official, “Some 4,500 kilograms of drugs have been intercepted in Tajikistan over the first nine months of this year, and MoI accounts for more than 50 percent of drugs seized in the republic over the report period.”   

He further added that eight officers from the country’s law enforcement and power-wielding structures, including three security officers, two border officers, one officer from the defense ministry, one customs officer and one judge, had been detained this year on suspicion of having been involved in drug-trafficking crimes.