Opium plantation destroyed in Daghestan

A member of the press service of the State Committee for the Counteraction of Illegal Drug Circulation, which is attached to the Interior Ministry, has announced that police officers in Daghestan (a federal republic in the west of Russia bordering on the Caspian Sea) have destroyed a major opium poppy plantation.

RIA Novosti was told that an operation last night had uncovered three camouflaged plots in the republic's Kizlyarsky district (on the Chechen border). In all, 47,000 poppies covered a hectare of land. The source added that the police had found another 300 hemp plants during a "further examination" of the plantation. The press service worker revealed that 140kg of opium had been destroyed, while the three owners of the illegal crops had been arrested.